Chapter 2 - Inside Room 214
Inside the cramped, dim interior of room 214, the air smelled heavily of cheap bleach, stale cigarette smoke, and cold copper.
"Maya! What did I tell you about talking to strangers?" a voice gasped—thin, fragile, like dry autumn leaves scraping across concrete.
Maya stumbled backward against the sagging double bed, setting the cake box down on the worn laminate nightstand with infinite care. Her mother, Sarah, was half-propped up against a mountain of flat pillows, her skin the color of skim milk, an IV pole standing crookedly beside the mattress with its plastic bag completely empty and dripping dry.
"I didn't talk to strangers, Mama," Maya whispered, her lower lip trembling just a fraction—the only sign of the terror she'd kept locked behind her teeth during her entire walk to the bakery. "I bought your cake. Vanilla. Just like you like."
Sarah closed her eyes, a sharp spasm of pain crossing her face as she pressed a trembling hand against her ribs. She was wearing an oversized hospital gown, her hair matted against her damp forehead. The faded plastic wristband from St. Jude's General Hospital was still buckled tightly around her left arm, identical in color and wear to the one Maya wore on her wrist.
"Oh, baby... you shouldn't have gone out there," Sarah choked out, coughing weakly into a stained linen handkerchief that came away spotted with a terrifying trace of dark crimson. "The landlord... Mr. Vance... he was down here this morning. He says if we don't pay the back rent by tonight, he's throwing our things in the dumpster."
"I paid the bakery with my own money, Mama," Maya insisted stubbornly, climbing up onto the edge of the mattress and gently patting her mother’s skeletal arm. "I didn't take charity. Clara counted every single penny."
Sarah looked at the little vanilla cake box, a heartbreaking tear slipping down her hollow cheek. She pulled her daughter close, burying her face in Maya's blonde hair, breathing in the scent of street cold and bakery sugar. "You're too smart for your own good, sweetheart. And too brave. Way too brave for a six-year-old."
A sharp, violent rap pounded against the metal-reinforced door of room 214.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
"Open up inside there! I know someone's moving around!" a rough, booming voice yelled from the breezeway. It was Carl Vance, the motel manager and local slumlord whose name was printed in bold, angry ink at the top of the yellow eviction notice. "Rent was due yesterday! If you don't have the cash or a signed medical extension, you're out on the street in twenty minutes, sick or no sick!"
Sarah froze, her breath catching in her throat. She looked frantically toward the door, then down at the empty IV bag.
May you like
"Mom... what do we do?" Maya whispered, her eyes wide with sudden, unadulterated fear.
"Stay behind the bed, Maya," Sarah commanded in a fierce, breathless whisper, sliding her legs toward the cold floor with a sickening wave of dizziness. "Don't make a sound."
