A/N:
Ereshkigaal (n.): A self-proclaimed "author" of unbelievable laziness and possessing a supernatural ability
to procrastinate or otherwise excuse, wheedle or worm his way out of doing his fucking stories on time.
Sorries, folks, I'm back, for better or for... scratch that, only for worse.
Chapter short. Author lazy.
Chapter 19: Reprieve
This should have scared me, or at least felt wrong in some way. So lightheartedly forgetting about what had happened before, just to avoid thinking about it.
No. This was what I needed. To be strong. I'd figured out before that it was Aro's trap, so I had to fight, not think. The door slammed open as Jenna gave it a shove, and she stepped inside, wearing a giddy smile. "Melissa, stop being so whiny. Let's enjoy this. Come on!" I had to smile, even if it wasn't the time to. All this, where I'd shown everything I was, and still she believed my name was Melissa?
I followed suit, trying to get myself into the state of mind I'd been striving for all this time - fight, don't hesitate, just act. The lights in the lobby came on as we entered, but the sodium-yellow glare just seemed to make the shadows even darker. The room was roughly circular with a crescent-shaped counter at the back. The burgundy carpet stretched across all of the floor and even further into the darkened hallways to the left and right of the counter. Identical hallways extended to our left and right, the already faint silhouettes of the walls and doors vanishing in ink-black darkness some thirty feet down. The only signs of life were coming from a staircase between the two leftmost hallways, the lobby reverberating with the sounds of footsteps climbing upwards. A late-middle-aged woman stepped up the staircase, her greying hair tied in a loose ponytail.
"What are you two doing here? It's late, and the only ones here are me and the two others on the night shift." A slight note of suspicion rang in her voice, and even as Jenna began to talk, I shifted my right foot forward and crouched slightly, ready to strike in case she called the police or rang the alarm. "Sorry, but we were out late, and Melissa here slipped on a roadkill. She's really getting nauseous 'cause she's drenched in blood, and this place was the closest to get her to." Did Jenna really expect her to believe that? Then again, we were just two girls, nothing to suspect of anything. The woman squinted faintly and stared at us, seemingly trying to pick out some unseen clue from our appearance.
Finally, she smiled warmly, and her body language became more open, her arms going from crossed to by her sides, and she beckoned to the staircase. "Ahh, poor girl. Come down here and have a cup of tea. Me and my colleagues don't have anything better to do on this godforsaken shift after we did the paperwork for the night, so now it's just keeping watch. And you there - " she stared disapprovingly at Jenna, who was still wearing all black and quite heavy makeup - "you can keep your friend company down there." Her gaze continued the sentence with a stern "Just don't you start any trouble." We walked down the stairs, which gave a faint creak every time we took a step down, and came out into a cramped office.
The shelves covered every inch of the walls and were stuffed to the brim with folders, portfolios, documents and dilapidated books. Three desks were placed close to the shelves, themselves buried in the selfsame paperwork filling the shelves. A middle-aged woman with short brown hair was brewing coffee in a small kitchen at the far left of the room. "Anne, Jason, we've got guests", the woman leading us shouted. The woman brewing coffee - Anne - turned around, and a man in his late forties with grey streaks in his dark brown hair and a pair of oval glasses stepped out of an adjoining room. Anne's expression was at first shocked, and Jason's incredulous, but the woman leading us calmed them down. "I know she looks grisly, but she slipped on a roadkill and fell right into it. She's feeling sick, so her friend brought her here."
The suspicion visibly vanished from their faces, and Jason returned to his room, while Anne continued making coffee. "Should I fix you some tea, dear?", she half-shouted over the bubbling of the old coffee machine. "Yeah, thank you." The words came out of my mouth without a thought, even though I wasn't sure I could even eat or drink. "Have a seat. Ah, I haven't given my name." The grey-haired woman sat down in a beaten-up old chair and motioned for us to sit down in the couch opposite her. "I'm Marie. I'm sure you know I work here. Now, let's have a cup of tea and a quick talk. Nothing like a cuppa to calm a sick stomach."
I felt safe.
Yet I knew I wasn't.
I wouldn't ever be out of danger.