That night, I had difficulty falling asleep. Once I finally did, my dreams were troubled and vague. When I tried to grab onto them, cement them in my mind's eye, they slipped through my grasp like rivulets of water.

Because of this, when I woke, I was somewhat disoriented. I stared at the ceiling for a minute or two, trying to recall the events of last night.

I had read Charlie his three books, put him to sleep, and helped Nik turn the couch into his bed. Then I had collapsed on my blanket pile and promptly fell into a pit of worrying thoughts.

I scrubbed at my eyes. Doesn't matter. I'm awake now.

The bedroom door creaked open and someone grabbed my arm roughly. My eyes flew open to meet Nik's worried blue ones.

"Get up!" he hissed.

I flew to my feet, instantly alert. "What's going on?"

"Police search. I closed and locked the window - Claire, there are a lot of them." Nik's voice was tight, laced with anxiety.

Rooftop had only experienced one other police search, back when its residents still traveled down to the ground. It had taken place in the middle of the day and had been completely unexpected. In the mayhem, I had taken Charlie back to our apartment and hid out there. Nik had returned an hour or two later, explaining that the police were gone but had taken anyone under eighteen they could catch, and that the majority of Rooftop suspected someone had returned to street level and blabbed.

It was somewhat of an unspoken rule from then on that nobody return to the ground, a rule that I was just realizing I had broken.

Was I responsible for this?

"If you locked the window, we should be fine," I whispered, remembering how Charlie and I had remained in our bedroom for the last search, but Nik shook his head.

"They're searching the top floors of surrounding buildings," he explained, shifting urgently. "I heard one of them talking on a comm."

I flew into action. "Get Charlie to the floor below us," I ordered, ignoring the fact that we had no idea who else inhabited this building. "You can protect him better than I can."

Nik nodded and moved swiftly to the bed. I slipped out of the room and hurried to the kitchen. I needed to erase any signs of habitation.

All of my instincts fought me as I poured our water down the sink and replaced the containers in the cabinets. Who knew when we would have running water again? But for now, our secrecy was more important.

I tore the blankets from Nik's bed and began folding up the couch once more. As I was doing so, Nik passed me, a sleepy Charlie wrapped in his arms. Even though I was aware that every wasted second meant greater danger, I paused as he flicked the front door's lock open. We had never opened that door. It had been locked when we had arrived all those years ago and we had taken further measures to protect ourselves by pushing a small table and its chairs in front of the door. Now, Nik was trying to move the objects with his one free hand.

I hurried over to help and within seconds, the barricade was gone. As Nik slipped into the hallway beyond, I stifled my curiosity and set to work arranging the table and chairs in their original positions.

Finally, the apartment was cleaned up. It looked innocent. Uninhabited.

As an afterthought, I dashed down the hallway and glanced in the bedroom. I breathed a sigh of relief - Nik had made the bed and folded my blankets into a neat pile on the floor next to the door.

I didn't waste another second in exiting our apartment, quietly shutting the front door behind me.

The hallway was dark, shrouded in shadows. I blinked, adjusting my eyes to the lack of light. Once they did, I could take in more of the area.

The floor was made of a material I had, frankly, forgotten existed. It looked like hard tile but was ever so slightly squishy. I remembered something similar at my school. The walls were papered in some dark, somber color that might have been brighter and more cheery if the squares of light set in the ceiling at intervals weren't so weak.

Every other door lining the hallway was closed. I sighed in relief and glanced left and right in search of Nik and Charlie. They were nowhere to be seen.

I was debating which route to explore first when Nik's head poked around the corner of the right hallway. He spotted me and hurried over.

"We found a supply closet," he hissed, and I nodded wordlessly, following him. On instinct, my hand sought out his. He gripped it, squeezing reassuringly.

Just as we were rounding the corner, a shattering noise came from our apartment. I flinched, halting, but Nik pulled me urgently onwards.

For the first time since being woken, tears rose to my eyes. I wiped at them furiously. I couldn't risk letting down my guard or scaring Charlie.

We arrived at the supply closet and squeezed inside. Charlie stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me. "I wanna go home, Claire," he whimpered, his words muffled by my stomach.

I stroked his hair. "If you are very, very quiet, we can go home," I told him softly. "No sneezing or coughing or yawning. Understand?"

Charlie nodded silently, already following my instructions, and I let out a short breath of relief at his compliance.

Muffled voices drifted into range and I tensed, my heart picking up speed.

Nik's breathing was quick and shallow - and audible. I reached out a hand and prodded his shoulder. I couldn't see him in the pitch blackness of the closet, but we were huddled so closely together that I could feel the air displacement as he raised his hand to cover his own mouth. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to calm myself down as well.

We can't get caught, not when we have a chance to escape, not now...

Suddenly, I thought of something with a terrible jolt - was the closet door locked? Surely the police would attempt to search it - after all, it was an unseeable room. Any official in his right mind would at least jiggle the handle.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I reached out a hand, feeling for the doorknob. Finding it, I traced the cool metal, searching for the lock. What if there was no lock? What if it required a fingerprint or eye scan? What if it only locked from the outside? 

A million things could go wrong right now, and all of them would result in the three of us being discovered.