Blood Ties (Book 3 of The Blood Bond Series)

30. Doppelganger

Quinn searched through the racks at Forever 21 and frowned. It had been a long time since she'd shopped in a mall, and the crowds were irritating after months of living in a large yet primarily empty house. It was calm and relaxing, and she was able to do anything she pleased, such as swim in the pool or take her exercise whenever. Cassie and Eli were going to leave in another couple of weeks, and Quinn needed clothing for school since some of the classes required special shoes for dance and the climate was much different.

Cassie and Quinn had become close, primarily because of their interest in the arts like writing and acting, but they'd gotten to know each other better over the last several months and could be heard conversing at any time of day over Skype or on the phone. When auditioning for the musical for the summer, Quinn had gone over her monologue on Skype and got constructive criticism that helped her nab the part she wanted.

"What about this one?" Cassie lifted a shirt from the rack and turned to her daughter-in-mating. The blouse was nice, but Quinn didn't think she could get away with pink with her red hair.

"Do they have it in blue or green?" She scanned the rack for anything besides red or pink.

"Will light blue or mint green work?" Cassie found two in her size and pulled them out to hand over to Quinn to inspect. She took them from the older woman and nodded, more to herself.

"These will work, but I'll still try them on. My pale skin can be finnicky with colors."

They walked over to look at a few more tops and then were onto the bottoms. Most of what they were buying today was for everyday wear, because some of the other specialized clothing were only found at dance stores or had to be ordered online. Dance shoes could be found at certain locations, along with a few other specialty items. Today wasn't for that, so they simply looked for clothing to be worn in the hot sultry summertime weather of Southern California. Adam had only bought her clothing for the winter time. He'd hated not purchasing her a full year's worth of apparel from the onset, but he'd been pretty certain her acceptance of him was about 50/50, and he didn't want to jinx himself.

One day at a time, he'd always said, though Quinn knew that he was practically pulling his hair out waiting for her to make a decision. She'd given it to him a week before, promised she'd do it once she was graduated in a year, but she knew he was still anxious. That couldn't be helped, though. She was firm on waiting until after she graduated and got her schooling over with.

After leaving the store, they both headed over to the food court to get Quinn something to eat. The line was long everywhere, because they'd gone shopping at 10 AM and had been busy as bees for the past several hours at the beginning of the summer tourist season. Great.

"Uhm, you want to get us a table and I'll stand in line to get my stuff?" Since Cassie didn't eat regular food, it was ridiculous for her to stand in line as well if she wasn't ordering. "You need anything?" It was a ridiculous question, but she was polite enough to still ask.

Cassie smirked. "Nope. I'm set, sweetheart. That is, unless you can find me some blood." Her voice was soft, and it was so loud that no one seemed to pay any attention. She winked.

"Got it," she quipped. "I'm on the lookout for some Blood Lite." Cassie snickered behind her at the joke.

She wandered off to get into line at a Japanese place called Taberu since the line was a little smaller than the others. It moved quickly, mostly because all of the food was sitting in heated metal containers, steam rising from them.

As she hummed a tune from a musical quietly to herself, she could have sworn she saw someone from the corner of her eye. A person she recognized, though when she moved her head, she thought it was an optical illusion of some sort. A man was there, head turning away and wearing a nice suit and jacket. It was odd to be wearing something like that while shopping, and she wondered if he worked in the Men's Warehouse located on the second floor of the building near the Aeropostale and a small shoe store she couldn't remember the name of.