It was harder than it should have been to walk away from him. She felt a deep yearning tugging at her, urging her to go back. To talk to him. Flirt with him. Rub up against him… She ignored it and concentrated on marching away from him as fast as she could.
* * * * *
Okay, this town was officially weirding her out. When she went into the Grubstake, everybody stared at her wide-eyed like she had horns and a tail. They seemed almost afraid of her when they served her a burger and fries. She ordered a regular burger but they triple-sized it and added a mountain of fries.
She was only halfway through her meal when the ocelot shifter waitress rushed over with a dessert tray with a slice of apple pie, a slice of cheesecake, and a chocolate brownie.
“I’m Sophia,” she said. “Well, you won’t need to know that, I guess. This is on the house.”
Dakota looked at her, puzzled. Why wouldn’t she need to know Sophia’s name? “Jeez, thanks, but I’m already pretty full from the burger,” she said. “You’d think that this was going to be my last meal or something.”
Sophia burst into tears. “You areso brave!” she wailed, and ran into the kitchen, the swinging doors thwacking open and shut behind her.
Dakota stood up. “Why does everyone keep saying that? You people are officially freaking me out,” she said loudly. She stood there for a minute waiting for someone, anyone, to explain what was going on, but nobody did. She threw a twenty dollar bill down on the table and walked out.
She felt thoroughly rattled. She no longer wanted to explore the town; her earlier optimism was deflated and she felt like a sagging balloon with the last of the helium leaking out.
She might as well go to the meeting house and find a pack that might accept her. Assuming there was one. Given the way everyone was acting today, it was far from a sure bet. And what would she do if no pack took her? She didn’t have the money to pay for a bus ticket out of here, and she had nowhere to go anyway.
Gloomily, she headed for the meeting house. She stopped when she saw a skinny boy with a ragged haircut running from the general store, holding something in his hand, and a shopkeeper running after him, yelling.
The thief was running towards the east, probably hoping to disappear into the treeline and escape capture.
As the boy raced past her, she stuck her leg out and tripped the kid. He went sprawling, and she saw that he’d stolen a bag of cookies and a sandwich. And looking a little closer, she saw that the boy was actually a girl, with a terrible chin-length haircut and shapeless, baggy clothes.
Argh. Kids. She’d grown up an only child. Kids made her nervous. They were fine – at a distance. She just didn’t know what to do with them or how to talk to them.
But she also didn’t want to see some skinny, starving kid punished for being hungry.
She reached into her purse and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill as the shopkeeper came running up. She didn’t have much money left, but this kid needed it more than she did.
“You’ll have to forgive my little sister,” she said to the shopkeeper. “She must have forgotten to pay.”
The shopkeeper snatched the twenty from her. “Bullshit,” he snapped. “That’s not your sister. That little shit’s been here for two months, and you just got here today.”
“Watch your language in front of the cub,” Dakota said indignantly.
“Yeah, watch your damn language in front of me, asswipe,” the scrawny girl said, then turned and ran off, heading out of the town square and behind a thick clump of underbrush.
“You’re welcome!” Dakota yelled after her and, grabbing up her suitcase again, headed off after the scrawny girl at a fast trot.
She pushed her way through the underbrush and found the girl squatting behind the bushes, devouring the sandwich like she hadn’t seen food in weeks.
“Go away,” the girl said around a mouthful of food. “I’m not going to share.”
Was this normal cub behavior up here? Her father would have knocked a cub clear across the room for talking like that, but maybe that was how they behaved in this neck of the woods.
“Where are you staying? Don’t you have a pack to look after you?”
“Mum uff ur biffness.” Her cheeks bulged like a chipmunk’s as she spoke around the mouthful of food. Then she glanced up at Dakota and swallowed the food in her mouth. “You should go get change for that twenty. The cookies and sandwich didn’t cost that much.” Then she scowled again. “Now leave me alone.” She stood up and stuffed the half sandwich into a grimy canvas bag that was slung over her shoulder.
She’d saved it for somebody else, then. For whom? The girl was clearly hungry.
“My name is Dak— Jamie,” she called out to the girl. Dear God. If she lasted a week here without giving herself away, it would be a miracle. “What’s yours?”And why am I trying to help this little brat?she asked herself with annoyance.
“My name is go away!” the girl yelled.
“Really? Your parents must not have liked you very much,” Dakota said, getting irritated by her attitude.
