CHAPTER 3: NO ONE GETS LEFT BEHIND

Nicholas wound both hands around the neck of the lamp and held it against his chest like a man who had just been handed a trophy, while Aria, bracing herself against the edge of the counter, kept her eyes on his knuckles instead of his face.

"Now, are you going to behave yourself, or do I have to explain this to you again?" Nicholas asked, lifting the lamp an inch as though its weight alone should make her flinch.

"You seem to have mistaken my silence for agreement," Aria said, and her voice came out lower than she meant it to, flattened by the effort of keeping her knees from folding.

"You're in no state to challenge me, Isabella, so stop pretending you've got some kind of advantage here."

She let her gaze slide past his shoulder to the stool whose front leg stuck out into the walkway, then to the empty wine bottle beside the sink. "You're right about one thing," she said, easing her bare foot a few centimetres to the left. "I'm not in the best shape, but that doesn't mean I'll let you rob me."

"Nick, darling, can we please just take the bag?" Vanessa called from the living room doorway, checking her watch as though they were late for a dinner reservation. "It's getting dark."

Behind her back, Aria's fingers found the zip of the canvas bag and drew it open by a centimetre, then another, until the slim first-aid pouch Nicholas had shoved in with the water slid into her palm. She tucked it into the waistband of her borrowed pyjama bottoms.

"Move out of the way, Isabella, I haven't got the whole afternoon to entertain you," Nicholas said, reaching past her for the bag with his free hand.

"Then you shouldn't have come back to argue," Aria answered, hooking the stool with her heel and dragging it an inch toward his feet.

He glanced down and gave a short laugh. "Are you seriously trying to fight me with furniture?"

"I'm trying to stop you taking my things, and if the furniture helps, I won't complain," she said.

He took one step backwards to get a better grip on the bag, and his heel caught the stool's leg. His arms flew out, the lamp cracked against the counter edge, and for a single heartbeat his fingers loosened.

Aria shoved the brass out of his reach with both hands, and it skittered across the tiles and rang against the cupboard door.

She got to it first, because she had been listening for the sound of it landing, and she scooped it up in a crouch that sent a white flash behind her eyes. When the room steadied she was standing with the lamp raised and a good two metres of tile between them.

"You have a lot to say now, haven't you?" Nicholas snapped, shaking out his wrist where the counter had caught it.

"I had plenty to say before you left, you just didn't stay long enough to hear it," Aria replied, and her arms trembled under the weight of the brass.

"I was trying to survive! Am I supposed to die next to you because you couldn't get up?"

"You never tried to help me. You took the supplies, you walked out, and you left me on the floor," she said, and she watched his jaw flex and release.

"Nobody forced you to stay in this flat," Vanessa put in, folding her arms over the clean cream coat. "If you were strong enough, you'd have found a way out yourself."

Aria turned her head slowly. "That's an interesting thing to hear from someone who needed another woman's husband to carry her out of danger."

The smile slipped from Vanessa's mouth, and Nicholas took a heavy step forward, his face dark red to the collar. "Watch your mouth, Isabella."

Aria lifted the lamp until the brass hovered level with his collarbone. "Or what?" she asked quietly. "You'll leave me behind again?"

He stopped. The kitchen filled with the ticking of the cooling fridge and Vanessa's quick breaths, and nobody moved.

Vanessa broke first, and she did it by crossing to the counter with her hand already outstretched toward the canvas bag. "This is absurd," she said. "Nick, just take it, she isn't going to do anything."

"Don't touch that," Aria said, stepping across her path with the lamp held low.

"Move that thing before you hurt somebody."

"Then stop reaching for what doesn't belong to you."

Vanessa rolled her eyes. "You honestly think you'll survive out there on your own?"

"I'll take my chances with people who don't think surviving means stepping on everyone else," Aria answered, and while Vanessa's gaze followed the lamp, her free hand dropped, found the cloth shopping bag hanging from the fridge handle and slid three bottles of water and the tin of peaches into it, one at a time, with barely a sound.

"Vanessa, leave it," Nicholas said, rubbing his face with both hands. "We're wasting time."

"Then why are we still standing here arguing with her?" Vanessa demanded, rounding on him. "You told me she'd be grateful. You said she'd do whatever you asked, you said she always did, you said..."

"I know what I said."

"He's been miserable for years, you know," Vanessa said, turning back to Aria with her chin high. "Long before any of this."

"That's his problem," Aria said, without lowering the lamp. "Being unhappy doesn't give him the right to leave me bleeding."

A crash split the air, somewhere beyond the front door and too close, and a scream followed it, thin and ragged, ending as though a hand had closed over it.

Nobody spoke. Vanessa's face had drained to the colour of paper.

"What was that?" she whispered, turning toward the door.

Aria raised one hand, palm flat. "Stop talking and listen."

"Don't start giving orders," Nicholas muttered, but he had lowered his voice. "We need to get out of here."

Aria crossed the living room in a half-crouch, holding the lamp against her ribs, and reached the door just in time to slide the deadbolt home with a soft, careful click. A heavy weight thudded against the wood. The frame shuddered in its hinges, and plaster dust sifted down from above the lintel.

"Nick," Vanessa breathed, gripping his sleeve with both hands. "There's something out there."

"Whatever it is, it already knows we're here," Aria whispered, backing toward the side wall with the lamp raised. "So stop making it easier for it to find us."

Scraping followed the thud, long nails or fingers dragging down the wood, and beneath it came a wet, rattling groan that raised the hair along her arms. She pressed her eye to the peephole and saw a man's back in a torn grey shirt, his forehead resting against the door and his one good hand clawing at the handle. She held her breath until she thought her ribs would crack.

After a long minute a faint cry drifted up from the far end of the corridor, and the man's head jerked toward it. He pushed himself off the door and shuffled away, dragging his right foot.

"Right," Nicholas said, the moment the groans faded, in a voice that was trying hard to sound like it had never been frightened. "We're going. Vanessa, take the bag. Isabella, hand over the rest of it, we can move faster that way."

"No," Aria said.

"You can't survive alone. You've seen it out there, haven't you? You'll be dead by morning."

"I woke up alive after you walked out on me," Aria replied, shouldering the cloth bag and ignoring the way the strap bit into her collarbone. "I think I can manage a little longer."

Vanessa had already dragged the canvas bag off the counter and was tugging at the zip, and she frowned at what she found. "Nick, it's light. There's only half of it here."

Nicholas looked from the bag to the cloth one on Aria's shoulder, and the colour climbed his neck again. "You've been stealing from me."

"I've been keeping myself alive," Aria said.

"Don't expect me to come back and save you next time, Isabella." He bent so close that she could smell the cologne again, cold over the smoke. "This isn't finished, do you understand?"

"I didn't ask you to save me this time," she said, and she did not step back.

Vanessa was already tugging at his arm, hissing his name, and between the two of them they eased the deadbolt open and slipped out into the corridor. Aria latched it behind them and pressed her eye to the peephole, watching the pair creep toward the fire exit at the right-hand end, bent double, until a bang of the bar echoed down the hall and they were gone.

She let out a breath that wobbled, and she stood for a moment with her forehead against the cool wood and the lamp dangling from one hand.

Then a voice reached her, thin and cracking. "Please! Somebody, please help me!"

Aria snapped upright and looked through the peephole again. At the far left end of the corridor, beside the stairwell, a young woman with a ponytail and a torn hoodie was backing against the railing, swinging a battered torch in front of her in short, desperate arcs. The man in the grey shirt dragged himself toward her, a slow step and a drag and a step.

"Stay away from the stairs!" Aria called through the wood, keeping her voice low.

"I can't, it's coming, it's right behind me!"

Aria looked at the deadbolt, then down at the cloth bag against her hip, and tightened both hands around the lamp until the metal creaked. Every sensible part of her was telling her to stay where she was.

The young woman stumbled against the railing, and the creature lunged.

"Don't you dare stop moving!" Aria shouted, and she threw back the bolt and pulled the door open.