It was one of the most exciting things he’d ever done in his life. Keeping the perfect distance to survey her every movement, but also making sure never to be noticed, made him feel like a character in one of the action movies he loved so much.

After 30 minutes had passed, the feeling of excitement began to crumble at the edges. It was confusing to him that she was still walking. They had walked so far, Omkar was afraid of not being able to find his way back to the store. He felt more worried now than intrigued. But he continued to follow her down the dismal, crowded streets and through alleyways, stoplight after stoplight impeding the flow of her progress toward wherever she was going.

After two hours had passed, Omkar knew he would have to call a cab to get back home. It had also started to rain. He was following Aria with a knot in his stomach. At first he had imagined the spy mission to be fun. But it wasn’t fun anymore. He had assumed that, because she strolled into the store on foot, she must live in the neighborhood, especially given that she’d showed up twice. He was now plagued by confusion about why she would ever walk so far. He was bothered by the idea that a girl shouldn’t be walking alone on the streets of any city, much less for so long. Omkar was now committed to the mission of finding out where the hell she was going, more out of concern than a sense of curious adventure.

The distance between the houses and buildings began to grow larger. The sun had given up on their journey, casting an indigo hue over everything in sight. Omkar watched Aria take a side road. Following her down it, through the haze of the rain, he watched her duck under a broken stretch of chain-link fencing. He saw her walk over to a car in a broken-down car lot and get inside it. Careful to go unnoticed, Omkar waited before exploring further from a distance. He walked a full circle around the car lot. By the time he was done observing the tarps and tents and clutter, he was soaking wet. But Omkar had ascertained enough to understand what was truly happening. He watched Aria and a few of the other people at the encampment until his view was too severely obscured by night.