Chapter 4

Penny’s POV

I’d considered doing my shopping at ordinary supermarkets and making a dozen separate trips. But that would take too long and look too strange. A wholesale market was different. Restaurants and distributors bought in bulk every day, and nobody would blink at a big order.

I walked into the largest grain dealer I could find and asked for the manager. I ordered two hundred pounds each of pearl rice, glutinous rice, long-grain rice, short-grain rice, black rice, and brown rice. Then I added a ton of white sugar, five hundred pounds of brown sugar, and five hundred pounds of rock sugar. After that came two thousand pounds of white salt and a thousand pounds of pink salt.

Even I knew I couldn’t buy everything in absurd quantities, but this was the biggest shop in the market. Plenty of customers bought fifty tons at a time. What I was buying would last two lifetimes, and nobody here would think twice about it.

I kept going. A ton each of soybeans, black beans, lentils, and yellow beans. I paid, watched the workers load my truck, and moved on to the next stall, a nut and seed dealer where I bought two hundred pounds each of pecans, cashews, almonds, macadamias, peanuts, and walnuts. Then the same amount of pumpkin seeds, black and white sesame, and sunflower seeds.

At the oil merchant’s I ordered a hundred gallons each of sunflower, olive, corn, sesame, and peanut oil.

The store owner recommended a hauler, and I hired him on the spot to bring my purchases to the house. It was the old family home in Riverdale, twenty minutes from the market, still in my name and still empty. The walls were high and the lot sat far back from its neighbors. A few delivery trucks wouldn’t raise a single eyebrow, and nobody could see into the yard.

I’d transfer everything into my space once it arrived.

With the heavy items arranged, the pressure in my chest eased a little. I decided to finish the whole market in one day. At the next stall I bought planting seeds, fifty pounds of every variety they had. After the collapse, seeds would be nearly impossible to find, and a person with seeds would have a future. Then I moved on to the condiments, where I bought fifty pounds of everything on the shelf and a hundred bottles each of light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, a dozen kinds of vinegar, and chili sauce.

By the time I was done, the sun was dropping. I climbed back into the truck and drove to the house, parking in the garage. The gate was already open, and I waited by the front door.

The delivery crews arrived one after another. They unloaded crates and sacks and drums into the yard until the entire lawn was a mountain of supplies. When the last truck left and the sky had gone dark, I paid the men, locked the gate behind them, and walked out into the middle of the pile.

I pressed my fingers to the bangle at my wrist and willed the first sack of rice into my space.

It vanished.

I grinned, and then I got to work. I didn’t have any shelves yet, so I arranged everything by category in designated zones: grains, sugars, oils, nuts, seeds, condiments. By the time I finished, my arms ached and my back screamed. I checked my phone. It was seven o’clock.

I walked to the truck and transferred everything in the cargo bed too. Only then did I climb into the cab and head back toward the city.

I couldn’t sleep at the apartment tomorrow. The workers would be tearing it apart. But I needed to talk to Lucas first, and I wasn’t going to put it off. I had to do it tonight, no matter how late it was.

My stomach growled so loudly it startled me. I hadn’t eaten all day.

I pulled over at a roadside place that looked popular, with a line out the door and a smoky grill sending barbecue smell into the street. I ordered a huge bowl of beef noodles and ate every last bite. It was ridiculous how good it tasted. When I finished, I asked the owner if I could place an order for two hundred servings each of his noodles and barbecue.

He stared at me, then laughed, then nodded. “Pick it up tomorrow night?”

“Tomorrow night,” I agreed, and paid a deposit. At least when the world ended, I would still be able to taste something delicious.

At home I showered, changed into soft clothes, and picked up my phone. For a moment I just stared at Lucas Zane’s name. Then I typed.

Are you free? I want to talk.

The reply came almost instantly.

Where?

I smirked at the screen. This was the man I wasn’t letting go of, whatever it took.

My place.

Ten minutes later, there was a knock at my door.