No Time To Bleed

The next morning, we all managed to have a makeshift breakfast in the motel’s lobby.

The lobby consisted of tan tile, a large red parented area rug, various end tables and couches, and dying plants. The main counter was dusty and the computer there no longer worked. It’s hotel papers were scattered around as well.

I got to hang out with Eli most of the time it was all being prepared. The smells and churnings of machines drifted from the kitchen. Eli had his brick nearby and I had my bat. A funny pair we must have made.

“Jasmine, do you have a nickname?” Eli’s feet pattered against the couch.

Most of the hotel had things scattered in the hallways and trash, but mostly it seemed untouched.

“Um,” I licked my lips. “I used to have one. Not anymore though.”

I rubbed his back and he tossed a packet of sugar into his mouth. I was wondering where he got those packets and if I could find any.

“What was it?”

I felt my chest tighten as I looked down to him.

Eli was a cute little boy. Creamy and tan skin. Dimples that sank in every time he flashed that tiny smile of his. Tottering legs. And those bright hazel eyes, the same eyes that hadn’t changed since all of this madness had happened.

“My name was Jazzy. My little brother used to call me it.”

“You love your little brother?” His voice sounded sweeter and sweeter.

I ruffled his hair softly. “Yeah, I loved him a lot. His name was Ricky. He’s probably not that older than you.”

Eli’s eyes light up. “Maybe we can play together! Where….”

His voice drifted off, arms sank to his lap into something negative.

“Eli, what’s wrong?”

His lips pressed together and he his little chest lifted then fell. “He’s dead isn’t he?”

I tried to search for my mind for a reason Eli would ever possibly think that. But, in this world, the world we were trapped in, anyone out of your reach might as well be good as dead until you can touch them. And that was only if the virus hadn’t taken them.

“Eli, Ricky doesn’t live here. I don’t know where he lives now, but I can promise you he’s alive. And one day, you’ll get to meet him.”

He nodded now, seeming satisfied. “Clarissa shampooed my hair last night and she read a story to me when I went to sleep. It was about a tiger.”

Clarissa confused me most of the times. From loving her son William to having to kill him, to being kind to me in the car before we broke into Lexicon to seeming annoyed with me since, and none of that included her kidnapping me.

“Jasmine…”

“Yeah, Eli?” I looked down to him again.

The smells in the kitchen seemed stronger and stronger. Our stomachs had to be aching for some good food other than the vending machines food I’d scarfed down last night.

“Do you think William is in heaven?”

My heart took another dive as I looked up. Alex was there in the kitchen doorway watching us with soft eyes and an apron around his front.

“I think if there is a heaven, William would be the first to be there.”

“Eli, you can come in the kitchen. Clarissa said you can cut the first piece of cake.” Alex said

Eli giggled and ran past Alex to the kitchen. I exhaled and sat to one of the two person tables. I wished the televisions were at least working here so I could see something at all relating to anywhere else in the world.

Then there was Alex, taking up my entire view as he sat before me. I had to say he looked quite handsome clean now. Thick head of dark black hair and those same determined blue eyes that had been bent on saving me just yesterday.

“You don’t reek anymore.”

I wished that could have gotten a smile out of me, but it didn’t. “Thanks.”

“You okay?” His head tilted to the side, hands moving to the table.

My hands were on my lap. “I think any definition, but okay would be how I’m feeling.”

He licked his lips. “You cried in the van yesterday. Do you remember that?”

I felt like crying now. “Yeah, I remember.”

“You can tell me what’s wrong. I’m here.”

That got me to smile: him reaching out to me, wanting to be my friend.

“I’m tired of everyone dying. I’m tired of having to fight everything.”

“Clarissa should have never sent you in there. She’s told me before how horrible Lexicon can be.”

I wasn’t sure if that made much of a difference. It had happened. I had made it. I just stared back at him.

“Do you ever miss William?”

He tried to shrug. “I think I do. Most of the times it feels like such a long time ago or it’s buried deep. Maybe one day I’ll feel it.”

Numb. That’s what he was. And he just sat there, staring at me, studying my face, and Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed.

“Jasmine…” His voice reminisced of Eli’s tone, an innocent undertone to it that came through and asked for attention.

I waited for him to go on and instead his stare just intensified, a misty fog covering his eyes as his gaze became tighter and tighter.

“You want to say something to me?” I asked.

The trance hadn’t seemed to fully leave him. He shook his head.

“No. I was just looking at something in your hair.” His voice drifted off as he stood. “Um, do you wanna help with breakfast? This lady we found in the hotel helped us cook everything. She says she wants to come with us.”

His voice was friendly, but at the same time disconnected.

The sunlight seemed to make it’s way through the murky nearby windows in a sign of a miracle. I felt it warm my skin and sneak into my hair, forcing it’s dark strands to turn a relative brown.

His arm outstretched the slightest bit, fingers twitching in my direction as if for me to take his fingers in mine. But somehow I knew he wasn’t ready for this yet. So we walked side by side into that kitchen with no hands attached to bring out to the lobby the best breakfast we’d probably ever have in our lives.