“The drive, Ms. Singh. We know you have it.”
I throw the second knife. This one catches the shoulder of the man on the left, tearing through fabric but not flesh. He adjusts his stance, unperturbed. Probably wearing body armor under that tactical gear.
“That’s enough of that.” The leader’s tone hardens. “Three trained operatives versus one analyst. No exits. No backup. I can see you calculating, measuring distances. But the math doesn’t work in your favor.”
He’s right. But Nathan’s boxes tower between us—twenty boxes of our dead relationship, filled with his books and kitchen gadgets and the life we built that he dismantled with a paralegal named Rebecca.
I slam my shoulder into the stack.
Boxes cascade in an avalanche of bubble wrap and breaking glass. The espresso machine I bought Nathan for Christmas crashes across the tiles with a sharp crack that makes one of the men flinch. Books scatter like dead birds, pages fluttering. Thesmell of cardboard dust and stale cologne rises—Nathan’s scent still clinging to his belongings like a ghost.
In the chaos, I bolt for the bedroom.
I slam the door shut behind me. My hands shake as I wedge the security bar under the knob—stupid, should’ve had it at the front door where it belongs. The door shudders immediately as someone tests it. Then silence that’s worse than the assault.
“Break it down.”
The window. Paint-sealed and humidity-swollen from Chicago summers. My mother’s silver jewelry box is heavy in my hands—ornate and solid, the weight of family heirlooms and old money. I smash it against the glass.
Once. Spiderweb cracks appear.
Twice. The cracks spread like lightning.
The door frame groans behind me, wood splintering under sustained force.
Third strike. Glass explodes outward.
Chicago night floods in—diesel exhaust sharp in my nose, the promise of coming rain, garlic from the Thai place three blocks over. And below, five floors of empty space yawning like an open mouth.
The fire escape squats outside like a rusted skeleton, metal corroded by decades of weather.
Five floors.
My body locks, feet rooting to the floor.
Seven years old. Mom calling from below:“Get down from there!”The garage roof rough under my palms. Reaching for the yellow Frisbee. The shingle sliding. That moment when solid becomes air. The ground rushing up?—
The door crashes inward.
No choice. No time.
I squeeze through the jagged glass, feeling it catch my shirt, slice through the fabric—hot line of pain across my thigh. Thefire escape groans under my sudden weight, rust flakes raining down—metallic taste mixing with the copper tang of fear. The metal is cold under my palms, gritty with decades of Chicago winters. The texture bites into skin already cut from the glass.
Don’t look down.
I look down.
The alley yawns like a throat ready to swallow me. Dumpsters look like toys five stories below. My vision tilts, vertigo hitting like a physical blow. Seven years old again. Falling. The snap of bone?—
“She’s going up!”
Up. The roof. The door to the internal stairs should be there. Has to be there.
My legs shake as I climb, each rung protesting under my weight. Bolts grind in crumbling brick. The structure sways—or maybe that’s me. Blood from my cut palms makes the metal slippery. The wind picks up, whipping hair across my face, carrying the smell of rain and rot and city exhaust. Something sharp like ozone means a storm is coming.
The roof access appears. I haul myself over the edge, grit biting through my jeans. Chicago sprawls in every direction—millions of lights, each one a life that has no idea mine is ending.
The rooftop is a graveyard of dead technology. HVAC units squat like tombs, humming their mechanical prayers. A forest of TV antennas from the analog age juts toward the sky. Rusted lawn chairs circle a Weber grill that hasn’t seen flame in years. Beer bottles scattered like offerings. Some broken. A child’s tricycle in the corner, its red paint peeling, abandoned by someone who moved away or grew up and forgot it existed.
