Fear Itself

When I left the room, I didn’t exactly see what I expected: Sam out of his office, and almost every single high-ranking member (save for Alex) gathered around in the meeting area. Harley a few of her boys sat at the table. Sam had his head poked out the office door. Dean was the only one who approached me without some deathly, grim look on his face. “Blondie!” he exclaimed as though he was genuinely happy to see me. He came right over and gave a hearty pat on the back. “Welcome to permanent residency.” He gave me a cheeky grin. “We call this, the Hotel Brotherhood, as you can see on your left there’s a concrete wall. On your right, there’s another concrete wall. And if you walk north, you’ll find the exotic, abandoned metro tunnels of London. Don’t worry about the smell—that’s just about a hundred years of filth piling up. A rare delicacy if you ask me.”

“Oh, it’s very beautiful,” I added in mock awe, nodding and just playing along with him.

“If you need any help, our maid, Sam, is here 24 hours a day,” Dean joked. Sam didn’t look all that amused.

I craned my neck and looked behind me, peeking into the office. I rose up on the balls of my feet to meet Dean’s ear and whispered, “His office is filthy.”

Not even bothering to quiet his voice, Dean chuckled, “Well, Blondie, nobody ever said he was a good maid.”

I grinned, laughing a little, and the tension in the room seemed to break. Sam vanished behind his door again, and Harley and her boys got to talking. “So, Muscles,” I began, sliding closer and bumping a hip into his leg playfully. “I’m feeling a little grimy and not so clean. Where can a girl get a shower around here?”

Almost all at once, a chorus of laughs echoed across the room. Dean snorted. “Good joke, Blondie,” he laughed. “Remember how I said that smell is the result of a hundred years of filth? About sixty percent of that comes from our members.”

My face flushed. “So… so where am I…?” My eyes were bulging, and Dean just kept laughing.

“May I suggest a bit of the ol’ B&E?” he jested.

“B&E?” Sometimes, Dean lost me with his slang.

He leaned in closer, never losing his grin, and he whispered, “Breaking and entering, Blondie.”

I didn’t know how to do that. Avery probably did. Such were the perks of being protected by one of London’s most notorious criminals, I supposed. Until he agreed to teach me, I’d have to improvise. “I’ll have to work on that,” I sighed. “Thanks, Dean. Catch you later.” Quietly, I made my way back into the room, caught Avery sleeping (for once), and tried my best to stay silent as I emptied the contents of my back pack. I tossed the clothes on the floor and tucked Alex’s book underneath of my bed with the small stack already there. I tossed another outfit in the bag, just in case. Maybe I would run home; Dad was at work. Maybe I would go to my aunt Sophie’s. As a last resort, I could probably break into Avery’s mum’s flat. Not like she’d ever even remember or notice me being there.

As I tossed the backpack over my shoulders, I saw Ralph curled up right next to Avery’s head, and I smiled a little. I guessed Ralph didn’t plan on joining me, so I left the room again and raced past my friends and up out of the tunnels. The second I emerged at the bottom of the canal, heavy drops of rain assaulted me from above. I let out a loud groan. “Wow, guess I don’t need that shower after all,” I muttered sarcastically. Fabulous. Absolutely fabulous. I was hungry, wet, and I was still disgusting. Considering I was pretty much already soaked, I just continued the trek up to the stairs leading out of the canal and into the city, and I walked up, clutching my backpack with one hand and trying to shield my eyes from the rain with the other.

I walked slowly, no longer caring about the rain (except for the fact that my clothes seemed to weigh a ton when they were wet). The streets were empty; I wasn’t too concerned about safety. I didn’t see anyone, didn’t hear anyone. I couldn’t blame them for not going out. If I wasn’t so hungry and disgusting, I probably would have turned back too. Even as I walked another block or so, I didn’t see anyone. There was just one person maybe a block up on the other side of the street. I couldn’t see much from where I was. It was a man, judging by the parallel frame, and he was of average height. He had an umbrella… well that would have been useful. I could take that no problem.

After all, I was living on the streets… it was probably time I started acting like it.

Silently, I approached my victim. I crossed the street without a sound, came up from behind. They wore a pairof ratty old jeans, torn up high-tops, a sweatshirt with holes in it, and a black beanie on their head. In one hand was the umbrella. They other was in his pocket. Easy. When I was about a foot away, I extended my arm and grabbed his free one, putting him in an armlock. I did my best tough voice as I threatened them, “So, mate, the choice is yours: your umbrella or your life. Which’ll it be?”

“Tali,” he grunted, squirming a little and looking at me over his shoulder. Alex’s brown eyes caught mine in a stare. “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Oh my goodness,” I squeaked and let him go. “I’m sorry!”

“Ow,” he muttered as he shook out his wrist and placed the umbrella back over his head. He stepped toward me, shielding me from the rain as well. “You’re wet.”

“I know,” I laughed breathlessly. “It’s raining.”

A small silence fell over us, and he looked away from me, chuckled an awkward under-his-breath laugh and cleared his throat. “So… is there a reason you nearly assaulted me for my umbrella, or do you just get a kick out of other peoples’ fear?” he asked. A small, joking smirk crept onto his face.

“Actually,” I chuckled, tilting my head a little. “I um… I’ve made a rather pivotal, life-changing decision…” I stopped and sighed a little. “And I find myself in desperate need of some food… and a shower, but—“ I cut myself off, pulling my hands out of my pockets and showing him my empty palms. “No cash. Which isn’t exactly an issue, I just… came out here… got stuck in the rain.” I chewed my bottom lip. “Things are a little less than desirable right now.”

“I have a shower,” he stammered. “You could… I don’t know, you could come over, and I could feed you—for free, of course, and then maybe you could use my shower.” He dropped his head and ruffled his hair with his free hand. I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face.

“You want me to come over and use your shower?” I asked, masking my subtle laughter, just egging him on.

“You could!” he quickly blurted out, lifting his eyes back to me. “I mean, the hot water lasts about six or seven minutes, and you can’t really take too long because water is so damn expensive, but… yeah, you could shower, and then I thought maybe we could hang out or something.” He shoved his free hand in his pocket jacket and raised his eyebrows.

“Okay,” I laughed.

“Really?” he asked, a look of enthusiastic surprise painted all over his face. “Fantastic! Follow me, then.”

He took me back to his place. He lived in a building like Avery’s mom did, but it wasn’t quite so bad. It wasn’t much better either, just not worse. He closed the umbrella and shook it off when we got in, and both the umbrella and I tracked water all over the first floor’s carpeting. I carefully followed him up four flights of stairs. There was an elevator, but he told me never to take it: there were safety issues, not to mention “things” happened in the elevators. I didn’t ask; I didn’t want to know.

The lights were dim and flickering when we entered the fourth floor hall. The carpets looked like maybe they once were white, but they were now mismatched shades of beige and sometimes brown. Yellowed white doors lined the hall. Some had numbers, some didn’t, some only had two instead of three. Alex was quiet as we walked through. Everything was quiet, but Alex was especially. We stopped in front of the 8th door, and he fumbled a bit with some keys he took from his pocket. He stopped and glanced up to me, looking guilty or rather ashamed for a moment, but he opened the door anyway, and I followed close behind him.

Calling the place a “shoebox” might have been a little too generous for what it was. It was one room, probably about the size of my bedroom at home. Immediately upon entrance, a door sat on the left. The door was old, wooden, with a rusted brass doorknob. “That’s the bathroom,” Alex explained, pointing to it when he entered. Filling the blank wall space nearby was a television firmly planted on the ground. In front of that was a very small, uneven coffee table cluttered with papers and notebooks, a couple bottles of water. Opposite the television was a futon covered in a sheet. That was probably where he slept.

The paint on the walls was a washed-out gold… at least where it wasn’t peeling. Where it peeled, I could see wood adorned with holes less than inch in diameter. Beside the telly, just a foot or so away was a taller table, circular in shape, wooden. It was lopsided, but it was surrounded three plastic, folding chairs. There was an empty bowl sitting there. I thought I may have seen something brown crawl out of it and escape into the wall. I also thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. Alex didn’t seem fazed. He strode over to a small desk on the far side of the room. It was cluttered with papers and stacks of books. Just beyond an archway was a dimly lit kitchen. I could only catch a couple counter tops and an old sink. Lamps were scattered all over the place. Alex turned on a tall one standing beside the futon, but it didn’t do much. My eyes caught an overhead light above, but judging by the fact that a nearby light switch was turned up and that the light itself was still dark, I suspected there was something wrong in the lighting. Soon, I shivered, and I realized how cold it actually was in here.

Alex set his umbrella down by the desk, and I strode over to the bathroom. I gingerly nudged the door open, and it creaked so loudly that I thought it might fall off the hinges. It was pitch black, but I could make out a small lamp rigged to the top of the sink. The sink wasn’t usable anyway; it was missing a faucet. Upon inspection, it seemed Alex may have removed the faucet and any connected plumbing out of the sink in order to permanently wire the lamp there. I tugged down on the tiny chain, and a dim glow flooded the bathroom.

The shower was a stand-up model with sliding doors, but it appeared that they were broken or maybe stuck. He had rung up a very make-shift shower curtain, which was nothing more than an old sheet cut and tied around the outside. Green and brown spotting clung between the tiles within the shower. It also appeared on the walls and in the corners of the room. It gave the room a strange smell. My nose tickled a little, and I felt an odd sensation wash over me. My eyes fluttered, and I was forced to draw air in through my nose. It was like I was yawning, except I made a loud noise and a bunch of mucus flew out of my nose. I thought I may have experienced this before, but I couldn’t recall the sensation happening often. Sneezing wasn’t something that I frequented living in my own personal bubble.

My eyes started to feel a little itchy, so I rubbed them, but that only made it worse, and then they watered. I felt my nose running. A muffled cough escaped my throat. “There should be a towel on top of the toilet!” Alex shouted to me. “I’ll make us some food, and you can shower.” He paused. “Just try not to take too long. I’ve got bills to pay.”

“Gotcha,” I said just loud enough for him to hear before I shut the door. I set my bag down in front of it. Carefully, I closed the lid on the toilet and set my clothes down on top after I stripped them off. I turned the shower on, and water spouted from the shower head above me. When I stepped in, it was initially very soothing. The warm water ran over my face, my hair, and the rest of me. I could practically feel the grime melting off, but just moments later, the hot water began to cool. It was gradual, but noticeable nonetheless. I looked around, and on a built-in shelf in the corner, there were a couple bottles and a bar of soap, all marked with the Liberty Brand Logo, a large, white ‘L.’

I grabbed the bottle that read shampoo and began to lather it through my hair. It didn’t smell particularly good. In fact, I didn’t really find it to smell like anything I was used to, really. I liked my shampoo at home, the one that Alex thought made my hair smell like cinnamon. This smelled kind of minty, not in a bad way, but in a different way, and the bar of soap I scrubbed over every inch of my skin smelled like nothing. I had to wash my face with that too; I didn’t see a bottle of face wash or even a bottle of conditioner. That was okay, I supposed, since the water had just started to really cool down.

The second I stepped out, the cold hit me again, and that only made the sneezing worse. I tried to ignore it, just grabbed the towel Alex had left in there and dried off as much as I could before I pulled on my grey leggings and a pale lavender t-shirt. I didn’t know why I thought a scarf was going to help, but I pulled my orchid-patterned jade green scarf around my neck and laced my boots back on. I shoved the dirty clothes back into the bag and left the towel back above the toilet. Once out, I dropped my backpack by the door and took a deep breath, felt my bones rattling from the cold. Alex poked his head out of the kitchen. “I hope everything was alright,” he told me, smiling softly.

I flipped my wet hair out of my face and laughed a little. “It was fine,” I said. “But you’ve got an alarming amount of mold in there, you know.”

For a moment, I thought I saw him frown. “Man, I just cleaned that shower this morning,” he sighed. “Believe it or not, most would consider this place clean, at least by West London standards.” That was certainly concerning, I thought as my eyes drifted around the apartment. “Sit down,” he added. “Please. I’ll just be a moment.” He returned a few moments later with plates of bread and jam. “It’s not much,” he mumbled, handing me a plate after I sat down on his futon. “Food’s expensive too.”

“It’s fine,” I assured him, immediately eating, not even bothering to swallow before I spoke. Alex laughed a little. “I mean, everything’s fine when you’re here, you know.”

He didn’t say anything. It got awkward and quiet. Suddenly, he looked down at his watch, placed his plate on the table. “Wow, I um,” he stammered. “I’ve got be at work.”

“Really?” I asked. “Right now?”

“Yeah,” he said briefly, sighing a little. “Sorry.”

“Oh, okay,” I replied uneasily, now feeling awkward about the whole thing. I shuffled to grab my back again. “Well, thanks for the shower then,” I muttered before leaving and swiftly going back to the tunnels, not feeling so great about all this all of a sudden.