Chronicles of Araxx - Forever Broken
Chapter 8

Bree told Lee to stay where she was. To enjoy the scenery and watch the people go by, and she would be back soon with clothes.

“It’ll be easier if I get them on my own today. You still need some practice,” Bree explained. “Last thing we want is you getting caught and locked up, right?”

“Right.” Lee smiled.

Bree didn’t know Lee had been imprisoned most of her life, and the comment was ironic. She’d been locked up so much of her life, the last thing she wanted was to be locked up again, although no prison warden could ever treat her as bad as Kane did.

So far, in her time away from his grasp, Lee had met so many lovely people, and there was a real potential of a friend in Bree.

She was gone quite a while, and Lee took the time to take in her surroundings.

The canal was strange, a little smelly and Lee could see a couple of rats on the opposite bank, but it wasn’t such a bad place to be sitting. Some people who passed her by looked at her funny because she still looked like a homeless person. She was still a little dirty, her hair was a mess and her clothes were ill-fitted and torn. Then there were other people who walked by and completely ignored her. Lee liked these people better.

Lee focussed on a couple of rats on the side of the canal wall arguing over a scrap of bread which Lee had dropped, when a loud shout came from behind her, causing her to jump and almost fall off the bench.

“Quick! Run!” The voice shouted.

Lee looked in the direction where the noise was coming from and saw Bree running at full pelt through the market, bags in her hands and people chasing her. She leapt to her feet and started running beside the canal.

Bree caught up in no time. “Follow me,” she said. She clearly knew what she was doing, where she was going and must have run away before.

They lost the men who were chasing them pretty quick, but they ran a couple of extra streets down just to be safe.

When they finally came to a stop, Lee was puffing and panting, struggling to breathe with a burning pain in her lungs. “Please tell me we lost them,” she panted, doubled over to catch her breath.

“Yeah, we did.” Bree laughed. “I don’t think we can go back there for a few days. Was well worth it, though!” She seemed so animated as if the chase gave her a rush and it made her feel alive.

“I hope you got some nice things,” Lee panted. “And I really need to get fitter.”

“Yeah, you do,” Bree agreed. “But we can work on that.” She took hold of Lee’s arm and started leading her down the street. “|It’s not far to my place. We’ll walk the rest of the way.”

Bree took Lee to a street about twenty minutes from Camden Market. The streets here were filled with blocks of flats, six or seven stories high—small for a block in London.

They came to a block like any of the others. The outside looked a bit dishevelled, but at least it would be somewhere to stay.

“This is it,” Bree said, standing in front of the building.

The red bricks looked old and dirty, and a couple of the windows on the lower floors were cracked.

Lee looked at the door. It was black, but the paint was chipping away from the wood, and the letterbox had been ripped clear off.

She walked towards the door, but Bree stopped her.

“Not that way,” she said. “Come on.” She led Lee down the alley at the back of the house, towards the fire escape that led all the way up the building and to the roof.

The fire escape looked like the rest of the building, old and like it could fall down at any moment.

Bree climbed first, and Lee followed.

They were heading to the top floor, the sixth floor in this block.

Something in one of the windows caught Lee’s attention.

There was a family in the room.

The man sitting in the chair had a large beer belly and a balding head. He was wearing a stained shirt and jogging bottoms which were far too small for him. “Oy, woman!” He shouted. “Get me a beer!”

A woman appeared in the doorway of what Lee presumed was the kitchen, beer in hand and took it to the man. She looked thin, thinner than Lee herself, and much older than she probably was. Her face was hollow, and her eyes looked almost black.

Lee pushed on up the ladder. She didn’t really want to know anything about the other people who lived in this block. All she cared about was getting into the flat and getting herself clean.

“Welcome to Le Hotel de Bree!” She smiled as Lee climbed through the window and into the flat.

It was nicer than Lee had imagined.

The previous tenant clearly looked after the place when they lived here. Lee entered the living room through the window. There was no sofa or chairs in this room, but instead, seven bean bags were laid out on the ground. There was a TV in the room too, and a laptop near the back. An electric heater was standing against the far wall. It was unplugged, but the flat was warm enough as it was.

“You have electricity?” Lee asked.

“Yeah, I do. No heating, though, hence the electric radiator. Make yourself at home, take a look around.” Bree dropped her bag from her back, as well as the other bags she had acquired, took off her jacket and threw herself into one of the beanbags.

The rest of the flat was pretty much the same. The kitchen had a working fridge, although when Lee looked there was not much food in it, there was an electric oven and running water in both the kitchen and the bathroom. Although, the water ran cold from the tap, there was a kettle if hot water was needed.

In the bedroom, there was a mattress on the floor with a sheet over it and a couple of sleeping bags.

“Does anyone else live here?” Lee asked after seeing there was more than one bag.

“No, just me,” Bree replied.

Lee thought it was strange, but it didn’t really matter.

After having a look around the one bedroomed flat, Lee met Bree back in the living room.

“So how do you have a TV and a computer?” Lee asked. “Don’t they cost a lot of money?”

“They were here when I found this place, and they still work so I’m not gonna complain.” She smiled. “I use next doors’ internet, and it keeps me entertained.”

It was a lot for Lee to take in, but she was enjoying herself. A sudden thought crossed her mind. “Blossom and Bear!” She blurted suddenly.

“Is that the name of a new band or something?” Bree asked as she rifled through the bags she brought back from the market.

“No. They’re the people who I came to London with. I completely forgot about them.” Lee was upset with herself for forgetting.

“Funny names.” Bree laughed. “Forget them, though. You’d have left them not long after tonight anyway right?”

“Yeah, but they’d be worried about me,” Lee said.

“I doubt it,” Bree said sternly. “Look, no offence intended, but no one misses us, homeless kids.”

“I guess.” Lee sighed.

“Anyway,” Bree said in a cheery voice. “Let’s do something about your hair.” She pulled a couple of things out of one of the bags. One was a pair of scissors for neatening Lee’s hair up, and the other was a box of bright red hair dye.

“My hair’s already red,” Lee stated as she tugged at her messy locks.

“Yeah, but this will make it brighter. I think it will suit you.” Bree smiled.

“Ah, what the hell,” Lee said. After all, what’s the worse that could happen?

Before putting the dye on Lee’s head, Bree went to work on cutting it.

They were in the bathroom, but Lee’s hair was getting everywhere. Bree didn’t cut off too much, just neatened everything up, took away the split ends and levelled it out. It looked much better, but Bree was not yet finished.

She took an old towel from the cupboard in the bathroom, stained white and yellow clearly from Bree dying her own hair. She placed it around Lee’s neck, put the gloves on that came in the dye pack, then began smothering Lee’s hair with the dark red liquid.

As she applied the dye to Lee’s hair, Bree spoke, “Do you want to know why I was drawn to you?”

“Yeah, I was wondering about that,” Lee admitted.

“If truth be told, it was your hair.” Bree started with Lee’s roots, covering them with the red dye.

“My hair?” Lee was confused. “What would my hair have to do with anything?”

“I love the colour. It reminds me of autumn.” Bree was quiet for a few seconds. “Autumn is my favourite month, and you remind me of it.”

“I guess I’ll take that as a compliment.” Lee laughed.

The smell of the hair dye was chemical and harsh, but fruity at the same time. Lee liked the smell, and once Bree was finished and her hair was dry, Lee couldn’t stop smelling it.

“If only the rest of me was as nice smelling as my hair.” Lee sighed.

“You can be.” Bree laughed. “Just take a shower. I have loads of soaps and stuff, just don’t get your hair wet,” she warned.

Lee expected the water to be cold, but it was heated by electricity.

The hot water of the shower felt lovely on Lee’s tired muscles.

She hadn’t realised it before, but her muscles ached. She’d not had this much exercise in a very long time. All the walking and the running had taken its toll on her muscles.

The hot water soothed them.

When she finally emerged from the water, pulling the shower curtain back and wrapping the fresh towel around herself, Lee found a pile of clothes on the closed toilet seat.

Bree must have left them for her to get dressed into.

She dried herself with the soft towel, then dressed in the stolen clothes. It felt a little wrong, but she didn’t have much of a choice. This was her life now, and she was going to have to get used to it.

Lee left the bathroom in her new clothes, a perfect fit. She was wearing black jeggings which hugged her legs comfortably, leaving her enough room to move comfortably but not too much that they fell down when she moved, a grey vest top which came down long enough for her to tuck in, and a baggier black top with short sleeves. The outfit suited her, and Lee liked it. Bree clearly had good taste.

“They look good on you,” Bree said as Lee entered the living room where she was sitting with a big bowl of crisps in front of her.

Lee took a seat next to her, and they both ate the crisps.

Everything Lee tasted amazed her. It had been so long since she’d eaten anything other than cold scraps, and soup.

It was already dark outside when Bree stretched and yawned. “I’m tired,” she stated and looked over to Lee.

They’d both sprawled out on the bean bags, and were watching a film on the television.

Bree said it was one of her favourites, something called Bridget Jones’ Diary, but Lee wasn’t so interested in it.

“I’m gonna go to bed, feel free to use the laptop while I’m sleeping, and make sure you get some sleep too.”

“Bree?” Lee asked. “How do I use the laptop?”

“You’ve never used a laptop?” Bree laughed. “Okay, I’ll show you quick.” Bree picked up the thin laptop and opened it, turning it on. She opened the internet and briefly explained that all Lee had to do was type what she was looking for in the search bar, then press enter and the laptop would do the rest.

“Night Lee,” she said as she left the room.

“Night Bree,” Lee replied, smiling at the new friend she’d made.

The internet was a fascinating place to Lee. She found a wealth of information she’d never even dreamt of. The first thing she researched was London. She spent a good long time looking at the tube maps and trying to remember how to get to different places. She then turned to the news to see if there was more information about the shooting in Scotland, but there was nothing new.

The next thing which popped up on the screen was a video of a news reporter reporting on a murder in London just a couple of days before. It had a woman with dark skin and hair pulled back tight into a bun, wearing smart clothes and talking into a microphone outside the metropolitan police station. “Officials are still unsure of who the killer is but have issued a warning to the homeless and vulnerable living in London and the surrounding areas. Four people have been murdered in the last month, and all of them have been homeless.” She paused for a second before continuing, “The killer has been nicknamed ‘Dracula’ for his style of murder, as he drains the bodies of blood. This is Teresa Billthorp, reporting from London.” She finished, and so did the news clip.

As Lee had never heard of Dracula before, it was the first thing she researched next. What she found both interested and disgusted her. But the worst part was that this killer was doing what a vampire was said to do. Of course, vampires weren’t real, and it was clear from all the evidence Lee found on-line, they are just a myth, and that this murderer was nothing more than a psychotic man with a sick fetish, but the thought of someone praying on the homeless worried her.

After all, she was now homeless herself.