In Need of Assistance? (TF2)

Sixty-One: But Some Weren't Expecting it to Come From a Wasp's Nest

  [A/N: WARNING: MENTIONS OF ABUSE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT. SKIP THIS CHAPTER IF NEEDED. TO SUMMARIZE THIS CHAPTER'S EVENTS: Accomplice finds out the abuse is still going on to this day with a distant relative of the Administrator named Uriel and his friends. She visits her brother, Sandro's, grave with Miss Pauling and lets her know that she's not fucking around and that she should take a hike. Accomplice kills her former abuser with Neuro, and the two briefly touch on the effects it's had on Accomplice's life for the past 17 years and she's never mentioned it to another soul for that long. Neuro reassures that she's her friend and that people care about her rather than what's happened to her.}

      BLUs.

They're crawling everywhere.

I really lived like this, didn't I? Didn't we?

We've lived in a BLU world this entire time and we didn't even know it. Bookies, Beckett, and Porter.

Fuckin' Porter.

Adonebi and I stand across the street from the rec center. The fucking rec center. I never came here, but Adonebi did. Adonebi went to the rec center. It's noonish now, and we said we'd meet up for lunch later as Salvador and Neuro stay at the house to get her situated for the night before we meet up later. The sun came out, drying up a lot of the rain but still keeping the temperature down. I secure my purse on my arm. "We should head over."

"We should."

He stays planted. I grab Adonebi's hand and lead us across the street. It's a barrier, a threshold of sorts, that divides the two of us. Uppities and Bookies. I'm a teenager all over again. I never got this close to the edge until now, and it feels so surreal to be entering a place that's so familiar but so foreign at the same time. We go up to the glass double doors upfront. Flyers are taped into the windows for sports try-outs and community events. Christmas-themed Arts and Crafts happen tomorrow night.

I pull the door open and enter the building. Every other light down the hall is out as though it's supposed to be closed for the day. I tighten my hold on Adonebi's hand as he pulls me past the water fountain and the front office. There's a set of orange double doors down the hall past the day rooms with ping pong tables, books strewn about, tables with crayon streaks on top, and couches with dubious stains and bodily fluids on them from the younger children who stay here.

It's our very own YMCA but poorer because we're right on the other side of the tracks and the Bookies didn't want to share something that would be mutually beneficial. Footsteps, yelling, and a ball dribbling leak into the hallway from the other end. Shoes skid across the floor and impacts with the ground are made after jumping. Adonebi pushes one of the doors open for us to go in, the basketball court occupied by fourteen total that are all around Salvador's age. Seven of them are the boys from the car. They're playing on opposite sides of the court as they've probably arranged to stay out of each other's way like that.

We walk along the edge of the court and sit on the line of bleachers. There she is, Siti's niece- Akwokwo. She's short like me, the second smallest one on the team at five foot one. She has power in her legs, though, a high jumper to make a shot from the three-point line. She almost makes it until another girl's able to smack it out of the air and the game keeps going until Kenyangi, the youngest girl there at seven, notices the two of us and runs off the court without a second thought. She hugs me, and I sway from side to side with her in my arms. "Hi, Yaya."

"Hi, Coco," she chirps. "Are you gonna be here for Christmas?"

"Uhm," I lick my lips. "I don't know. I'll be here for a few days, though."