kick at his fingers and he lets out a yelp of his own, making mine less shameful. Then I’m soaring upwards.
I figure they’re watching the numbers so they can travel to the same floor as me, but if I start punching in a bunch of random floors, it’ll give them more opportunities to accost me. Thirty-one it is. After that...I guess I’ll decide when I get there.
I stand to the side of the doors and squeeze my eyes shut tight when I reach the top floor. I fully expect to be riddled with bullet holes, but when I open my eyes I encounter nothing more than an elderly couple waiting for me to emerge. I get out and they get in.
“Is there rooftop access?” I ask as the doors start to shut.
The man points to my left. I see the numbers climbing on the three remaining elevators and run in the direction indicated. At the end of the hall is a door marked “Roof Access.”
I slip into the stairwell and stop. Somewhere below me, footsteps halt. I’m listening for someone and he’s listening for me, and I’m pretty sure we’ve already met. Hopefully he’s as out of shape as I am.
I climb the last flight on my tiptoes, hearing the occasional squeak from below. I guess we have the same idea. Though it’s all for nothing when I shoulder open the door to the rooftop and bright sunlight streams in, giving away my great plan. My would-be assailant pounds up the stairs behind me and I hear static and an echo report of “She’s on the roof.”
The sun has burned through the thin layer of clouds, making everything up here feel exposed and vulnerable. The world is too bright, too surreal. Too quiet. Too open. There are a few barbeques and lounge chairs, small tables and planters—nothing to hide behind and nothing to use as a weapon. I stagger across the empty patio, then drag over a metal bistro table and wedge it under the door handle.
The building on the left is two stories taller than this one, but the one on the right is the same height. Unfortunately, it’s about six feet away and, when I creep to the edge and peer down, it’s an uninterrupted drop to the alley thirty-one stories below. It also has a recessed roof with a high retaining wall that rises about four feet. Even if I survive the jump, it’s going to hurt.
The patio table screeches over the paving stones as someone tries to shove their way through the fire door. Shit.
I whirl around desperately.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
They’re cursing inside, too, so close I can hear it, feel it, like hot breath in my ear.
Another furious bang against the door, and I know I’m out of time.
For years I’ve been asking myself the same question as I pace the perimeter of the roof of my own building: up or down.
Now I know the answer.
18
IT HURTS.
Like, a lot.
Owwwww.
I want to curl into a fetal position and take stock of my injuries and feel sorry for myself for a bit, but the sound of the door banging open on the opposite roof and the stampede of footsteps behind it is strong motivation to move. I roll so I’m pressed up against the retaining wall of the new building, hoping desperately that the four-foot stack of concrete blocks will help me. A scan of my surroundings confirms what my tattered and bleeding hands already know: this roof, otherwise bare, is covered in gravel, much of which is now embedded in my skin. The pain and the position is horribly familiar. I’d lain in a similar way, though with more blood and infinitely more heartbreak, after the car accident, unable to move until someone came to rescue me.
I think it’s a safe bet that no one’s coming to save me now.
Muffled voices filter across the gap between buildings. I can’t make out words, but I figure they’re debating whether or not I’d jumped and whether it’s a good idea for them to jump, too. Lucky for me, they opt not to tempt gravity and eventually they retreat and the fire door slams. I don’t move. If I were a murderous psychopath, I’d leave someone up there to watch and make sure I wasn’t lying right where I am, waiting for me to stand up so they could shoot me.
My hands and knees throb. I lift my head to take in the torn and bloody holes in my jeans,