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“You good?” I asked Ava.

“I think so,” she said. “Are you? That thing nearly got you.”

“Yeah.” Pulse hammering, I forced a smile. “Thanks for having my back.”

“Always.” Her attention returned to the rear entry of the building, then her expression shuttered.

I straightened my shoulders and checked the lot one last time. “Come on. Let’s go find Sadie.”

Nineteen

ava

From the outside, the building looked the same as the last time I’d seen it, clean and free from damage.

No residents were on the rooftop today, talking to one another or staring out at the view. No voices drifted down.

Sadie never used to spend time up there before the pandemic, but during lockdown it had become her refuge.

“Which level’s hers?” Luke asked as we approached the door.

“Four.” Dried tracks ran down the glass from recent rain, and the screen on the security pad was blank.

I tried the handle, expecting another barrier between me and my sister, but the door opened, the hinges smooth and silent.

Luke ran his thumb over the tape someone had placed over the catch to keep it from locking. “Smart.”

Or dodgy. Why would anyone need to do that when the residents had keys?

The patterned tiles shone as if they’d been recently scrubbed, and both armchairs were still in place near the centre of the foyer. Rows of mailboxes were ahead on the left, and the wide, open staircase on the right stood empty. The pungent scent of bleach hung in the air, stinging my nose and the back of my throat.

“Someone’s cleaned up.” Luke scanned the space and frowned. “Wonder if the bodies out the back were killed in here?”

It seemed the most likely explanation, but how had the infected made it into the foyer in the first place?

“Sadie would do that,” I said, more to myself than to him. “Scrub the place, I mean. She’d hate having the smell hanging around.”

The only apartment on the ground floor sat directly to our left, the wood around the door splintered, as if someone had forced it open.

“That’s where Dustin lives,” I said. “Or he did, last I heard.”

Had he moved on like I’d hoped? Maybe died from the virus? I knew nothing about what had happened after Sadie caught Ultimus.

The door no longer sat flush in its frame. Luke gave it a push, but it didn’t budge. “Something’s barricading it from the other side.”

Signs of violence in the building where my sister lived did nothing to ease my mind, but I wouldn’t get any answers down here. “I’ll find out what’s going on from Sadie.”

I headed straight for the stairs, each step echoing in the silence. “Do you think the infected can climb?” I asked as Luke fell in beside me.

“No idea. Their clumsiness tells me no.”

On the second floor, every door was closed, and nothing moved in the shadows. I didn’t pause long enough to listen for sounds inside any of the apartments. Just kept going, my heart thumping harder with each step.

The third floor was identical to the one below it. No signs of violence or shuffling footsteps. Just emptiness and a silence that made the blood rushing in my ears seem even louder.

We reached the landing on level four, and I stopped in front of Sadie’s apartment. While I flicked through my keys for the spare to her place, Luke stood close behind me, knocking on the door with a couple of light raps over my head.

I waited for groans or awkward bumps. An offensive smell, or the sensation of being watched through the peephole. Nothing came, and I couldn’t decide if that was worse.