“Show me the way down.”
Eli pointed toward the service door. “The stairs are open as far as five. There’s a cabinet across part of the landing. We can move it, but I heard something in the corridor below.”
Tessa tucked her father’s badge into the pocket of her red jacket. Her hand stayed there a moment longer than it needed to.
“The other stairwell?” she asked.
“Two responders are holding it. Your father was on the landing with one of them.”
“You said he was hurt.”
“Yes.”
“How badly?”
Eli saw the blood against the wall again. The responder’s hand at Darius’s neck. Darius pushing the badge away when Eli tried to return it.
“He couldn’t stand,” Eli said. “The responder had a carry sheet. They were trying to get him out.”
Tessa’s fingers tightened around the pocket. He could see her wanting to run past him. The door was only a few steps away, and for a moment he thought she would take it.
Then the woman on the floor shifted and hissed in pain.
Tessa crouched beside her. “Don’t try to stand yet.”
“My husband got out?” the woman asked again.
“I saw a responder take him outside,” Eli said. “He was walking with help.”
The woman nodded, though her eyes remained closed. A towel had been wrapped around her lower leg. Blood showed through one edge, but the cloth was not soaked the way Darius’s bandage had been.
Eli looked past her. A boy sat against the wall with his hands clamped over his ears. A woman held another towel around his forearm. The young man who had led Eli upstairs stood at the service door, peering through the wired glass.
“Mrs. Larkin?” Eli asked him.
“Here.” The young man crossed to an older woman seated against an apartment door. “Mum, this is Eli. He says there are responders downstairs.”
Mrs. Larkin tried to get up. Her son bent to help, but she waved him away and pushed against the wall. Her right leg folded beneath her almost at once. He caught her before she fell.
“It’s the hip,” he said. “She slipped when the floor moved.”
Tessa came over and asked Mrs. Larkin to describe where it hurt. She had clearly done this before; her hands moved steadily, and her questions were short enough for a frightened person to answer. Mrs. Larkin could move her foot, but putting weight on the leg sent pain through her side.
“We’ll carry you,” her son said.
“With what?” Mrs. Larkin asked. “Your hands?”
“We’ll find something.”
The building gave a soft, grinding shudder. Dust drifted from the ceiling and settled on the boy’s hair. Everyone looked up. The sound stopped, but nobody relaxed.
Eli stepped toward Tessa. “The lower exit was open when I came through. We should go now.”
She looked at Mrs. Larkin, then the injured woman and the boy. “We will. Help me make a carry sheet.”
“I can get you down first. Then I’ll come back with the responders.”
Mrs. Larkin’s son stared at him. “You just said there was something downstairs.”
“That’s why she needs to go.” Eli spoke to Tessa, but he could hear how it sounded to the others. “The responders have equipment. They can get back up faster than we can carry everyone down.”
Tessa did not raise her voice. “Have you checked the other apartments?”
“I came straight from the stairs.”
“Then you don’t know who else is here.”
“The building is coming apart.”
“I know.” She reached for the injured woman’s hand and checked the bandage. “I also know she can’t run. Mrs. Larkin can’t put weight on her leg. And Mr. Chao went to check on the people in six-eighteen. He hasn’t come back.”
The woman holding the boy’s arm looked toward the end of the corridor. “There are two of them in there. Mr. Chao’s wife and her brother.”
A sound came from behind the service door: one scrape, then another. The young man pulled away from the glass.
Eli lowered his voice. “We can’t wait here while someone checks every room.”
“We aren’t checking every room.” Tessa stood. “We’re checking the one where someone is already trying to help two people. Do you know whether the service stairs are wide enough for Mrs. Larkin?”
Eli remembered the cabinet on five. He and the young man had cleared enough space to squeeze past it. Not enough for a person carried horizontally.
“Not all the way,” he admitted.
“Do you know if that scrape is a creature or a person?”
“No.”
“Then listen.”
Eli almost argued. He had spent ten years in gates, enough time to hear the difference between boots and a claw on concrete. But he had also heard ordinary things sound monstrous in a building under pressure. He turned toward the door and held still.
Another scrape. A pause. Then a dull bump, followed by a muffled voice.
“That’s the chair,” the young man said. “I left it on the landing.”
The door handle moved. He seized it before Eli could stop him, then hesitated with the latch half turned.
“Ask who it is,” Tessa said.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s me. Stop holding the door.”
The young man opened it. A middle-aged man stumbled through, dragging the chair with one hand and a canvas bag with the other. He wore a building maintenance vest over a white shirt. His breathing was ragged.
“I thought you went down,” Mrs. Larkin’s son said.
“Went as far as four. East door’s jammed. I heard something in the west corridor and came back.” He set down the chair. “You the responder?”
“Eli. Not a responder.”
The man glanced at the assessment badge on Eli’s vest, then at the F printed on it. His expression changed, though he tried to conceal it.
Eli had seen that look all morning. The man wanted a solution, and the badge suggested he had been given the smallest one available.
“I’m Owen,” he said. “Building maintenance. You know what’s happening outside?”
“There’s a gate in the lobby, and creatures reached the street. The responders are getting people out. The lower exit was open when I left it.”
Owen looked at Tessa. “Mr. Chao’s still down the hall.”
“That’s where we’re going.” She handed the woman beside the boy a small packet from her bag. “Mara, keep pressure on his arm. If the cloth soaks through, put this over it. Don’t pull off the first layer.”
The boy looked at the packet. “Am I going to lose my arm?”
“No,” Tessa said. “The cut is bleeding, but I don’t see anything that tells me that.”
“Is it going to hurt?”
“Probably. Mara’s going to keep pressure on it, and I want you to tell her if your hand feels numb.”
He considered this and nodded. Mara drew him closer, pressing the towel with both hands.
Tessa turned to Mrs. Larkin’s son. “Can you gather the blankets from your mother’s apartment? Two strong ones, if you have them. We need to carry her without bending her leg more than necessary.”
The young man opened his mother’s door. “I’ll get them.”
“Wait.” Mrs. Larkin caught his sleeve. “The blue one is thin. Get the green.”
He gave her a quick, strained smile. “Green.”
Eli still wanted to seize the moment and take Tessa downstairs. He could picture Darius waiting on the landing, the responder struggling to lift him, the creature returning. Every second up here was a second in which the lower route might close.
But Tessa had not stopped moving. She had given people things to do, and those things had begun to pull the corridor out of panic. The boy was keeping pressure on his arm with Mara’s help. Mrs. Larkin’s son was searching for a blanket instead of trying to lift his mother by himself. Owen had put the chair against the service door to keep it from swinging shut.
Tessa faced Eli. “Come with me to six-eighteen. Owen, stay here and listen at the stairs. If anything comes up, warn us. Don’t try to hold it alone.”
Owen looked down the corridor. “I know that apartment. The lock sticks.”
“Then come with us. Mara, can you listen at the door?”
Mara shifted the boy’s hand over the towel and rose. “I can hear from here.”
Eli picked up the length of metal he had carried from the stairwell. It was bent at one end and slick where his hand had gripped it. He wiped it on his trousers and followed Tessa and Owen toward six-eighteen.
At the far end of the hall, a man’s voice rose behind a closed door.
“Mei, answer me.”
Owen knocked hard. “Mr. Chao? It’s Owen. We have help.”
A bolt scraped on the other side, but the door moved less than an inch. Something heavy blocked it from within. Mr. Chao’s face appeared in the gap, one eye wide with fear.
“My wife is in the bedroom. The bookcase came down.”
“Can you reach her?” Tessa asked.
“Her brother’s with her. I can’t move the case.”
“Is she awake?”
“I heard her a minute ago.”
Owen put his shoulder to the door. It moved a fraction, then stopped against the obstruction. Eli set down the metal bar and pushed beside him. The edge of the door dug into his palm.
“Don’t force it,” Owen said. “Something’s caught at the bottom.”
Mr. Chao reached through the gap and pointed toward the floor. The door had struck a small cabinet that had slid across the entrance. One corner was wedged beneath the threshold.
Eli took up the metal bar. He slipped its flattened end through the gap and tried to hook the cabinet. The angle was wrong. The bar skidded, striking the tile.
Mr. Chao flinched. “You’ll make it worse.”
“Maybe,” Eli said. “Can you get hold of the top?”
“I’ve tried.”
Tessa crouched by the opening. “Can you move the shoes underneath it?”
“Shoes?”
“By your foot.”
Mr. Chao looked down. A pair of heavy boots had been pushed against the cabinet. He pulled them aside. Owen eased the door back while Eli pushed the cabinet with the bar. This time it moved. They opened the door wide enough to enter.
The apartment smelled of cooking oil and dust. A bowl lay broken on the floor. The bookcase had fallen across the bedroom doorway, scattering books and framed photographs over the hall.
“Mei?” Mr. Chao called.
A woman’s voice answered from inside. “I’m here.”
Relief crossed his face so quickly that Eli had to look away. Mr. Chao pushed at the bookcase. It rose an inch, then settled back.
“Together,” Eli said.
Owen took the other end. Tessa cleared the loose books away from their feet and leaned close to the narrow gap above the case.
“I’m Tessa. We’re going to lift this. Don’t pull from your side until I tell you.”
A man’s voice answered. “My sister can’t get up.”
“Can you tell me where she’s hurt?”
“Her leg is under the shelf. She hit her head, too.”
“Is she awake?”
“Yes.”
“Mei, can you hear me?”
“Yes.” The woman’s voice was thin but steady.
“We’re going to lift the case. I need you to tell us if anything shifts against your leg.”
Eli and Owen crouched. The bookcase was solid wood, heavier than it looked. Eli set his feet, counted to three, and lifted. One end rose. The other caught on the doorframe.
“Stop,” Tessa said.
Eli held the weight until Owen found the snag. A shelf had split, leaving a jagged edge against the frame. Owen pressed it inward. They lifted again, and the case came free.
The brother pulled Mei’s leg clear. Tessa slid into the bedroom before Eli and Owen lowered the case against the opposite wall.
Mei lay beside the bed. Her brother had folded a pillow beneath her head. One trouser leg was torn at the shin, and the exposed skin was already swelling. Tessa checked her breathing and asked questions while Mr. Chao knelt at her shoulder.
“Can you move your toes?”
Mei did. She grimaced.
“Good. Don’t try to stand yet.”
Mr. Chao seized Tessa’s hand. “Can she walk?”
“I don’t know until I finish checking her. Please give me room.”
He backed away at once, ashamed. Tessa softened her voice. “Stay where she can see you. Ask her to keep talking.”
Owen looked at the apartment window. Outside, smoke rose beyond the opposite building. He had a maintenance radio clipped to his vest, but it gave only a low hiss when he pressed the button.
Eli checked the corridor. Mara stood near the service door. She raised her hand to show she could see him. The boy sat with his back against the wall, still holding pressure on his arm. Mrs. Larkin’s son had returned with the green blanket and another, thinner one.
The group was still there. No one had run ahead. That should have reassured Eli, but it meant there were more people whose lives depended on what happened in the next few minutes.
In his first life, Tessa had come back for him in the Aegis raid. Dust had filled the cavern as debris collapsed around him. She had known the commander’s order. She had ignored it long enough to reach the broken passage and shout his name.
He remembered the sound more clearly than the words. He remembered thinking that she was wasting her chance to escape.
Only now, remembering it beside the people on this landing, did he begin to understand why the memory mattered. He had spent years praising the people who could make a sacrifice for the greater good. Tessa had been the one who refused to let a person become an acceptable number while there was still something she could do.
He returned to the bedroom. “How many can walk?”
Tessa looked up. “Her husband can. Her brother can. Mei might be able to with support, but we’re not going to test it on the stairs.”
“So we have two people to carry.”
“Mrs. Larkin may need the full carry. Mei might manage with her brother and husband on either side if we keep weight off the injured leg.” Tessa checked the swelling again. “We need something firm to support it first.”
Owen looked around. “A shelf?”
“Wrapped in cloth. And not so tight it cuts off circulation.”
Mr. Chao picked up a fallen shelf. It had split at one end. Owen showed him how to turn the unbroken section against Mei’s leg, and Tessa used strips torn from a towel to hold it in place.
Eli went to Mrs. Larkin’s son and helped spread the green blanket on the floor. The woman lowered herself onto it with difficulty, directing them to stop twice when the movement hurt her hip.
“Will that hold?” her son asked.
Eli tested the edge. “Four people can lift it if we bunch the corners. But the fifth-floor landing is narrow. We’ll need to take the turn slowly.”
“What about the cabinet?”
“We move it before we bring her down.”
Mrs. Larkin looked toward the broken window. “What’s that noise?”
Eli listened. This time the sound came from below the service stairs, not the chair on the landing. Something struck the door, once, hard enough to rattle the wired glass.
Mara pulled the boy away. Owen ran to the door and pressed his ear against it. Another impact followed, accompanied by a low, wet rasp.
“That’s not a person,” he said.
Eli moved beside him. He thought of the two responders below and resisted the urge to shout a warning through the door. If the creature had not heard them yet, he did not want to lead it upstairs.
Tessa came out of the apartment with Mei and her family. Mr. Chao and the brother supported her between them. Mei’s injured leg barely touched the floor.
“Can we still use the stairs?” Tessa asked.
“Not from this door.” Eli looked down the hall. “There’s another route. I remember a service access farther along this floor.”
Owen frowned. “Which one?”
“Past the laundry rooms. There’s a turn to a narrow stairwell.”
The words came from a building map Eli had studied years after the outbreak, when Aegis had used the district for training. He remembered a blue maintenance door and a set of concrete steps. He did not remember when the building had been renovated. In his first life, he had never been on this floor during the breach.
Tessa watched him. “How do you know that?”
He could not tell her what the map represented without explaining a life she had not lived. The noise came again, louder this time.
“I’ve seen a plan of the building,” he said. “I’m not certain it’s current.”
Owen glanced toward a wall cabinet near the lift. “There’s a plan there. If it’s still inside.”
Tessa looked from the cabinet to the families waiting with their makeshift carry sheet. Then she nodded once.
“Get it,” she said. “We’ll check the route before anyone moves.”