Chapter 3 #3
Carlos and his mother were watching Adele, while he and Lottie were watching Ellis.
They went to a toy store, and both girls wanted something.
He allowed each of them to pick one item, but they would only get it if they behaved.
They each selected the toy that they wanted.
Ellis chose a doll, and Adele chose a junior chemistry set.
Both girls behaved perfectly and got their presents.
As they walked along, he noticed the packages were gone and asked Lottie about them.
“Did somebody take them, or did the girls put them down somewhere?”
“No, they are in the SUV,” she explained.
Magic! It was convenient but still alarming, even when he thought it was helpful.
There was just a part of him that didn't approve of magic being used.
He understood that he needed to get used to it because there was no way to avoid it, at least not in this area.
Darren decided to let the subject drop. He had a feeling that it would come up again, and it wouldn't be long.
“It's lunchtime. We can go to a sidewalk café, or if you prefer, we can go to the Crescent.” Flo suggested.
Everyone turned to look at him. “The cafe will be fine if everyone agrees.”
They all nodded, and they crossed the street, and the cafe was just a little way up the sidewalk and around the corner.
It was a great place to people-watch because many people walked by.
In a tourist area like this, people came from all over.
Since school was in session, many of the people were older, but there were still many children of various ages.
You can only guess that these were children who were homeschooled, locals, or people who had just taken their children out to enjoy a vacation, even if they had to skip school.
It was nice to sit outside and have a casual meal while they watched people walk by. They talked a little bit, but mostly they listened to the conversations of the people who walked by. His girls seem fascinated by the people and the scenery around them.
“I found some German chocolate in one of these stores. It's about time for me to fill up on my stash.” Flo declared.
“It looks like everyone has finished their meal, and we can move on,” Carlos observed.
Darren had German ancestry through his mother, so he would be thrilled to find some German chocolate.
While his mother filled her stash, he intended to start one of his own.
The next door they entered had a small shelf near the door loaded with several kinds of German chocolate.
His mother grabbed a handful of bars, and he grabbed many bars.
There were still a few left, but not very many.
“Are those for us?" Adele asked.
“These are mainly for me, but if you two do something special, I might give you a little bit.”
“What do we need to do, Daddy?” Ellis asked.
“We'll talk about that later.”
Darren planned to make a chart with his girls' chores and the levels they needed to achieve in school, and they could earn some chocolate. That sounded like a very smart idea, and since his girls were both achievers, he probably needed to buy chocolate every time he came here.
The problem started when they exited the store where they had bought the chocolate.
Someone was waiting for them, and he tried to grab Ellis.
Darren watched as if it were in slow motion as the guy started to grab Ellis but instead jumped through the store window.
He'd never seen anything like it before, and he looked at Lottie and just knew that it was her.
The guy came out of the store looking pretty rough, but another guy tried to grab Adele and, instead, ended up hugging the guy who had jumped through the window, and they began fighting.
That ended as they bashed their heads together hard, and they both fell to the ground unconscious.
He started to feel relieved, but it was too soon.
A guy on a motorcycle tried to come up onto the sidewalk to grab one of his daughters, but the bike went sideways, and he ended up flat on the sidewalk, going about twenty feet.
That took him out of the game, but another guy came up and tried to grab Adele.
This guy ran into a light post that was sitting nearby and started bashing his own head in until he passed out.
The whole thing was crazy to watch, but they realized that they had better get out of there.
Their fun day was over, and they would be heading back to the car as quickly as possible.
It was amazing that they made it without any more trouble.
He was certain that the police would attribute some of that self-punishing behavior to drugs.
How else would they be able to explain it?
It would be that, or they would say that these guys were simply crazy and needed to be locked up in a mental facility.
Since they would likely end up in a human facility, they would escape easily with a little time.
It was a relief to be heading home, but he was almost afraid to be relieved after they had made several attempts in a short period. Darren had to admit that he was now relieved that he had magic on his side, or one or both of his girls would be gone.
“That was more than I was expecting, especially in a public place. It's totally against the rules, and the wardens will be investigating,” Carlos mentioned.
Darren didn't say anything, and no one else did either.
He noticed that Lottie seemed extremely tired, and maybe that had been an excessive use of her power, given the energy she had.
Which was something he knew little about, but he could tell he needed to learn more.
The attack made him feel helpless because he had not been able to contribute anything to his daughters' defense, and under the same circumstances, he would still not be able to contribute anything to their defense.
He had to admit that that made him feel bad, but it also made him grateful for his nanny slash guard, who had taken the actions that he couldn't. It also made him more open to magic, even though he was still nervous around it and probably always would be.
Darren wanted to know what the wardens found out about these guys because he was sure they would all be arrested, and hopefully it would be by wardens and not local police, who had no idea what they were dealing with.
“Does this mean we won't be able to go anywhere from now on?” Darren asked.
He saw the stricken looks on his daughter's faces. Neither of them had realized that these guys had been after them, and he wished he had kept his mouth shut.
“No, it just means we will have to take more safety measures in the future. I'll talk to Tyne about getting a couple of extra guards. Eventually, I hope that you will talk to Tyne about getting the girls some self-defense and evasion training. Later, I was planning on talking to you about it but hadn’t had a chance yet.” Carlos admitted.
“Are you sure that that is something little girls should be doing?” Darren wondered.
“This is something that is best learned at an early age. I am sure that they will enjoy it. Home schooling requires PE, and this would fill in for that. Moe, one of your cousins, would be the one who would train them.” Carlos explained.
Moe was enough younger that while he remembered her, he'd never really known her very well.
He'd left for college before she had gotten old enough to develop much of A personality.
All he remembered was that she had been a very active and sometimes aggravating child.
Many of his younger cousins had been aggravating.
“I would feel better if I knew that they had some idea of what to do if they were attacked or someone attempted to take them.” Darren agreed.
He'd seen the attack, and he'd realized that at some point, Lottie would run out of energy, and if she was the only one with the girls, she would probably be taken along with them.
If that happened when they were somewhere on their own, it could be hours before they realized that all of them were gone.
He hated the idea that his girls had to learn self-defense to protect themselves, but he wasn't so stupid as not to realize they needed to learn it under the current situation.
It also wasn't like he hadn't intended to enroll them in martial arts when they got a little bit older.
Darren just hadn't thought that, as young as they were, they would be able to apply themselves.