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The stair door opens. I can see a strip of the floor from where I am. The coverall steps onto it. It walks like it has time. The white face turns toward the desks. It stops.

I can hear it breathe. Or I can hear myself. I cannot tell.

My phone lights up. I press it to my chest. Rhys is still on the line. I can hear his engine and the road under it.

The figure walks past the divider. I see the glove. I see the knife. It pauses at a desk and puts two fingers on the wood, like it is thinking, like it has all the time in the world to pick a body.

I run for the other stairs.

“I’m moving,” I say. “I’m moving. Don’t you hang up,” I plead.

“I am not hanging up. I hear you. Keep going.”

Down again. My feet slap the concrete. A door slams below me. I do not know if that is air or a person. I take the next landing too fast. My ankle turns. Rhys hears the sound I make.

“Ivy.”

“I’m fine. I’m not fine. My foot—”

“Lobby if you can. Glass. People. Cameras.”

“There is no one here. There is no one in this building. Rhys, there is no one.”

I hit a level where the door opens on a long run of glass. I can see down. I can see the lobby floor. I can see the front doors and, past them, the car park light and my car sitting there like it is still waiting for a man who is already cold.

“I can see my car,” I tell him. I am already running along the glass. “I can see the doors. If I can get down I can get out. I can—”

The glass shows me the mask beside my own face. Closer than it should be.

I scream.

I make a small sound I did not mean to. I can hear it bounce off the glass.

I slam back into the stairs because there is no way down from here except the way I just came.

“Ivy. Talk.”

“Stairs. I’m on the stairs. It’s right—”

Something catches my hair. A glove. I see it when I turn.

The glove has my hair. I throw myself down the stairs anyway. The hair pulls, then it lets go. The phone hits the rail and does not fall all the way. I grab it when I hit the landing on my hip. It hurts. I keep the phone. I keep Rhys.

“Ivy.”

“It has me. It has—”

I kick. I get the rail. I get two more steps down before the knife finds my thigh.

It’s not deep, but it is enough. My leg goes. I sit down hard on the stairs. The coverall comes down over me. The white face is all I can see.

“Rhys.” My voice is small. “Don’t come. It’s—”

The glove takes the phone out of my hand and holds it. I can still hear Rhys saying my name. The figure does not hang up. It wants him listening.

The other hand takes the mask off.

A face I know from the building. An easy mouth. That face looks at me like we have already met, because we have.