Page 4 of Sick(ness)

She bit her lip, glancing at the shared wall. For the briefest moment, she considered knocking. Just once to see.

But what if he didn’t answer? What if he—or someone—else did?

The idea made her throat tighten.

She set the notepad back down and crossed her arms over her chest, trying to steady her breathing. “Still safe,” she whispered again, quieter this time. The words trembled in the air before fading into nothing.

From somewhere beyond the door, deep in the hallway, something creaked.

Addy froze.

It was faint—possibly the wind, or the building settling. But she knew that sound. It was a footstep. Slow. Careful. Too deliberate to be anything else.

Her pulse hammered in her ears.

She moved closer to the door, holding her breath. Another step. Then another.

They stopped right outside her apartment.

The sound of her heartbeat filled the silence, heavy and unsteady. She could feel it in her throat, in her fingertips, pulsing against the cool metal of the doorknob. She didn’t dare move. Didn’t dare to breathe.

Every nerve in her body was screaming at her to run, to hide, to make herself invisible—but there was nowhere left to go. The apartment seemed like a box closing in around her, and the only thing separating her from whatever was outside was two inches of wood and a deadbolt she wasn’t sure she trusted anymore.

For a moment, there was nothing—just the faint whistle of wind pushing through the cracks in the old building. Then came a new sound.

A voice.

“2B?”

It was low and rough, muffled through the door, but unmistakably human.

Addy’s knees nearly gave out. Her hand flew to her mouth, holding in a sound that was half relief, half disbelief.

“Sawyer? “ she murmured before she managed to stop herself.

A pause. Then a dry, gravelly exhale. “Yeah. Surprised you know my name.”

Her shoulders sagged, the tension breaking just enough to let a tremor of air escape her lungs. She caved against the door, pressing her forehead to the cool surface. For a second, she struggled to make her voice work at all. Her throat tight, unused to the effort of speech. When she finally forced out a sound, it came out hoarse, almost alien in her own ears.

“Y—yes,” she croaked, the single syllable catching. “I’m here. I remember Mr. Jones mentioning it once.

Silence followed. She could hear the faint rustle of fabric outside, a weight shifting, possibly leaning closer.

“You’re okay?” he asked quietly.

The question hit her harder than she had expected. No one had asked her that in days—not the voices on the emergency radio, not the cold government alerts, not even herself.

“I… think so,” she said, though it sounded like a lie even to her.

A low grunt of acknowledgment came through the door. Then a scrape—his boots against the floor. She pictured him standing there in the half-light of the hallway, that perpetual calm she’d always noticed in him strained thin around the edges.

“Do you have water?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Food?”

“A little,” she stammered.