A dry chuckle escapes me as the tears start again, pressing my hands to my face in hopes to hide them from the suits. I didn’t get his name. The suits lead me back to the bunks, quiet and dead when they leave me. I hear the others moving, they watch me, scan me, and I realize that there is still blood on my face. Dried and cracking, Classic’s blood is dried on my face and I forgot it was there. The suits neglected to put the silver cuffs back on my wrists. The medic said one would in the morning. I can only stand there as the door shuts behind the suit, my breath catching in my throat; I feel like I’m choking. I fall, my knees hitting hard against the floor. I never got his name. How dare he worm his way into my head, my soul, my life? And then leave? My sobs are quiet, rattling my bones and sending unflinching pain through my body. It hurts. I am in pain. A pain that rips and tears me into a thousand little pieces. I am sinking, down, down, down into the floor. The sound of movement barely registers, but I can’t bring myself to look when arms wrap around and pull me to a body. “Shh-” I can register Reggae’s voice in my ear as he pulls me close, pinning me to his torso. I cry against his shirt, tears mixing with dried blood and leaving a nasty stain on his shirt. He doesn’t seem to mind, because his arms hook under my legs and he lifts me, cradling me like a child. I let him. “You’re gonna be alright, Blue,” Reggae consoles me, setting me on his bunk. “You’s the strongest of us. You gonna be all right.” For a second, I believe him, the man trying to take care of me when I ignored him for weeks. The others begin to call out sympathy and comfort, and hand me half-full bottles of water, chunks of saved snacks, even cloths. Ballad, no, Emily helps me clean my face and fingers. My nails are pink from the blood. “We should have a proper funeral-” Emily states, clutching the bloody rag in her hand. “- Not the sorry excuse the suits do.” Mumbles of assent sound as Emily stands and sets the rag in the center of the circle of bunks. She steps back, nodding, “Classic came in almost two years ago. And he was annoying, always chattering and humming—”
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