Bad Blood - Blood Tied, Book 1(#Wattys2015)

N I G H T M A R E_F O U R

N I G H T M A R E_F O U R

I was just starting to catch up on lost sleep when my devil of a sister woke me up.  Again.

"Ace, clothes shopping is not that boring."

I yawned.  "For you.  I've just been sitting here on my hands for the past forty-five minutes, and I finished off my coffee two hours ago.  Did I mention I can count the number of hours of sleep I got last night on one hand?"

"Yes.  Multiple times, in fact.  I don't care, though, because I need a second opinion."

"On what this time?"

She held out two shirts, exactly the same except for the colors.  "Red, or blue?"

"Blue."

She frowned.  Apparently, I answered wrong.  "Blue doesn't go with Eleanora's hair color, her hair has a layer of red in it."

"Red, then."

"The red is too bright.  It clashes with the red in her hair, and it doesn't look good against her skin tone."

"Neither?  Find a different color?  I don't know what to tell you."

"You've been a great help."

"Was that sarcasm?"  She winked, then turned and walked off.

She put the shirts back on the rack, turned to say something to Eleanora, then dragged her over to the bench I claimed.

"I'm going to check out, then we can go to the food court. We're getting hungry for lunch."

"Okay. Do you need me to pay for it?"

She grinned, sheepish. "If you don't mind. I spent too much at the last two stores."

"Fine, I'll get it."

I got up and joined them. We went through the checkout line quickly, Chloe chattering nonstop about lunch options.

"I think we should go to that soup, salad, and sandwich cafe." She piled the stack of clothes on the counter. Eleanora protested at the first store, but my sister somehow quieted her down.

"Chloe, I have work this afternoon. We can't take forever."

"Fine. Then I want pizza."

"Pizza?"

"Don't tell me you haven't had pizza before." Eleanora shook her head. "Then it's settled. Pizza it is. I wonder how you managed missing out on an American classic. Until today."

The cashier told me the price. My eyes bugged out a bit, but shrugged it off. I already accepted my fate this morning.

"Don't forget, Mom wouldn't let you watch SpongeBob when we were kids, and now it's all the rage in the younger generation."

"True."

She moved on to another topic as we walked to the food court, but was oblivious to Eleanora's distracted state. Can she hold down human food? Is that what she's thinking about?

The food court center is home to multiple large-screen televisions, always advertising the various stores in the mall and the latest and up-and-coming movie trailers that is playing or will play in the theaters. Clearly fascinated by them, she got closer to the televisions and watched as an advertisement for the newest superhero movie played.

"You'd think she's discovering everything for the first time." My sister giggled. She's sharp, when she wants to be.

The hero and villain began exchanging punches and pulling off difficult stunts with incredible powers. Eleanora was in awe, unable to take her eyes off the screen.