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Chapter 11
As Liz reaches the elevator with her bags, pressing the button to take her down to the lobby floor, she realizes Red's right in everything that he said. She has put walls around her heart protectively, always afraid to trust anyone or let them in. But that's only because everyone she has tried to trust so far has only ended up letting her down in unforgivable ways. It's less likely to hurt if she keeps herself distanced off emotionally to someone.
Once the elevator finally reaches the floor, she waits for a second until the mechanical doors slide open, then she steps out into the lobby. She sees him standing there the instance she steps out onto the floor, her heart beginning to race. Oh, God. He has no real intentions of letting her leave, does he?
Dembe stands there, waiting, looming in all of his great six-foot-something height, automatically menacing due to his hulking presence. Her eyebrows furrow in confusion as he walks towards her, his blank expression revealing nothing. She tenses for the minute he lays a hand on her, only to her relief, he doesn't. He simply walks forward to meet her, with something draped around his left arm.
"I told him that I'm done," Liz mutters nervously, despising how frightened she sounds. "He said I could leave, but he's not really going to let me leave, is he?"
"Where are you going to go?" Dembe asks softly. The authenticity of the concern in his voice startles her.
She hesitates for a second, wondering if she ought to tell him the truth. What if he tells Red and he goes searching for her? What if, just like that man he shot tonight, he intends to come after her and kill her next?
"I don't know where I'll go," she answers as vaguely as possible. The idea of Red trying to track her down, to kill her... it frightens her. "But I'll find somewhere good enough for the night."
She's not even entirely sure where she will go herself. Her plans for the night go as far as finding a public toilet with good lighting so that firstly she can change into something far more warmer and comfortable for the night, like her old shoes and the track pants Red brought her. What she's going to do after that is a mystery, but she supposes she will try to find somewhere with adequate shelter to sleep under for the night. A park bench or a seat under the subway station.
"Raymond is a very good man," Dembe says passionately, and Liz realizes that maybe this is the entire reason he came down in the lobby to stall her from leaving. He wants to try talk her into changing her mind, into staying with Red at the hotel.
And damn it, if it weren't tempting...
Red's been so incredibly good to her, she allows herself to admit in her mind for a moment. She never knew a man like him was out there- one that actually would be so generous as to do all that he had for her, in giving her money, good food, clothes, and shelter for a few nights. It's so frightening yet nice to have someone show their hospitality and kindness towards her, treating her as if she was needed and important to someone, but... that was why she had to leave in the first place. Whether he had been aware of it or not, Red had already begun to chip away at the hardened walls she has constructed over herself the second he began all of this, in inviting her to stay with him. To stay would be too dangerous. She couldn't allow him to get any closer than he already had become. In the end, she knew she would only end up disappointing him in the long run with all of her inadequacies, all of her jaggedness.
"Oh, really? He's a good man?" she asks incredulously. "Did he pay you off to come and say that to me?"
"No, but he didn't have to. It is true."
"He just shot a man dead tonight and yet, despite that, you still consider him a good man?"
He unfurls the long cloth around his arm, shaking it out before holding it towards her, "Raymond said that if I could not convince you to come back inside to the hotel room, then I must give you his coat."
"His coat?" She regards him suspiciously, hesitant to take it from him. "Why does he want me to take his coat?"
"He says through hail, rain or shine, it will keep you warm."
"I don't want his coat, but you'll have to thank him for me for everything he's done," she declines with difficulty, peering at the coat, at how warm and thick the ash grey fabric looks. "He's really already given me enough."
"He wants you to take the coat," Dembe insists, unswayed. "It is meant to drizzle outside with rain tonight."
"I've got my old jacket and all the other clothes he's given me."
"Take it, please." The desperation in Dembe's tone shakes her, and after a seconds worth of hesitation, she gives in with a sigh, plopping both of her plastic bags on the floor to take the bulky coat from him.
"What does he want in return for this?" she asks apprehensively, waiting for the catch. There's always a catch to whatever good deeds someone does, and she knows that, she's not blind. "What does he want from me?" If anyone would know what Red truly wanted for her, she figures its him.
"He wants nothing else but for you to be warm."
She unfolds it, taking her time in dragging her arms through each sleeve. The coat is far too long and big on her, but that's what makes it even better. Already, she feels snug and warm, padded in the insulation of the wool.
"I was much the same as you," Dembe says, and when she lifts her gaze to stare at him with a raised brow in skepticism, he nods stoically. "Yes, it is true. I was a young man of fourteen when Raymond found me. My entire family was murdered, my mother, father, my... siblings. I was a slave until Raymond came along and saved my life."
"I'm sorry," she whispers, with not knowing what else to say. She couldn't even begin to imagine what he's been through.
"Raymond cared for me. He took me in when no one else would. He saved my life, gave me a good education. For that, I believe and know that Raymond is a very good, very gentle man."
Liz breathes in deeply with a small smile, the true reason for his confession sinking in with full effect. "Your trying to convince me to stay," she says breathlessly, confident on that. "Your trying to give me reasons."
"Raymond cares about you," Dembe says earnestly, and its enough for that defensive mechanism within her to slide slowly back into place, armoring around her like steel.
"Yeah, well. I don't need anyone to care about me," she says bitterly, reaching down to grab her bags. "Least of all him."
"I was much like you," he says again, lifting a hand to pat his shoulder, wiping an imaginary piece of lint off the fabric of his jacket. "I had such a chip on my shoulder also. You would do well to get rid of it."
"Tell him not to contact me ever again," she says firmly, ignoring his words. The ache in her heart is unfamiliar and foreign as she says the words. "I did what I had to do for him tonight. Tell him we're done, that... I don't want him to come searching for me." As she heads towards the door, she pauses to turn around to look at the man, a faint smile on her lips. "Oh, and don't forget to thank him for the coat for me too."
BLBL
Liz bends her head, checking that all the stalls in public toilet are empty and vacant before she heads into the one closest to the door, sliding the lock shut securely. She plops down the toilet seat, resting her bags on top it while she changes hastily. She slides into the baggy pair of grey track pants, then finds her old ratty shoes that she stuffed into the bag.
She has no idea what she's doing or where she is going to go. Maybe she should have just stayed with Red in his hotel room after all? Yes, he killed a man right before her very own eyes cold-bloodedly, but is he truly any threat to her, aside from in the obvious emotional way?
But she's too stubborn and returning back to the hotel room after she left is out of the equation. She's already done it, it's too late, and there could be no going back. Now she'll just have to try to deal with the consequences of her decision. At least he had given the coat, though. She slips back into it, taking her time in doing up all the buttons. It's definitely going to come in handy tonight, as far as the weather is concerned.
Liz spends the rest of her time wandering around aimlessly, trying to find somewhere decent to sleep. It isn't busy out on the streets tonight, and its more so lonely and deserted in a way that worries her. By the time she finds a place that seems safe enough in a park, it has already started drizzling lightly, the moisture hitting her cheeks making her tremble.
She lifts up the detachable hood on the coat Red had given her, covering the entire length of her head and shielding it from the light drops of rain. Then she puts one of her plastic bags filled with clothes on the bench she's found, using it as a makeshift pillow for the night. As she sits on the bench, pulling her legs up into her chest, she lays down sideways, her eyes and ears immediately alert in the cold darkness surrounding her in the park.
It's an uncomfortable sleeping position, and the bench makes her side ache when she leans into it, but it's better than nothing. It will have to do, and Red's coat really is helping in preventing the frigidity of the evening from getting to her. She crosses her arms inwards to her chest, tucking her hands into the dangling sleeves of the coat as she breathes in and out deeply, relaxing herself.
As she starts to feel herself drifting off, she clenches her eyes closed tight, drowning the harrowing noises of the night out.
When she wakes again, its to the strange sound of whispering voices around her. The drizzling rain has settled down, but when she goes to sit up abruptly in alarm, its amazing how stiff she is, as if she's been immersed in snow and the coldness has leeched all the warmth out of her bones. Her muscles seem to be clenched tight from the cold, her arm aching from the shoulder downwards due to the way she slept on it at a distorted angle.
The shadow of one of the people whispering near her jumps out of nowhere, catching her off-guard, and with one sudden leap, the person's managed to grab her plastic bag with all of her clothes inside it.
"Hey, that's mine," she gets out loudly, her voice scratchy and croaky from the cold temperature of the air. As she makes herself stand from the bench, trying to appear threatening, her knees complain and ache, her left leg so stiff and sore that running to catch the person is out of the question. "Give my shit back to me! It's mine!"
"Quick, get it," she hears a male's voice say in excitement, egging the other person on. "Get the other bag, too! It's under the bench, man! Hurry it up!"
Knowing their next motives, she goes to grab her other bag from where she tucked it safely hidden under the bench, but by then, it's already too late. The person grabs the bag and without thought, she latches on with her fingers, yanking it and poking a hole through the plastic. If he takes that bag too, she knows it's over for her. The clutch is inside it, with all the money. All the money Red gave her!
"Don't you dare," she cries out in a broken, desperate sob, struggling. "That shit's mine! Take the other bag and just go away!"
An elbow or another body part she isn't sure of whips out to smash across her face, clipping her in the jaw. The person doesn't bother holding back out of decency and Liz falls to the ground, taking the bag with her, just like that, a sack of worthless grain. She lets out a soft whimper, the hard ground beneath her winding her, but still, she can't let him have the bag. She won't.
With helpless determination, she pries the plastic bag apart with her fingers, tucking the clutch in between her thighs desperately as she covers her hands over her head, sensing the person's next attack.
She sees the shadow of the person move, pulling something back, and its then that their fist swings right into her stomach, her legs, everywhere they can possibly find. The pain is immediate and unrelenting, the only thing stopping Liz from getting head damage the way she's holding her arms over her head protectively. She screams loudly with all she's capable of, praying someone would hear her, that someone would think to help, to stop these two animals.
"Get it and let's go already," she hears the man say above her with labored breathing.
"No!" she shouts in panic, twisting her body around despite the pain when the person attempts to grab the clutch. "No, you can't take it! I need it, it's mine!"
"Just forget it, man! We got the bag, just leave her!"
A hand tightens in her hair, fingers yanking at the strands painfully, pulling her head back. Something wet and sticky rolls down her cheeks as she trembles violently, her eyes feeling crusted as she cries out in pain, but she's unsure if its just tears or if its blood from any serious injury to her face.
"You tell anyone about this, your dead," the man snarls into her ear roughly. "You understand, you stupid hobo?"
"Y-yes, I-I understand," she chokes out in terror, but he doesn't leave her alone. Not yet.
The last punch sent straight to her face feels like its done something terrible to her. White light blinds her vision as his fist connects with her and she hears someone scream loudly at the top of their lungs from meters away, not even realizing its her that's doing all the horrible screaming.
When she hears their footfalls as they run away pounding against the grass, she rolls onto her back and drags her knees to her chest in agony, shivering violently and heaving for air, the detachable hood strewn across her shoulder blades. It takes her a long and difficult ten minutes to process what has just happened so cruelly as she lays there, too frightened to move, too worried over the injuries they had caused her.
The only thing that stops Liz from losing her mind is the clutch when she fumbles around with wet fingers to find it, grasping it tightly in a weak, shaking embrace. They never got the clutch with the money in it, at least. Everything else- all the clothes Red brought her, the expensive dresses, everything- they're gone. They pinched them. But at least she has the money, and its the most important thing.
The money's most important.