I’ll send it to them so they can at least see what you looked like in it. In a month the dress will no longer be here for sale as the store trades out their stock every three months. Right?”
The salesclerk nodded. “She’s right. You know, I could make an exception for you, since you are a well-known hero, and put it on layaway so you could make payments on it over the next three months.”
While that didn’t lower the price, it would let me pay for it with multiple paychecks instead of one and being broke for that month.
“Maybe,” I whispered.
“Alright, get changed. We have other stores to shop at. I’m going to buy those shoes though,” Alura said and pointed at the ones I was wearing.
She and I wore the same size, so she often had me try shoes on and then would buy them for herself.
I let the salesclerk take the shoes off before I went into the changing room. Once done, I pet the dress longingly and hurried out of the store before I gave in to the temptation.
“Alright, next store!” Alura said, just as chipper as when we had started and dragged us into a shop which had cute knickknacks such as crystal animals with big eyes.
“Could you make things like this?” I asked Crystal as she examined a unicorn.
She shook her head. “I tried once and it just came out as a lump. I’m best at just crystal shaped or cone shaped.”
“And you can turn your skin to crystal, right?” I asked and picked up a panda.
She nodded. “Armor defense. It should be easier to do than it is, but I don’t practice with it much. I need to.”
“So, your parents seem...interesting,” Alura commented as she browsed through some leather journals.
I laughed. “Interesting is definitely a word for them. Speaking of that...Alfred, location minus us?”
He projected a map on my wrist so I could see the red blinking dots. Multiple were at Tyson’s mansion still and two were spread out on opposite sides of the city. Those two dots were my parents and the centralized dots were the guys.
“Did you put tracking locators on the guys and your parents?” Alura gasped.
I nodded while smiling proudly. “Yes. Yes, I did.”
“Did you put them on us?” Crystal asked with a scowl.
Crap. I hadn’t thought how she would react since we barely knew each other.
“My fault,” Alfred said. “I put one on you, but I can disable it if you’d like. She did not specifically ask me to put one on you, but she said her friends and you seemed friendly...”
Crystal smiled. “It’s fine. Thanks for caring.”
“I’ll ask more clarifying questions next time,” Alfred said.
“Alright, back to shopping,” I said. “I just wanted to make sure they weren’t up to anything.”
Like going on a mission to face the Genetics Director… er… my grandfather on their own. I could totally see Tyson doing that. Austin, too.
“I’m curious what your boyfriends are all talking about now that they’re all alone together,” Alura whispered.
I cringed. “Yeah, me too.” I could imagine a few things they could be discussing, but I really did not want to think about them having that conversation.
“So, what’s up with you and Black Hole?” Crystal asked Alura.
Alura blushed and said, “Nothing. We’re just friends.”
“I don’t need to see auras to know you’re full of crap,” I said with a wide smile.
She squealed and covered her face. “Is it that obvious?”
Crystal and I laughed while nodding.
We finished our shopping with smiles and laughs, the perfect ending to a pretty perfect day.
Other than finding out my grandfather was my enemy and I had to kill him or my parents were going to attack my friends.
Other than that, a perfect day.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“What do you mean you aren’t going to let me fight him?” I asked Hurricane with a scowl.
“You can’t just attack the Genetics Director, even if he is doing something wrong. You have to provide proof to the Director of the Association. You need to go through the proper channels,” he said with crossed arms.
I looked at Vortex. “Help me out here.”
He sighed. “I’ve tried, but he is very by the book.”
I looked at Hurricane and asked, “What if this goes all the way up to the Director? She is new. She could be involved. If I go to her and talk about it, she could decide I know too much and make me disappear.”
His jaw clenched. “That’s not going to happen.”
I folded my arms across my chest