Chapter 182: Riley

Lorali

"So what is the plan here?" Erin asked as we got to the top of the concrete staircase.

The heavy, splintered wooden doors of Rest Orphanage loomed above us, looking as if it was going to collapse under it’s own weight at any given moment. The exterior walls of the entire building were so paper-thin that I could already hear the faint, echoing voices of children playing inside the common room.

I just know those kids are freezing every single winter, my mind muttered bitterly, a dark wave of empathy and old trauma tightening my chest.

"The plan is... to get in there and ask for some sort of documents that will help us find my parents," I muttered back, stepping onto the top landing.

Even as I said the words out loud, I knew how completely stupid it sounded. Expecting an absolute dump like Rest Orphanage to keep archived, organized intake documents from over twenty years ago was absolute wishful thinking. But honestly? I didn’t care. I just wanted to kill time. I had nothing else to do, I was bored out of my mind, and my brain needed a distraction from the Spade Pack circus.

I reached out and shoved the heavy front door open. The moment we walked inside, a thick wave of nostalgia hit me right in the chest smelling of a heavy mixture of old carpet, damp wood, and cheap, moth-eaten blankets.

This place has not changed one single bit, I thought, my stomach churning. It still smells like... suffering.

It was gloomy and dark inside. There was only a lone, battered wooden table sitting at the front acting as a makeshift reception desk. Behind it, a crooked sign was drilled into the wall with the orphanage’s name, though the letter ’E’ had snapped off, leaving it looking like a crude joke.

Rest Orphang.

I shook my head, taking a slow breath to calm the sudden spike of irritation humming in my veins. Erin and I walked up to the reception table, where a girl around my age was slumped in a chair, texting frantically on her phone. Heavy over-ear headphones were clamped over her ears, music blaring so loudly I could hear the tinny, distorted bass notes from where I was standing.

"Hello," I announced loudly.

As anyone with half a brain would suspect, she didn’t even look up from her screen. I waved my hands back and forth directly in front of her face, calling out hello over and over again, but she remained completely dead to the world.

I was literally a second away from reaching across the counter and ripping those headphones straight off her skull when Erin stepped in. He reached out and gently tapped his knuckles against the wooden tabletop right in her line of sight.

She blinked, finally looking up from her phone toward him, her face twisting into a scowl. "What?" she snapped, her voice dripping with irritation. I bit down hard on my lower lip, holding in the sudden rush of murderous rage. Not even five minutes in this hellhole, and I’m already losing my damn mind.

Before either of us could even open our mouths to speak, the girl sneered, looking us up and down. "You two are here to abandon a baby, right? The baby box is on the right side. You do not need to bother me for this."

Erin and I both blinked, staring at her in absolute disbelief. "No, we’re not here to abandon a baby," Erin replied smoothly. "We are here to speak to your person in charge, the Headmistress."

The girl’s eyes narrowed. "You want to speak to my mom? Are you guys from CPS?" My mom? A sharp spike of disbelief pierced my brain. Wait a second...

I leaned forward, squinting past the desk light at her face. "Riley? Is that you?"

The girl blinked, looking at me with a sudden, dazed frown. "Huh... I find you awfully familiar."

"It’s me, Riley," I said, a dangerous, cold smile spreading across my lips. "Loralie. The girl you tormented for the longest time when we were kids."

Riley squinted harder, her eyes widening in recognition as she looked past the scar on my face and the designer clothes. "Oh... it is you. What on earth is that scar on your face?"

"What are you still doing at this dump?" I shot back, ignoring her question entirely. "Where else am I supposed to go?" Riley muttered defensively.

"I don’t know, maybe, get a life, move out, learn how to bleach your blonde hair properly," I snapped.

"Well, you must think I’m made of money," Riley rolled her eyes. "Anyway, my mother can’t see you right now. She’s busy."

"Well, make her unbusy," I demanded, slamming my hand gently on the desk. "We want to see her."

"Well, she’s, she’s really busy with administrative meetings," Riley argued, crossing her arms. "There’s nothing I can do."

"Oh, please," I scoffed, crossing my arms. "I know for a fact she’s not doing a single important thing."

"Well, she is—"

Before Riley could finish her sentence, Erin stepped up, sliding a hand into his jacket pocket. "I will donate one thousand to this facility’s infrastructure right now if we can see your mother in the next minute." Riley’s eyes instantly lit up like two slot-machine coins. All the lazy, irritated posture vanished. "Huh. Let me go check."

She shoved her phone into her pocket, stood up slowly, and ambled away down the dark hallway. I turned my head to glare at Erin. "I totally could have handled that, you know. You didn’t need to bribe her with a grand."

Erin offered a calm, easygoing smile. "It’s fine. The faster the better. I don’t mean to pry, by the way... but how did you actually get that scar on your cheek?" I touched the edge of the bandage over my skin. "Oh. I cut my face."

Erin just looked at me for a long beat, his expression entirely deadpan. "Of course you did." A few minutes later, Riley came shuffling back down the hallway, her expression slick and greedy. "She’ll see you. But money first."

Without missing a beat, Erin pulled a blank checkbook out from his back pocket, grabbed a pen, and scribbled down a figure before handing it across the counter.

Riley snatched the slip of paper, her eyes scanning the numbers written on the line. Her breath hitched."Mmh," Riley hummed, a wide, ugly grin spreading across her face. She shoved the check deep into her pocket. "Come with me."

Erin and I followed her, walking past the reception desk deeper into the bowels of the orphanage. It felt so sickeningly, eerily like déjà vu. The same deep gouge marks were still carved into the plaster walls from when I was last here a decade ago. The same dark, stained cracks spider-webbed across the ceiling. The building hadn’t gone through a single renovation, a single paint coat, or a single act of basic human care since the day I left.

We took a sharp turn to the left. I didn’t even need Riley to guide us, I knew the layout by heart. We walked straight up to a heavy, splintered oak door marked HEADMISTRESS.

Riley pushed it open without knocking.