20;

Riley slowly opened her eyes and reached around to her back to relieve the stiffness built up from the night but found her hand stopped by an obstacle. As she felt the contour to try and discern what it was she let out a groan of frustration.

"God damn it, not again."

Ellie's shoulder had found a groove in Riley's back that it crammed itself in to. She jostled her out of her sleep to which she groaned in response.

"Get your shoulder out of my back."

Ellie groaned again and slid herself sideways, creating a gap between them.

The park's grass was spotted brown and green, large chunks dying away from the approaching winter. The sun was well into midday and people were freely roaming the sidewalks that encompassed the parks. The birds sung their songs in the trees that were spotted throughout and the day had continued on as normal as though their situation was trivial.

Riley leaned up and crawled her way out of the blanket and over to her backpack. She reached for it but stopped short and sighed realizing they finished off their food the night before. She turned back around and pulled the blanket off Ellie which caused her to try a weak attempt at snagging it back.

"You're an ass." Ellie grumbled and threw an arm over her eyes to block out the daylight.

"Whatever. We gotta get up." She threw the blanket into the pocket of her bag that was once occupied by the food, an unfortunate vacancy. She looked back down at the still unmoving girl on the other blanket. "Come on."

Ellie continued to ignore her which prompted Riley to start nudging her back and forth with her foot.

"Okay, okay, I'm getting up. God you're annoying."

Riley rolled her eyes and pushed her foot back against her and started rocking again.

"Alright! Sorry, geez."

"I'm gonna have to deal with an angry Ellie every morning aren't I?"

"Only if you keep disrupting my sleep."

"Oh come on, that's so not fair. I already have to deal with a shoulder or an ass in my back every night, now this?"

"You don't have to deal with it. You get to."

Riley laughed. "What? What does that even mean?"

Ellie swiped the air between them. "Leave me alone, I'm still sleepy." She rubbed her eyes and managed to lean herself up from the bed.

"'Bout time. Alright, so now that we're finally made it to this city, we only have one thing planned. Find this refuge. We didn't have much time yesterday, so hopefully we'll be luckier today."

"Just give me a minute to get something to eat."

"We're out. Last night, remember?"

Ellie moaned. "What do we do then?"

"Well, hate to tell ya, but I doubt we're eating right now. If we can find this place then we can spend the rest of our time getting food. I just don't want to waste time begging right now."

"It's not wasting time if it gets food in us."

"Ellie…"

"Yeah, I get it. So what, we just start walking again?"

"We'll walk around same as before, yeah. Ask people again also."

Ellie wiped the traces of sleep from her eyes and packed her bag with the remaining blanket still on the grass. They both again swapped out their jackets and headed out and away from the park. They walked past the trees and the grass which instantly converted into cement.

The traffic was mild compared to the day before since the time was past the early morning rush hour. The congestion of people seemed considerably less as well. They made a note of which streets they had already searched and so they began at the next one over.

Within an hour of unsuccessful walking they turned onto a sparse street where something caught Riley's attention. An older woman with gray hair and heavy clothes stood motionless in front of an electronics store window. The TV's behind it were blaring out a news program that was just loud enough to be heard through the glass.

"She certainly looks homeless. Might know something." Ellie grabbed her arm as she began walking toward the woman and shot her a glance of concern which Riley deflected. "It's fine."

As they approached the woman it became clear that she seemed to be in a daze and unaware of her surroundings. She spoke what she heard from the TVs, though lagged slightly behind.

"-we're going back to the streets tonight to the scene of an accident involving two cars and a motorcycle. As our latest aerial footage shows, the wreckage between the three is strewn about the intersection an-"

Riley kept moving and nodded off to the side towards the street. They walked around the woman and kept on with their patrol.

Ellie glanced at Riley with a look of confusion. "She seemed… off. Why'd you try her anyway?"

"Yeah, she was pretty gone. I imagine the best people to ask about a homeless shelter are the homeless. Makes sense to me anyway. Just... didn't quite work out with her."

The old woman and the other dozens of useless people they encountered were wearing on their optimism, but they knew they couldn't afford to stop trying. It wasn't much later until they reached a farther out street where Riley pointed towards a ragged looking man sitting on the sidewalk a couple hundred feet away.

"We can try again."

"After last time? Really?"

"They're not all like that. Worth a shot."

Ellie shrugged it off and let Riley lead them across the street and farther down until they crossed in front of the man. He was what Ellie expected a homeless person would look like: layered dirty clothes that were ragged at the ends, scruffy facial hair, and a general unpleasantness about him. He was sitting on a square of cardboard with a few of his belongings scattered on it including his collection cup. He had another cardboard cutout propped up with a poorly scribbled message on it, 'Anything will help. God bless.' She found it generic but didn't question its potential effectiveness.

The man sat with poor posture and robotically pleaded as people walked by, the girls included. "Can you spare any change?"

Ellie kept silent not wanting to associate with him and let Riley do all the talking. "We're actually in the same position you are."

He eyed them up and down. "If you can't help, keep moving. You're blocking the path."

"I wanted to ask you a question actually."

He grunted out of annoyance and tried and get the attention of the people that were walking around them.

"Come on, man. Just one question."

He closed his eyes, exhaled, and reopened them staring right at her. "Will it make you leave?" Riley nodded. "What is it?"

"We're looking for this place called a refuge. It's here in the city somewhere. It takes in homeless kids and helps them out."

"Never heard of it." He once again started looking at the people moving around her and trying to get their attention.

Riley slid sideways and blocked his view. "Well who can we ask then?"

"Look, kid, I don't know alright? Go to the damn soup kitchen, maybe they can help."

She was willing to take any leads. "Alright. Where's that?"

"Oh my god, kid. 7th and Kessler. Now leave me the hell alone."

She nodded and noted his advice. The girls continued on their walk down the street, not sure where exactly that intersection was.

The interaction with the man was pretty much how Ellie expected it to go. "He was a nasty old man."

"Nah, there's plenty worse. Besides, when you're his age and in his situation you tend to forgo pleasantries."

"Yeah, I guess."

They knew that they already had walked down 7th St. but had no idea which direction Kessler was in. They stopped and asked people on the street who were finally useful and pointed them in the right direction. It wasn't far, but was easy to miss.

The area around the intersection was noticeably more rundown than the streets and area around the park they slept in. Chain link fences topped with coiled barbed wire surrounded most businesses and the landscaping hadn't been tended to in some time, or with much care. Ellie spotted a small building tucked in between two thrift shops towards the southeast corner. It was a small discreet building with a small sign out front that read 'Soul Bowl'.

"Think that's it?"

"God I hope so. I'm sick of walking."

They crossed the street and pushed their way through the door which opened up to a small room filled with long white tables and a serving station not unlike what they were used to back at the orphanage. There were a couple of people standing behind the counter with hairnets, ladles in hand, serving people as they shuffled by with their bowls. The walls were painted a bright yellow with numerous pictures hung upon it. Most looked like homeless people that probably frequented here, the others of the staff.

"Holy shit it smells so good in here. We should get some."

Riley was hesitant. "I don't think they'll just give us food. Pretty sure you have to pay for it."

"Are you sure? I thought places like these always just served out free food."

Riley looked around and got the attention of one of the employees, perhaps volunteers, standing around talking to the people sitting at the tables. He walked over, all smiles.

"Hey, my friend and I have never… done this before. Is the food here free?"

"'Fraid not today. We do serve free food for one weekend a month, but that's not for a while." He saw the look of disappointment from Ellie. "But it's really cheap. Just a couple dollars for a bowl of soup and some noodles. You won't find food cheaper in the city."

"I have another question too."

He turned his attention back toward the girl with the dark skin. "What's that?"

"We're looking for a place called Bristol Refuge here in the city. Heard of it?"

"Hm, not me personally, but Cheryl runs the place and knows all about the services offered here in the city." He turned around and pointed toward a narrow hallway. "Take it down and to the right, you'll see her office in there."

"Thanks."

"Good luck."

They moved alongside the right side of the room and through the narrow gap between the serving line and the wall, bypassing the line of people. They walked down the hallway which progressively looked more like an office with each step. They peered into each room as they passed them and found a woman sitting behind a desk staring at her computer in one of later ones. Her room was stacked with unpacked boxes and sheet paper laying everywhere, the walls a less lively beige.

"Hi... one of your workers said we should come see you. Are you Cheryl?"

The woman picked her head up from the screen and slowly analyzed the girls standing in her doorway. "I am. And who are you two?"

"I'm Riley and this is Ellie."

"Nice to meet you girls. What can I do for you?"

"We're looking for this place called Bristol Refuge."

The woman paused long enough after the question to cause the girls to lose some hope. She reconnected with them after her eyebrows shot up. "Oh! Yes, right. The name confused me. It's called 'Safe Haven' now. I haven't heard that other name in a long time."

Both of the girls regained some of their wavered optimism. "Great! Do you know where we can find the place?"

"I do. One second." The woman swiveled in her chair and grabbed a small piece of stationary and a pencil from the edge of her desk. She scribbled on it for a good minute and passed it to Ellie who immediately scanned it over.

"The address is at the top and a sketch on how to get there below that. It's crude, but it should get you there just fine. Hopefully that helps."

"Absolutely. Thank you."

"No problem. Anything else I can do for you?"

"That's it. Thanks again, we really appreciate it."

"Be safe." The woman smiled back at her and returned her focus onto her computer.

Riley hustled out of the office and followed Ellie down the hallway, through the gap, and back out the main door. They stood at the street's edge for a moment to get their bearings.

"Well come on. Which way do we go?"

"Hold your horses, I'm figuring it out." Ellie held up the piece of paper in front of them and oriented it to the way they were facing. "It looks like we need to go down that street there for three blocks and to the left two more after that."

They followed Cheryl's directions and wound their way around the city as accurately as they could with a mostly featureless sketch of the area. They reached a building and compared the address on the paper to the number nailed to the wall.

"I guess this is it. Looks like it's one of those places you see on TV of those attorneys with the really stupid commercials."

"It can look like a dump for all I care, as long as it can help."

They were unsure of what to expect from a place that they've rested their entire hope on since the moment they left the orphanage. To them it was an all or nothing moment. They both breathed out their nerves, pulled on the glass door, and walked in.

The place was a single large room, larger than the soup kitchen as far as they could tell, and had several areas sectioned off for different purposes. One area had a couple of chairs and a table for whatever task, another had a TV and a couple of bean bags in front of it. It was similar to the great room of the orphanage, just scaled down. Kids of their age had already taken up possession of the sections and few others were roaming freely in and out of the building.

A dark-skinned man, likely in his mid-to-late 20s, was leaned over in front of a table near the back of the room and away from the foot traffic. He had medium-length black hair and wore a gray shirt and some black framed reading glasses. There was a bulletin board hanging on the wall in front of him that had pictures of at least a couple dozen kid's faces on it.

Riley glanced over at Ellie and then back at the man. "Hey, you work here?"

The man stopped what he was doing and turned to face the girls. An emotion of interest rolled across his face. "I haven't seen you two here before."

"We just got here yesterday."

"I see." He stood upright and walked over to them. "Considering the likely reason you're here, I can't say I'm thrilled to meet you." He stuck out his hand to the girls who both shook it with confusion. "My name is Henry. And yes, you can say I work here. I run the place."

This refuge is heavily inspired by the one run by Pastor Mike in season 3 from a tv show called "The Killing". If you haven't seen it I highly recommend it. It's about as depressing and unhappy a show can get, but it's so good.