He looked up at me and nodded as he picked up a navy and baby blue set. I casually walked over there after he left and noticed he had picked up the one on clearance. I laughed slightly, exasperated but proud of him.
“Found mine!” Alex exclaimed triumphantly as he held up a Spiderman set.
“Throw it in the cart,” Jaxson laughed as he pushed the cart towards him.
We were going to have to make a trip out to the truck before we did any more shopping. We had five carts between the eighteen of us. Every cart was almost overfilling. Noah and Drake came around the corner with an additional cart and began throwing bath towels into it.
“We’re not going to be well liked when we return to base. They already think we’re spoiled,” I groaned.
“What they issued us is crap, and we just lost our home,” Noah scoffed. “Besides, it’s not like they use the crap issued to them. I’ve seen some of their rooms. They don’t look as barren or basic as ours.”
“You’re the one who wanted to go shopping,” Drake teased me as he kissed the top of my head.
“Grocery shopping!” I defended myself.
“I think the additional shopping was definitely Jemmy’s idea,” Rachel giggled as she dropped some hot pink towels into the cart.
“You kn
ow the looks we’re going to get when we check out, right?” I groaned.
“Who cares.” Terrance chuckled as he dropped some navy-blue towels with anchors on it into the cart.
Will had given us his black card and told us to make sure we covered everyone. He felt somewhat responsible for their new situation despite the fact that Dawn, Sam, and Marcel hadn’t been abducted with us initially. They had voluntarily joined us a week after we got there.
Marcel had a daughter with a Non, but the mother never let Marcel see their daughter. He took her to court several times over the last twelve years, since the birth of his daughter, and they still wouldn’t grant him extended visitations. His daughter’s mom had moved out of state when she was pregnant with her, and no judge would take her away from her mother. To her, Marcel was just a paycheck.
Dawn and Sam were both single and weren’t close to their families, so it was an easy decision for them. Terrance was like family to them, and we had become family to them, too. Choosing to come here hadn’t been difficult for them at all.
“Hey,” a gruff accented voice said from behind us. “Hey der,” he repeated.
We all turned at once and saw three men that looked like they came from the backwoods. They wore scuffed up work boots, dirty torn jeans, and flannel shirts. The man that was trying to get our attention was wearing a baseball cap over his long greasy hair.
“Yes?” I asked slowly.
“You from dat der mountain base, huh?” he asked in a heavily accented voice. I could barely understand him, his accent was so thick.
“Yes?” I nodded.
“Whatcha doin’ up der?” he eyed us suspiciously.
The base was off the beaten path. Our facility was almost completely underground. Most of our training was done indoors. The only indication we were there was the no trespassing sign and the delivery trucks that came once a week. We still had two guards posted nearly half way up the road, but other than that, we were kept well hidden.
“Nothing that will interest you,” Terrance stood to his full height of well over six foot three. He was a big black man with biceps the size of the average female’s thighs. He was intimidating looking.
One of the backwoods rednecks muttered a racial slur, and Noah and Drake took a step towards them. “I’m sorry did you say something?” Noah asked jovially, but I could see the heat in his eyes. Noah was slow to anger, but there was no denying the anger radiating off him right now.
“I think you guys need to run along,” Drake said with deadly quietness.
“We jus’ wanna know watcha doin up der,” the main speaker said with a smirk.
“Let’s get out of here,” Rachel muttered.
We all nodded and went towards the registers.
“Hey, we talkin’ to you, no need to be rude,” one of the other men yelled at our retreating backs.
A few of the other shoppers were now eyeing us warily. It didn’t help that we were all wearing our black uniforms, or that the rednecks looked like most people would avoid them on a good day.