Chapter Text
The neighbors are being loud again.
That couple, they’re always screaming about something. It keeps him up at night, but it’s not like he’s around much after hours. A heavy thud, accompanied by a slam of the door is audible from outside.
Blade turns the T.V. up louder.
It’s almost time for him to go. Looking out the window, pulling the shades down, he can see the faint neon lights escaping from a blacked-out car idling on the side of the road outside his apartment.
He shoulders on his jacket, buttoning up and untucking his tie. He stares at himself in the mirror, barely registering the sallow face staring back at him. He rubs his chin, feeling the sore memory of a palm striking his cheek.
He walks to the door, turning the cold knob and pulling it open. He’s done this part of the script for God knows how many days, so—
He blinks, looking down. Sprawled across the floor, almost like she’s trying to melt into the linoleum, is a teenage girl. Her face is covered in blood, and there’s scrapes and bruises on her arms and legs.
Her limbs are thin, her hair looks greasy and her face looks wan. She looks weak. Her clothes are wrinkled and he can’t tell if it’s blood or dirt speckling the collar of her shirt.
His eyes travel up to the door she’s apparently been thrown out of.
307.
The loud couple. He didn’t even know they had a girl.
“You okay?” he rasps awkwardly.
She’s unresponsive, almost like she doesn’t hear him at all. Her opal eyes stare dully at the wall, and he would have thought her dead if it weren't for the barely-perceptible rising and falling of her shoulders.
“...You wanna move out of the way?” He feels a little uncomfortable saying that so callously, but family matters are none of his business. He shouldn’t get involved. He doesn’t even know this kid.
But that, for some reason, gets her attention. Her gaze is empty, like she’s not even seeing him. Almost robotically, she shifts herself up onto her knees, where she scoots herself into the corner of the hallway. He sees her knees shaking, her hands limp.
He stands there for a second, watching her. She’s not moving anymore.
“I…” he trails off. He doesn’t know what to say. He shouldn’t even say anything, he thinks. He can’t offer her anything, hell, there aren’t even any band-aids he can give her in his own apartment. Band-aids don’t do shit for the kind of wounds he gets. “Fuck. Okay.” But he supposes he can give her shelter. Temporarily. Until she gets out of whatever mental stupor or whatever she’s in right now. “C’mon. You can stay in my apartment if you want.”
Again, it’s like she doesn’t even hear him. He considers just leaving, because his plants are more goddamn talkative than the girl, until she raises her head and blinks at him. “What—” she coughs, blood flecks staining her lip, “what do you want?”
“What do I want?” He looks at her incredulously.
“From me.” She shakes her head. “What do you want from me? In exchange.” Her voice is hoarse, and only now does he see the shadows of what he suspects are bruises around her neck. His stomach hasn’t stopped sinking since he first saw her on that floor.
“I don’t want anything from you . What could I—“ He stops himself. “Jesus. You thought I wanted…” he grimaces. “No. I don’t even…if it makes you feel any better, I don’t even like women. In that way.” This is getting worse and worse. The fuck is he doing, saying this? Why is he even here, offering her a place to stay?
But in his gut, he knows that those bruises on her skin, the hands that drew blood and threw her against the floor, belong to the sick people who likely raised her. He doesn’t know what kind of “raising” is going on if she’s crawling outside on the floor like this, and doesn’t want to know. He can only think of how he knows what this kind of rejection is like. He remembers begging strangers on the streets of Aurum Alley for food, coins, anything. Remembers cruel men pressing hot cigarette butts into his palms, drunken women’s nails snatching up whatever young flesh they could grope. Remembers screaming himself hoarse, don’t touch him, leave him alone! He knows the unspoken, unfair policy of exchange in this world, how no favor comes for free. It’s awful, knowing that she’s learned this so young. He learned it younger, but it still doesn’t fail to disgust him.
Before he can change his own mind, he swiftly walks around her, turning the knob and opening the door to his apartment. He roughly gestures inside. “If you want to stay, go ahead. I’m going to be out for a couple hours, so you’ll be alone here for a while. If you want to leave before I come back, feel free. I don’t care.” He hesitates, but opens the door wider, shaking his head. “There’s food in the fridge and T.V., too. Help yourself to anything.” He thinks of the closet, with the knives and the sniper rifle mounted on the wall. “Don’t go in the back closet.”
His phone buzzes. It’s probably Silver Wolf, complaining again. “I have to go. Lock the door.” He walks away, not looking at her or any reaction she makes, and as he shuffles down the stairs, he hears the gentle thud of his door shutting and the metallic click of the knob.
For some reason, he exhales, feeling a little weight lift off his chest. He frowns. He’s getting soft. Silver Wolf’s going to make fun of him if she finds out, he thinks. But it’s fine. She never has to know.
At least the girl’s relatively safe for now. He’s probably going to come back to his fridge looted and his apartment a mess, but if this girl knows what’s good for her, she better be miles away by then.