“This used to be a restaurant,” Gracie said. “They cooked food on that thing over there.”
William nodded. “I’m sure it was much easier than building a fire.” He checked behind. The others remained close.
Gracie halted immediately after jumping through another window. William hopped through and landed beside her. Another wide road. The city appeared to conform to a grid layout. Unlike the ruins outside Edin, where the streets were all different shapes and sizes, made from different materials from concrete to large stones, this city had the appearance of one designed and built from scratch rather than added to over time.
They were now just twenty feet from the first of the three tall towers. To look up them hurt the base of William’s neck, and his head spun.
“No fucking way,” Olga said.
Gracie shot her a hard glare and pressed her finger to her lips. How many times did she have to tell her?
But it didn’t silence the small firecracker. Instead, she attempted a whisper. “No way am I going in there. I’m not climbing to the top of those towers. You’re showing off now.” Her face glistened with sweat, and she fought to regulate her breathing as if battling against a rising panic attack. She gulped and shook her head. “No way.”
And she didn’t have to. But Gracie shrugged and darted across the road in the tower’s direction. Olga could find her own way.
The group looked to William again. Who did he back? He had no reason to doubt Gracie. He looked both ways and charged across the road to the first tower’s entrance.
Like almost every other building in the city, the large rotating doors lacked the glass they would have once had. And a good job, because the top and bottom wore a rash of rust that suggested they wouldn’t turn no matter how hard they shoved. William stepped through the metalwork into the vast foyer, the remains of a wooden desk directly in front of them. The black tiled floor leeched what little light made it inside. Although, the two entrances in the far wall remained visible. One, a single doorway, minus the door that would have once filled it. The other, closed metal double doors. They were covered in rust and clearly hadn’t been opened in years.
The rest followed William in, Olga taking up the rear.
“You ready?” Gracie said.
William shrugged and Olga said, “No.”
Gracie set off again, leading them through the doorway with the missing door to a dark stairwell. Sets of ten to fifteen stairs before they turned one hundred and eighty degrees and ran up another flight. The shadows made it impossible to see all the way to the top. William’s words ran ahead of him, those too dying in the gloom. “How high are we going?”
“We’re going to the top.”
“You’re taking the piss,” Olga said.
“I wish I were.” Again, Gracie gave them no time to argue.
They moved quickly, their collective steps rolling like thunder. William’s head spun every time he turned to climb the next flight. His legs on fire, his lungs working at full capacity. He caught a foot several times where he’d not lifted his leg high enough. He carried Jezebel with both hands.
Just before William could ask Gracie to stop, she paused, a window letting in enough light to reveal a large number ten on the wall.
William rested Jezebel on his knees, leaned over the handle, and pulled in deep breaths. “Can—” he paused for breath “—we—” breathe “—slow the—” breathe “—pace a little?”
Gracie hadn’t even broken a sweat. Dianna hadn’t either. Who knew? Gracie’s features played out as if she had difficulty finding sympathy for his struggle, but she finally shrugged and said, “Okay, let’s walk for a while.”
At the eleventh floor, William halted again. A long corridor stretched away from them. It had doors lining either side. “What did this place used to be?”
“It was both a hotel and office space.”
“What are they?” Matilda said.
“A hotel is where people came to stay for a few nights and paid for the privilege. An office is a place where businesses operated.”
“Like insurance?” Artan said with a smile.
“Exactly. And redundant now.”
Artan’s face fell slack. “Cyrus would have loved to see this place.”
Olga snorted a laugh. “And he would have crapped his pants to be in here.”
After a few seconds, Artan smiled and nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
They stopped next when they reached the twentieth floor. Another window without a pane. The wind howled, stinging William’s eyes when he looked out over the city. They were higher than most of the surrounding buildings. “Are we at the halfway point yet?”
“We’re past halfway,” Gracie said.
William’s clothes itched from where they clung to his sweating body. “I’ve never been this far from the ground in my life.”
Gracie laughed. “Wait ’til you get to the top.”
At the twenty-first floor, William halted again, the others stopping behind him.
Gracie halted a few steps later, threw her arms out to the sides, and came back down to him. “What is it?”
William pointed through a doorway. A corridor like they’d seen on many other floors, but this one had the remains of a fire in it. He might have missed it completely were it not for the moonlight catching the streaks of white where bones lay amongst the charred lumps. Bones that could have been human.
“Scavengers?” Hawk said, stepping towards the corridor. Olga grabbed him and tugged him back.
Gracie nodded. “I’d say so. Although, they look to be long—”
A gust of wind hit William in the back and shot past him down the corridor. It blew the ash away from the
