The white flag went under the outer rooms. Its cord snapped past Ty's face, and a child's shoe followed it through the gap between the housing rail and the roadback's skin.
The shoe struck the guide stone below. The child was still inside room six, calling for her father through a wall that had begun to turn. Ty heard her before he saw the people at the window. He ran along the outer rail with Jade and Nessa behind him, one hand on the rail whenever the collar pulled him toward Dimitri's absent rib.
Holl shouted from the kitchen hatch that the housing keeper had a line across the first three doors. Ty waved without slowing. His left shoulder, turned against the hatch during Holl's rescue, lagged each time the arm swung. He kept the handless end inside his ribs where it could not catch a latch.
