The short walk back to my apartment had been a much more challenging feat than my walk from it. Jason, clutching my jacketed shoulder with his large calloused hand spotted with dry blood, drudged steadily beside me, asking for a short breather from time to time. To my distaste, more stares were directed towards us, people disapprovingly noting Jason's tight fabric suit, the blood on his face and body.
Soon enough, though, we finally escaped the watchful eyes of strangers, and exited the clean morning air into the stuffy apartment complex. We trudged slowly up the aged stairwell, until we finally reached my apartment three floors up.
I made quick work of the lock, and we were inside.
"Whelp,"
I say awkwardly, as Jason finally lets go of me, and independently walks into my living room, taking in his surroundings, with a peculiar sort of curiosity, his brown eyes surveying the rickety brown couch that needed replaced, and the old Vizio flat screen that was on its last limb.
"This is the place. Definitely looks like a college student lives here, right?
I finished, with a chuckle.
He looks towards my small kitchen, and the hallway to my one bedroom and bathroom.
Finally he says,
"It's great. Seriously. You got a first aid kit?"
I nod, and gesture towards my bathroom.
"All you need is in there, in one of the top shelves on the sink."
He nodded with gratitude, and slowly made his way to the bathroom, eventually closing himself in under the aged yellow light.
As soon as the man was gone, I checked my phone, and unsurprisingly, I had received numerous missed calls from Andrew.
Reassuring myself that with the amount of wounds on his body, he could easily spend a half-hour to an hour in there, I call Andrew back. He answers on the third ring.
"What the hell is going on?"
I hear him exclaim. In his audio, I hear the sound of traffic. He had left the cafe.
I brush a hand through my wickery brown hair, anxious.
"I uh-"
I began.
"Andrew, the man needed a place to stay, he got in a motorcycle wreck and his family is gone for the time being."
I hear Andrew groan in frustration.
"You let a stranger into your house? Did you see how big that guy is? What if he kills you in your sleep, robs you, and goes on his merry way?"
I had had that exact thought. I sit on the shaky couch, contemplating. From the bathroom, I hear the shower begin to run. An instinctive thought came into my head:
None of my clothes will fit him, and he definitely won't want to put that suit back on.
Finally, I respond to Andrew, who had been patiently waiting.
"Andrew, you didn't see the look in that man's eyes. Something really has happened that has shaken him. I don't know- but he looks..."
I couldn't muster the correct way to describe the look of loss and pain I had seen in his brown eyes.
Finally I continue.
"That pain in his face... It had to be real, Andrew. You'd have to be a damn good actor."
Andrew sighed. He knew me and my habits. This was a subject where he could not change my mind.
"Oh God, Alex-"
He mutters, barely audibly.
"I hope you know what you're doing."
To that I didn't respond.
I got up from my perch on my couch, and snatched my car keys from the kitchen counter.
"I gotta get the guy some clothes."
And I hang up.
. . .
My body was working overtime to quickly heal my cuts, bruises, sprained leg, and concussion that still pulsed painfully in my head. My heart rate thrummed as my Therian healing abilities wracked up and down my body, my blood feeling painfully solid, making it a struggle to move normally.
After an hour of showering, and treating my wounds in the bathroom, I had opened the door to find a Walmart sack laying on the floor, its contents at least four days worth of generic, large sized clothing.
Alex said he had class, and would have to leave until the late afternoon- muttering something about finals- and although clearly reluctant of leaving a stranger in his home, he grabbed his school bag and was gone, leaving the apartment to myself.
I had no intent of staying.
I set out into the crisp morning, limping, content of reaching another phone, trying to not feel the grief press hot into my face, the screams of my sister in the back of my mind, and the bloodied bodies of my people shaping each shadow I passed.
Across the street was a small antique store, the scrawled letters on its block sign hardly comprehensible from age. I enter with a quiet chime of bells.
The woman behind the counter surrounded with small pieces of china, clearly in her sixties, regarded the large man with the bandages on his arm and hands silently, peering over small spectacles.
"Phone?"
I ask simply, with what I hoped was an innocent and warm smile.
