Chapter 2: What She Knows
Maya finished her bread before he was even halfway done with his.
He tried not to wolf it down. Tried to make it last. But his stomach was basically eating itself, and the bread was real bread, not the weird spongy stuff that came out of dumpsters. It had weight to it. Substance. Made his mouth water just holding it.
"You've been here three weeks," Maya said.
He stopped chewing. Swallowed too hard and felt the bread scrape down his throat.
"How do you..."
"I've been watching." She said it casual. Like everyone watched everyone. Maybe they did. Maybe that was normal now. "You sleep against the far wall. Wake up when the footsteps go overhead at seven-thirty. Check the blue dumpster first, then the one behind the pharmacy, then those trash cans by the loading dock."
The bread turned to paste in his mouth. Someone had been watching him. Studying him. Learning his patterns like he was some kind of animal in a zoo.
"Why were you watching me?"
Maya picked at a loose thread on her jacket. The jacket that was too big for her, he noticed. Sleeves rolled up, shoulders hanging loose. Someone else's jacket. Someone bigger.
"You're different," she said.
"Different how?"
She looked at him then, really looked at him, and her eyes were too old. Like they'd seen things that aged them faster than the rest of her face.
"Most kids who end up here don't last."
The words sat heavy in the air. He wanted to ask what she meant but part of him already knew. He'd seen them. The new ones who showed up confused and crying, looking for their parents. They disappeared after a few days. Sometimes you heard screaming from other parts of the building. Sometimes you didn't hear anything at all.
"You want to see something?"
No. Every instinct he had said no. Following strangers was how you ended up being the one who didn't last. But she'd given him bread, and somehow that felt like it meant something. Like maybe he owed her.
"Okay."
Maya stood up and brushed crumbs off her pants. "Come on."
She led him through a hole in the wall he hadn't even noticed before. How had he missed that? He thought he'd mapped every inch of this place. But Maya moved like she owned it, like she knew every shadow and loose board.
The hallway smelled like rust and old water. Something had leaked here once and never dried properly. Their footsteps echoed weird in the narrow space, bouncing off the walls in ways that made it sound like there were more of them than just two.
Maya stopped at what used to be a staircase. Half the steps were missing, just jagged metal and concrete sticking out of the wall. She climbed up easy, like she'd done it a hundred times. He followed slower, testing each step before putting his weight on it.
"There," she whispered, pointing through a gap in the wall.
Below them, in what might have been the main store floor once, kids sat in a circle. Maybe eight of them. Younger than Maya. They looked... wrong. Too thin. Moving too slow. Like everything they did took extra effort.
They were sharing something from a dented can, passing it around. Taking tiny sips.
"They're eating," he said, confused why this was worth seeing.
"Listen."
He pressed closer to the gap. The kids were talking while they ate. Normal kid chatter, except...
"Danny says we should save some for later," one of them said to empty air.
"Tell Danny we can't," another kid replied. "Tell him we already tried."
There was no Danny. He looked around the circle twice. Eight kids, but they were talking to nine.
"Danny's dead," Maya whispered in his ear, so close her breath was warm against his skin. "Fell down an elevator shaft two weeks ago. But look."
She pointed. There was a gap in the circle. A space left open. And next to it, a small pile of food. Scraps, but food.
"They save some for him every day," Maya said. "Every meal. Even when they're starving."
He watched the kids talk to the empty space. Watched them carefully set aside food for someone who couldn't eat it. Watched them get thinner while their dead friend got fed.
"That's..." He didn't have words for what it was.
"That's what happens when you love someone," Maya said. Matter-of-fact. Like she was explaining how rain worked. "Love makes you stupid. Makes you waste things. Makes you die slow instead of smart."
They climbed back down. Maya moved easy in the dark while he stumbled over stuff he couldn't see. When they got back to his spot, she sat down again. Same place as before.
"Why did you show me that?"
Maya was quiet for a long time. When she finally talked, her voice was different. Softer, but not in a good way. Softer like something sharp wrapped in cloth.
"Because you need to understand how this place works. People who care too much don't survive. People who hold onto things that are gone..." She shrugged. "They end up like those kids. Starving themselves for ghosts."
He thought about the bread she'd shared. About her watching him for weeks. About the way she'd said his patterns like she had them memorized.
"Then why did you help me?"
Maya looked at him for a long time. Like she was trying to decide something.
"Because," she said finally, "sometimes you meet someone who's already broken enough that maybe they get it. Maybe they won't make you weak because they already know what things cost."
She reached out and touched his hand. Quick. Her fingers were cold and rough, like she'd been working with them.
"You're broken, aren't you?"
The question hit him somewhere that hurt. Because yeah. Yeah, he was broken. Had been broken so long he'd forgotten what not-broken felt like. Broken enough that someone sharing bread felt like a miracle. Broken enough that being watched felt like being seen.
"Yeah," he whispered.
"Good." Maya smiled, but it wasn't a happy smile. It was the kind of smile that meant something else entirely. "Broken people don't expect much. That makes them safe."
She stood up to leave. Paused at the hole in the wall.
"What should I call you? Since you don't have a name?"
He thought about the kids below, feeding their dead friend. About love making you stupid and caring making you starve. About being broken enough that maybe that made him safe to be around.
"I don't know."
"I'll think of something," Maya said.
After she left, he sat there with the taste of bread still in his mouth and this weird feeling in his chest. Like something had changed, but he couldn't tell if it was good or bad.
Maybe both.