novelraw Chapter 168: The King Of G Street Apartments
Chapter 168: The King Of G Street Apartments
Noah lowered the scope and watched as Torres finish dying in front of him.
The man had made it thirty steps before the cold found his lungs.
Forty before his knees locked.
By fifty he was a blue shape on white, stiff as a bolt left in frost.
Noah kept the glass steady until Torres tipped and hit the ice with a dull crack. Then he breathed out and let the scope hang on its strap.
He had seen worse. He had made worse. Torres was not the first to try that crossing. He would not be the last.
Wind slid through the broken frame and stirred the tarp he had nailed over the worst of the gap.
Somewhere below, a door banged in its latch, then banged again. The noise climbed the tilt of the building like a drumbeat.
He waited for it to stop.
It did not.
Noise never stopped here, not really.
Noise meant life. Life meant trouble.
He lifted the scope again and swung back to the casino tower.
It stood clean against the sky, upright and smug in the way only a building with heat could be.
Windows dark behind covers. No movement, no answer, not even a glint. The people inside did not flash for anyone today. They never had to.
"Walked across frozen water like they owned the world," he muttered.
He could still see them in his head from that first week the ice set hard—four shadows and a smaller fifth, cutting across a white sheet as if the planet belonged to them.
The stride. The balance. The calm.
He had recognized the KAS team and their little mascot from a mile away. Strong backs. Clear eyes. Full bellies.
They kept going when he waved.
They never looked over in his direction.
Something inside him twisted then, a knot that had never untied.
They left him to die.
And he would have died if the flood had not thrown him at concrete like a toy and if rage had not taught his hands how to hold on for dear life.
Survival turned into practice. Practice turned into a plan. Now he stood twenty floors up in a building that leaned like a broken tooth, and when he spoke, people ran.
The blast earlier had cheered them.
A good show always did.
A little stove fuel in a rusted pipe, a spark in the right pocket of air, a controlled cough to shake the ice free from a frame.
Easy for a man who carried heat under his skin.
He flexed his right hand, palm out, and watched the skin bloom warmer. The air around his fingers rippled.
Frost on the sill softened and ran. He smiled and held the warmth until the concrete sighed.
Behind him, breath drew in.
A small sound.
One of the women hovering in the shadows of the room. He didn’t turn.
He did not need to turn to feel the way attention shifted when he worked. Fear made a better leash than rope ever did.
"Torres didn’t listen." The voice came from the doorway. Low. Careful. "He pulled the scarf to wave. You told him not to."
Noah kept his eyes on the tower and let the heat fade from his palm. "Torres ran in his own head long before he met me."
Footsteps entered the room. Roane—big shoulders, not much thought behind them—moved to the side and kept his gaze on the floor.
Smart for once.
On the mattress against the far wall, two women pressed close, their coats around their knees, their faces thin and watchful.
He smelled old smoke, unwashed wool, the sour tang of scavenged fuel.
"Bring me the ledger," Noah ordered, turning at last.
Roane vanished and returned with a spiral notebook, its corners bent and soft from too many hands.
Noah flipped to the last page where names ran in Evans-neat lines. Torres, cross-hatched. Two lines through men who had tried before him.
A list of those who would never eat again.
He closed the book and tucked it under his arm. "We’re not short on volunteers. We’re short on smart."
Roane swallowed. "People are hungry."
"Everyone is hungry." Noah pushed past him into the hall. "Hunger doesn’t mean stupid."
The corridor leaned enough to make the lights swing when anyone heavy used the stairs. Someone had strung colored wire like garland to keep ribs off the open shaft where the stairwell had torn free from its bolts. The wire hummed when wind slipped through.
Rooms along the hall still carried numbers on their doors, but no one cared about numbers anymore.
Floors held names now.
Stairs held rules.
He walked past a chalked sign that read STAIR GUARD and another that read WINDOW CREW.
People watched and moved out of his way.
A boy with a knit hat held a bundle of wires in his arms like a baby.
An old man coughed until his whole frame shook, then coughed again for emphasis. Someone cried quietly, face turned into a sleeve to hide the sound.
It didn’t matter.
Walls heard everything.
But walls didn’t talk.
On the seventeenth floor, the hallway turned into a market whether he wanted one or not.
Two crates of canned peaches traded for a cracked pair of boots. A limp pet rabbit on a hook.
A jar of something that had started life as soup and ended as paste. He could shut it down with a look if he chose. Most days he didn’t. Trade kept people busy, and busy kept him from breaking fingers.
He stepped through a door and into the room he used when he needed the building to remember who it belonged to.
The old manager’s office. Desk bolted to the floor. Chair with arms heavy enough to break a nose. A wall of safety deposit boxes ripped from their cabinet and piled like bricks.
Someone had taped a ripped poster of a beach over the largest crack. The water there shone a blue no one would see again.
He set the ledger on the desk and lifted his hands once more.