"What the hell did I just walk into?" Jordon Harris questioned, standing in the open doorway to Sonya Valentine and Emery Bass's apartment.
Even for a two bedroom apartment, it was in such a state of disarray that Jordon felt like she had entered a room full of obstacles; clothes were scattered everywhere on the floor, books toppled over each other on every surface, unfinished snacks had been laying on tables for unknown amounts of time, and the only part that was even organized in the ginormous mess was the table that the girls did their makeup on.
"The place that the group decided to throw the party at," Emery huffed, picking up the scattered clothes and throwing them into the second bedroom, which they called "The Hoarding Room," in an attempt to clean up the apartment before their guests arrived.
Sonya was gathering up all of the toppled books and returning them to the empty shelves where they belonged. It was obvious that the girls rarely threw parties in their apartment since it was a hassle to clean up the large mess that they made.
Jordon shut the door behind her, struggling to walk over to the table where they ate their meals, and grabbed a garbage bag to help them clean before the party started. She gathered all the takeout boxes, paper cups and plastics across the table and tossed it into the bag.
"How did this place even get this dirty?" She asked in disgust, picking up a rotten banana peel before throwing it in the bag, shuddering at the shriveled peel. "Heck, how do you even manage to get around with this mess?"
"It's not as hard as you think," Emery responded, "once you get used to the lay of the land."
"I found that lip gloss you wanted, Em" Sonya stretched out her arm to Emery with the lip gloss held by the tips of her fingers, it had been buried in one of the cushions of the sofa.
"Finally!" Emery pocketed the lip gloss, a smile plastered on her face.
Jordon went over to where all the clipped up bags of snacks were, unclipping and throwing away the bags of stale food. She stepped on a sequined shirt, lost her footing and fell over; her arms spread out to catch herself before she face-planted on the floor.
"You both need to change your living habits." Jordon said, irritated by the mess, as she stood up. "Who's this party for anyways?"
"Vivian," Sonya answered, "she got back to the base last night."
"So, it's like a Welcome Back Party," Emery continued.
Jordon looked surprised but also genuinely upset; she was thrilled that Vivian was back but she was disappointed that Vivi hadn't called her yet. Jordon and Vivian had been friends for a very long time, in fact, they had been friends ever since Jordon was recruited to Nighttide.
~~~~~
In the alleyway, when all the surfaces were covered in cold white snow, Jordon sat inside of a box big enough for her eight-year-old-self to fit inside. She was wrapped in pieces of old fabric that she had found in the alley's dumpsters.
Her teeth were clattering, every limb on her body gathered tightly against herself to keep warm; she had gotten sick from falling into an icy river nearby.
Jordon was alone, she had no one by her side. Her mother left Jordon in the alleyway, she was waiting for her mother to take her back. She remembered the cold look on her mother's face when she abandoned her; there was no emotion in her eyes, a look of hate and scorn in her gaze. Her mother turned and left, never looking back, Jordon was dead to her.
Jordon didn't hate her mother, she honestly found it fair that she had abandoned her. Besides, Jordon had taken a life that was very important to her mother but it was only to protect her from harm's way.
She heard boots stomping across the asphalt, muffled by the thick snow that covered everything in sight. Jordon peeked above the rim of the box in which she sat, eyes catching sight of a woman, followed by five others, three men and two women. They rounded the turn, streaking into the alleyway before sliding to a stop on the snow; they had run into a dead end.
"Shit," one of the men said. He was the shortest of the three men, though still very tall compared to the girls. Jordon couldn't tell if he was Hispanic or just very tanned since all she could see was his face, everything else covered with a jacket.
"Please, Connor," The woman in front reprimanded, "don't curse. It's unbecoming."
One of the other women was Asian, she laughed at the statement.
"Oh, sorry, Lydia, what response did you want me to have?" The man inquired, sarcasm dripping from his words. "In case you didn't notice, we just ran into a dead end with half the police force on our tails, forgive me if I'm a little bit upset."
"Dude, chill out, before you do something that you'll regret," a large man threatened, orange beard stubble dotting his chin.
The other woman spoke up, a cool and dangerous calm in her voice, "How 'bout we all chill out, this is not a good time to be freaking out; we need to come up with a plan!"
The other man remained silent, taller than all the rest, he stuck out like a sore thumb.
The woman, Lydia, surveyed their surroundings, glancing at the walls of the alley. Jordon watched her in particular, noticing small things that she did that reminded her of countless people she had seen. Living on the streets, you saw people like her all the time; though she seemed different somehow.
"The walls are too high to scale," the man with orange hair pointed out, noticing her attention.
The Asian woman had been sweeping her feet across the snow on the ground, searching for something buried underneath it. "No manholes either," she called out.
Lydia sighed, shaking her head, "I guess we have to fight our way out then."
The cops had not arrived yet, though it had only been a minute, the snow was no doubt slowing them down, but they would be there soon.
Jordon didn't know these people, she didn't know if she could trust them, but there was something about them that reminded her of safety, and perhaps a warm meal. She emerged from her box, bare feet treading silently across the snow. She cleared her throat, flinching when the adults around her jumped at her sudden appearance.
"I can help you," Jordon said, barely above a whisper, looking up at the tall adults, an eager look in her eyes. "I'll tell you but only on one condition: you take me with you."
"Kid, we don't have time to play your games!" Connor yelled, making her move backwards a step or two. "Just tell us how we are gonna get out of here!"
"N-no! T-time is running out," she shivered, "they a-are closing in, either you take me or f-fight them."
At the group's current situation, they didn't exactly have much of a choice. Lydia, the woman who seemed to be the leader of the group started to walk towards Jordon, she squatted down to get to her level, lifted Jordon's chin up with her finger and showed the warmest smile that Jordon had ever seen.
"We'll take you with us as soon as we get out of this situation. It's a promise."
Footsteps pound on the asphalt, each step getting louder and louder as the police closed in. Connor paced around, his hand pushing his hair back.
"Tell us already!"
Jordon pointed to the smaller version of the roll off dumpster. "It's completely empty, there isn't any trash in there."
Just like that, Connor grabbed the rim of the garbage container and leaped into it. Followed by the orange bearded man and the quiet one. The men helped the women up into the container and shut the lid.
Jordon didn't have much time to hide before the cops arrive, while most of them ran past the alley, one of them, however, walked to where Jordon was.
"Hey kid, have you seen a few people running 'round here?"
She shook her head in response, she was looking down on the ground, not making eye contact with the police.
"Hey," He said, "I know you. Your Samantha's kid, right?" There was a smile on his face.
Jordon tilted her head slightly up when she heard her mother's name. She tilted her head further back to look at his face, a tall, dark skin man with a mustache.
"Sorry, I think you have me confused with somebody else." Jordon knew that it hadn't been her mother's idea to abandon her, she had been pressured by her second husband. Her mother, while often mad at Jordon, hadn't wanted to leave her in the snow if she could have avoided it.
~~~~~
By the time they finished cleaning up the apartment, Jordon only had a few minutes to whip up some food in the kitchen with whatever was left in the fridge. Emery and Sonya went to the room that they shared to get ready for the party.
As the sun set, the guests began to arrive with boxes of decorations and food. It had been a long time since Nighttide had something to celebrate; everyone was excited and full of joy. Vivian and her boyfriend, Michael Hills, were the last ones to arrive at the party.
"Hey there, shortie," Vivian greeted Jordon. "Miss me?"
Jordon rolled her eyes, her arms crossed, a slight smile on her face. "Good to see you too, Vivi."