Fragile: Handle With Care

Fragile: Handle With Care - Chapter Four

Chapter Four

 

“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked Mason.

“Why are you asking me? You’re the one meeting them.”

“Oh yeah,” I giggled, clutching onto his arms and lying my head on it.

“Don’t worry,” he said, stroking the top of my head. “You’ll do perfectly fine, trust me.”

“And if they don’t?”

“They will,” he assured me. He saw the doubt shining in my eyes. “But on the very rare occasion that they don’t, it’s their loss.”

“You’re not going to leave me?”

“I already told you; you’re too important for me to ever let you go. I would never just leave willingly, Soph.”

I smiled and nodded. “Okay, Mase. I believe you.”

“Good. I haven’t given you a reason not to.”

I smiled. “I know you haven’t.”

A small beaten apartment building stood before me, well, barely. It looked like it could crumble any minute now. Some of the shutters on the windows looked like they were just hanging on by a hinge. They reminded me of bats hanging upside down. Strangely though, I liked it. It had character.

“I don’t understand why you don’t stay with your friends?” I sent him a questioning look.

He shook his head. “I’d rather be on the streets. They’re not really a safe group of people, very unpredictable.

I lifted an eyebrow doubtfully. “Yet you’re taking me to visit them?”

“It was your idea. You seemed over the moon when I told you we could see them today.” I blushed. “And besides, if anything goes wrong, I could probably take them.”

“I didn’t know you fought?”

“I normally don’t, but I’m not completely helpless. What do I look like to you? A wallflower?”

I laughed, shaking my head feverishly. “You? A wallflower?” I sputtered. I couldn’t picture Mason as a wallflower, but if I could, I’m sure it’d be a sight to see.

He pressed a button towards the bottom of a panel and was buzzed in almost instantly. I guess they really didn’t care who was coming in and out of the building. Or they were expecting him, but I don’t see how he could’ve told them ahead of time—he was with me.

Mason opened the chipped, black gate that was separating us from the evils that might lurk inside. The outside had their monsters too, but you could easily run. In a building, not so much.

The first thought that crossed my mind was that the inside was just as shady as the exterior, if not more. It was a painted a dark concrete color—the paint chipped and a few choice words spray-painted on. The elevator to the side of the building had an out of order taped to it—order spelled wrong. The stairs looked ancient and unreliable, like it would snap in half and we would all fall down to the basement. Part of the railing was broken, just loosely hanging by a tiny sliver of wood. The stairs were like a representation of the building.

I instinctively clung to Mason, which made me feel more secure. “If you want to leave, just tell me,” he whispered, rubbing the small of my back soothingly.

I nodded. “I’ll be fine.” And that’s what I was going to keep telling myself. Maybe if I said it enough, it would happen.

We climbed exactly two flights of stairs. The hallways smelled musky. The dim and poor lighting made the narrow hallways seem even thinner, scarier. He led me to a door labeled ‘413’ in golden lettering. The shininess was fading, leaving a more dull and rusty undercoat.