by Emily Shore
“I haven’t decided yet.”
At least she’s honest. Maybe we’ll both get our questions answered. I probably have about as much as she has. Even if she’s decided to trust me, she still ensures I go through the door first. Nor does she let go of the gun. I’m just glad it’s not directed on me anymore. Guns tend to make people jumpy, trigger happy. It’s one of the reasons Ink and I have always carried knives. I’ve never needed to use mine on anything that wasn’t covered in fur. Roof-topping has always been my primary method of escape. Except for tonight of course. Tonight, I’m finding putting my trust in a complete stranger is my only route. Part of me wants to turn around, march right back out that balcony and try my luck. More than just one thing stops me. On the one hand, I recognize the truth of her words. The growing pain in my leg isn’t even necessary to determine my injury isn’t just a flesh wound. Plus, I have nothing waiting for me on the other side but two beatings. In Ink’s case, it’s probably a beating till death. If it comes to that, the last thing I want is to be there when it goes down. And last, this could be my only chance to find out why some random girl lives up here with her baby. Why does her baby get protection but others don’t?
We travel through a hallway and down a staircase to get to the first floor of the Penthouse. After she directs me to a deep leather chair, she hands me a thick rag to apply pressure and stem the blood. Then, she lowers herself onto the couch opposite me, keeping the gun only a few inches from her person on an end table beside her. The baby begins to fuss as soon as she turns him over, positioning him on her lap on his side before lifting up her shirt. Concentrating on my leg instead of her, I slowly press the rag to the open cut and flinch. Curse words rear up inside my throat, but I punch them back down and slam my eyes shut and try again.
“It might need stitches,” she reflects, keeping one hand primed on the back of her baby’s neck. She doesn’t seem timid or uncomfortable whatsoever. Considering she lives in the Penthouse of the Hotel, I’d imagine a girl in her position is a pro. The baby is what’s throwing me off. Does she have so much influence and respect that they allow her to keep her baby? Whoever “they” are. All sorts of Ghetto myths surround the Hotel and who really owns it whether some governmental tycoon ― whatever’s left of the government ―, the head of the sweepers, an ex-soldier...maybe tonight I’ll really find out.
“Since you don’t like being called Fox, would you mind giving me your real name?” She inquires and switches the baby to her other side.
I straighten. “Ruby.”
“Fitting.” She smiles right before cringing. “None of that,” she raises her voice, tapping the baby’s nose. He chortles, and she can’t help but smile. “Oh, you think biting me is funny, do you?”
I discover the corners of my mouth lifting at the display. There’s no basis in my mind for how babies act. I am the youngest. For that matter, so is Ink. I wonder if that’s why we get along as well as we do.
Slowly, the young woman raises her head, her hair like white lace curtains drawn over her cheeks. “You can call me Angel.”
“Is that your real name?”
“It’s close enough. That should suffice.”
Her silence allows me to take in the surroundings of the Penthouse. Across from me is a grand fireplace, flames casting shadows like moving ink puddles on the floor. Above the fireplace and a mantle with elegant stone scrollwork is an ornate mirror. Large French windows on one wall would spill starlight into the room, but instead all I can see is the night masked by milky clouds. My meager climbing shoes, soles caked in sewer muck and Hotel walls’ grit, seem unworthy to touch the oriental rug beneath them, but Angel doesn’t seem to notice or care.
After a couple minutes of silence, the baby is finally finished eating, and she removes him, tugging her shirt back down before placing him in a bassinet resting nearby. Once she’s done that, she picks up the gun again, commanding me to follow her. She’s cautious. Despite the conversation upstairs, she still doesn’t take any chances with her baby by leaving me in the same room with him. With every passing second, I want to know more about this girl. But first, she leads me down another hallway and this time to the bathroom.
“Take off your pants,” she orders me and turns to the closet behind her.
Confused, I bite my lower lip but decide to do what she says. For now, she’s decided not to turn me in, and it’s better to listen. Besides, she’s still got the gun.
The area around my cut is swollen and red, and I notice just a couple traces of rust bits in the wound. Almost as soon as I get my pants off, Angel approaches me with a plastic box in her hands with the symbol of a fat cross on the front. A first aid kit is a very rare luxury on the streets.
“I’m going to disinfect the wound and clean it.”
Why would she do this? She just caught a total stranger in her baby’s room, who was sent to abduct her child, and now she’s healing that person? None of this makes sense.
Angel leans over and touches two fingers to my forehead. “I’ll give you some antibiotics, too. Looks like you’re starting to develop a fever. You could have an infection.”
Leaning against the porcelain of the deep circular tub, I watch as she makes quick work of the cut. I hiss, grinding my teeth when she disinfects it with alcohol. The cleaning of the wound is almost as painful since she needs to pick out the tiny shards of rust wedged in the wound with a pair of pliers. However, her able hands finish the task within moments, and I watch as she binds up the wound with gauze, twisting around and around like her fingers are riding a familiar carousel. She’s done this many times before. Is that why she lives in the Penthouse? Is she some sort of official Hotel healer?
Angel rises and places the first aid kit back in the closet. From beyond the open door, we can hear the demanding squeals of the baby, and she nods for me to follow her.
“Have you made up your mind yet?” I ask her back.
Angel tilts her head back for a moment, but her brows are slung low in warning. “I’ll ask the questions for now. But first...” She lowers her arms into the bassinet and hoists the baby into her arms, patting his bum. “Charlie needs a nap. I’m going to take him back upstairs and get him settled. While I do that, you can help yourself to whatever food you want in the kitchen.”
Oh, she is good. Even if this is my one opportunity to try and escape, Angel knows people like me won’t turn down an offer for food. Especially not from the wares of the Hotel Penthouse. My mouth fills with saliva at the thought of what might be stored there. Wild images teem in my mind ― mostly consisting of custards and cannoli’s, soufflés and sorbets. Images on the covers of must and dust cookbooks from our raids of individual homes fill my mind. The memory of my mother’s soufflé every time we had too many curds almost swarms my nostrils.
Once Angel ascends the staircase, I don’t waste any time, and I make a beeline for the gigantic refrigerator. Oh, if only Ink could see this. Tonight, I’ll eat my weight just to honor him though a sinful voice in the back corner of my mind brags that it’s payback for the wine he drank without me the other day. Sure, the gangs do alright, but they still don’t have this type of food. The world still has plenty of resources even if the riots crumbled the cities and beat the economy to a pulp. People will still pay a price for their luxuries. I wonder how many Hotel girls were traded for these types of wares? If they are still traded to this day.
Fresh berries and vanilla ice cream call my name, but first, I retrieve the eggs, milk, and cheese, find a skillet, and set to work beating the eggs with a fork. My muscles remember this menial work. If I close my eyes, I can smell the melted cheese wafting from our old oven that my father built right into the wall. Of course, this cheese is fancier, imported ― nothing like our homemade curds.
What I want more than anything is to make a soufflé, but an omelet will have to do. For all I know, Angel could send me packing as soon as she comes down the stairs. Or worse. Call security and arrange a room for me. While the omelet c
ooks, I help myself to some vanilla ice cream straight from the container. Even today with the world going to rot, companies still place brands on their products. Every product has invisible bloody fingerprints on them. It’s nothing new. Even the old world bore the flesh and blood of slaves on random products. People were just ignorant or turned a blind eye for the sake of that one bite of chocolate. At least I have a healthy respect for it. What I wouldn’t give to have my family’s farm again. But Malachi lost it just like he lost everything else. Just like he lost me.
“The vanilla is my favorite, too. If you warm up the berries just a tad, it’s perfect,” suggests Angel before scooping some of the berries into a bowl and setting them in the microwave for a few seconds.
“You said you had questions?” I slip another spoonful of frozen sweetened vanilla into my mouth and savor it right before flipping the omelet packed with melting cheese.
After withdrawing the berries from the microwave and dumping all of them into the container itself ― I assume she intends on us eating the whole thing ―, Angel inquires, “How long have you been living on your own?”
It’s not the question I expected or am certain of how to answer without bringing Ink into the conversation. So, I look for another route as always.
“I came here four years ago when I was twelve.”
I turn off the stovetop and slide the omelet onto a plate. The scent turns the faucet on inside my mouth, causing it to water.
“Running from something?”
I crease one corner of my mouth down, rolling my head to the side just a little. “More like someone, but he caught up with me in the end.” If this is the end.
“Hmm....” She eyes me, her spoon catching the light above our heads. “Brother.”
I almost drop my spoon.
“No, I’m not a psychic. It wasn’t too difficult to determine. Everyone knows Sawyer’s been after the Fox for quite some time. And word on the street is that his informant is another red-head. It was a fifty-fifty chance of either father or brother. I simply guessed right. How did you end up with Big Sis?”
“Crew ambushed the van transporting me. They brought me to their headquarters.”
Angel straightens, brows lifted in curiosity. “No one gets that privilege unless they’re part of her crew.”
“Or if she needs a favor,” I add and capture a raspberry on my spoon, plopping it into my mouth to savor the tangy warmth bursting onto my taste buds.
“But you said you weren’t a kidnapper.”
I bristle, biting down on my tongue. “I meant it.”
“I believe you.” She raises a finger in the air before finishing, “But only because I saw you walking away from the crib without Charlie in your arms.”
Staring down at the counter, I feel my entire face soften, my words coming out like heated silver. “He’s just a child.”
“Thank you,” I hear her say, her voice equally as soft, her tongue composed of cushions. “What do you stand to lose?”
“His name is Ink. I was all alone for two years until he found me. Saved my life too. I owe him.” I don’t know why I’m telling her all of this. It’s not like there’s any concern over her feeling guilty. A mother like her would never feel guilty of putting her own child’s life above another’s. No mother should.
She pops a blueberry in her mouth and leans toward me. “I may have an idea that could get us both what we want.”
“And what do you want?”
“I believe we already established that I would ask the questions.”
“Can I have just one?” I plead with her, knotting my fingers together on the counter.
“I’ll wager that that’s not your one...” Her words trail off, giving me a wide berth.
I try to summon the right question. Why is she here? How does she have this much protection? How does she know so much? Who does she answer to?
The closest one I can come up with is:
“Who the hell are you?”
Tossing her head back, she chuckles, her laughter sprinkling the air before she levels with me. “You really don’t know, do you? All of this...” She waves her arms to the sides, continuing, “...Charlie and everything, and you really don’t know.” Angel laughs once more with a shake of her head before answering, “I run this place. I am the owner of the Hotel.”
Her statement echoes in the silence of the kitchen. Like a hammer has just smashed into the world’s most giant gong, and the sound waves are reverberating into my chest. How can a woman own the Hotel? It makes no sense.
Without another word, Angel picks up the plate and sets it down on the counter in front of me, but before I can touch it, she plunges a fork into one end and smiles appreciatively once it’s inside her mouth. “This is a good omelet,” she says between bites. “How did you learn to make this?”
“On my family’s farm. My parents taught me. We raised livestock including chickens before they died.”
“Good parents are difficult to come by now.”
“Maybe not as difficult as I thought.” She knows I’m referring to her.
Sticking the fork back in the omelet, Angel targets my eyes, punctuating her gaze as much as the fork. “I’m not going to say he’s my whole world. Charlie is my son. I am his mother. He is a part of me, and I am going to be his mother for as long as I can. But the Hotel is my world. And it is just as important as he is.”
I avoid the urge to wince and stare at the omelet like it will grow an escape route.
Angel sighs. “The world is a different place than it used to be. It’s not safe for our sex anymore. It still wasn’t safe for millions throughout the ages. But at the very least, I can protect the ones here.”
I think back to the couple I overheard while climbing and refute her comment. “You can’t protect all of them.”
She shakes her head and then raises it proud. “I do what I can.”
“And what is that?”
“I’d rather show you than tell you.” She puts her fork down, and it clatters on the counter like a ringing bell. “Come with me.”
On the way out of the kitchen, I glance up the stairs. Noticing my gaze, she retrieves what looks like a white radio from her belt loop. “Baby monitor with a built-in camera. I always know what’s going on with Charlie. Follow me.”
The elevator requires a special key and a code, which doesn’t surprise me.
The further down we go, the more apprehensive I become. Maybe this whole thing has been a ruse. Or maybe she’s decided not to trust me after all, and there will be sweepers waiting at the bottom. Or soldiers.
However, once we reach the loading dock level, Angel stops the elevator and turns her whole body toward mine with all the purpose of aiming an arrow ready to fire.
“Have you ever heard of the woman with the glass jars?” A sly grin spreads like wildfire across her face just before she pushes a button.
Immediately, I tense when I see a mix of soldiers and sweepers gathered around a shipment truck, but then I also notice the young girl no more than thirteen or fourteen waiting a few steps away. Everyone stops and turns around when Angel arrives.
“Everything running according to plan?” She inquires, approaching them while I linger in the background.
“Like clockwork,” one of the soldiers says, saluting her in both a joking and respectful manner. That’s when I recognize the voice. It was one of the soldiers from the sewer.
What on earth is going on here?
Instead of asking questions, I figure I’ll learn more from observing, so I watch as Angel approaches the young girl standing near the truck. Judging from how she purses her lips with her eyes darting back and forth, I’d say the girl is shaking on the inside more than laundry during a windstorm.
Angel cups her shoulder. “Are you ready? You know there’s minimal risk, right?”
The girl nods and drags in a deep breath. “Anything else I need to know?”
Angel shakes her head. “No, the sweepers will esco
rt you to the border, and the soldiers will do the rest of the work. From there, they’ll get you to the community. You’ll be safe there.”
“Thank you, Angel.”
“No thanks necessary. Remember what I taught you and pass it on to whoever you can. From now on, you may choose your own name.”
Suddenly, the girl throws her arms around Angel’s neck so her ravine of dark hair flicks to one side just before she climbs up in the truck. From this angle, I can’t tell how she hides in the truck, but I imagine there must be a false wall just like some of the cabooses and boxcars Ink and I used back at the train yard.
Ink.
I check the time on the watch. Only six hours left until I have to make the rendezvous. Big Sis will start to wonder if I’ve failed in another hour or so. The truck drives away, and I’m still staring down at the watch when Angel arrives by my side again.
“I’m certain you must have some questions. Come back up to the Penthouse, and I’ll answer what I can, and then we’ll try to solve our dilemma.”
For some reason, all the lavish food in the Penthouse doesn’t appeal to me now. All I accept is the mug of peppermint tea Angel offers to make me. The omelet from earlier sits in the bottom of my stomach like a deconstructed brick. Will Big Sis keep her word not to touch Ink until I return? Or is she dealing out her own brand of torture just because I’m not as early as she wanted? Nesting my hands around the mug, I try to shovel six feet of dirt on each image in my head, but they still try to surface.
Impatient, the kettle whistles. All my questions waiting for answers are just as impatient.
Angel pours the tea and then helps ease them with her explanation. “Before I arrived in the Ghetto, I happened to be in the right place at the right time and saved a soldier’s life. Except he wasn’t just any soldier but a general. As a reward, he brought me to the Hotel and decided to make me a caretaker. But a caretaker for the girls here.”
She takes a sip from her mug while I just toy with the string of my teabag.