Chapter Sixteen
Finishing off my very first piece of chocolate pie ever, I intended to get some more studying in before the night was over. I had a shifter biology test coming up and while I disagreed with some of the material, especially a statement that we could only morph into one figure, two at the most, my job here wasn't to voice my opinions or start up a debate.
I needed to study the material given and get good grades on the test. Show my gratitude for my scholarship, the chance I'd been given to learn and grow.
"Hey, Cleo, we've been looking for you," Minx called out from across the dining hall. Ava and Kiki were walking on either side of her and I smiled. "What's funny?" she asked, after they reached me.
"You three look like Charlie's Angels coming in here," I laughed. Angie had been excited to share that show with me.
Kiki laughed. "Oh my goodness. I saw that in the group home one time. We are totally Charlie's Angels but with four of us now."
Ava nodded to my backpack. "Get your bag. We're kidnapping you."
They must've been joking or playing a trick, but my insides knotted all the same. "Huh?"
I swear, I sounded so smart sometimes. Father would've been proud.
"We are taking you shopping." Ava put her palms out before I could argue. "The shopping is our gift to you. Our big sister needs some new clothes and shoes and whatever else we see fit. Let's go. We have to be back before curfew and before our mates start throwing fits. They are all gathered up in Minx's suite playing poker or watching fast and terrible car movies. I don't remember which. Move your asses, girls."
Kiki grabbed me by the elbow and in minutes, we were out of the school and on the streets, among the humans. A car pulled up. Minx confirmed some details with her phone and we got in. With a stranger. A very human stranger. Sure, I'd been in a car with the guys, but it was a different kind of vehicle. And with them, I didn't think anyone would try anything. My sisters were very beautiful women.
"Is this safe?" I asked, squished into the compact car between Kiki's dancing and Minx tapping letters on her phone. All the kids did that. In class. During meals. In the library. In the hallways, bumping into each other. I was sure I was the only young person in existence who didn't have one. And even if I did, I wouldn't know what to do with the damned thing.
"Of course. It's an Uber," Ava said.
"A goober?" I called back, since the music was so loud. How could the driver concentrate with such loud music.
All three of my sisters cracked up. "Not a goober. An Uber. I'm sorry." Minx touched my hand and stuffed her phone in her back pocket. "I forgot you don't know a lot about the world. An Uber is a car ride service. They send me the details on my phone so I can make sure we're getting in with the correct driver."
"It's free?" I asked, taking in the sights as we drove. The driver met my gaze in the rearview mirror.
"No. Not free. We pay him after the ride is over. Which is right now."
We got out and after Minx pushed some buttons on her phone, she claimed the driver was paid and he would come back in a couple of hours to pick us up.
We walked into a large building with more humans than I'd ever seen in my life. "It's a shopping center. They have everything here. It's time you get some new clothes and start looking like the fourth angel."
We shopped for clothes and shoes until my feet hurt and my temples pounded from all the noise. Humans were so damned noisy. I hadn't realized that from the movies. But they slammed things down and stomped their feet. Snapped. Clapped. High-fived as Ava called it.
Then there were the clothes they wanted to buy me.
"It shows my…" I pointed to my breasts in the tank tops that the girls had picked out. Sure, I thought I looked great in them, but I had never showed off my…assets before. Date night excepted.
"Just some cleavage. You look hot. Now try on the jeans. They will fit you like a glove. They are my favorite brand." I thought Kiki loved clothes more than anything. She was eyeing a pair of black leather pants like they were her fated mate.
"They're so tight," I complained until I got a look at myself in the mirror again. With the shirt, I looked like, well, one of the girls from the movies. "Oh boy."
Minx bounced on her toes. "Oh boy is right. Those three guys who have been eyeing you are going to die when they see you in this."
I choked on my words. "Die?"
"Faint maybe. They are going to lose their minds." Ava got the attention of the sales lady. "Can we get one pair in every color in that size, please."
"That's too much," I argued. "Plus, those guys are still getting over how you made me look on our date. They said I always look beautiful, and I may be naive, but I've seen ogling on TV.
Ava shrugged. "Not enough, if you ask me. We have nine mates between us and maybe twelve soon." She winked and I didn't have to look in the mirror to know I was blushing furiously.
"They haven't said anything about being my mates," I said as we gathered all my stuff and headed to the checkout counter. Ava handed the woman some kind of card, and she pressed it to a machine with a cord and, just like that, they claimed everything was paid for. The girls explained the card and the reader and banks while we walked to what they called the food court. The smells made my mouth water.
"Every place has a different kind of food," Kiki said, leaning her chin on my shoulder. "How about we get a little of each, and you can taste them and decide what you like."
"Sure. That sounds great."
By the time we got back to the academy, I'd had Chinese food, overly sweet, sticky chicken that I thought I wouldn't like, but grew on me. Something called gyros that were meat and bread and vegetables. The flavors were bursting, and I loved that dish the most. There were some deep-fried things I didn't enjoy at all. They left a weird film on the roof of my mouth.
"Tomorrow, wear the teal shirt and the dark jeans," Ava said before they left me in my dorm room. They'd purchased me a whole wardrobe along with shoes and a new bag for school and everything that went under those clothes.
Even some fancy journals.
I owed them everything, though if I said it out loud, they would've argued me to the death.
"Wait," I called out as they turned around to leave. "Thank you. Really. I know we just met but you're the best sisters a girl could ask for."