Chapter 7 - The Top Floor of Forty-Seventh
Jonathan didn't let her climb.
Seeing the exhaustion dragging at her small limbs, he bent down, hooked his left arm under her knees, and scooped Sophia and her heavy backpack up against his chest in a single, effortless motion. She weighed almost nothing—a fragile bundle of wet wool and cold skin that tucked instinctively into the crook of his broad shoulder, her wet cheek pressing against his lapel.
"Hold onto me, Sophia," he said.
He took the wooden stairs three at a time. The stairs groaned violently beneath his weight, the dim forty-watt bulbs hanging from naked cords overhead flickering as he sprinted past the landing doors: Floor two. Floor three. Floor four.
The hallway of the top floor was freezing. A broken window at the end of the corridor was jammed open two inches, letting in a steady draft of powdery snow that drifted across the dirty floral runner.
At the end of the hall, apartment 4B stood slightly ajar.
A strip of warm, pale light spilled across the dusty floorboards. From inside, the only sound was the erratic, sputtering hiss of an old steam radiator knocking inside the pipes.
Jonathan reached the threshold and kicked the door open with his foot, his body turning sideways to shield Sophia from whatever lay beyond the doorframe.
"Mommy!" Sophia cried out, her small voice echoing through the apartment.
The apartment was tiny—a single studio room partitioned by a worn folding screen, furnished with a faded pull-out sofa, a laminate kitchen table with two mismatched chairs, and a small counter holding a hot plate and a rusted sink. The room was immaculately clean, but barren, stripped down to the bare essentials of survival.
On the linoleum floor between the kitchen sink and the laminate table, a woman lay motionless on her side.
She looked to be in her late twenties, her slender frame clad in a gray sweatshirt and faded denim jeans. Her dark hair was splayed across the cold floor tiles, half-covering her pale, waxy face. Beside her outstretched hand lay the shattered fragments of a thick glass tumbler, surrounded by a puddle of spilled water that had pooled around her limp fingers.
Her skin had the grayish, bloodless hue of acute shock.
"Mommy!" Sophia twisted in Jonathan’s arms, her small boots kicking against his coat as she tried to scramble down to the floor.
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Jonathan set her down gently, catching her by the shoulders. "Sophia, stay right here by the door. Don't step on the glass. Let Jonathan check her first. Understand me? Stay with Mr. Buns."
Sophia stopped, her hazel eyes wide with terror, her small hand clutching the stuffed rabbit against her mouth as she nodded through silent, streaming tears.
