Chapter 19

She waited. How long? She didn't know. The waiting-game had never been her strength. Waiting included wasted time. And time was a valuable resource for an efficiency-loving person like Brooke Scott.

How were her friends doing? Were they waiting for a response? Had they already moved on? Were they about to storm the joint? Lots of unknowns. Brooke hated them too!

What else she hated was tediousness. And if being forced to do nothing wasn't boring enough, the room itself was boring as well. It wasn't really a cell, yet simply a white-painted room without any window or pictures. Just some cheap chairs and a plywood table.

'Do something! Distract yourself!' she chided herself in her mind. 'But how? Apart from my clothes they took everything. The only thing I could do would be masturbating.'

Before she could give this rather unrealistic venture a deeper thought, the lock clicked and the door swung open. And to Brooke's relief, it was the brunette woman who sauntered in and not Terry, the limp-dick mall-cop.

"Hi!" she said with a wide, toothy grin, sitting down right at the opposite side of the table, where she put Brooke's walkie-talkie. "Sorry for cagin' you in here, but we had a very lively discussion about what we should do with ya, since you'd be our first visitor since…y'know, this crap started."

Brooke, being her grumpy and not really social self, simply shrugged and stayed silent.

"Fuck, where are my manners?" the woman kept on talking with confidence, "My name's Steph, Steph Gingrich to be exact."

Still having this mesmerizing and catchy, toothy grin on display, plus reaching Brooke her hand, the younger girl eventually couldn't do anything else than to play along and shook it, replying plainly "Brooke."

"Hi Brooke, nice to meet ya! So, what brings you into our humble shelter?"

Her tone was warm, honest and entirely polite. There was not even the slightest hint of hostility or anger. Just a normal conversation. Or, at least, so it seemed, yet Brooke stayed skeptical.

"Supplies, obviously."

Harsh, cold and cynical, that was Brooke Scott. And mostly this behavior would push people away or sour their mood. But Steph stayed cool and kept up her polite demeanor.

"Understandable. And again, we're not mad at you for coming to us. Though your entry was a bit…unconventional."

"Not my fault that I landed in the mall's only sex-shop," replied Brooke with a grumpy tone and crossed arms, causing the other woman to chuckle as a blush came into the mix.

"Oh yeah, quite hilarious. Though, I must say…since you seem to be alone, I could totally understand the need to loot a sex-shop. At least…that's what I did after a few days of hangin' out here."

If Brooke had been blushing before, her face was now fiery red. Did this strange woman just confess to her that she had stolen some sex-toys from the shop?

"I…I didn't want to…" stammered the Asian girl, her heart hammering in her chest as she looked at the young woman and her mind tried to imagine some lewd fantasies. Quickly she broke the gaze and focused on a random point in the room. "I just wanted some food, t's all."

Suddenly, Steph's polite demeanor faltered a bit and she huffed out a loud "Hmm…" before she got up and turned away with crossed arms, one of her fingers tapping continuously on her arm. "Y'know, Brooke, I don't know why, but I kinda like you. But, you have to understand my position. The people here are demanding some answers. They wanna know why a girl, armed to the teeth, drops through the ceiling and starts threatening us. They're afraid. They fear that more will come and steal our supplies."

"I didn't mean to harm anyone!" countered Brooke furiously, now jumping up as well. "You don't have any fuckin' idea what's going on out there! I lost so many friends on my way here. I saw them getting shredded to pieces. You really think you can survive without a weapon out there? Then you're just plain stupid!"

Swiftly, Steph turned around, gazing angrily at the younger girl and blurted "Don't ya dare calling me stupid or that I don't know what's going on! I lost people, too! We all have and the hell we wanna lose more. So, how about you come clean and tell me your whole story?"

"Why should I? I don't know you. Why the freakin' fuck should I trust you?"

Calming her temper a bit, Steph just leaned forward over the table, saying "'Cause you've no other choice!"

This comment just induced another scoff from Brooke. How should a person with trust-issues easily trust someone entirely unknown?

"And what ya wanna know, huh?!"

"For example, where did you get those weapons? We have a gun shop here and it doesn't have that fancy kind of stuff."

"Looted a small survival shop, which's owner obviously used to be a gun-nut." answered Brooke nonchalantly, shrugging with her shoulders. But Steph was not done, sat down and kept on asking questions.

"Are you travelling alone? You mentioned others."

"I said, I lost people on my way here."

"So, you are alone?"

"Now I am, yes."

"Then what do you have this radio for?"

"Checking the frequencies for other survivors."

"With a walkie-talkie?" came the skeptical question, and again, Brooke answered to that with sheer cynicism.

"Sorry, forgot my personal military-grade high-end radio equipment when I had to bail. Anything else?"

Instead of asking another question, Steph huffed and shook her head. Brooke understood this sign of desperation. She'd already seen it from her parents and friends alike. Sometimes Brooke even disliked herself for this rather rude side of hers.

"Look," Steph eventually said, "I just wanna help you. But I need to know something that'll calm down those people out there. So, please, just gimme something that's not entirely bullshit!"

Both looked at each other in silence, eyes locked. Seconds turned into a minute. Nobody flinched. And it felt like a bond was forming. Maybe Steph could really be trusted? She seemed at least to be one of the nicest persons Brooke had ever met. Minus the shyness, she somehow even reminded her of Max.

It was somehow a quiet, solemn moment, which sadly got disturbed as Terry, the mall cop, barged in and started yelling.

"Hey! What the fuck you think you're doing here?!"

But Steph stayed cool. She simply rolled her eyes and slowly turned around on the seat, saying "I'm just having a nice chat with our guest, Terry."

"As the chief of security, I'm responsible for the interrogation of detainees. What you just did was insubordination!" he barked back, with the result that the brunette got up with a heavy sigh.

"Terry, firstly, she's not a detainee, and secondly, nobody declared you some shit as chief of security. So, insubordination, my ass!"

"YOU…!" he replied, his finger hovering threateningly in front of Steph's face. But she casually shoved him aside, saying nonchalantly "She's all yours. Good luck, Terry!" as she left the room with a wide smirk, knowing that Brooke was a hard nut to crack.

Somehow, Brooke couldn't believe that Steph would leave her alone with this asshole. But since this was the case now, she had to make the best out of it. Or better said: the worst!

The mall-cop was now the one who sat down at the opposite side of the table, gazing for some time sternly at the young girl.

"Name and address!" he then asked, which made Brooke chuckle in amusement.

'Oh gosh! Don't tell me that this bozo just ask me that. Such an idiot!"

"Yu. Fook Yu. Born in Bite Mi. Daughter of Yu Sak and Dik Het. Currently I don't have a permanent address."

"Okay, Miss Yu…" began Terry to speak as he scribbled down the given information, but got disturbed as Brooke started to laugh out loud. And even outside the door loud laughter could be heard.

"You…you can't be…you can't be that stupid!" gasped the teenager between her laughter, trying to get some air.

Now puzzling the pieces together and being agitated that he got fooled, the mall-cop jumped up, hissing "We'll see who laughs at last when I kick your ugly yellow china-ass off the mall, slit eye!"

Angrily, he stomped away, giving a still snickering Steph, who had waited outside the door, one last murderous glimpse before he was out of sight.

"That was racist, asshole!" the Asian girl called after him, mumbling in addition "And I'm Japanese."

"That was hilarious!" congratulated Steph joyfully by clapping with her hands as she walked in again.

But Brooke wasn't in the mood to cheer her victory. She kept her grumpy demeanor, just huffing "Sheesh, never thought that there were still such idiots on this face of the world."

"Heeey, li'l grumpy-cat," mocked the brunette with a wink, nudging the girl's arm, "Fuck that guy and c'mon, I'll show you around!"

Cheeky as she was, Steph reached Brooke her hand. Eventually, she took it and let the older woman guide her through the mall.