6;

Riley threw her small piece of luggage onto her bed and unzipped it. She stashed her clothes and a couple items into the locker and shut it, the metal hinges grinding harshly against its joints as it swung. She threw the now empty bag under the bed and looked back up at the upper bunk before turning around toward Ellie. She was about to ask her where she was sleeping before Ellie beat her to it.

"You're sharing a bed with one of my friends, Sam. This is actually his bunk. I'm sure you two will meet later, but for now you really should get some rest if you want. Moving into an orphanage can be exhausting."

"I'm fine. I slept on the ride over here."

"Alright... well if you need anything, let me know." She began walking away back toward her bed before spinning back around. "Hey, actually, you're new here. Obviously. Did you want, like, a tour or anything?"

"I guess." She saw the hesitation in Ellie's demeanor and realized her own off-putting response. "Sorry. It's been a shitty day. A tour would be good."

"Don't worry about it." Ellie quickly glanced around. "Well, we can just start here. This is the bedroom obviously. Lights out is at 10:30, meaning everyone needs to be in bed by then. It can get a bit noisy in here at night, so I hope you're not a light sleeper."

"Shouldn't be a problem."

"I'm gonna introduce you to a couple of people too, if that's alright."

"Sure."

Ellie led them back through the left lane of beds toward the front of the room. She stopped and stood next to a bed up against one of the windows and shook the figure beneath the sheets.

"Come on. Wake up."

A few grunts of frustration were followed by the gradual movement of the sheets being pulled off of a boy's head.

"I'm trying to rest, what do you-" His eyes focused in on the person who tore him from his sleep. "Ellie? What do you want? Let me sleep."

"I'm showing the new girl around."

"New girl?" His eyes slightly shifted to the right. "Oh."

"You're our first stop."

He leaned up and squinted his eyes against the light coming from the window. "Great."

"Riley, this is Tino. Tino, Riley."

"Yo."

"Yeah… hi." He looked back at Ellie with an expectant look.

"Fine, go back to sleep."

He immediately obliged and pulled the covers back up over his head.

Riley followed Ellie back out of the bedroom who stopped just outside the door and turned back to her.

"Sorry about Tino. He's usually cool."

"It's fine. I'd probably act the same after being woken up."

"True. Anyway, from here you can pretty much see everything in the building except for a couple things. Obviously the bedroom is there." She turned around and motioned toward the office next to the front door. "That's the office, Edgar pretty much lives in there. No one really goes in there but him, not unless someone has a problem."

She pointed in the opposite direction of the office, down the hallway from the office and a little to the left. "Officially known as the entertainment area there. It's got a TV and some board games, magazines too if you're into that. Not much else. We just refer to it as the great room."

"Pretty much what my other place had, minus the TV."

"Other place?"

"The orphanage I was transferred from."

"Oh, I thought you were new to… this whole thing."

She shrugged her shoulders. "Nope. Veteran I guess."

"Better than being a new one. Why'd they transfer you?"

Riley bit the corner of her lip out of frustration. "Because they're all assholes over there. I got in a flight with some fat kid who was mocking me."

She managed a smile out of Ellie, though it seemed empty. "Sounds like they deserved it. But don't start something like that here or Edgar will be all over you. He's old school and has little tolerance for anything other than complete manners. Unrealistic, but whatever."

"I figured as much. I only talked to him for a minute before he jumped on me for cussing."

"He's disciplined for less. But really he's a nice guy, just strict." She spun in place again and pointed towards a small hallway to the right of the entrance just passed the office door. "Anyway, down there and through the door on the left is the kitchen, but we'll head there in a minute. I'm gonna introduce you to my other friend first."

They headed left and into the great room where a TV rested on a worn looking piece of wooden furniture that was pressed against the wall. A couple of chairs and a couch were positioned in front of it in an arc. A table with a stack of worn board game boxes was just a few feet away against the corner wall and underneath a window.

They moved around to the side of one of the chairs where the top of a head was visible as they approached. The boy in its seat pulled his attention away from the TV when the two girls appeared next to him.

"Hey, Ellie." His eyes focused in on the other standing next to her. "Who's this?"

"Riley." She looked back over at her. "This is Sam. We've been friends for a quite a while here."

"Hi Riley. How long have you been an orphan?"

"What the hell, Sam?"

Riley cut in without a pause. "It's fine. I've been an orphan since I was 6, I think. I'm 15 now, so more than half my life I guess."

"Cool, pretty much the same as me. I guess we're sort of soul mates then, huh?"

"I don't think so."

"Why are you moving in now? Something happen to you like it did Ellie?"

Riley looked over at Ellie in confusion who had already shut her eyes and pressed a few fingers against her temple. "I don't know about her, but I was relocated from another orphanage."

"Oh. Well, Ellie's back because-"

"I really don't care."

He seemed startled from the interruption but gave in without much pause and let his head fall back against the chair. "Alright, I'm gonna finish watching my show then."

Riley led the two of them away this time and back toward the hallway near the kitchen door. She let Ellie gather herself with a few breaths.

"Sorry about Sam too." She shook her head. "He's just… different."

"Don't worry about it, really. What about you? You alright?"

"Just a bit of a sore spot. But he and Tino are my only two friends in here, so I just sort of put up with their shit."

Riley tried to break the sudden awkwardness. "Yeah, well… I see the real reason."

"And what's that?"

"Two guys as friends. Just sayin' I see how you like your company."

"What? No, it's not like that. They're just guys who happen to be friends. I mean friends who happen to be guys." Riley smirked while Ellie grunted and gathered herself. "I've always just been more comfortable around guys. Girls can be, I don't know, bitchy. Even here."

She continued walking again down the hallway and up to the kitchen door. "You're cool so far though, just don't be like that and we'll be good."

"No worries there."

"Good."

She gazed at Riley for a second before pushing open the door next to her and walking in. She led her towards one of the two stoves where a large black woman was standing with her back toward them. She donned a white spotted apron around her chest, a ladle in her right hand, and a towel in her left. She was in the process of holding the lid of a steaming pot while stirring whatever was inside of it.

"Smells good. What is it?"

The large woman spun around, startled out of her concentrated state.

"Oh, you scared me! You can't be doing that when I'm holding things." She put the lid back on the pot and the ladle down on to the counter. "And you know it does. It's a kind of vegetable medley soup with a bit of a spicy kick to give it some character."

"Cool." Riley couldn't help but notice that Ellie was a rather bland speaker. She spoke directly and with little emotion. "I just wanted to bring Riley here. She's new and I'm just showing her around. This is Evette by the way."

"Well hi there darlin'." She looked the girl up and down then focused in on the top of Riley's head. "That's some interesting hair you have there, child. Don't think I've ever seen that before."

Riley instinctively reached her hand up and felt the side of her head that was little more than fuzz. "I've seen it in magazines and thought I'd give it a try." She let her hand fall to her side. "I like it. For now at least."

Evette's facial expression gave away her differing opinion, but didn't comment further on it. "Well okay." She shifted away from the issue. "Anyway, I'm not sure if you've been told yet, but we serve out our meals a few times a day at eight, one, and six o'clock. Make sure you don't miss those or you'll be out of luck until the next one rolls around."

"I don't miss free food. Are you the only one who makes it for the entire house? Lot of kids here."

"Nah, it's not so bad. I have another one around here somewhere that helps with the preparation and the like." She smiled but her expression changed to something like realization. "It was nice to meet you, Riley, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to kick you out. I need to get everything ready for tonight."

"Alright."

"See ya, Evette."

They headed back out of the kitchen and into the small hallway, letting the woman go back to her preparation.

Riley smiled once they were alone again. "I like her. She's like the stereotypical sassy black lady."

"She really is. She makes good food too."

"Well at least that's something I can look forward to every day."

"Yeah." Ellie looked off to her left and nodded her head. "Final place to check out, the basement. It's not much, but the tour wouldn't be quite complete without it."

Riley followed her gaze to a door about five feet away. "Well, I'm glad I'm getting my money's worth."

Ellie rolled her eyes and opened the door which led to, as far as Riley could tell, a wooden staircase that descended down into a black abyss. She leaned inside and flipped a switch which caused the darkness below to be replaced by a slight glow.

"Watch your step, stairs are old."

Ellie held onto the handrails as she made her way down, the stairs creaking with every step. Riley followed close behind counting eight steps by the time her foot touched the concrete floor. She scanned the dimly lit basement, taking in the naturally unsettling sight of it.

It was an old unfinished basement with a cracked grey concrete floor. Light bulbs were hung directly from their cords, not unlike the ones in the bedroom, and were unable to illuminate even some of the far corners, leaving the shadows a safe haven. The walls were a lighter gray with the lower half being a darker brown with a rust-like appearance.

Wiring was stretched along the ceiling in a maze like pattern that was all held up by a series of piping leading to every corner of the building.

The floor itself spanned out about thirty feet with two rows of dark red square brick columns laid out evenly along its length. Several windows were scattered along the wall closest to the staircase, the bottom of each at about knee height to the girls.

There were a couple of large wheeled dumpsters located near the center in between two of the pillars, each a dark green and filled with dusty construction debris and various scrap. In between other support columns were a variety of old rusted metal chairs, mostly stacked on each other with a few fallen away from their group.

In the back right corner of the room, just a few large strides from the bottom step of the stairs, was a separate walled off storage container with a metal door and a pull-hatch as its handle. Its walls were made of a white plastic looking material which clearly hasn't been cleaned in some time.

"Well here's the basement, told you it's not much. It's just a big, mostly empty, storage area for the building. It's rare anyone comes down here with the exception of the kitchen staff." Ellie pointed over to the white container in the corner. "That's the storage for the food. It's like a… actually I'll just show you."

She pulled the latch outwards and swung the door open, releasing a wall of slightly chiller air from within. She flipped another switch on the inside which lit a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

The cooler was small, no larger than a jail cell, but was layered to the ceiling with metal shelving, each stacked with various food items. On average it contained a week's worth of food including raw meat and canned food, even the dry goods had their own dedicated section.

"We're not really supposed to be in here. And if Edgar found out, he'd have a fit. But he's never down here. And Evette doesn't care as long as we don't take anything."

"Good to know." Riley blatantly picked up a small sleeve of crackers and stashed them in her pocket and continued to casually look around.

Ellie's eyes widened as she threw out her hands. "What the hell?"

"I'm kidding, lighten up." She chuckled as she threw the sleeve back up on the shelf.

"You're going to be a pain in the ass aren't you?"

Riley smirked at Ellie as she walked passed her and out of the cooler. She looked around again before turning back to the girl she left in frustration. "So why is this basement so messed up?"

"What do you mean?"

"For starters, it looks like the entire room flooded or something. The walls are all stained."

"Oh yeah, guess so. They weren't like this before."

Riley looked back at her in confusion. "Before?"

"Yeah, I…" She took an obviously uncomfortable deep breath.

"Sorry. Shouldn't have asked."

"Not your fault. Still working through some stuff."

"Have to do with what Sam said earlier?"

She slowly nodded her head. "…yeah."

"Forget it then."

They observed each other in silence for a few seconds until Ellie broke it off with a slight head shake.

"Let's go. I don't like it down here."

Ellie flipped the light off in the cooler, shut the door, and latched the handle. They both walked up the wooden stairs which, again, did nothing to conceal their position. Ellie turned around and flipped off the basement lights, allowing the darkness take control again, and closed the door. They ended up back in the great room where Sam was still in his chair watching TV. They stopped where the entry hallway broke off into the rest of the building.

Ellie reached over and scratched the side of her arm. "Hey, so… every couple of days I go and hang out in town for a while. It helps clear my head. I usually go alone, but if you wanted to come, that'd be okay."

"Yeah, sure. It'd be a good distraction from everything."

"Cool. We can leave tomorrow morning after breakfast."

"Alright. But for now, I think you were right. I need to crash for a bit." She looked over at the back of Sam's head. "Hey Sam, you sleeping on top or the bottom?"

He tiled his head back and yelled out at the ceiling. "Bottom!"

She shrugged and turned back to Ellie. "Guess I'm on top. Thanks for the tour by the way."

"No problem."

Ellie's usual personality is still rebuilding after the events in chapter 4. She needs time!