Her Name Is Knight (Nena Knight) by Yasmin Angoe

Her Name Is Knight (Nena Knight) by Yasmin Angoe

Author:Yasmin Angoe [Angoe, Yasmin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2021-11-01T00:00:00+00:00


40

BEFORE

The woman in the fur coat is the first to break our three-way stare down. Maybe she reads the determination on my face, a look that says I will not give these items up without a fight. I know I can do it, fight . . . until the death. Once you have killed your first, another may not be as difficult.

“Monsieur, it’s fine. She’s picking up items I asked for.”

“Madame? How so? You two did not come in together.”

She turns to me with a hint of a smile. “But darling, you need to get the new ones. Not the testers.” She steps to the shelf, picking up a box of Hugo, and holds it out to me.

“Madame, no. She is nothing but a misérable, a vagabonde. The police can handle her accordingly.”

Wretch and vagrant. Two more names to add to my growing list.

The regal queen rears on the clerk. I would never want to be the recipient of the look she gives him. “You will take my payment.” She pauses while the weight of her words settles on him. “Wait for us at the counter. Elle est à ma charge et nous achèterons tout ce que nous prendrons. C’est compris?” She is with me, and we will buy everything we collect. Understand?

Shrinking beneath Madame’s glower, the clerk opens and closes his mouth several times before stumbling back to the front of the store and waiting as told. Through the mirror, he glares at me. At her. She holds the box out to me again. She gives me an encouraging nod. Hesitantly, I take it.

“Don’t put it in your bag yet. We need to pay first, and I don’t want to give him any reason to call the authorities.” She waits for a response. When none comes, she says, “Tell you what, put the test lotion back, too, and pick up a sealed box.” She points to little baskets stacked at the end of each aisle. “Get whatever you want, but do not steal anything. I will pay for all of it. Deal?”

Her kindness does not make any sense to me. She doesn’t know me. I am a nobody to her, a vagrant, as the clerk said. Why give me a second thought? And what will she want in return? Because one thing I have learned is there is always a price. My eyes shift to the shelf, to the mirror, then back to her.

Finally, I nod quickly. She rewards me with a smile that surprisingly makes me shy. She leaves me, heading toward the counter. While she gives the clerk commands, ignoring his protests and insisting that he take her money for anything I want, I pull the tester bottle from my sack and put it back in its rightful place.

“Madame, vous m’avez donné trop d’argent.”

“Then give the child the change.”

She moves away from the counter, about to leave with whatever item she came in to purchase. As the clerk scurries to unlock the trap he set for me, she looks at me one last time.



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