Page 17 of Matched to the Alien King
Miekil scrubbed a hand down his green face. “Or it’s a murderous shopping cart, and it killed the man.”
Maxx shot him a withering look. “It’s not a competition for weirdest theory.”
“Theorizing is how shit gets done,” Miekil fired back, his fists flexing.
Ah, there was the mutual hostility I hadn’t missed. Their tolerating had lasted all of three minutes.
“Okay, relax,” I said, situating myself between them once again. “So finding a shopping cart in the middle of the jungle wasn’t on any of our reality TV Bingo cards. Big deal. Let’s just keep our heads while we still have light. But give me one second first.”
“Nera.” Maxx flashed out his hand to stop me, but I easily dodged it and slipped around Miekil on the way to the cart.
I highly doubted it was murderous, but I aimed my gun at it anyway. Nera wasn’t stupid. Nera had never experimented with drugs. But Nera did occasionally refer to herself in the third person when she thought she might be hallucinating.
Because the plastic part stretching across the cart’s handle—once bright yellow but now chipped and cracked and faded gray with time—read SmartStart.
The very same grocery store Nera used to shop at on Earth.
“Maxx?” I croaked.
He was there in an instant, my anchor in this swell of unease. “What is it?”
I gazed up at him, my fingers absently tracing the worn letters. “This is my store.”
“What do you mean?” he asked gently.
“The store I used to shop at with—” My voice broke off before I could say her name.
Lucy. My daughter.
And Rain, my Faid caregiver for Lucy.
Nodding, he stroked my back, but I didn’t think either of us understood what was happening here.
“Maybe there’s a store nearby? Someone took a shopping cart for a leisurely stroll through the jungle?” I tried to reason, but it was no use.
This made zero sense.
“Abandoned?” Miekil reached out a finger and poked it like it might bite him. “Or brought here. But what are the odds that it would come from your store light-years away?”
“Too great.” Which was why I slipped off my hellish, demons-in-disguise heels, tossed them inside, and began prodding the cart free of the jungle’s viny teeth.
To make sense of it. In the light of day rather than a dying flashlight and the meager glow from Maxx’s communicator bracelet.
It was so caught in the leafy underbrush that Maxx and Miekil had to help me. Somehow, it was still sturdy enough to move and didn’t disintegrate under all that rust.
Then, when it was finally free, I curled my fingers around the handle like I had hundreds of times before on Earth and pushed it. While Maxx and Miekil continued to clear the way, I followed. The cart moved surprisingly easily with no protesting squeaks, like it wanted to find out what was deeper in the jungle too.
This was all completely normal, right?
“Oh, I’m just a grown-ass woman,” I began to sing, “living in a rude planet’s custody. Your TV show makes me barefoot, while all I have is a stolen cart’s company. Oh, I’m just a grown-ass woman. Something, something that rhymes with custody. Oh, remedy!”
Maxx turned then, a bright grin on his face and a chuckle I didn’t need to hear because it bubbled warmth into my soul.
I shrugged. “I just made that up.”
“I never would’ve guessed.” His grin grew impossibly bigger, lighting up those lavender eyes like so many stars.
“Want to know what my remedy is?” I asked, arching a brow.
