Page 8 of Avenged

“What’s wrong?”

She flushed a little, looking down and away. “You know. Just. Stuff.”

I got the picture. Female stuff. But it had to be pretty bad for her to not make it in to work. Jersey was the most responsible person I’d met after Eli. “Got it,” I said.

“Don’t say anything. She’d be mad if she knew you knew.”

“Secret is safe with me,” I told her, and her face brightened to its normal brilliance again.

“Did you need something here?” she asked.

“Well, only if you can order me an original Batman number one from 1940?” I threw out at her.

She laughed, more a giggle than a laugh, but it suited her. It made her seem more sixteen than the twenty-something she often acted. “I bet Jersey has a copy.”

“An original?” I held my breath because even I knew an original Batman from the forties was worth enough to buy a house. Maybe two houses.

“She’s got a whole stack of original comics. Unless…” Her smile faltered.

“Unless?”

“Unless she sold it. Would it have been worth a lot of money?”

I nodded.

She sighed. “Then, she probably doesn’t have it. She sold a bunch of them a while ago. Before Mandy and Leena convinced us to move in with them. We were having trouble paying rent—” She stopped herself, slapped her hand to her mouth, and then said, “Don’t tell her I’ve told you that either.”

My heart constricted at the thought of them having to sell prized comics in order to make ends meet. I understood a little about that, being raised by a single mom. Our life had gotten easy for a short time when she’d been married to Mr. Dick, but it hadn’t lasted long. Just long enough for her to get knocked up, spit out Dawson, and Dick to move on to the next short skirt in town.

“My lips are sealed,” I told her.

“Thanks. She’d kill me for spilling our business all over town.”

I chuckled. “Telling one person is hardly telling it all over town.”

“She’d still think it.”

I headed toward the door. “Let me know if she doesn’t get better or you need anything. Mandy and Leena would personally kick my butt all the way to Panama and back if I didn’t help you all out when you needed it.”

“That they would.” I was almost out the door when she called out to me. “Wait.”

I turned back, and she’d come out from behind the counter. She made her way to me, waving her phone. “I don’t have your number. I have Dawson’s, but I don’t have yours.”

I groaned inwardly at the fact that she had Dawson’s. I hoped to God he wasn’t encouraging her infatuation with him. She handed me her phone, and I put in my number, half-tempted to delete Dawson’s while I was in the contacts, but then just handed it back to her.

“You know, Vi—” I started, but she cut me off.

“Not you, too. I get it. I’m sixteen. I’m jailbait. Dawson’s twenty-two and ‘shadowed’ with regret.” She rolled her eyes, and I laughed again.

“Something like that.”

“He’s just nice to talk to. I don’t have many people to talk to.”

This also tugged at my heart. A sixteen-year-old girl as beautiful as her, inside and out, should have a whole host of people surrounding her. She should be the center of the universe for a swarm of boys her own age. The queen bee in the beehive. Life had certainly done a number on her and her sister. It made my protective instincts flare to life. Like I was one of those male bees in the hive. Like it was really Jersey who was the queen, demanding protection and subservience.

I waved and made my way out of the store, hoping I could figure a way out of the hive without dying in the process.

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