Let's Get Lost (Bree, Ch. 1) by Adi Alsaid

ISBN-13: 978-0-373-21124-1 LET’S GET LOST A Harlequin TEEN novel/August 2014 Copyright © 2014 by Alloy Entertainment All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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“Let’s take more!”

They took a couple of sodas and an energy drink; then Bree grabbed a small bottle of water and kept it in her hand for appearance’s sake.

The clerk was oblivious or simply too far gone to care. Keeping their faces as stoic as possible, they moved over to the row of candy bars, which proved to be a little too easy. The chocolate bars fit snugly in the palms of their hands, their wrappers too tight to crinkle. They siphoned off a couple of handfuls anyway, and Bree tucked them into one of her shirts inside the bag.

They turned the corner, and Bree nearly bumped into the chips display. Now, this was a challenge. The aisle was closest to the clerk, most of it in plain view if he happened to look up. And there was the way chips bags rustled as soon as they were picked up, as if they were setting off an alarm. And somewhere beneath all of that was the memory of her and Alexis in the movie theater all those years ago, trying to extract chips without making noise, their own version of Operation.

Bree’s bag was heavier than it had been in a long time, its strap pulled down by the weight of stolen goods, reviving the sting of her sunburn. Leila kneeled down, pretending to tie her shoes, and shoveled packages of beef jerky and sunflower seeds into the bag. Bree held up a pack of gummy bears and pretended to read the nutrition information. She heard a noise and looked over at the clerk, who had pulled out his cell phone and was scrolling up and down his contact list or his messages, as if begging someone to take him away from his

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monotony. He looked over at the two of them, his gaze lingering for a while on Leila, whose rear was pointed in his direction as she knelt.

Bree adjusted the strap, careful not to move the bag too much.

“I’m gonna head outside for a smoke,” he called, his voice gravelly and higher-pitched than Bree had expected. “If you ladies don’t mind.

Just holler when you’re ready to be rung up.”

“Sure thing.”

He stepped around the counter and then out the door. They could see him through the glass, opening a new pack of cigarettes, tapping it languidly against the flat of his hand.

“He is making this incredibly easy on us,” Leila said, a little suspiciously. She looked over at the security cameras behind the register.

“People have a long, stupid history of mistakenly trusting those they find attractive,” Bree said, moving over to the coffee section and tossing a couple of glazed doughnuts into a paper bag.

Leila put the doughnuts into Bree’s bag and laughed out loud.

“Wow, we took a lot.” Then she got a mischievous grin that spoke directly to Bree’s soul. “Let’s see how much we can fit.”

What they managed to fit were three frozen burritos, a few packets of ramen noodles, a bottle of hot sauce, and even a perplexing miniature sewing kit on sale for two dollars among the containers of motor oil and antifreeze. They took as much as Bree’s bag would allow, and then, just for the hell of it, they grabbed a little more, a packet of Twizzlers, making it impossible to fully zip up Bree’s bag, the wrapping showing

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like the wet nose of a curious pet. Outside, the smoking clerk was staring forlornly out at the highway on-ramp. His cigarette was all the way to the filter, but he lingered a while longer.

Bree got an idea. She walked over to the big cardboard display of a celebrity that was propped up near a stack of soda twelve-packs. She picked it up, careful not to knock anything over.

“What are you doing?” Leila asked her.

Bree handed the cutout to Leila and grabbed a bright yellow packet of gum from the counter. “It’s so much more exciting when they can see the things you’re stealing from them. Just walk out with me and smile.”

Leila hesitated, then held the door open for Bree. “Of all the things I’d thought I’d be, I never figured I was an adrenaline junkie. You’re corrupting me.”

“That’s just what boring people call those of us who are open to excitement,” Bree said, knowing she was a little full of herself but enjoying the sound of the words anyway, believing them to be true.

She stepped outside and immediately addressed the clerk. “I left ten dollars on the counter,” she said, holding up her bottle of water and the gum to show what they’d taken. “You can keep the change if you let us take this display.”

His vacant gaze went from Bree to Leila holding the cardboard cutout. It was a look she’d seen before, people too far settled into their lives. Then he chuckled and shrugged. “You kids be safe.”

They walked slowly but triumphantly to the car, and once inside they burst into laughter, the kind of manic laughter that refuses to

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die down, grasping on to everything around it and saying, Look, this is funny, too. Leila tossed the cardboard display into the backseat and, still laughing, put her forehead on Bree’s shoulder. When they could control themselves, Leila started the car, and Bree realized that it had been a while since she had truly shared a laugh with someone. She’d laughed with others, sure. But they’d either been drug-addled laughs or laughs directed at a television. Those were isolated laughs, lonelier.

This—well, it was sisterly.

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