What does Leah think?

"You'll keep watching?"

Melanie nodded. The older woman's hands were empty, having paused in her work so that she could focus on watching her coworker in action. They both knew the nineteen-year-old was capable, of course, but it would've been irresponsible not to keep an eye on the situation given the numbers involved, even disregarding the rest of what was going on.

Leah gave Melanie a grateful smile, then turned and strode through the double doors into the store proper.

It was usually only a minute's walk, if that, to get to the cash registers from the back, but some deeply buried alarm made Leah draw it out, taking in what was happening in her store.

Dozens of middle-aged white women were crowding the isles, to the point where her staff had been **** to retreat to against the wall; Leah's eyes briefly met Rowan's, who was standing next to Tara, the goth girl in the process of showing her friend something on her cell phone. A little ways away, Kristina was speaking with a small group of customers in front of the dressing rooms, while at the far end of the store, Mona's hair was just barely visible over the tops of the shelves.

Weaving around customers and in and out of aisles, it took several more minutes for Leah to reach the front of the store, where a tall woman with spiky blonde hair was crossing her arms and tapping one foot. On the other side of the register, Liz looked like it was taking a superhuman amount of effort to keep her eyes from rolling.

"Are you the manager!?" The woman "asked" before Leah could even get a word out. Liz and Leah's eyes both narrowed simultaneously. "I hope you've got a good explanation for this, because this-" she hefted a fuzzy pink sweater like it was evidence of a crime - "is absolutely unacceptable!"

With long years of practice, Leah plastered her customer service smile onto her face, as she prayed for the woman to give them an excuse.