The elevator moved painfully slowly, giving me plenty of time to worry about what could go wrong now. What if someone else got in the elevator? What if there were people on the main floor?

I paled. What if the receptionist had gotten free?

Nausea toying with my stomach, I waited with baited breath.

The elevator halted in its ascent. The doors slid open with that damned ding.

Nobody was on the main floor.

I didn't even give myself time to be relieved. Instead, I dashed over the pale tile and shoved my way outside.

There was nobody on the street that I could see, save for two people who were so far away that I couldn't make out any details about them. Before they could catch sight of me, I hurried into the alleyway.

The ladder leading to the fire escape platform was still down. I suddenly had a horrible thought: what if someone had climbed up it? Wha if they found Rooftop?

I took a deep breath as I ascended and pulled up the ladder behind me. Claire, you have to calm down.

I climbed into the elevator only after making sure the ladder was safely secured. There was a difference, after all, between being paranoid and being cautious, and the thin line between the two was what had kept Rooftop and its inhabitants alive for seven years.

It didn't feel like it took as long to ascend the skyscraper as it had to descend it. I still felt a lurch of nervousness every time I passed a window, though. By the time I was standing on the roof, I was emotionally and physically exhausted, the ghost of pain lingering in my newly popped ears.

I hurried back to my apartment and grinned as I climbed through the window - Charlie was curled in Nik's arms on the couch. Both boys were fast asleep.

Although Charlie had gotten a decent amount of sleep the night before, finding him napping didn't surprise me. He was an energetic child, as most little boys were, but he could sleep as though dead at almost any time of day or night.

I bit my lip to hide a smile and crept over to the couch. Then I grabbed my best friend's shoulders and sang out, "Morning, sunshine!" Immediately, I leaped backward to avoid being struck by a sleepily furious Nik - it had happened several times in the past.

"Shit!" he roared, releasing Charlie and tumbling to the floor.

"Charlie, never say that word," I ordered automatically, but I needn't have bothered. Charlie was just beginning to wake up.

"Hiya, sleepyhead," I greeted him, smiling fondly down at him.

"Hi," he replied. "Is it lunchtime?"

I laughed. "Sleep and eat, those are you two settings." My little brother giggled and wrapped his arms around my neck. I slung him over the back of the couch and carried him to the window. "Coming, Nik?" I asked innocently, turning to face him.

My best friend was just starting to pick himself up off of the floor with a disgruntled look on his face. "Are we not going to talk about how you nearly just gave me a f..." he glanced at Charlie, "fricking heart attack?"

"Do you want lunch or not?" I asked.

"Let's just hope there's enough food," Nik muttered. "Did you hear about what happened?"

The disgust in his voice made me swallow hard. I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

"It's awful. Kids are going on raids left and right, trying to find enough food. They still have no idea who did it," Nik continued.

I nodded again, still silent.

"Well, let's go see if they found enough for lunch," Nik decided in a what-can-you-do-about-it voice.

"Lunch!" Charlie cheered. He, like most children, had very selective hearing.

I smiled wanly down at him and placed him carefully on the floor. "Yes, Charlie. Lunch."

*

I sighed in relief as we approached the food cage and saw that the group of people from this morning was gone. I wouldn't have to feign cluelessness for the third time today.

Guilt - as well as hunger - gnawed at my insides as Nik pulled out a couple granola bars and dutifully entered them into the clipboard. How could I eat this food, further depleting our resources, while knowing that I had been the cause of the problem in the first place?

"I'm not that hungry," I heard myself saying. "I don't need anything."

Nik shot me a strange look. "You sure? You didn't eat breakfast."

"I'm sure." I explained no further, watching silently as he returned some of the granola bars. My stomach rumbled in protest.

I looked away as Nik and Charlie tore into their food without abandon. I deserve this, I told myself as hunger cramped my insides. I deserve this.

After lunch, the three of us returned to our apartment. Sarah was sitting on the roof.

"Hey," she greeted us, leaning into Nik as he pressed a kiss to her forehead.

I nodded in greeting. "Hi, Sarah," Charlie murmured.

"Mind if I sleep here tonight?" she asked, a note of apology in her voice. Even though she and Nik had been together for two years, during which time she had slept over on several occasions, she still always seemed guilty asking the question.

"Of course you can," I replied kindly. Although Sarah and I weren't nearly as close as Nik and I were, we were still friends. She smiled gratefully and followed us into the apartment.

"You two lovebirds can have the bedroom," I told them. "Charlie, do you want to sleep here or with one of your friends?" While I tended to keep to myself, my little brother was nowhere near as introverted and gravitated toward other children when bored.

His face lit up. "Can I stay over at Coco's? She tells the best stories."

I nodded, smiling, and kissed his forehead before he scrambled out of the window. Coco lived with a group of similarly aged children and a few responsible teenagers. I knew that Charlie would be safe with them.

When Rooftop had first started out, it faced a problem: how to deal with all the young, orphaned children? Some arrived alone and lost while others (most, in fact) were brought by their siblings, who later perished from physical or mental diseases they had been fighting with Horizon pills.

Some of the teenagers who had arrived alone - especially those who had lost a sibling along the way - took it upon themselves to raise these toddlers and infants. Now, they all resided in a large apartment: one big, makeshift family. It was a surprisingly upbeat and positive environment, one that I had no problem sending Charlie to.

That apartment was a reflection of Rooftop as a whole. Our conditions had forced us together, and we were all fiercely loyal.

Leaving it would be hard.