Love & Geckos (multiple-author collaboration)

Chapter 20: Alyssa

Benny had already made his way over to the pet store by the time Alyssa had changed. Even before she rounded the corner, she heard him lambasting the store owner.

"Truly unprofessional behavior... vile to consider taking advantage of a young teenager who doesn't know the law... extortion, plain and simple..."

The store owner appeared to be visibly wilting under the force of Benny's legalese. Charlotte looked on with a besotted expression, occasionally patting Benny's arm as he made what must have been a particularly salient point. It all sounded like gibberish to Alyssa, but to the store owner, it must have meant something, because he was turning paler and paler under the continued onslaught of legal terminology.

"Huh," said Dakota, who had followed them. He was fiddling with his phone, but as Alyssa looked at him, he shoved the phone in his pocket and grabbed Jordan's hand. "Must be nice, being a lawyer."

Alyssa looked down at their clasped hands with dawning understanding. Jordan was blushing slightly.

To Alyssa's right, somebody cleared their throat.

It was the cashier from the pet store, the one who had almost been decapitated when the shelving had collapsed on top of her head. She looked much better than she had a few hours ago—at least, there were far fewer wood splinters sticking out of her hair now, and where her hand had been bleeding before, there was now a small band-aid. She was trundling back to the shop, a crate under her arm and a net over her shoulder, but she paused when she saw Alyssa. A look of concern swept over her face.

"Oh my goodness, you're still here!" She put down her net, frowning. "I overheard some of the things the owner said to you earlier. He is such a jerk, and you didn't deserve any of that! Are you okay?"

Alyssa nodded.

The girl from the pet store looked relieved, although a trace of concern still flickered in her eyes.

"Listen..." She raked a hand through her hair. "I am so sorry about this, I know it's not right to ask you for help, this whole thing wasn't your fault, and I totally understand if you don't want to... but it really is important that we catch as many animals as possible tonight. So that they don't starve, I mean. Most of them have never been outside the pet shop, so they don't know how to find food on their own. It was a bit hard to catch anything before this, what with the crowds, but now that the mall's clearing out a bit, we might actually have a chance."

Alyssa met the girl's eyes—and swallowed. She'd been too distracted earlier to fully appreciate how pretty the cashier was, but she couldn't miss it now. Her eyes were a smiling shade of brown. A cluster of black curls framed her face, and a dimple lit the corner of her cheek when she smiled.

Feeling suddenly self-conscious, Alyssa, swept the still-damp hair from her eyes. "Sure," she said.

"We'll help too!" Dakota offered. "I kept geckos as a kid, so I've had a bit of experience chasing them around."

"Awesome," said the cashier, her face collapsing with relief. "The security guards tried to help out for a bit, but they were pretty useless, and I've been going crazy here, trying to catch the geckos all on my own. My name's Esha by the way."

And so it was that Alyssa, now with dry clothes and considerably fewer concerns about getting arrested and losing the money she'd been saving for college, found herself stalking geckos for the second time that evening.

It was amazing how much better a seemingly impossible task became when you had company. For a moment, Alyssa was almost able to forget her troubles with Sandra as she sprinted about, shooing geckos toward Esha's net.