Mother's Day: Evicted

The elevator doors shuddered shut, and the last thing Zofia saw before the Tourist called Crane killed her, was Lena's reassuring smile through the closing gap. It's all going to be okay, the crinkles around her eyes said. It'll all be over soon.

Zofia dropped her eyes away from the closed doors and stared at the black and white checkered floor by her feet. It was too clean. Someone must have been sweeping in here, mopping up the trails the Runners and guards left as they went and up and down, and down and up. She frowned at her own boots, the dirt caked around their soles, and the blue colour on her toes. Oh. She'd forgotten to get the rubbing alcohol from Lena.

Ah well, least you'll die with some colour on your face.

Her hands crawled into her pockets, her heart made itself comfortable at the base of her throat, and that's how Zofia stood waiting for him to end her. What'd be his excuse, she wondered. "I have no idea how that could have happened, Lena. I'm just as baffled as you how she managed to trip and break her neck."

Or maybe she'd get herself impaled on his crowbar, the thing he carried strapped to his hip. Somehow. Enthusiastically hugging him, by any chance? That sounded totally like her.

Her heart stalled when his arm came up in front of her. Here we go… She registered the click by her right— an elevator button being pushed —and then the arm dove out of sight again. The cabin jerked. Started moving.

Okay— okay— not dead yet. He'd probably wait until they were outside, where excuses shambled aplenty through the streets. "I'm so sorry, Lena! There was nothing I could have done… she was dead before I got there."

Yes, that was more likely. A pack of Biters made for an excellent cover-up.

Zofia lifted her chin and glanced at Crane. He filled out the whole bloody elevator cabin, top to bottom, left to right, and whatever room he left her was quickly eaten up by his scrutinising stare. Or glare, rather. A smouldering sort of You're-about-to-be-sorry glare. Then his brows pinched and his eyes turned to the top of the elevator doors, where a sad little light dinged itself from floor to floor.

He sighed, rolled his shoulders, and then went for the chest pocket on his washed out button up shirt. He patted at it, frowning in confusion, and murmured something under his breath that Zofia didn't quite catch.

It probably related to the pack of chewing gum he'd expected there. The one she'd nicked from the grey-blue-I've-lost-all-will-to-live shirt in his closet. Yeah. How about keeping your mouth shut this time? No need to add fuel to the fire. Zofia clicked her teeth together. She wished she could tie her fucking tongue too, worried it might start wagging out of principle alone.

Since he didn't find his gum, Crane busied himself by hiking up his sleeves. Left first, right next. Then he played with the folds pushed up to his elbows, fingers idly tugging and pinching the fabric while the light kept crawling its way towards the first floor.

Zofia shuffled her feet. They itched. She itched. Every fibre of her, every bloody square inch of skin. She couldn't be in here with him. Couldn't be out there with him either. Once they cleared the Tower, Zofia thought, she could run. Take right off. She noticed how she leaned forward, took one sliding step towards the elevator doors. Why wait until then? All she had to do was squeeze herself out before they opened properly and he'd never be able to catch up with her.

The answer was simple. She couldn't. Lena had asked for her help, and that was that. Such was the nature of favours owed and debts to be repaid. You didn't ever get to pick and choose.

Zofia inhaled sharply and cocked her head up towards him.

"I won—" she blurted.

"You shou—" he started.

They frowned, him rubbing at the back of his neck, her curling her fingers inside her pockets, and for a moment the temperature inside the elevator cabin climbed, made the air unbreathable. Thankfully, the little light reached the bottom, and a faint DING broke the silence.

Past the Tower's double doors, dawn painted the sky in heavy reds and gentle pink. No clouds, Zofia noted. It'd be a hot day. She checked her gear, made sure the hatchet was well secured, and tied her bandana over her head before she started down the stairs.

"How far is it?" Crane stood by the bottom of the steps and watched her deliberate, slow progress. Left foot. Right foot. Look out across the lot, see if any Biters had shambled up during the night. Left foot. Right foot. Eyes straight ahead. Don't make eye contact with him.

Maybe, Zofia figured, if she dallied enough he'd decide to do the right thing and go run his errands without her. You can start limping. Trip down the stairs, pretend you sprained your ankle. Because obviously you're nine years old and can't bloody deal.

When she reached the bottom he was still there, an eyebrow quirked and his thumbs tugged into his belt. He looked a lot less menacing that way, almost neighbourly, too. Except he was still very tall, and she'd got a front row demonstration of a potential for violence in those arms. No matter how relaxed they might appear right now.

He cleared his throat. "So— uh—"

Zofia blinked. "What?"

"How far is Gazi's place?"

Oh. Right. He'd asked her a question.

"Half an hour," she said as she passed him, trying not to wither as she felt him track her.

She could do it in twenty, especially with the sun still low and the air relatively breathable, but there was no telling if the Tourist named Crane would keep up.

With any luck he wouldn't.

Five minutes out, and he was still behind her. A few more, and he still hadn't tried to kill her. Almost there, and she almost got him killed.

"Why aren't you staying at the Tower?" Crane stood behind her. She knew exactly where too, could tell he was maybe a hand's width from her left shoulder, judging by how the muscles in her back knotted and her neck prickled.

Shame. He'd been so wonderfully quiet while they'd made their way through the shanty town, almost allowing her to forget about him firmly attached to her heels.

Except that one time when she'd balanced across the wooden rungs of a balcony roof. One of them had snapped when he set his foot down, and he'd barely managed to keep himself from falling off the edge and into a backyard chock full of Biters. Then he'd cursed, and thrown her another one of those smouldering glares. She'd shrugged and kept going, positively on fire from the look, but refusing to let him burn her to cinders. Not her fault he was too heavy.

Zofia ignored him putting his nose where it didn't belong, and peered around the corner of the gas station she'd circled around. It stood by the mouth of a two-lane tunnel breaching the hillside, shielding them from the view of a dozen Biters ahead. A pileup of cars crowded against the gaping maw of the tunnel, like everyone had decided to try and push through at once. That wasn't all too unlikely, Zofia knew. She'd seen the roads before they'd been closed, had seen the rush of metal and people as everyone tried to get away, without knowing where away was. Anywhere but here, they'd likely thought.

It hadn't mattered. They'd not got far.

She wondered if some of them had come back to their cars once they'd turned, had tried to get their gnarly fingers into the door latches. Driven by familiarity maybe, or by being worried about getting a parking ticket.

Zofia clicked her teeth and took a hasty step back when one of the Biters ambled into her general direction.

"Woah—" Crane's voice crept down her spine and his hand latched against her side as she bumped into him, almost tripping herself over his feet in her hurried retreat. She snapped her arm down to bat the hand away.

"Sorry," he whispered.

She felt herself being guided back with a tug against her pack, and then she stood behind him and he'd pulled his crowbar free.

"We going through there?" He didn't turn around when he asked her, stayed facing the tunnel and the Biters that had taken an interest to them.

Tell him it's right through here. Then run. He'll be too busy playing fetch for Lena to bother with you.

"Yeah." Zofia threw a glance over her shoulder.

"Kay— let's go then. Come on." And just like that he fell into a slow jog towards the tunnel.

But…

Zofia clenched her jaw. "I hate tunnels," she breathed, with no one around to hear.

She followed him as he skirted around the cluster of Biters, putting the rows of cars between them and their dragging shuffle-step. Her hand went to pull her torch free from its loop on her pack, and she clicked it on the moment her feet crossed into the dark. Crane had a much better one than she did, one of the L-shaped spelunking torch, which he wore clipped to his belt. He'd lifted it free for now and held it above his head, the cone of light canvasing for movement amidst the wrecks.

He moved slowly and deliberately— though mostly he shuffled sideways, squeezing himself between the rows of cars backed all the way into the tunnel. In here, the vehicles had piled right into each other. The residual stretch of leaking oil, petrol, burnt rubber, and scorched metal permeated the air. At any other given time, Zofia would have likely choked on the nauseating mixture, but compared to the constant whiff of rotting meat it was almost pleasant.

The tunnel was short. By the time they reached the reason for the mass collision, Zofia could see light reflecting off the ceiling ahead. She frowned at the obstacle in front of them, a bulky bus lodged sideways into the tunnel, its centre of gravity all off and the wheels facing them lifted off the ground.

How? Just how did someone manage to do that? A bit too much GTA? Zofia felt her lips tickle, but the smile she'd have liked to try on died when she felt her left foot set down on something squishy. Her imagination promptly declared it to be leftover Biter snacks.

Crane stopped in front of her. He tapped the crowbar against his thigh absentmindedly, while his torch flicked across the dented exterior of their obstacle. The windows had been blown out. The doors looked warped. Eventually he nodded to himself and quickly climbed the bonnet of one of the first cars that had rammed the bus. Maybe that was how the bus had been lifted, an unrelenting tide of metal surging into it.

He shifted his weight a little, testing his footing on the bonnet. It crunched and groaned under his weight, and again Zofia's lips tickled. It'd be droll if the front caved in. She might even laugh. Then Crane looked at her, and the budding smile dove for cover again. He jerked his chin up, following the cone of light that cut to the roof of the bus.

"Up and over," he told her and extended the crowbar towards her. She frowned at the thing. "It won't bite," he added when she'd stood rooted to the spot longer than he deemed necessary, and the crowbar bobbed up and down.

Zofia grabbed it and he pulled her up alongside him.

"Okay, hold on." He snapped his light back onto his belt, grabbed the crowbar with both hands, and spread it out in front of him, presenting her with a one-rung-ladder of sorts.

Again Zofia frowned. I can manage, she wanted to say, feeling a little bit insulted by him expecting her to need help, but then he made some unidentified noise and gave a reassuring nod, and Zofia figured she might as well appease him a little. It might be a man thing. Chivalry or some such nonsense.

She placed her foot on the crowbar, grabbed onto his shoulder, and let him push her up. With a little bit too much vigor, it turned out. The momentum of the shove almost carried her too far and she landed clumsily, tipping over and coming to a halt with her backpack knocking against the sloped roof. Show off.

She stood, readjusted the straps on her shoulders, and took a moment to gauge the distance to the exit. It looked clear at least, with only a handful of vehicles stranded on this side of the wreckage. No Biters either, at least not from where she stood. As far as tunnels were concerned, this one was beginning to look okay. Maybe she'd been too harsh on them.

A faint tap of metal against metal drew her attention back to Crane. He was waving the crowbar at her and was making that noise again; Encouragement and impatience all wrapped in one grunt. Zofia grabbed the piece, pulled it up, and watched him hoist himself up after it.

He stood, looked up— and threw himself right at her.

She snapped up the crowbar, her mind drawing a blank on how to react to the man attacking her after he'd given her his weapon. Swing the thing? Kick him? Tackle? Back away? Bolt? What! He got her arm. Shoved. She was thrown from the roof, spun right off, and landed pack first on the tarmac. Her teeth clicked shut. Her skull bounced against the ground.

She hadn't seen it. Hadn't heard it. She'd even missed the slight tremor beneath her feet as the monster pulled itself through the roof hatch of the bus. Though now, lying sprawled on the ground, she saw it. It leapt at Crane. Its clawed hands reached for him, its jaws fell apart. An inhuman scream ripped from its lungs. Zofia's brain shut down. Her bladder pinched. Her breath hitched. Up there was death, and it was coming for her.

Zofia didn't need reason, didn't need to think clearly. Fight or flight was simple enough, hardwired into her as much as it was hardwired into the hare when the buzzard's shadow fell over it. She pushed herself around. Her feet came up, too slow and too clumsily, and she started half crawling, half scampering before they righted themselves. By the time she stopped staggering and raced towards the light around a single, impossibly long bend, she realised she'd dropped her torch. Not the crowbar though, she still clutched that one tight, and it was dragging her down as she ran, an unfamiliar weight that she couldn't shake because her stupid hand refused to open.

A van stood in her way. She threw herself around the bonnet. Right into the slouched figure of a Biter. Zofia barrelled into the thing. The collision knocked her off-course. She set her foot down wrong, lost her balance. The ground dove up at her, all dirty, grimy and deadly. The noise caught up next, the heavy, wet thuds of wide feet galloping after her, and those rattling breaths sucked into malformed lungs. Death.

It also gave the hectic "Shit-shit-shit" time to catch her, and then Crane grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her along with him. What was he thinking? She'd have fallen. She'd have tripped the Volatile on their heels. He was being stupid.

Volatiles were fast. So damn fast, Zofia waited for the moment its claws raked at her back and tore her spine out. She still expected it even when her eyes stung with light hitting them, and the air turned from cool and acrid to warm and damp. She kept running, too. Didn't want to stop, because maybe this one thing forgot it didn't like the light and was still hurtling after her. She would have kept going, would have run her lungs empty and her feet into the ground, but the hand on her elbow tightened and started steering her wherever it so pleased. Until it pulled her to a stop behind a shack and squeezed so hard she thought her bones cracked.

She slammed into wood. Something gave way in her pack, broke with a sad little pop, and then she figured she'd be next.

Crane tore the crowbar from her hand and crowded her against the shack. The world shrunk in around her, reduced itself to his strained breathing, the white knuckles around the weapon, and the unchecked anger locking his jaw.

"Were—" He jabbed the rounded end of the crowbar into her stomach "—you—" jab —trying to get us killed?"

The next jab hurt and bore itself into her gut, the cold metal alien against her skin. Zofia flattened herself against the shack, tried to relieve some of the pressure, but it only dug deeper.

Please…

She wheezed. "I didn't think there'd—"

"No, no you didn't. Of course you didn't think. Was that how you came up with your genius plan to poison the Antizin too?"

That's not fair…

"How was I supposed to know there was one of them in there?" Zofia grabbed the crowbar as it kept digging, wrapped her fingers around it and tried to push back. His response was him leaning forward— and any time now, Zofia thought, he'd run her right through. Blunt end or not.

Please stop…

"How were you supposed to know no one innocent would get those drugs!" He didn't raise his voice above anything but a harsh whisper, yet he might as well have been shouting at the top of his lungs the way it demanded her to listen.

"I didn't!"

Zofia would have liked to think she'd said that with some conviction, that she could make herself believe it and make him stop looking at her like she'd committed some terrible crime. Instead her voice cracked down the middle. She snapped her mouth closed, swallowed the thick disappointment lining her tongue, and raised her hands in submission.

He was right. She was wrong. Dead simple.

Crane pulled back, growled in frustration, and paced away from her. He made room for the adrenaline to leak from her system and for reason to come limping back in, with its tail between its legs. She focused on the ache in her stomach, curled her fingers around her shirt where the crowbar had pressed in, and stared at Crane as he seemed to have already forgotten she was even there. Miserable. Hurting. Scared. Fed up.

Zofia kept her eyes on him, watched him how he gripped the crowbar tightly, and how the cords of muscle running up the sides of his neck strained. So he wasn't doing all too well either. Was that supposed to make her feel something? She didn't know. She really didn't know anything right now, except that breathing hurt and he scared her.

"Okay— okay…" Crane came back around and lifted the crowbar at her.

Zofia flinched, expecting a bludgeoning, and got two gentle taps against her shoulder instead. They were accompanied by a look of professional curiosity.

"You hurt?" Gone was the anger, replaced by a smidgen of concern.

"What?"

"Are you hurt?" He glanced at her arms, then her legs, before hooking the crowbar into her pack's strap and pulling her around, making her face the shack.

"No, I'm fine," she lied, all things considered. The fall had started catching up with her, left her bones aching and her head throbbing. Right. The tumble off the bus. Remember that? Remember who pushed you?

She stared at the wooden planks in front of her.

He'd saved her life.

Somehow knowing that didn't help. It yanked whatever rickety footing her thoughts had found right out from under her again, and left her dangling by a thread. That shouldn't have happened. That didn't make sense. That wasn't how things worked. Not out here. Not for her. Zofia placed her hand on the crowbar still hooked into her pack and turned to face him.

She felt light headed. A bit out at sea, embarrassed by the budding guilt, by being scared, rather than thankful. By thinking of him like just another one of Rais's thugs, and treating him as such. By not having caught on to what he'd done back there earlier. That the "Thank you," she mumbled right now hadn't been the first thing out of her mouth.

His right brow twitched up. Zofia noticed the nick in it, a thin scar stopping short from his eye. She frowned. A switch flipped in the recess of her mind, rerouted her thoughts from whatever had mattered a moment before. They presented her with a blank slate where she'd previously stacked all her impressions on the tourist called Crane. She thought him rude. Because he broke into her place. Deceptively polite, for not robbing her. He didn't take a hint, ignored what she wanted, did it anyway. He was a bully. An idiot.

He didn't let her die. She knocked the old stack over. Start again. Reorganise. Rethink.

Zofia looked at him. Properly, without painting him in yellow.

He'd seen better days. Had broken his nose at least once, and collected trophies of sorts across the right half of his face. Scars. A map of them working their way upwards. The widest one cut into his scalp, kept hair from growing there, giving him a lopsided trim that likely made him look a bit silly if he'd been all cleaned up. Another scar crossed over the bridge of his nose, and the closer she looked the more marks she counted. She tried to think of them as ugly. They ought to have been detracting from his square jaw, the one she'd not paid any attention to before the latest disaster. She tried, but she couldn't. Even if she'd decided to hate him for reasons that seemed a little childish where she was standing right now. It seemed impolite now, regardless. You didn't hate someone who'd saved your life. Or who carried a scar across the top half of his lip, which drew your attention and made you wonder if it came with a story? Maybe she should ask, because it might be a good one….

Hell no.

Zofia pulled the handbreak on her thoughts, flicked her eyes away from his face, and landed them on a spot of oily dirt on his shoulder instead.

"For back there. If you hadn't pushed me I'd be dead."

The shoulder she'd taken to staring at shrugged.

"Force of habit," he said. "My life would be a whole lot easier without you nosing around."

Zofia jerked her head back up. She caught the trail end of a smile, a slight shake of his head, and just like that it was easy to loathe him again. A little, anyway.

"Relax. That was a joke."

Twat. "Your jokes are shit."

"Oh don't I know it," Crane gave the crowbar another tug. "Where to now?"

Zofia felt herself being towed towards him, a fish on a hook flopping out of the comforts of its water, leaving behind a current of emotions that had been dragging her no-where good. She yanked the crowbar off her.

"Could you not?"

His lips gave a rueful little twitch, but they'd been headed up, rather than down, like he found tickling her the wrong way funny. Arse. Colour crept up Zofia's neck. She skirted around him, jabbed a hand around the corner of the shed, and continued hating him with her back to him. With a little more conviction.

"Right there. Over the fence."

Gazi was dead.

Zofia found him lying on the couch in his living room, his head resting on a pile of pillows covered by a green checkered table cloth. When she'd first entered the room, she'd thought there were two people. Gazi (or at least someone she figured to be him) sprawled out on his side, and a tall figure with a blocky head cradling him in their lap. The figure, as it turned out, was made of pillows stitched together by the seams, and a bucket for a head with a wide smiling face painted on it in red. The words WORLD's BEST MOM were written over its chest. He'd even drawn a lopsided little heart into the last O — and then at some point he'd gone and died in her lap.

Zofia's heart squeezed. Today really wasn't letting up, was it?

She tugged her bandana down, bunched it around her nose and mouth, and stepped into the living room. The sickly sweet stench of death, and the buzzing of the old TV in front of the couch, made her head spin and made her want to throw up. Then the knock at the front door and Crane's "Hey! You all right in there?" had her want to hurl something heavy at his head.

That made no sense, of course. Are you all right, was a show of concern. It shouldn't upset her, shouldn't get her to thinking how it was unfair that she was still breathing and walking and talking, while that innocent man had died. To make matters worse, she wasn't only scanning the room for the meds Lena had asked for, but for anything else that looked even remotely useful.

"Zofia?"

She ignored that too, flicked the TV off, and walked around the couch one more time until she spotted the pile of meds on a table in an adjacent room.

Kyle pushed down on the handle again and leaned his shoulder into the door. What part of "Get in there and open the door," had she not understood? He stepped back, glared at the door. The thing was damn stubborn, with a lock he hadn't been able to pick. Though there had to be a hatch on the roof, Zofia had told him, and so he'd helped her up there and made it as clear as he fucking could that all she had to do was get the door open.

Instructions. They weren't that hard, were they?

There could be a Biter in there.

Kyle pushed his ear against the door and listened. Nada.

Shouldn't be an issue. She ought to be able to handle one of those.

Except he really didn't know, did he? Sure, she was quick. Damn light-footed too, and with a head that stayed on the swivel without pause. Except there wouldn't be anywhere for her to go in there, and he found himself faced with a vivid image of her having herself cornered and her throat torn up, her hatchet buried in her attacker's shoulder. Kyle groaned. If he got her killed out here Lena would have his balls.

He knocked his fist against the door again, this time with a little more emphasis than he'd been going for.

"Come on, open the damn door!"

CLICK, it went in response and Zofia slipped out, pulling it shut right behind her again. He got out of her way, because that felt like the right thing to do all things considered, and watched her drag her bandana down from her face and draw in a few greedy gulps of air.

"What took you so long?" What the hell, Crane? Tact. Jesus fuck, you're dense.

He winced when she shoved a bundle of cloth into his chest, the contents clattering happily. A quick glance verified that she'd brought him at least a dozen pill bottles. Overkill. But he wasn't going to complain, and neither would Lena.

"Gazi?"

She shook her head.

"Right. Then let's get you home."

That didn't seem to sit right with her. She shoved her hands into her pockets and stared at him— without actually letting her eyes meet his. Right now, he thought, she seemed awfully interested in his right ear, or the top of his shoulder. He caught himself wiping at it, wondering if he'd started carrying that chip out in the open. Or had gotten himself shat on by a bird.

"I'll be fine," she said. "I don't need you escorting me back."

"Yeah, I'm sure you don't." Kyle dropped his hand from his shoulder and made a show of looking around. He pulled his lips down in the most convincing frown he could manage and pointed into the general direction of the tunnel. "It's just that I have no idea where I am, and I am not going back through there."

"You're kidding, right?"

"What? Me?"

This time she did look at him. Her light grey eyes cut right up. They narrowed. Slightly. Was she itching for a fight there, fangs out and ready to go? It certainly looked that way. The muted glint in her eyes reminded him of earlier, back at the Tower when he'd insinuated that she worked for Rais. Not one of his proudest moments, Kyle had to admit, but what moment really was these days?

He tried on a smile. She scoffed.

"I promised Lena."

Mentioning the name worked a bit like pulling rank might have. Her spine straightened, her shoulders squared, and Kyle was half expecting her to snap off a salute. A little Sir-Yessir would have been a nice change of pace, but lacking that he made due with her begrudging little shrug. She spun away from him, pivoting on the balls of her feet, and started trekking the long way around.

The long way around was, as it turned out, just that. Long. A lot less eventful too, which Kyle could appreciate, but at the rate things were going he'd have maybe half a day of light left once this escort was wrapped up.

And then it's right back to pimping out your soul to Suleiman.

He flinched, caught himself looking up at Zofia scurrying up a concrete wall and balancing along it like a two-legged cat. He'd given up on trying to follow her step by step. Instead he stayed close enough not to lose sight of her, while she navigated them through the shanty town. Surefooted, never missing a beat, not pausing unless she had to wait for him or a Biter to pass, and absolutely confident in where she was headed and how she'd get there.

She must have spent weeks mapping out the Harran slums, memorised every bend, maybe used the linen or cardboard canvases with their pleas for help for landmarks. It certainly looked doable, navigating your way from one HELP to the next SURVIVORS INSIDE and then turning left by the NEED FOOD, not once stopping because all that was left in those shacks and shops was an unhappy ending.

A bit like her, that unhappy little thing with her stupid timing being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Seeing things she really shouldn't be seeing, too. God damn, what am I going to do with her?

He'd been raking his brain for ideas ever since they'd left the Tower, arranged them by bad to worst and downright horrible. At first, he'd considered doing nothing. Maybe pray, he hadn't done that for a long time. Pray she'd forget about it, maybe forgot she'd ever seen him at all. Extortion, maybe? I won't tell on you, if you won't tell on me? Then he'd toyed with a concept that involved adding more weight to his argument. At that point the crowbar had come into play, along with a side of anger over almost dying.

A terrible idea, in hindsight. Kyle could still feel that little something rattling around in his stomach, the one that had dislodged itself when he'd seen the terror in her eyes. The defeat had been worse though— that moment of bleak acceptance, as if she'd surrendered to death, and he'd been left with his conscience catching up with him.

"Fuck…" Kyle muttered. They were almost there. Only one more flight of stairs and it'd be time to make a choice.

"You do a lot of that?" She'd ditched the wall, walked right in front of him as they made their way up the steps. "Talking to yourself?"

Kyle frowned at the top of her head, bit down on a less than flattering retort, and settled for a drawn out "Uh-huh."

Zofia didn't seem to care much either way. She kept going, eventually leading him down a much more familiar path that ended them in front of the door to her hideout.

She froze the moment it came into view, and Kyle had to brace himself against the wall on his left or he would have bowled her over. The What? didn't make it out of his mouth.

There, in front of them, leaned her door. It had been ripped from its hinges and torn from the frame. Then someone had gone through all the trouble and propped it up against the wall. They'd also painted it.

With three swathes of dirty yellow.

Taffer Notes: Updated 12nd Mar 2017, Draft version 1.5