The Haven Hotel

The Hardest Part

We leave before sunrise. I'm tired and sore and stiff and light headed but I feel slightly better than I did when I woke up last night. Themba helps me put my arm in a sling made of a towel we found in one of the bathrooms. The towel smells like moths and mold but I prefer this over letting my arm flop around all day. 

Themba leaves the cans behind but stuffs two wine bottles into his bag. I consider taking some food, but my supplies are untouched and contain more than enough bread and dried meat to carry us to the Haven. I make sure each of our weapons is fully loaded and that all the ammunition is close by. Nadia sits at the table with a glass of water while we prepare ourselves. I try to avoid staring at her but the knowledge I gained last night won't let me. Inside that child there is more power than I've ever seen in one place but that doesn't make her seem any less delicate.

She stands and we exit the house. As soon as Themba opens the front door the frigid air plows through my system, nearly freezing the back of my throat and forcing me to close my eyes lest they freeze as well. I start shivering instantaneously and snap the hood over my head to keep my ears at least slightly warmer than the surrounding atmosphere, then I zip my coat as far up as possible to shield my mouth from the wind.

When my eyes open, Themba and Nadia are already at the wall, their silhouettes barely visible in the fading moonlight. I adjust my bag and my rifle and close the distance between us with a few long strides. Even in the dark I can see the soot and dried blood on Nadia's orange jacket, yet she pays as much attention to the stains as she pays to the cold; none at all. She had a heavy dose of antidepressants with that glass of water, and she's been having that same dose every morning and night for years now.

The concrete wall has a hole in it. The hole was caused by an oak tree that must have been standing tall in the garden for decades before it was finally bested by the elements. We climb onto the tree and walk out to the road. This house is on a hill, and from the hill we can see a chunk of the city where the sun is just beginning to rise and the blue black sky is starting to turn purple and then orange. My respect for Themba grows when it occurs to me that he dragged me up a hill. However, we're now further from the Haven than we were before.

"The city used to be full of lights when the sky was dark like this." Themba must be talking to Nadia; I'm clearly old enough to remember when the city was still alive. He's pointing at the Hillbrow tower, which is inching out of the shadows as the sun chases the night westward. 

"Like stars?" Nadia asks.

"Almost." I can hear the smile in Themba's voice. "Except they were brighter and all different colors. It was beautiful, though."

"Better than the stars?" 

"Of course. They were ten times more beautiful than the stars, and they'll be a hundred times more beautiful than that when we get them back up again."

"When will we get them back?" Nadia grabs on to Themba's hand and they start following me down another road where the view won't be as nice.

"Soon."

We walk for an hour and already I'm wishing that my conversation with the base officer had gone differently. I should have been prostrate from the beginning. She didn't have the right to speak to me like that, but she's not the one running low on blood and morale and being tracked like a deer. I should have told her that I can't walk; that seems to be the case right now as I can tell I'm slowing them down.

I adjust the bag again, feeling every fiber in my working shoulder creak as I do so. I haven't taken my coat off and looked in a mirror, but I know for a fact that every bit of skin from one side of my torso to the other is some shade of red or blue or purple. In spite of the improvised sling my arm still bounces and sends vibrations up my neck and down my back. That could be because I'm shivering so hard I would have chipped my teeth if I weren't clenching my jaw so hard.