“Can we see those?”
“Of course,” Mindy coos, practically giving him fuck me eyes. For added effect, she winks suggestively, bending forward to reveal an ample amount of cleavage. She unlocks the display case and places the rings on the counter for Akor to inspect. “Anything else?”
There’s no missing the suggestive undertone to her words.
I bristle. Excuse me, but she’s flirting with my fake boyfriend. He outright told her we were fucking. So who the hell does she think she is?
My annoyance is a bit irrational, so I smash it down and pretend not to notice her anymore.
“That dress.” Akor points over his shoulder at random to a pretty—not gorgeous—blue, off-the-shoulder gown. “I want it in the next size up.”
Mindy’s lips compress into a line, but she concedes with a bob of her head. “Of course,” she replies stiffly, turning on her heel and stalking towards the back of the store, because this place doesn’t keep multiple sizes out front. No, that would be clutter.
“I don’t need any more,” I hiss as the crazy demon procures a quarter from his pocket.
“Heads we do it your way; tails we do it my way,” he states with a devilish grin.
“What do you mean?” I demand, but instead of answering, Akor merely throws the coin up into the air. When it lands on the back of his hand, his smirk widens until a glimmer of fear cascades down my spine.
“My way it is.” He shows me the back of the coin, his eyes a mixture of mayhem and merriment.
“Your way?”
I really, really don’t like the sound of this.
Without bothering to respond, Akor begins throwing clothes at me until I’m stumbling under their collective weight. He grabs one of the necklaces I picked out and slides it over my head, fingering the pendant that rests snugly between my breasts. His hand grazes the skin there, and my entire body locks together as if I’ve been electrocuted.
“Akor…” I warn as he hums cheerily beneath his breath. He grabs the ring collection Mindy set out…
And abruptly pours them down his pants.
“How fast are you at running?” His voice is almost conversational, but the glint in his eyes makes me believe that his madness has grown from an ember to a blistering inferno.
“Huh?”
Leaning closer, so his breath feathers my ear, he whispers, “Run.”
With a whoop, Akor takes off towards the entrance of the store, grabbing items at random and shoving them down his shirt and pants. For a moment, I stare after him in abject disbelief. An alarm begins to blare when he passes the metal detectors at the store’s entrance.
“Hey!” Mindy screeches, dropping the dress Akor assigned her to grab.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I curse, volleying my gaze between a furious Mindy and a grinning Akor. Before I can think the better of it, I take off in a run after the wicked demon, ignoring Mindy’s screams.
Mall patrons give us a wide berth as we skate around them, dashing in the direction of the mall’s entrance.
“What the hell are we doing?” I bellow at Akor, who grabs an iPhone case off the nearest mall stand. The clerk—a ruddy-faced man with a protruding belly—begins yelling in a foreign language at a hysterically laughing Akor.
“We’re being naughty.” His eyebrows waggle suggestively at that word as he jumps over one of the tables in front of a smoothie stall. If I tried that, I’d break my neck, so instead, I bolt around the table.
I can hear footsteps rapidly approaching from behind us, but I don’t dare turn around. My heart hammers in my chest, and I’m afraid that any second, it’ll escape and splatter across the floor.
“Mall security!” a man yells. “Stop right there!”
Despite his very authoritative tone, we don’t stop.
“Isn’t it fun to go shopping with me?” Akor cackles as we skirt around a children’s playset.
I literally don’t have the breath to respond.
“Usually, Zolroth insists on buying us clothes. Apparently, we don’t know how to dress. But you wouldn’t want to be with the stuffy old Brit, would you? I heard he has a ten-inch…” He turns to stare at me over his shoulder, still racing towards the exit. “Accent.”
A ten-inch…? You know what? I’m not even going to attempt to analyze Akor’s crazy.
I can see the wide doors in front of us, and my steps quicken. Akor continues to laugh raucously, keeping pace with me, despite the fact that I know he could easily outrun me.
Maybe it’s fucked up, but I can’t help but feel…exhilarated. A strange kind of