Chapter 25: Breakfast (2)
Madison asked Jack, "Um...is it okay if I buy some new clothes?"
At first, he was confused by her question. Was she asking him if he would buy her new clothes, or was she asking for permission to buy herself new clothes? When he realized it was the latter, his next thought was, where did she get money to buy clothes?
"You didn't-"
"NO! No, I didn't steal anything from my aunt and uncle, or my cousins. I've been doing some gig work online. Plus, I finally got paid for a bug bounty yesterday."
Madison had told him about bug bounty programs a few years ago. To prevent vulnerabilities in their computer systems from being published out in the open, companies would offer a reward if security researches reported the vulnerability to them first, and kept the vulnerability secret until after the company had fixed it. He'd know she was participating in bug bounty programs for a while, but this was the first time he'd heard that she was successful in claiming a reward.
"Ah, so that's why-"
"Yep. I had to make sure I could manage on my own. I mean, I figured you'd probably let me crash here, but I had to make sure I could manage if you didn't. I wanted to leave sooner, but I just didn't have enough saved to last until school started. My scholarship covers student housing, but I can't move in until August 25th and I wanted to make sure I had enough to stay at a hotel until then. So, I had to wait for that bug-bounty payout."
He still wondered what had been happening at her aunt and uncles that prompted her to escape. And, if he demanded she tell him, she probably would, but he didn't want to do that. It would feel wrong to force her to tell him. As for clothes shopping, he didn't mind.
"Sure, I guess that's okay. I'm assuming you want me to drive you to the mall?"