Lainey counted her money on the hood of the car twice. Ridge Road was the only grocery that took her card.
Nineteen dollars left.
A bag of noodles that had to last until Friday.
She had slept four hours after Clover's fries, and her eyes still felt like sand.
She smelled him before she saw him. Cheap grease and cigarettes, coming up behind her cart like he had all night.
Vernon: That's a sad little haul, Lainey.
Vernon: Bread, noodles, and the cheap coffee. You eating, or is that for your new boyfriend?
Her hand closed on the door handle, and her whole body went cold and stupid the way it always did around him.
Lainey: Go away, Vernon.
Vernon: I'm just being friendly. You used to like it when I was friendly.
Vernon: You spreading your legs for the Alpha now? That what he pays you for?
The word hit her face like spit. The woman by the trunk got in her car and shut the door on it.
Her face burned, and underneath the burn her pulse jumped at that word, hard and wrong, and she hated it.
She reached for the door to get in and drive off, and he put his palm flat on it and slammed it shut.
Vernon: I'm talking to you.
He got a fistful of her jacket and walked her back into the brick wall between the carts.
Her shoulder hit first, then the back of her head, and the light overhead swung and buzzed.
His fingers dug into her wrist, right over the old scar, and squeezed until her fingers went numb.
Vernon: You think he's the only one who gets a turn? You owe me better than that.
Vernon: Here's what happens next. I call your mother. I tell her what her daughter's doing out at that lot after dark.
Vernon: And you know what she does when she says calm down.
She knew. Her body knew before her brain did, and her knees went soft against the brick.
Vernon: She'll put you on your knees in front of me and you'll stay there till she says different. You'll be begging me to take you back.
Her eyes stung, and she believed every fucking word.
Lainey: Let go of me.
Vernon: Say please.
She didn't. She stood there with her heart slamming and her wrist going dead, and finally he laughed and let go.
He stepped back and picked up the bag of noodles that had fallen off her cart. He set it in her arms like a gentleman.
Vernon: Friday. You come to me, or I make the call.
Then he walked off across the lot, and nobody stopped him, because nobody out here ever did.
Her hands shook so bad she dropped her keys twice. An orange rolled under the car and she just left it there.
There was a red ring around her wrist already, and it was going to be purple by morning.
A car door opened two rows over, and the red-haired woman from the lot came around her cart with her arms full.
Clover: Lainey? Hey. Hey, look at me.
Clover set her own bags down and crouched to pick up the oranges, easy as anything, like this happened every day.
Clover: Was that him? The ex? Because I will key his truck, I swear to God.
Lainey: I'm fine. I just need to get home.
Clover: You're shaking so hard your teeth are clicking. That's not fine.
The lie died in her mouth the way it always did when somebody was actually looking at her.
Clover: I got a couch. It's lumpy and it smells like my cat, and my neighbor plays music at two in the morning.
Clover: But there's a lock on the door, and I'll be on the other side of it.
Lainey stood there with her wrist aching and her pride screaming, and something in her chest leaned toward the woman anyway.
Lainey: Just for tonight.
Clover: Just for tonight. Leave your car, I'll bring you back in the morning.
Clover took the bag out of her hands before she could argue, and that small kindness was the thing that almost made her cry.
On the drive, Lainey watched the dark go by and thought about that word, Alpha, and how her own blood had jumped at it.
She hated that worst of all. Friday was coming, her mother was going to hear something, and some stupid warm part of her was already wondering what Axton would do about it.