Chapter 15: We meet again

“Pleased to meet you, young lady.”

Derek smiled at Ellie; a genuine, warm grin. They had never met before, he only knew about the twins because I had told him about them last time we spoke, he never got a chance to see them before he disappeared. Despite this, he was completely unfazed by her demonic appearance.

I wished more than anything that the circumstances had been better. Their meeting and our reunion would’ve been wonderful upstairs, but instead we were stuck in the artificially lit stairwell, with the now still again woman for company.

I’d missed him. I hadn’t realized how much it was possible to miss a person I barely knew until Derek. He represented everything good about the block to me, he made it feel like home, even in the bright, windowless underground layers.