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She was panting now, a kind of noiseless, heaving panic taken over when she looked back to me. But that didn’t scare me as much as the tears.
“Take my hand,” I said. “Take my hand and it will all be okay.”
Her face twisted in disbelief, horror. How could it ever be okay?
“You’ll be safe. Just take my hand and you will be safe.”
Don’t think about the bloody bits of man below you. Don’t think about it. Take my hand.
She reached for me again, and I wondered if my sway had finally worked, if I’d finally gotten through to her. Her palm was slick with sweat, but I’d have to do with the grip I had. There was no way I could trust my other shoulder, my recently broken shoulder, to pull her up.
We stared at each other for a long moment while she convinced herself to let go with her other hand.
“I’ve got you, Emily.” I nodded. “Let go, use your feet against the building and grab hold of my arm.”
Her eyes closed in one long blink, and when she opened them, the rest of her weight pulled against our connected hands. Her other palm smacked against my forearm and clung an instant before her right sneaker slipped from its brace on the bricks. As she dangled there, the terror in her expression was suddenly gone, and determination took its place.
She found her footing again, gritted her teeth, and pushed upward as I pulled, both of us struggling to bring her to the safety of the roof. There was a fleeting moment of mindless scrabbling at the ledge, and then she was over, rushing forward as I got to my feet, and I dragged her away from the edge and into my arms out of reflex, pulling her body close to mine.
I’d like to think she shared in the instant of joy and utter relief, but after some brief, unnamed time, I suddenly realized her body had gone rigid. And that I was hugging her.
I slowly relaxed my arms and stepped back. “I… I’m sorry.” Why was I apologizing?
Emily stared blankly at me and I wanted badly for her to say something. Anything.
“Emily…”
She went pale and leaned forward as if to heave, started toward the ledge with that intent, and then appeared to remember what was below.
She swallowed hard, and I fought the urge not to laugh in a strange surge of hysteria. She would just not be sick, then. I shook my head. My chest finally allowed me a full, deep breath, and I took it gratefully.
Given that our pursuer lay smashed at the bottom of the building, we weren’t in such a dire hurry as we had been. But I had no desire to be on the rooftop when the police showed up, if anyone had actually noticed the commotion. As soon as Emily had gathered herself enough to move, I helped her cross to the empty building three rooftops over.
There were no real gaps between the buildings, so it wasn’t as if she had to leap across, but Emily couldn’t stop glancing nervously down.
“Do you need to rest for a minute?” I asked as we approached the structure that housed the access door on the last roof.
She shook her head. “Just get me down.”
I tried not to smile. “You’re all right now. We’ll get out of here and find a new place to stay until morning.”
She didn’t reply, only stayed on my heels with her head down, so I kept talking.
“This is an old office building. It was closed years ago, no one will be in it.”
I picked up a discarded piece of metal to pry the lock before I realized it had already been busted, and hoped I was right about the building being empty.
“There is access to the parking garage on the second floor, and then we’ll just slip out and take a quick run to somewhere new.”Somewhere no people are, no one Morgan can direct, I thought as I drew open the door.
She followed me wordlessly as I grabbed a flashlight and a few tools from the maintenance area beside the access door, and then quickly located the stairwell. When we reached the second floor, I stopped to let her rest, but she didn’t appear to need it as much as I had expected. She must have been on the track team, or maybe a marathoner, because the last few days were beginning to wear on even me.
We moved from the stairwell across the vacant office, which was only discernible from the carpet discoloration in the shape of cubicle walls, and found the hallway that led to the garage entrance.
“Hold this,” I said, handing Emily the flashlight.
She held it steady, but stepped back when I took a screwdriver much like the one she’d nearly killed me with from my pocket. I worked the locks loose and pried the door open far enough to bust the catch free, and then tossed the tools to the ground once we were through. They clattered, and it echoed with our footfalls across the dark, empty parking garage as we ran through the concrete expanse.
Fortunately, the first level was partially underground, so the leap needed to reach the ground was not deadly. However, you couldn’t have told Emily that.
