The broad corridor has doors on either side. Some are open and I can see bunk beds stacked high, one on top of the other.
Other rooms are emptier, filled with old sofas and a few board games have certainly seen better days.
We round the corner and Maisie ushers me into a large room with five bunk beds arranged in an awkward formation. There are two windows set at opposite ends of the space but somehow, they don’t bring in much light.
Or maybe that is just a matter of perspective.
There are about six or seven women in the room when we walk in. I’m struck by how worn and tired each one looks.
But when I look close, I see that they’re not that old at all. Most are my age at most, if not younger.
Is that what I’ll look like in a few months?
Maisie leads me to a bunk in the farthest corner of the room. There’s a woman lying on the bottom mattress.
She’s got a shaved head, which highlights the bruises and scrapes that line her scalp. In some places, it actually looks like she’s pulled her hair right out.
Her eyes are beautiful—a deep, chocolate brown—but they’re filled with pure malice as she looks me up and down.
“Who’s she?” she asks. Her question is directed at Maisie, as if I’m not even here.
“Tonya,” Maisie sighs, “this is…”
She turns to me, realizing that she doesn’t actually know my name.
“Oh… uh, Emily,” I offer quickly.
“Emily,” Maisie repeats. She turns back to Tonya. “She’s our newest addition.”
“Fuck,” Tonya scowls, her face twisted with instant dislike. “What a princess this bitch is.”
I flinch as if she’d slapped me.
The last few months have humbled me, pulled me down to earth, and reminded me of how bad most people had it.
I always thought my father’s gilded cage was hell on earth.
But maybe I was just naïve.
Even still, I thought that had been stomped out of me. That I looked ordinary now.
It took Tonya all of three seconds to sniff me out.
She knows who I really am.
“She’s got a baby,” Maisie notes pointedly, ignoring Tonya’s previous comment.
“I can smell the little shitter from here,” Tonya snaps.
Only then do I realize that Phoenix needs another diaper change.
Fuck me. That’s six diapers down.
“Anyway,” Tonya continues, looking up at Maisie again, “what’s that got to do with me?”
Maisie hesitates for a moment before plowing ahead. “I know you like the bottom bunk—”
“Fuck no!”
“Tonya…” Maisie sighs.
“The bottom bunk is mine!”
“She’s got a baby,” Maisie points out. She sounds exhausted. “A young baby, by the looks of it. She’s not going to be able to climb up and down every time she wants to get some rest.”
“That’s not my fucking problem,” the woman snaps with a vicious glare in my direction. “I’m not giving up my bunk.”
“It’s not your bunk,” Maisie says, her tone growing cold. “It’s the property of the state. And since I’ve been tasked with managing this shelter, I get to decide—"
“It’s okay,” I say quickly, stepping in. “It’s fine. I’ll take the top bunk.”
Maisie raises her eyebrows and stares at me. “You will?”
I glance at the top bunk with trepidation, knowing that it will be difficult to maneuver with my wound still fresh from the C-section.
“I… um… sure,” I say lamely. “I don’t want to cause any problems.”
“Then maybe you should find another shelter.” Tonya drawls. “That brat of yours is certainly gonna cause problems and I like to sleep peacefully at night.”
“Enough!” Maisie snaps. “Emily, if you can manage the top bunk, then fine. We serve three meals a day in the dining area. The meal times are taped to the door next to the front desk. That’s all.”
Then she turns on her heel and walks out, leaving me with a group of women who don’t look at all happy to be sharing a room with an infant and—in Tonya’s words—a “princess.”
“You better keep that brat quiet,” one wild-eyed woman yaps at me before turning in her bunk and pulling a blanket over her head.
A few just give me dark glances and went back to whatever they were doing. But others kept their eyes trained on me, warning me with bared teeth and angry eyes not to fuck with their corner of the world.
There’s only one other woman in the room looking at me with something that comes close to sympathy.
She looks older, about fifty or so, and she’s so thin that the skin around her eyes and mouth is worn down like tissue paper.
As she approaches me, I see the line of silver scars on both her arms. They’re so perfectly aligned that they can only be self-inflicted.
“My name’s Nancy,” she says in a voice just one notch above a whisper. “If you want, I can look after your baby.”
The way she speaks, the way she looks me right in the eye without blinking, is deeply unsettling. I don’t want to be judgmental, but the slightly manic glint in her eyes makes me take a step back.
But at least it’s not outright hostile.
Though that’s really splitting hairs.
“That’s okay,” I say as politely as I can. “I need to feed him anyway.”
Her face drops immediately. I feel a chill snake through my body as she turns away and stomps out of the room with aggressive steps.
Tonya smirks and shakes her head. “You better watch out for that one,” she tells me. “She gets real mean after she’s shot up.”
“She was high?” I ask.
“Nah, that was just her in a good mood.”
Emotion is churning inside me like a volcano waiting to blow. My immediate instinct is to get as far from this place as possible.
But where would I go? What would I do? Who would I seek?
Artem would have answers.
You should be here with me.
I need you.
Our son needs you.
My pride tries to bury the need, but
