with her amiably as she rang her up, apparently oblivious to the crime taking place in right front of her. Then she dropped the earrings in a bag with her receipt and returned to her phone. Hannah turned and headed for the exit, trying not to walk too fast or slow. Her heart was beating slightly faster than usual, though not as fast as she would have expected.
When she stepped outside, she pulled out her phone and pretended to look at it while she waited for the clerk to come chasing after her. Nothing happened. Realizing she’d been holding her breath, she let out a deep sigh.
As she walked down the sidewalk she did an internal check. Had she felt an emotional reaction to shoplifting? Yes, there had clearly been some kind of thrill, though it was less intense than she had anticipated. Did she feel guilty? She couldn’t really say that she did. She knew what she’d done was wrong and that Jessie would be disappointed in her if she found out, but there was no feeling of remorse eating at her.
Of course, she’d only stolen two pairs of earrings. It wasn’t like she robbed Tiffany’s or killed a homeless guy. She suspected lots of kids her age had done the same thing without ever wondering if they were on the antisocial personality disorder spectrum. It was just a thing people her age sometimes did. She suspected the only reason she hadn’t stolen anything up to this point was that it never really occurred to her.
If I’m going to really test my boundaries, I need to up the ante.
She wondered what she could do to test herself. She didn’t need the hassle of robbing a store or killing a man. Getting thrown in prison wasn’t worth proving a hypothesis about her essential nature. There had to be a way to see if she had disregard for right, wrong, or other human beings without ending up incarcerated or institutionalized.
And then, as she stood at the crosswalk waiting for the pedestrian light to turn green, it came to her. Without giving it any additional thought, she stepped off the sidewalk into the street and started walking. She stared straight ahead, ignoring the yells from other pedestrians on the curb and the nearby squeals of tires on the asphalt. A car swerved to avoid her and passed mere feet in front of her. She felt the rush of air as it passed by and veered toward the stopped cars waiting for their own light to turn green.
The car that had narrowly missed her slammed almost head-on into another vehicle. The sounds of multiple horns rang out and, apparently stuck, didn’t stop. Hannah kept walking across the street, stepped up onto the sidewalk, and veered left away from the accident. She could hear angry shouts behind her but didn’t look back.
A half block down, she cut into a drugstore and meandered slowly through the aisles to the back until she got to the restroom. She stepped inside and made her way to the stall farthest from the front door. Only when she sat down on the toilet seat did she allow herself to process what had just happened.
Her fingers started to tingle and she felt beads of sweat form on her forehead and along the small of her back. She noticed that her breathing was more rapid than normal. Finally she’d done something that produced a real reaction. She was capable of feeling things, not just faking them. It was an amazing high, one she’d never experienced before. She had to have it again.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
This time Jessie and Trembley walked to the soundstage alone.
The security guard gave them visitor passes, then directed them to the same parking lot as before. They headed in the direction of the stage, more confident than earlier but still armed with a paper map just in case.
They took a slightly different route, following Avenue 5 north this time so that Trembley could get a closer look at the famous water tower. After passing that, they emerged at Alexander Dayne Way, between Stages 31 and 32.
The street was blocked off with police tape so that folks exiting Stage 31 couldn’t pass near Stage 32 and had to follow the less direct route Jessie and Trembley had just taken back to the parking lot. Multiple security guards patrolled the area. A few people grumbled about it as they walked by.
“What do they shoot there?” Jessie asked, pointing at Stage 31.