The Haven Hotel

Christmas

Her voice is dry and squeaky and weak but I know instantly where I've heard it before. I remember contemplating suicide after hearing her voice for the first time. The woman looks as desperate as I felt back then; her sweat drenched face glistens in the candle light and the long shadows cast by orange flames make her look like a piece of art; a medieval portrait of someone suffering in Hell. 

"It's an early Christmas present." Shady says. 

"Why do you think I would want this?" I haven't wished pain on anyone since getting back to the Haven; after everything I saw and did in the city it simply seems barbaric, and now my friend and my trainer are savages. I want to leave and throw up and go to sleep. 

"Not her." Copperface says. "It's what she knows that's important."

"Officer Monday, I'm sorry." The base officer is gasping in front of me as if saying that single sentence were equivalent to running a marathon. "I know what I did..."

"Save that for later." Shady pats the base officer on her shoulder like an aunt calming an exasperated child. I notice that Copperface isn't looking at her; instead he looks at me or at Shady or at the walls with their flickering shadows. 

Orange light reminds me of fire.

"What does she know?" I don't ask but the question falls from my mouth anyway. There's a girl being hunted in my home and I know this has something to do with it but no part of me wants to learn what the base officer knows. I can't think through this orange light so I have no control over whether or not I'll be told anything.

"They're here." The officer says.

"Be more specific, please." Shady is too calm. At least Copperface is nervous.

"I, I couldn't help you. I'm sorry. Those same people who tried to kill you are planning an attack on the Haven. On, on, on Christmas day they're gonna come for the girl and they're gonna kill everyone they have to until they find her."

"What?" 

"They're..."

"I know that they're here. I've seen one of them. How did they get here?" More questions are coming out of me and I have no power to stop them.

"No one stops people from coming into the Haven."

"Why not?"

"The Haven is not as powerful as you think it is." Shady says. "The reason it's so populated is because a lot of people find it and if we turned them away they'd call their friends and we'd be overrun in months."

"Then why don't we..."

"Kill them?" Shady smiles at me and looks like a ghoul. "Build a wall? Believe you me, they tried. It's not possible to take out every single person who finds this place and there's not enough workers in the world to fortify this place quickly enough. So we hide."

"I'm sorry." She's crying now and I don't know how to stop her.

"The Haven has to stay hidden." Shady doesn't notice the sobs.

"I was told to let you die."

"You had to die so that your attackers wouldn't find the Haven. Chief didn't want you to survive."

"Me?"

"It's policy." Copley breaks his silence. He's still staring at the orange wall and the darkness keeps stretching until it completely envelops him. "If there are too many people tracking a field officer then they get no back up."

"Then why did you..."

"We need the girl."

"Nadia?"

"What other girl would he be talking about?" Shady is still smiling and for a moment I think that this is a dream. This light and these faces can't be real. 

"Why do you want her?"

"It doesn't matter." Copley replies. "Neither of you would be alive if we didn't."

"It doesn't matter? And I'm supposed to be fine with that?"

"Your job is a small one, Forty." Shady places a heavy hand on my shoulder and I almost buckle. "All we want from you is to protect her."

"Why don't you just fetch them and leave me out of it?"

"We don't know who they are. We know one of them, the man with the gold teeth, but the rest of them fit in so well we can't tell them from real guests."

"What makes you think I know them?" It occurs to me that before the other night I had only ever seen one of their faces, and it probably looks different now. Judging from Yellow's reaction to seeing me, those people wouldn't recognize me either. 

"You know them better than we do." Copperface says.

"So you'll see them coming." Shady adds. "Stick with little Nadia, no matter what happens."

"Fine." I don't hesitate enough because I want to be away from here. It's not an agreement; it's resignation. "Whatever." 

The orange light makes me think of fire and dead people. I push past Copperface and out of the door. Neither he nor Shady says anything as I leave. The base officer reminds me of her presence with another apology when I enter the corridor. I hear a hard swish, meat being cut. There's a gurgle and then the thud of a body hitting hard floor. 

I had nothing to eat this morning but my stomach finds a way to throw something up. Bile pours out of my mouth and nose and tears drip from my eyes. I lock my knees straight to keep from falling over. I shrug a hand off my shoulder and keep moving. 

The night finds me on the floor of what used to be my room. It's darker than I remember. The furniture has been rearranged and now the bed blocks a significant portion of the window. Who would want to sleep right next to a window? The question answers itself because there's a boy sitting on the bed. He looks a bit older than Yusuf and a lot younger than me.

"Good morning."

"Huh." He's too happy. He's probably assumed that I stumbled here drunk and that I'm hungover now. He would not be entirely wrong; I have no idea how I got here and my brain feels swollen and my stomach is still turning in place. 

"You're Forty Monday, aren't you?" 

"No."

"Yes, you are." He giggles and I hate him. "I've seen you before. I thought you left. They gave me your room because you weren't gonna need it. Why are you..."

"I need food." I realize that I haven't eaten in at least twenty four hours and I've lost what little reserves of fluid I had by throwing up.

"Do they not feed you in Central?"

"What?" I look at his face and even in the dark I can tell that he thinks he's funny. "No. Shut up. I need to eat something."

"I can give you some of my rations if you pay for it."

"Pay with what?"

"Rations." His smiling teeth are almost glowing. I stumble upwards and open the door. "Wait, wait, no, I'm joking. I've got bread and some water." He points at the bed. "It's under here."

I drop to my knees and reach my greedy hand underneath what used to be my bed frame. The hand comes out dusty and holding on to a small silver box. I clamp it between my thighs, pry it open, and eat half of his bread.

"Woah, woah, I don't get more until next week!" He raises a hand but makes no move to stop me.

"What's your name?" I ask through a full mouth.

"Buhle." I nod as if I'll ever speak to him again.

"Have you ever been to Central?" He shakes his head. "They don't ration there. They just eat."

"But they ration here, though."

I close his food box and slide it back under the bed. I want to tell him that the lack of rations doesn't help but I realize that I've just eaten two days' worth of his food and he probably wants no advice from me right now. So without another word I leave.