Hollow Tides

1. Distortion

*Just like you and your "cotton candy hair goddess"?

She had disconnected.

He snickered triumphantly.

****

"Sour Patch?"

Luz widened her eyes and pointed towards the cart.

"Don't even ask."

The purple haired smiled, trying her best to hide her blush. Luz added one more box of Nerds before making her way to the aisle that had all the drinks. Of course, she didn't plan splitting up the chores only to offer her dear brother some alone time with his kindred soul, but so she could also spend some time with the prettiest girl in the universe: Amity Blight.

While she was in the middle of an internal debate, whether to take Sprite or Coke, and thinking of a good excuse to take Amity's hand, she noticed a small woman wearing a white hoodie with yellow straps at the end of the aisle abruptly turning her back on her. She raised a brow as she quickly took 2 six packs, one of Coke and one of Sprite, and signaled at Amity so that they could move forward to the snack aisle. She first took Hunter's favorite, Doritos, then proceeded with one bag of Fritos, two of Cheetos, and some Pringles for her while Amity came back with different packs of cookies in her arms. In the same direction she came from, the hooded woman was, apparently, looking for a snack to grab.

"Can we take 2 packs of Oreos? I'm not gluttonous, but once I open one of these, it's hard to stop. Just in case, so no one misses their share..."

Even though Luz was doing her best hushing the alarms on her head, she had no problem turning her attention to the beauty in front of her.

"Sure thing! Hey, let's go back to the candy section for a little while."

"Don't we have everything we need from there?" Amity inquired, reviewing their cart.

"Let's just be certain that we are not missing anything." She pretended to carefully look at all the items on their cart, while lifting her gaze every second, checking for both sides of the aisle.

As she feared, the woman showed up. They interlocked eyes for a brief second, before she directed her gaze to the candies. She was wearing a mask, and the hoodie covered her head, leaving her red eyes as the only part out to sight. Luz immediately took Amity's hand, and pulled the cart to the other side of the store.

"Is something wrong?"

"Don't freak out, but I believe there's a woman following us." Amity's eyes widened up.

"Where?"

"Right there!" she screamed in a whisper, pointing to one extreme of the aisle discreetly. Amity followed the trail with her eyes, and spotted the hooded frame.

"Should we confront her? Or tell someone?"

"No, we don't know if she has something on her. And if she doesn't and we tell someone, they'll think we are making a big deal for nothing." She bit her lip as Amity turned carefully to watch the female again, making sure she didn't get any closer. "Let's go to check out, I'll call Hunter."

They went to one of the self-checkouts stands. Luz made sure to scan the items as slow as she could, so that Hunter could arrive when they were done. She located the woman on an eye glass stand near the exit. Luz didn't care about being discreet anymore, if push came to shove, she was willing to go all in to protect Amity from whatever malicious intentions this agent of evil implied.

"Should I take a picture of her? That would probably scare her away." Amity was getting annoyed with their little stalker. As long as they were surrounded by people, she was not going to be intimidated.