“Do you think he’s still here?” Dani gasped.
“No,” Malone said. “But if he is, and he’s entitled to the space, he’ll answer. If he’s trespassing, he’ll scramble. Either way, we’ll know soon enough. But I doubt he’s here. Stand behind me please, and hold on to the rail, just in case he comes barreling out. I don’t want him knocking you down the stairs.”
Malone rapped on the door again and called out, “Hello?” letting anyone who might still be inside know they were aware of him.
No one came to the door.
Malone slipped his tools from a slim pouch in his pocket, and mere seconds later, the lock released.
The smell hit them the moment the door swung inward.
They peered into the dark room, their hands over their noses and mouths.
“Someone was sick,” Malone hissed through his teeth. “Someone was sick all over the couch. I’m guessing it was our drunk visitor.”
“I’m not touching it,” Dani moaned through her hands.
“Me neither.” He pointed at the trail of water leading from the bathroom to the door. “But maybe he left some of his clothes behind.”
Malone walked through the apartment, telling Dani to stay put, and she heard him yank the chain dangling from the bathroom light. No glow emanated from the space.
“It’s burnt out. But there’s nothing in here but more puke and bathwater,” he called. “He must have cleaned up enough to leave.”
She made her way to the couch, her nose tucked into her shoulder to relieve some of her discomfort. The end of the sofa, where his feet had been, was splattered with vomit too, all but the arm rest. She touched it tentatively, grimacing, trying to listen amid the rancid distraction. She felt nothing but sadness. Confusion. And layer upon layer of life, none of it specific. None of it helpful. She thought she heard Jacob again, chanting his terms in the same hopeless monotone.
“Nothing?” Malone asked.
She shook her head.
She stepped away and reached for the drapes. Malone moved beside her, his arm wrapped around his lower face so he could breathe into his elbow.
The curtains were dark and warm, absorbing the light from the window, and for a minute their warmth obscured what was beneath. Like clothing on a corpse.
Dani shuddered and let go. Her palms stung as though she’d fallen on frozen ground, and she rubbed them down her skirt. It was a sensation she was not accustomed to, that undercurrent of cold, and she didn’t know what to make of it.
“Let’s get out of here,” Malone insisted. But she shook her head and reached for the panels once more, bracing herself like one would brace for the wind. The sun was too bright, and she grimaced against it, the rays turning the backs of her lids red. She buried her face in the dusty cloth, and the red became black. She coughed and the cold skittered over her cheeks and down her throat, burning her the way ice burned.
She just needed a name, and then she would let go.
“Jacob?” she murmured. “Is that you?”
He’d contemplated death here. Standing right here. His own. His father’s. His mother’s. So much death. And he did not fear it. He longed for it.
No. Not Jacob. This was not the hopelessness of a drained medical student teetering on the edge of severe depression.
This was different.
Someone else had stood, clinging to these drapes, waiting for the darkness to lift. Many times. Her fingers felt like claws, rigid and cold, but she climbed higher, finding her grip. Right there. He was taller than she, and his hands had twisted in the folds above her head. His hands . . . whose hands?
“Dani?” Malone’s voice seemed far away, a voice in the mouth of a cave, but she moved deeper into the frigid darkness, the cold seeping into her limbs and slowing her heartbeat.
“He doesn’t know who he is,” she said, but her voice was small and hollow, the cavern growing bigger and bigger around her, and she wasn’t sure Michael even heard her. She tried harder, pushing around her frozen tongue.
“He’s many people.”
“Who?” Malone’s voice was as distorted and faint as her own, and she tried to answer, to tell him to wait. She tried to let go, but she couldn’t feel the curtains anymore. She couldn’t feel her self. She was just one of the many, hovering in the icy dark.
“Who are you?” she asked them. “What are your names?”
One whisper, then another, like a colony of bats dripping from the stony darkness above her head. But the murmurs told her nothing. She only knew she was not alone.