Meztere (1.2)

With every step she took the gazes of passersby hung on her, driving her pulse and crawling over her exposed skin. The men hadn’t given her a coat, just the ragged, now rain-soaked, dress that clung to her thin knees as she walked. She shivered as she hurried up the cracked stone of the building’s stoop and heaved open the metal plated door.

Inside was dark and hot. Anastasia rubbed her hands over her arms, attempting to soothe her chill, jolting as the door closed with a thud behind her. White steam hung in the air by the rafters, obscuring the yellow florescent lights and trickling from the old steam pipes that criss-crossed the length of the unfinished ceiling.

The pipes rumbled and moaned above her, and Anastasia had to fight to keep her gaze from flitting cautiously to them as she surveyed the rusting metal numbers on each door lining the hall. At the end of the corridor stood a rickety spiral staircase constructed of scraps of old meal, and just before it a door with the numbers 0, 2, and 8 stuck to it.

Anastasia hesitated. She stared at the crooked numbers, the white envelope in her hand now soggy and crumpled. She struggled to remember what she had been told only minutes ago, what she was doing here, where she was. Her thoughts were heavy, the vague rumbling of something swirled within the blank slate of her mind and grew unreadable.

She stepped back, her chest tightening. She couldn’t breathe. Her head was spinning. My name is Anastasia Grey, she insisted to herself, though a moment passed and she considered, I don’t know if that’s true.

She looked to the envelope in her hand, at the 028 scribbled in bleeding ink below three words: attn Christopher Dawson. She didn’t know where she was, or who she was, but she knew despite the panic gripping her chest that this was her only choice. It would be Christopher Dawson, or it would be death.

“My name is Anastasia Grey,” she repeated aloud and, grasping tightly the only thing she had, strode forward and knocked on the door with all the force she could muster.

A moment, and several loud thuds, later the door swung open and a young woman in a baggy gray sweatshirt and bare, thin legs stood there in the doorway. The narrow hallway behind her was dark but for a rectangle of light glowing from the room at the end.

“Oh, hello,” the woman said, her dark eyes wide as she ran a hand through her short disheveled hair and tightened the black lace ribbon that held a silver sequined mask to her face.

“My name is Anastasia Gray,” she blurted, her fingers curling around the envelope and crushing it in her hands. She opened her hands to speak again only to fall short. She didn’t know what else to say.

The woman raised an eyebrow, a smirk dancing across her lips. “Oh, you must be one of James’ girls,” she said. She turned back, craning her neck to look back down the hallway and added to herself, though not quite quietly enough, “he does like the dumb ones.”

She turned back to Anastasia with pity in her eyes. “Listen, sweetie, you seem like a nice girl. You don’t need to get mixed up with a guy like James.” She rested a hand on Anastasia’s wet shoulder, pushing her back slightly. “Whatever he told you, honey, I’m sure he lied. I’m sorry, but you’re better off without him.” She gave a sympathetic – if somewhat false – smile. “If you leave now, I won’t even tell him you were here.”

Anastasia could only stare back at her, stranded in her own emptiness.

The woman rolled her eyes, tired already of her compassion act. “Whatever, if you’re that set on him…” She turned back, hanging with one hand wrapped around the doorknob and the other planted on her hip. “Hey James, you’ve got a visitor,” she shouted. She glanced back at Anastasia once more before adding, “one of your girls.”

Not a minute later he came through the darkness in the hallway to stand in the doorway beside the woman. Even behind the fiery red mask that obscured much of his features, Anastasia could see he was attractive, and he knew it. It was the way he leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his bare, tanned muscular chest, and looked Anastasia up and down. He ran a hand through his short dark hair and grinned a charming, straight white smile. “Well, I don’t know her,” he said. “But I’d like to,” he added with a wink.

The woman rolled her eyes. “Don’t be an ass, James.”

“What?” He held his palms up in defense. “I swear I’ve never seen her before in my life.” He glanced to Anastasia again, his smile pulling crookedly at the edge of his mouth. “I wouldn’t forget such a pretty face.”

The woman eyed him, skeptical. “Come on, James. You obviously slept with her and you’re trying to get out of…something,” she said, planting both hands on her hips and pursing her lips as if intending to scold him more.

“Oh you make me sound like such a criminal, May,” he said. “And you’re being rude.” He placed a hand lightly on Anastasia’s arm, guiding her toward the doorway. “You haven’t even asked our visitor her name.” He slid his arm over her shoulders and paused there in the doorway with her stuck between the two of them, their attention square on her. “So who may you be, sweetheart?”

Anastasia stared straight forward, eyes wide, her head and heart pounding. Something snapped to the front of her mind, and she blurted the only words she could recall, “My name is Anastasia Grey. I’m twenty years old, and I’m from the North End of District Three.” She took a deep breath, eyes closed, and tried to calm her shaking through welling tears.

James raised an eyebrow, visibly holding back a laugh.

May didn’t hold back. “What a mouthful,” she said, chuckling. “Sure she’s not one of yours?”

Anastasia turned and thrust the ruined envelope against James’ bare chest. “Christopher Dawson,” she said hoping to sound in control, but it came out in barely more than a squeak.

“Chris?” James asked, taking the envelope and turning it over to see the name scrawled over the front. “Well that’s a new one.”

May snatched the envelope from his hand and tore it open. “You say you’re from the North End?” she asked, her demeanor suddenly very serious.

“Y-Yes,” she said, sniffling, though at the same time incredibly unsure of herself.

May yanked a single sheet of paper from the envelope and began pouring over it. “Hey Chris,” she shouted, not tearing her gaze from the letter. “You ought to come out here for a minute.

Another young man stalked down the hallway, his shoulders perking up when he saw Anastasia standing between his friends in the doorway. He stopped just in front of her, his stare strong and serious through his leather-coated mask, fringed at the top by his feathery brown hair. He tilted his head to examine her, and Anastasia could see two slits in the shape of an X cut into the edge of his mask, just behind his right eye, and a deep shining green showing through the slits.

Unlike the others, Chris was fully dressed and worked at cuffing one of his sleeves at his elbow to match the other. “Yeah?” he asked, glancing to the letter in May’s hands.

“You’ve got a visitor,” May said, her gaze lifting from the letter at last.

“And mail,” James said. He took the page from May’s hands and handed it over to Chris.

He cast an odd look at Anastasia as he took it. His studied the letter for only a moment before ripping it into pieces. Each tear cut through Anastasia like a knife, and she could feel herself deflating as he let each piece fall to the floor. “No, I’m sorry,” he said. He stepped forward, edging Anastasia out of the doorway, and reached for the doorknob. “You have the wrong person.”

Anastasia stood frozen, eyes wide as the door swung toward her. On impulse, she threw a hand out to stop it, grasping the cool metal edge just before it latched. “Please,” she begged, her pulse frantic. “They said—they told me you would say that,” she cried. “I can’t—they told me not to leave.”

The door didn’t budge and she fell to her knees, hands gripping the edge of the door. “Please,” she said, tears blurring her vision. “Please, they’ll…they’ll kill me.”

The door opened slowly, though only May stood there now. She gave Anastasia a kind, sincere smile and knelt to gather the pieces of paper from the floor. “Come on.” She took Anastasia by the elbows and lifted her to her feet. The metal-plated door banged closed behind them once May led Anastasia inside, and she jolted. May laughed and wrapped an arm around her waist. “You’re just a caged little bird, huh? All fluttering around and nervous.”

Her eyes adjusted as May led her toward the lit room at the end of the narrow hallway, passing on the way a small room dimly lit by fuzzy white light emanating from a strange television screen in a box on a table. A man’s familiar face filled the entire screen; he spoke, but the sound was too low for her to make out any of the words above the crackling the old television emitted. Anastasia glimpsed two shapes entangled on a cough at one end of the room; they were speaking quietly, though fervently, with each other.