It wasn't that she minded the company of the two supervillains when they were on their own. But there was something about the attitude that Megavolt suddenly adopted that turned Tegwen's stomach. He was being rude -- make that downright mean -- to her, yet was doing everything he could to make sure she and Bushroot didn't have a moment alone together.

It was precisely the way a teenage boy would respond to a girl he liked; back when the masculine set had yet to develop their language skills or maturity to demonstrate their feelings properly, but a little past the pulling-on-pigtails tactic. Judging by his actions, Megavolt had never progressed much beyond his high school mentality. And he was reacting as if Bushroot had encroached on his territory.

So she found herself struggling through the shopping crowds, trying to ditch her two prospective beaus. Tegwen estimated she'd received at least ten new bruises on various body parts and at least three new abrasions. Someone had clipped her ankle with a stroller wheel; a spot of blood was appearing on her right sock. Had the stroller been designed for chariot races?

"Damn. It," she said flatly. There had to be some store, some place within the mall where nobody would expect to find her. She glanced at the nearby doorway, and at the sign above which seemed to be a beacon for all around. Its jaunty sign featured an old-fashioned clown popping out of an oversized wooden box, and it was the perfect hiding place.

Nobody would expect someone so dead-set against Christmas to subject herself to the horrors of a toy store at that time of the year.

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