rises, each with their individual boxes of light representing offices and apartments, each containing some other person living their life. The streams of cars on the roads below are the same—each one carrying a person to their own individual destination. To them, what they’re doing is the most important thing in the world. To us, it’s just another light bobbing down the road, the same as all the others.
Usually that thought would make me feel isolated and insignificant. But tonight I think most of those people are probably going home to somebody—maybe to make pasta or watch a movie. And even if those activities are mundane, they’re peaceful and happy.
“Do you see your little sister much?” Raylan asks me out of nowhere.
“Nessa?”
“Yeah.”
“I do, actually,” I tell him. “I meet her for lunch. Sometimes I go see what she’s working on at her dance studio—she’s a choreographer.”
“Dante told me what happened with her husband—with the Polish Mafia.”
Nessa met Mikolaj when he kidnapped her. We were in conflict with the Polish Mafia at the time. In what I first thought was Stockholm Syndrome, Nessa and Miko developed feelings for each other. He let her go, which almost cost him control of his men and his own life. Nessa went back to him and they married.
“Do you know what’s funny?” I say to Raylan.
“What?”
“I actually like Miko.”
Raylan laughs. “You do?”
“Yes. I mean, don’t get me wrong—he’s intense. But he’s smart and ruthless, and devoted to Nessa.”
“What’s Nessa like?” Raylan asks me.
“Everybody who meets her loves her. She’s kind—like your mom, I guess. She’s always been that way. Even when she was little, she couldn’t stand to see anybody sad. She’d share anything with you.”
I pause, thinking.
“Sometimes she used to annoy me, because she could be childish, too. Too passive, too gentle, too eager to please my parents. Maybe I was jealous. She’s so likable and I know I’m . . . ”
“What?” Raylan says.
“A lot,” I say.
Raylan laughs.
“But anyway, she grew up, moving out of my parents’ house, getting married. She’s always been creative, and she’s been making these ballets that are just wild and gorgeous. I don’t know shit about dance, but they really are beautiful. And I respect that. I don’t know—maybe it was just both of us getting older. But we seem to have more to talk about now.”
“I feel that way, too,” Raylan says. “With my siblings.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. You get older, and when you get together, instead of talking about the people you know and the things you used to do, you can just talk about life, about books and movies and the world, and you’ve grown up and they’ve grown up and all the little petty shit you used to fight about as kids doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Right,” I say. “Exactly.”
We’ve been sitting out on the balcony for a long time now. I have a blanket wrapped around my shoulders to keep me from freezing, but Raylan is just wearing his normal button-up shirt.
“Aren’t you cold?” I ask him.
“Nah,” he says. Then after a minute, he grins and admits, “Actually yeah, I’m pretty fuckin’ cold.”
We go back into the warmth of the apartment, closing the sliding glass door behind us.
Raylan and I linger in the living room, a strange kind of tension between us now.
“I guess I’ll go to bed,” I say.
“Good night.” Raylan nods.
I go into my room, brush my teeth, and slip under the covers.
But it’s a long time before I actually fall asleep. I lay there restless and confused, wondering why I felt so relaxed on the balcony, but so troubled now.
I wake to someone jerking me out of bed.
The air is thick with black smoke, so thick that I’m hacking and coughing, and my eyes are streaming with tears. I can’t pull in a breath.
“Get down!” Raylan barks, pulling me down low to the carpet.
It’s a little easier to breathe down here, but not much.
Raylan is tying one of his t-shirts around my face, making a makeshift bandanna. I can hear sharp cracking and popping sounds, and it’s so hot that sweat is pouring down my skin.
“What’s happening!” I rasp. My throat feels raw and choked, even with the t-shirt over my face.
I can’t see anything. The smoke and heat are getting worse by the second.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Raylan says. He’s yanking the blankets off my bed, and the sheets too.
He throws a blanket over both of us and pulls me along, staying low to the floor.
As we leave my bedroom,