He gave in the moment she took him in her mouth. She was proud of her technique. She lubricated his cock with her spit and rubbed the shaft for a few strokes. When his head hit the back of her throat, she knew she was down in it, touching the venal root of the world, discovering yet again what she had known all along. No one was pure. No one was good. Anyone would fold given the opportunity and the cover of night. It was an important thing to understand. It was the secret of history itself. And knowing, she knew the ground beneath her feet would never move.

She touched his balls and he came immediately. Afterward they didn’t say anything. They didn’t kiss. She took the privilege of cuddling beside him, though. He could not deny her that. She had earned it.

Bryan snored loudly through the night. Kendra slept lightly, and she was awake when the occulus of the mall’s skylight brightened with morning.

The floor was too hard, and she couldn’t get comfortable. As the light increased, she got up and crept to the gate to watch the mall’s interior gradually return to sight. Every store was protected by the same black ironwork—a zoo of commodities. The walls speckled and gained color.

Through the skylight, she could see the coursing gray clouds of an overcast day and flecks of water streaking the expansive glass.

She rested her elbows on the cold metal, ruminating on the day to come. Nathan might discover them hiding in the store. Or he might not, and still confront her about the stolen money when she came in for her shift in the afternoon. Most likely, he’d roll over and persuade himself to forget about it, in which case she would have the honor of going on with her pointless retail job as it stood. Maybe she’d be arrested. There was no way of knowing.

As for Bryan, he would pretend nothing had happened or he’d stop talking to her altogether, most likely the latter. She didn’t see an attractive way through any of it. The one thing she could count on was her mother shrieking at her when she stepped in the front door.

Somewhere in the distance a rolling door rumbled. The mall, spacious and still, seemed to wait. Kendra expected a security guard or janitor to appear any moment, but she remained at the gate anyway. She didn’t care if anyone saw her anymore. In fact, she almost welcomed the discovery, the trouble it would bring, so long as the trouble delivered her someplace new.

No guard or janitor appeared though. Rather, the early-morning visitors turned out to be two old Chinese men wearing sweat suits and fishing hats. Chatting quietly, they drifted in from the mouth of the main entrance onto the shiny, beige floor of the atrium.