I pushed the door and it gave without any resistance at all.
The room had no light in it. I stepped inside and heard her before I saw anything — a sob, and under it the sound of a bed frame moving against stone, small and repeated, metal shifting a fraction and coming back.
The air was cooler than the corridor. It carried the thin mineral smell of the basement and something under it that was warmer and closer.
I pushed the door close. The latch clicked soft.
"Hey."
The sobbing climbed. Short. Wet. The frame jumped once against the floor and settled.
She was on the bed. I could hear that much, the scrape of skin on sheet, the broken rhythm of breath that kept failing halfway out.
"I heard you from the corridor. I came to see if you were all right."
Please. Please help me.
I'm on fire.
The thoughts came through clean.
"Sophia."
My hand went out along the wall, found the switch, and pushed it.
The dark went.
