On Floor Nine, Joseph had been awake for hours.
The common room here was larger than the ones above it: a long rectangle with tall windows facing east, the glass original to the building, slightly wavy in its old panes, bending the light as it entered. A table ran nearly the full length of the room. Someone in an earlier arrangement had pushed it to center and never moved it back.
Joseph sat at the far end, pencil in hand, sketching lines he already knew by memory.
Jess entered carrying a mug. “You’re drawing it again.”
Joseph didn’t look up. “It helps.”
Jess leaned against the wall. “Helps with what?”
He didn’t answer.
Benny came in next, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “You’re both up early.”
Jess tilted her head toward Joseph’s paper. “He’s mapping.”
Benny sighed. “We don’t need to map.”
Joseph erased a line and redrew it straighter. “You don’t need to,” he said quietly.
❧
Floor Thirteen smelled like toast.
The hallway here was slightly narrower than the floors below. Not by design, but through accumulation. Shelving had been added along one wall over time, built from materials that had arrived in supply carts and been repurposed without ceremony. The shelves were full and organized, labeled in two different sets of handwriting.
Rose stood at the counter slicing apples with slow precision.
“Use the good knife,” she said. “The other one tears.”
Across the room, two blankets were being folded into exact thirds. A slipper sat slightly angled near the doorway. Rose nudged it with her toe until it aligned with the tile seam.
“Did anyone hear the bell last night?” Addy asked.
“Yes,” Rose said.
“Which floor?”
She shrugged. “It passed.”
Addy didn’t press further.
Rose closed the refrigerator.
Everything was where it belonged.
❧
The seventeenth floor was quiet in a different way.
No doors open. The hallway held the particular stillness of a space where people were present but contained. Sound absorbed behind closed doors, the faint sense of wakefulness without movement.
The carpet here was more worn than on the floors below. Not evenly. In patterns: outside certain doors, along certain walls, in the space between the elevator bank and the stairwell door at the end of the hall.
The sconces burned brighter than elsewhere, the frosted glass shades newer, replaced recently.
No one was visible.
Half-bell.
Seventeen.
The elevator passed through without stopping.
❧
On Floor Twenty-One, Bobby was seated at the far end of a long table, chair tipped back on two legs, arms resting loose at his sides.
Angel stood near the elevator bank, listening.
Half-bell.
Twenty.
Half-bell.
Twenty-One.
The car opened, empty.
She stepped inside without hesitation.
Bobby watched from across the room.
“Which one?” he asked.
“The north car,” she replied.
“Good.”
The doors closed. He let the chair fall flat against the floor and leaned forward, elbows on knees.
“Pay attention to the sound,” he called after her, though she could no longer hear him.
He smiled faintly.
❧