Ditched Cheating Alpha, I Led My Daughter to Life's Peak novel Chapter 12

I shrug, "I don't know. Just ignore them."

"Do you think it's because of Michael?" she asks giving him a knowing look.

When did she get so condescending? "I'm not sure," I say again. "Let's just get our cereal and go."

As Michael's swinging Charlie around, he nearly smacks him into this old man.

I speed up and snatch Charlie from Michael's arms and plant him firmly on the ground. "Hold my hand, buddy." He whines but does as told.

Michael starts whining too and I nearly smack him. His fully grown, nineteen-year-old self needs to fucking act the part. We're about to be killed in this freaking town! What is wrong with these people? I look around again and reach for Megan's hand. Normally she would argue, but today she just takes it.

I check the obvious things that might set us apart. Race is the first, clearly. We're black, so maybe they're racist or really conservative? But that doesn't make sense because this town is extremely diverse. I see a little of everything, so there's definitely no reason to suspect that. The next option is that we're new, but even then...

"Captain Crunch and Trix, right?" Michael asks grabbing them off the shelf.

"Yeah. Just hurry, please." I look around again. There's only one other family in the aisle with us. It's a woman and a man with two kids. The woman stands in front of her children protectively and the man stands in front of her. They stare at the shelves in front of them, but I can see they're still looking.

"Is it just me, or-" Michael starts to blurt out.

I give him a look to shut up.

He looks around, peaks out of the aisle, does a full scan of the area and mouths the word, fuck.

"Mom said no curse words!" Megan announces again quite loudly in her commander voice.

"Forget this cereal, they're about to lynch our..." he whisper-screams through clenched teeth.

"What does-" Charlie starts.

"Don't worry about it," I hush him, rubbing circles on the back of his hand. "And that's not true Michael, a lot of them are... they're not all... Well, it doesn't matter. We're not leaving the cereal. Let's just hurry up, like I said."

"Yeah, yeah," he picks Charlie up and gestures for me to walk in front of him. "Come on then."

I nod and tug Megan along with me.

"Are we in immediate danger?" she asks me.

I shake my head. "Of course not. We're just going to go home, that's all."

She nods. Her grip on my hand tightens.

We go to stand in the line at self-checkout which, for some reason beyond my comprehension, is insanely long. Michael taps his foot and readjusts the two cereal boxes under his right arm.

"Legos!" Charlie cries from his left side. "We forgot the legos!"

"We'll get them next time buddy," Michael says and rocks him a little. Charlie's crying adds looks to the already present stares from the crowd.

"I knew you wouldn't get them. You said so." Tears start welling up in Charlie's little brown eyes.

Michael looks at me for support. I don't know how to give it to him.

"I could go get them?" I offer.

He looks at me like I'm crazy. "Alone?"

Charlie gives him a look.

From the corner of my eyes I see a figure walk into the store. Two more figures appear beside him. They're tall, unnaturally fit like most of the people around here too. They look like they're finishing high school or beginning college. All eyes finally turn away from us and go to them.

"Hopefully they'll deal with them," someone whispers from the crowd. "Nearly running over Mrs. Jinkens like that."

"A danger to the pack."

"We don't even know them. We don't know anything about them."

I turn to them and they look away quickly, quieting down. Was that about us? Who else could it have been about. They're not even being quiet about it anymore. They're trash-talking us right behind our backs, literally. I knew it.

The three guys, who look really, really similar, grab a few snacks from the front lanes, soda, chips, junk food basically, and then they head straight for the self-checkout. I don't really care what they're doing, until they start walking past the entire line. For some reason, everyone moves out of the way for them automatically.

Michael gives me a look, and like him, I don't move not a damn inch. I don't know who they are or who they think they're going to cut today but it's not us. We're just as ready to go as they are.

They walk straight past us though, and Michael says under his breath, "You've gotta be kidding me."

Heads. Snap. In our direction.

People's jaws are hanging open. Women are clutching their pearls. Men are checking their pocket watches to make sure time is still a factor. Okay, not literally, but you get what I mean. People are losing their shit.

"Now they'll definitely deal with them." The person directly behind us says.

The three guys, who I can now see are triplets with jet black hair and golden eyes, look back at Michael like he's nothing and it pisses me off. The one closest to us asks, "Excuse me?"