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My back was a solid knot of tension as I forced myself to sit up, undo my seat belt, and open the car door I started to stand, only to fall to the ground asNathan ran toward rasped his offered hand, using it to pullGravel had cut through hed a little, wincing at the faint edge of hysteria in the sound "Let’s rerab the first aid kit, okay?"
"Okay," said Nathan, keeping hold of er-side door shut and started toward the building entrance
I let hi as hard as I could to our environn that ere not alone I could hear cars driving by, and the distant sound of sirens--but that didn’t necessarily e exit that I couldn’t be hearing those sirens, and San Francisco is a city with a lot of sirens Police cars, private security, around noise of the city I was probably just hearing one of those, and not a sign that the crisis was getting worse in our immediate vicinity
A thin line of ice curled and uncurled in my belly, almost like a new kind of parasite You don’t really believe that, ht I knew the situation was devolving around us, and we didn’t have very long Maybe pressuring Dr Cale into letting us go ho to do… but we couldn’t leave the dogs They needed us, and unless the world was burning, that wasn’t a trust that I illing to break
There were no moans on the thin, smoke-scented air Even if the , it either wasn’t here yet, or it wasn’t attacking yet We had a little bit of tied o of his hand and took the lead down the hallway to the stairs We didn’t even discuss using the elevator The ility of our situation into sharp relief, and the last thing that either of us wanted was to be trapped between floors if the electricity suddenly cut out
The stairas silent save for the soft clicks of our shoes against the steps, and the sound of Nathan’s faintly labored breathing after the third floor Neither of us was in the best of shape, but at least et a bus so up eight flights of stairs" By the tily plu when I looked back and asked if he was all right I paused on the landing, my hand on the door handle, and waited for hih until you catch your breath," I said "We don’t knohat’s up there" Nathan’s building had a limited nule residents or couples, rather than entire families I wasn’t certain how many people we shared the floor with, but I knew that it was less than ten That was a good thing, becauseurban professionals, the kind of people who thought that no price was too high to pay for the opportunity to avoid needing to take a sick day The kind of people the Syned for If they had started their cascade into sleepwalker-doe e cao," I said, almost contemplatively
Nathan looked at me, his hands braced on his knees and his black hair lank with sweat It hung into his eyes,him look disheveled "I don’t think either of us has had a life thathow strange everything is"
"The broken doors are open," I said sourly
"Come and enter and be home," Nathan replied "Open the door, Sal I’ue with him I wanted to tell him that we needed to take a few more minutes so that he could catch his breath and I could preparein the hall And I kne ued with me about my own assess I just nodded, once, and opened the door
Theon the other side was almost an anticlimax He was barefoot, and his pants were unfastened, like he had been in the process of getting dressed when his thoughts becah he wasn’t drooling There was no one behind hi safety and lockable doors, if we could just get past the poor soul as staring blankly at us
"Hi," I said It wasn’t a good start I couldn’t think of anything else to do
The man twitched Not a lot--I wouldn’t even have noticed it in so, all heat and suddenness--but enough that it was clear he was responding to ue interest sparking in their depths My breath caught,balloons He kneas there He could hear me
"Sal…" said Nathan His voice was low, marbled with amaze to him somehow: fear because we both knehat the sleepwalkers could do