Nobody waits for me.
No one comes looking despite the noise I made with the door.
I listen hard, even risking closing my eyes to enhance my focus on the sounds in the stairwell. The dull thud of footsteps echoes down the shaft, moving fast but growing quieter. Someone climbing perhaps? But the noise dissipates and is gone before I can be sure I truly hear it.
Swallowing deep, I descend a flight. There are no voices, no pacing footsteps. Have they left? I descend another flight and peek over the edge. In the circle of blue light, I see nothing unexpected. They’ve gone. I overreacted. Not for the first time, and probably not the last either.
“Idiot.” I suck in a deep breath and let it out with a shaky chuckle. Followed by another sound, though this one isn’t mine.
It’shis.
A low groan reverberates. My feet resist my brain. Every hair on my body stands alert. My ears strain to understand what they’re hearing, and my eyes scan the dim environment for dangers. Part of me wants to stay away. The charged atmosphere in the lofty space is evidence enough that something is terribly wrong, but my feet continue to carry me forward despite my brain crying warnings.
I find him on the floor. He’s slumped against the wall with his right arm and head on the second step. He’s a contradiction. A beautifully dressed vagrant; just another person looking for a safe, dry spot to sleep in the Vale… if it wasn’t for the stain beneath him.
A dense red pool flows outward. It drips from the first step, in tiny splashes, to the floor; thicker and darker than expected. It’s black where it concentrates in a pool. It takes a moment to understand what I’m looking at.
Blood.
The man on the stairs is dying.
I recognise him, in his smart suit, as the man with hazel eyes who paced the floor. What happened? How does someone go from pacing to bleeding in the time I take to make a decision?
My gaze flicks to the clear path down the steps beside him. If I tiptoe, I could pretend I was never here. I’m tempted to dash down the stairs and lie to anyone who asks about it later, but he whines again and a chunk of my self-preservation crumbles away, leaving only a sympathy I didn’t know I possessed.
“You couldn’t have picked another block? It had to be mine, right?” I grumble, edging my way down each step, keeping my eyes on his motionless form, but listening out for any other movement.
My nerves rattle my bones. Side by side with the nerves, exists the fear. This could be a trap; it wouldn’t be unheard of. Even if it isn’t a trap, getting involved is dangerous. I want to leave and forget I’ve even seen him, but my siblings smash through my mind; the twins in particular. In a few years, this could be AJ or TJ. What then? Wouldn’t I want someone to help them? My answer doesn’t need saying.
And work? Well, my boss is already going to fire me. I am so late, it isn’t even worth showing up.
So, I guess that means I’m helping.
“What happened? Are you okay? You’re bleeding. What can I do? Should I call an ambulance?” I hear how stupid I sound, but what do you say to a man bleeding in a public stairwell? By rights, I shouldn’t be saying anything at all. I should mind my own business.
“No ambulance. My brother…c…c…call my brother…” he stutters, his voice breaking.
“I don’t know your brother’s number. Listen, just let me run upstairs and call you an ambulance.” We don’t have a phone, but my neighbour does. If I take the stairs three at a time, I can climb them in minutes. Does he have minutes? I damn well hope so. Emergency response time in the Vale is so bad, he’ll be lucky if they show at all.
Reaching out his hand, his face twisting with the effort, he shows me a sleek black cell phone. He holds it out, but his hand shudders and falls before I can take it from him. I place my backpack on the floor and pluck the phone from his fingers. The blood-smeared screen proves he already tried to make the call, but the slick red coating probably prevented the phone from dialling out.
I suck in shallow, hissed breaths of air that chill my gritted teeth. The bitter tang of iron coats my tongue as thoroughly as it fills my nostrils and, though I’m familiar with the taste of my blood, the acrid aroma of this stranger’s turns my gut. It’s too thick, too heavy in my throat. Swallowing it down, I focus on the bleeding man.
“Your brother’s number?” My voice shakes; my hands too.
“Press…hold one,” he whispers before passing out entirely. I pray for someone else,anyone else, to show up and deal with the situation, but no one shows. There’s only me.
Wiping the bloody screen on my jeans, I press and hold the first digit. The screen flashes a name and number I don’t see, and then it rings. One, two, three, four rings before a click signals connectionand then the dull acoustics of an enclosed room, of breathing and expectation, fill the line. A voice speaks a single word. “Thomas?”
Thomas? He shares the same first name as my brother, TJ. If human decency isn’t enough of a reason to help this man, then this coincidence clinches it. Stuff the consequences. This is the right thing to do—this is what good people do.
“Hel-lo?” My voice squeaks and breaks.
“Who is this? What are you doing with Tom’s phone?”A man’s sharp voice reaches down the line, almost choking the words in my throat. I push down the urge to vomit and lean on the balustrade for support.
“There…um…He asked me to call you instead of an ambulance. He’s hurt. It looks bad. There’s a lot of blood.”
“Fuck!”he bellows. Sharp and resonant, it rings in my ear. Then the line hisses and a loudthumpechoes before he speaks again, this time with more control.“Where are you? What’s the address?”
