quickie: hotel hallway; cee & cris & bbzoe
[With the ultimate destruction of all things touched, it felt overdue. She couldn't know for sure that Zoe was in any danger, but everyone that she'd ever known or loved was dead. Funerals didn't feel far fetched after that. Hell was a little more familiar than whatever purgatory she'd been playing house in for the last five years. Five years was a long time when it came to comfortable, how long was something like that really supposed to last?
Not five years, not for her.
It was getting chilly like fall, and she pulled a purple hoodie over the top of Zoe's little blond head. Cee wore an unflattering jacket of pink-beige. It was puffy, convenient for concealed carry. Inside the girl's Sleeping Beauty backpack were some changes of clothes, an entire box of SpongeBob fruit snacks, and a prepaid cellphone with programmed numbers. Zoe understood that she was going to stay the weekend with one of mommy's friends. Friend was a strong word for a woman who didn't actually have any, but Zoe was excited about the prospect of sleepover with another little girl. She never got to sleep over anywhere ever.
The child's enthusiasm eventually waned with early onset sleepiness while they stood in the hallway of the hotel waiting for Cris. Cee scooped her up, Zoe wrapped arms and legs and yawned, drifting off with her cheek on Cee's shoulder. It was an ease reserved for children. It'd been over a week since Cee'd gotten a solid night's sleep. Her eyes were wide and overexposed. Sleepless, purpled aureole for sockets.]