Dina looks between us and then nods. “You bought a house. That’s, um, that’s good. Really good but you should know that a business here isn’t like a business somewhere else.”
There we go. Score.
“What do you mean?” I ask. “Do you own this place?”
She nods. “I do, with my husband. Well, he owns it and I just, you know,” she waves her hand around the busy diner with a half laugh, “run the business. He owns it but I’m the people person so I don’t know what goes on with all of it.”
Dina’s talking and I don’t know how much more I might be able to get out of her before she has to run off to another table, so I ask the question I really want to know.
“So you wouldn’t be a part of the social club? I mean, that sounds so fun. I was wondering who I might be able to ask about joining that. Don’t you think it would be fun, um, honey?” I ask Jaak, who immediately brightens at my use of a pet name.
“Any idea you have I love,” he says.
“N-no, noyou don’t want to do that,” Dina whispers to us. Jaak and I look up at her in surprise and Dina leans down after she gives the diner a quick look. “Listen to me. Living in Bitter Root is…it’s different here. This isn’t like anywhere else you might think to live, but you’ll be okay as long as you don’t join that social club. Do you hear me? No matter what you do, steer clear of it.”
Whatever is going on in town definitely doesn’t have anything to do with Dina. Her husband, yeah, maybe that’s how Jaak exploded him but her? No way. There’s no way she would look this worried.
I give her a reassuring smile. “Okay, we can do that. Thanks for the warning, Dina.”
“Of course, we normal folk gotta look out for each other in a place like this, don’t we?” she asks and then clears her throat and steps back. “I gotta run now to my other tables, okay? You two let me know if you need anything else and remember, steer clear of the social club if they mention it when you visit the Chamber.”
“We promise to flee,” Jaak swears.
Dina points at him. “That’s a keeper,” she tells me. “You flee with him every time.”
“I will,” I tell her but Dina doesn’t hear me. She’s already halfway across the diner and back to the kitchens.
Chapter
Eighteen
“Whatever is happening in this town, she’s not in on it. That means not all the business owners are cult baddies, just some of them.”
Jaak stretches and looks around at the busy street. “I prefer it when they’re all baddies. It makes battle much simpler. We will have to be discerning.”
“Yes, very discerning. We can’t end up hurting someone innocent.” I cross my arms and look at the next few businesses near us. There’s a bookstore, a candy shoppe, a spa and further down a flower shop. “I know I said we needed to go to the Chamber of Commerce but I’m getting scary cult epicenter vibes from it now after Dina warned us to stay out of the social club. Maybe we go back to the plan we had of visiting the businesses one by one. It’ll give us more time to avoid the doomsday cult until we’re ready to take them on.”
“One on one they won’t be able to stand against us and I’d prefer for you to grow accustomed to your new abilities. You may be invulnerable but a first drift will be jarring.”
When Jaak says drift my mind automatically goes to the way things felt when we teleported. Does he mean like that?
“Would you look at that! It’s a candy shoppe, a real life one! Come on, let’s get samples!” A pack of tourists descends on us and I forget all about how terrifying teleporting or what a drift is when they sweep us towards the candy shoppe and away from one another.
I push against a couple of teens but get nowhere. “Jaak!”
“Here. I’m here!” I turn to see his hand stretched high above a father and son duo who are doing their best impression of a wall. I try to dart forward to grab Jaak’s hand but it’s no dice.
“Hurry along, dear or we’ll miss the samples!” An elderly woman at my elbow jabs me in the side and I’m forced to march along with her.
“I’m not with your group,” I tell her but it doesn't matter when there’s candy samples to be had. The old woman shushes me and hip checks me through the door of the candy shoppe.
I stumble forward and only manage to catch myself when I hit a bin of toffee. The scent of sugar and spice rises around me and I take a second to look around. It’s like every wild dream I ever had as a child has come to technicolor life.
“It looks like a rainbow threw up in here,” I whisper.
“Are those toffees?” The old woman that forced me in here comes right for me and I dive to the side with a yelp.
A man with a massive lollipop waves it at me. “How about a lolli for the road? It’s cherry flavored.”
