Nobody moved for a second after the screw hit the cabinet.
Not because it was loud.
Because it wasn't.
Just a tiny metallic click in a room already drowning in worse things. That made it harder, not easier. Gunshots and screaming belonged to the night now. A loose screw jumping three feet sideways because Jadah clenched her fist did not.
Ren turned first.
Not dramatic. Not startled either. Just fast enough that it meant something.
Her eyes dropped to the filing cabinet. Then to the screw stuck against the metal. Then to Jadah's hand.
Jadah looked down too.
Opened her fingers.
The chair leg stopped vibrating immediately.
Nobody said anything.
Outside, the red light kept stuttering through the blinds.
Ty was still in the street.
That stayed larger than the screw, the cabinet, the lights, the pulse in the sky, all of it.
Isaac felt the room trying to split itself into priorities and failing.
Marlon on the floor, bleeding through the makeshift wraps and bent around a grief too fresh to name.
Jadah staring at her own hand like it had turned into a stranger at some point in the last ten seconds.
Ren by the window with the gun and the black case and the kind of face people wore when they were already arranging the next hour into pieces they might survive.
And Ty outside.
Not coming back in.
Not saying anything stupid.
Not making the room smaller with a joke.
Isaac hated that his brain kept expecting noise from him anyway.
A muttered line. A complaint. Something.
Nothing came.
Jadah swallowed hard and looked at Ren. "What was that."
Ren didn't answer right away.
That was answer enough to make the air worse.
The lights above them gave another weak flicker, then steadied.
Outside, something scraped down the side of the building.
Not nails.
Metal on brick. Slow. Searching.
Marlon finally spoke from the floor.
Not lifting his head.
Not moving.
"Tell me he's not still out there."
Nobody answered.
Jadah looked at Isaac once.
He knew what she meant.
He crossed back to the blinds before he wanted to. Lifted the slat with two fingers. Careful this time.
The street outside had gone emptier in the wrong way.
Ty's body was still there under the bad red flash of the emergency light, half in shadow, one arm bent under him, shoe turned sideways. No movement now. No twitch left. Just the shape of him and the blood widening slow around his head like the street had started remembering him too late.
Farther down, the janitor-shirt man had moved.
Not gone.
Closer.
He stood on the opposite sidewalk now, directly under the dead traffic signal, head tipped back slightly as if he were looking at the bruise in the sky instead of the building.
One hand hung loose by his thigh.
The other was lifted just enough that one finger pointed lazily at nothing Isaac could see.
Watching.
Waiting.
Isaac let the blind fall before the man could look up.
Marlon heard the movement. "Isaac."
His voice cracked on the name.
Isaac turned.
Marlon was looking at him now, eyes bright in a face gone too pale.
"Don't lie to me."
Isaac wanted to. That was the ugliest part.
Not for himself. For Marlon. To give him ten more minutes before the image set too hard to ever move again.
But there were no ten minutes left anywhere in the city. Maybe not the world.
So he said the clean thing.
"He's still there."
Marlon closed his eyes.
That hurt worse than if he'd yelled.
Jadah dragged both hands over her face and hissed when the injured shoulder complained. "Stop moving," she told herself under her breath, like pain would obey if she said it mean enough.
Ren shifted away from the window and came toward them.
Not looking at Jadah's hand yet. That was on purpose. Isaac clocked it anyway.
"Office door's not enough," she said. "There's a service bay behind this room and a storage cage behind that. Less glass. Fewer sight lines."
Marlon laughed once.
There was nothing alive in the sound.
"Great. Storage cage. Huge upgrade."
Ty should've answered that.
Ty didn't.
Isaac felt the absence hit Marlon too, right there in the empty space after the line.
Marlon's face folded for one second before he got it back under control.
Not enough.
Never enough.
Ren crouched in front of him, efficient as always, but quieter now.
"Can you stand."
Marlon looked at her like she'd asked if he could fly.
"Define."
"Briefly."
"Then sure. Let's all dream."
Ren accepted that as useful information. Of course she did.
Jadah pushed herself off the wall before Isaac could stop her. "I can help."
"You can barely stand up," Isaac said.
She looked at him. "And yet."
He almost told her to sit down. Again.
Then remembered the screw.
Didn't.
Ren saw that little pause too. Her eyes flicked once to Jadah's hand, then away.
Still not saying it.
Interesting.
The bruise in the sky pulsed again.
Every light in the office dimmed for a fraction of a second.
Isaac felt that tiny needle-pull behind his sternum and then nothing.
Jadah gasped.
Not loud.
Sharp.
The filing cabinet beside her gave a single metallic knock from the inside, like something had bumped it.
Everyone looked.
Jadah backed one step away from it. "I'm not doing that."
Ren's answer came too fast. "Yes, you are."
The room went still.
Jadah's face changed.
Not fear first.
Offense.
Then fear under it.
"Excuse me?"
Ren stood. "Open your hand."
"What."
"Open your hand."
Jadah stared at her. Then slowly uncurled her fingers.
Nothing moved.
Ren nodded once, like she'd confirmed a number in her head.
"Now make a fist."
"No."
"Jadah."
"No."
The filing cabinet ticked on its own.
Tiny.
But this time nobody could pretend they hadn't heard it.
Marlon looked between them from the floor, grief cracking open long enough for disbelief to shove through.
"Oh, absolutely not."
Isaac stepped between Jadah and Ren without thinking.
Not much.
Half a step. Enough to be noticed.
Ren noticed.
So did Jadah.
So did Isaac, one second too late.
He hated that too.
Ren didn't comment on it. That made it worse somehow.
Her voice stayed flat. "I'm not asking to make it worse. I'm asking to know if it's tied to stress, pain, or the pulse."
Jadah laughed once, sharp and ugly. "That is a crazy sentence."
"It's also the one we have."
From outside came a single knock against the side of the building.
Just one.
Then silence.
Not safe silence. Listening silence.
The kind that made the back of Isaac's neck tighten.
Jadah looked at the dark office around them, the dead red light leaking through the blinds, Marlon on the floor, Isaac covered in blood that wasn't all his, and said, "You think now is the time to troubleshoot me?"
Ren held her stare. "I think now is the time to learn what in this room might get us all killed."
That landed.
Hard.
Isaac saw Jadah take it in, hate it, and know it wasn't entirely wrong all at the same time.
Her jaw flexed.
"Fine."
She made a fist.
The metal wastebasket under the desk shivered and scraped one inch across the floor.
Ty would've said something about haunted office supplies.
The thought hit so hard Isaac nearly doubled over.
He didn't.
Couldn't afford to.
Jadah saw the basket move and immediately let go of the fist like she'd touched a stove.
The basket stopped.
Nobody said anything for a beat.
Then Marlon, eyes fixed on the floor, said, "I miss when our problems were just money."
That one got Isaac too.
Jadah looked like she might either laugh or throw up.
Ren rubbed once at the bridge of her nose, gun still in her other hand, and for the first time since the garage she looked not uncertain but tired enough to hate being right.
"Good," she said.
Jadah blinked at her. "Good?"
"Means it's not random."
"That is your threshold for good?"
"Yes."
"Insane."
"Frequently."
The office lights flickered again.
The bruise in the sky throbbed once through the blinds.
Jadah's breath hitched.
The screw jumped off the cabinet, hit the carpet, and snapped right back to it.
This time Isaac saw the motion cleanly.
Not magic in a storybook way.
No glow. No dramatic wind. No neat visual.
Just the world around metal seeming to choose her hand as a direction for half a second.
Jadah saw it too.
So did Marlon.
His head lifted a fraction. "Jadah."
She shook her head immediately. "No."
"There is literally a screw—"
"I said no."
Her voice came out too loud. Too fast.
She pressed a hand over her mouth again and shut her eyes.
Isaac saw the tremor start in her forearm and travel up.
Not crying.
Not that.
Holding on too hard.
He crouched beside her this time instead of Marlon.
Kept enough distance that it wasn't a cage.
"You're bleeding through the shoulder again."
She laughed under her hand. It came out shredded. "Thank you, doctor."
"Shut up."
"Make me."
Good.
Still her.
Barely, but enough.
Across the room, Ren pushed the filing cabinet aside from the office door that led deeper into the shop instead of the street. Papers shifted. Something fell in a drawer with a dull metallic clack.
"We move now," she said. "Deeper room. Fewer windows. We rest in shifts."
Marlon stared at her like she'd started speaking another language. "Rest."
"It's still night."
"That sounds fake."
"It can sound however you want while you stand up."
He tried.
Failed.
Isaac and Jadah both moved at once.
Jadah hissed when her shoulder pulled. Isaac caught Marlon under the arms before he could faceplant the carpet.
Marlon looked at both of them and, because he was apparently still himself in the middle of everything, said, "You two look terrible."
"Thank you," Isaac said.
"You're welcome."
Ren opened the interior office door.
Beyond it, the service bay was dark except for one small battery lantern left on a counter by somebody who'd had other things to worry about. Stacks of tires towered like black columns. A hydraulic lift sat dead in the center. Tool chests lined the far wall. Behind a chain-link partition in the back was the storage cage she'd mentioned, half full of boxed filters, belts, bottled oil, and old winter tires wrapped in plastic.
Better than the front office.
Not better enough to matter.
Still.
Inside was inside.
They moved.
Slowly, painfully, like every limb had to renegotiate purpose.
Isaac and Jadah got Marlon as far as the chain-link cage before he gave up and sat down hard on a stack of flattened cardboard with a sound like his soul had filed a complaint.
"Luxury," he muttered.
Jadah leaned back against the cage and slid down beside him because standing had become political at this point and she was losing the election.
Isaac stayed upright a second longer, scanning the bay the way Ren had taught the room to do without ever asking permission.
One back loading door. Rolled down. Good.
Two high windows painted with city light and nothing else. Bad, but not immediately.
One side personnel door dead-bolted from inside. Better.
The chain-link storage cage wouldn't stop anything determined, but it gave shape to fear. Sometimes shape was enough for ten minutes.
Ren locked the cage gate behind them.
Marlon heard the click and gave her a dead-eyed look. "That feels encouraging."
"It should," she said.
"It doesn't."
She let that go.
Isaac lowered himself onto an upturned bucket because the room tilted when he stayed standing too long. His ribs throbbed. His shoulder burned. His hands smelled like rust and blood and dead skin. Every time he blinked he saw Ty dropping out from under Marlon again.
Jadah had her head tipped back against the chain-link now, eyes closed, lips gone pale.
Isaac looked at her hand.
Still.
Good.
Then not.
A washer lying near a stack of old brake rotors trembled once. Rolled an inch toward her shoe. Stopped.
Isaac looked away before she could catch him doing it.
Not because he was afraid of her.
Because he knew exactly how fast fear could rot a room.
Ren set the black case down between two boxes and crouched in front of it, not opening it, just resting one hand on top like she was making sure reality still had at least one solid edge.
No one spoke for a long time.
Outside, the city kept sounding wrong.
Then Marlon said, almost to the concrete, "He was still talking."
Nobody needed the name.
Jadah opened her eyes.
Isaac stared at his hands.
Ren stayed still.
Marlon swallowed once. "He was joking."
His voice cracked on the last word and he looked furious that it had.
Isaac knew the feeling.
"He didn't know," Isaac said.
It was useless. It was what he had.
Marlon laughed once without humor. "That's not helping."
"I know."
"Then why say it."
"Because you're saying things that end with you on the ground next to him."
Marlon looked at him.
Really looked.
For one second the grief peeled back enough to show the ugly thing under it: guilt already building a house.
Then Jadah said, very quietly, "He would hate this part."
Both of them turned.
She kept looking straight ahead.
"The crying over him part," she said. "He'd think it was corny."
That almost did it to Isaac worse than the death had.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was true.
Marlon bent forward, forearms on his knees, and finally let one ragged breath leave him all the way. Not a sob. Closer to one than he'd ever allow on purpose.
"He'd still stay for it," Marlon said.
Jadah nodded once.
Isaac looked down at the concrete between his boots.
There was a hex nut there, half caked in old grease.
At first he thought it was vibrating because of the city. The building. The pulse in the sky.
Then it rolled slowly until it touched the toe of Jadah's shoe and stopped.
Nobody said anything.
She saw it.
Her face went empty.
Not blank. Emptied. Like one more thing had just arrived in a room already over capacity.
Ren looked at the nut. Then at Jadah.
Then finally let herself say the thing out loud.
"It's started."
Jadah's laugh came out thin and dangerous. "That is not a sentence to say to me."
"It doesn't care."
"What is it?"
Ren looked toward the roof like the bruise in the sky sat directly above their little cage and could hear its own name.
"I don't know yet."
For once, Isaac believed she meant it.
That might have been the worst part of the whole night.
Outside, just beyond the loading door, something scraped slowly across corrugated metal.
Then stopped right beside it.
Waiting.
Inside the cage, nobody moved.
The red light from the front office bled dim through the service bay and striped the tire stacks like old wounds.
Isaac felt the tiny pull under his skin once more.
Fainter this time.
Not waking.
Just answering something distant and wrong.
He ignored it.
Had bigger fires.
Jadah looked at her own hand again like she was deciding whether it still belonged to her.
Then, very softly, almost too soft to hear, she said, "I don't want this."
Nobody had anything useful to do with that.
So Isaac gave her the only honest thing left.
"I know."
And outside, in the dark beyond the loading door, a man's voice laughed once in the janitor's clear, patient tone like he'd been listening the whole time.