The voice is close, so close.
‘Which one?’ someone else yells, softer and distant.
‘THE ANNOYING ONE.’
‘Like I said, which one?’
Sam envisions how being found would go down. Screaming. Hands scrabbling for a phone. A frantic, startled fist shooting out and catching Sam in the mouth so his teeth cut into his tongue and he tastes his own bloody sins.
Then the office door shudders again, like someone kicked it as they walked past.
He has to hide.
Sam dives for the cupboards, yanking open a door and looking in dismay at a mess of paperwork, a vacuum cleaner, and piles of board games. Terrified, he glances at the door only to see the doorknob half turn and then pause as someone yells down the stairs again.
No choice.
Sam folds himself into a thin groove in the cupboard, crushed between the vacuum cleaner and Cluedo. He drags the cupboard door shut by the tips of his fingers, but doesn’t quite get it closed.
Then the door opens and he forgets how to breathe.
A girl storms in.
Sam only sees a sliver through the crack – just an edge of a purple sundress and an olive-skinned ankle, long fingers scurrying about the desk until they snatch something.
Sam’s knees are at his throat. His heart punches new bruises into his ribs.
‘I found your charger, Dad!’ she calls, then her voice lowers, ‘Seriously, how does he manage to lose it so much?’ She turns – and trips over Sam’s backpack.
You’re such an idiot, Sammy Lou.
Sam stuffs knuckles into his mouth and bites. Just hold on, just wait.
But that backpack is full of keys, full of stolen ridiculous keys, that one glance at would reveal something is terribly off. And, pathetically, it’s special to him. It’s the only thing he owns.
‘Ugh, Jack,’ she mutters, and steps over it.
She steps over it!
Sam remembers oxygen.
She plugs the charger and a phone into the wall and then stomps out of the room like the backpack meant nothing. And in this mess, that’s probably likely. Whoever ‘Jack’ is, he can happily take the blame. Sam is fine with that. He is also fine with never ever coming out of this cupboard. Even though she’s slammed the door on her way out and he’s in the clear again.
Please don’t come back.
He closes his eyes and focuses on not dying as his legs lose feeling and the house rumbles and shakes with the cacophony of a Sunday lunch downstairs. There has to be a small army of people down there. A loud, noisy, violently laughing army that will be his—
Saving?
Because what if, and from the sounds of it this is likely, there are dozens of people downstairs? What if he just loses himself in the crowd and – sneaks out?
He has to do something, because being folded like a pretzel can’t be the way he dies.
He vaguely imagines Avery’s reaction to this story – a worried frown and then a burst of laughter, which Sam should be annoyed at but also stupidly pleased because amusing Avery is worth everything.
After a few deep gulps, he crawls out.
He grabs his backpack and opens the door a crack. The hall is empty. Unfortunately downstairs has no walls to hide behind.
When did he get so careless?
Go.
Just go.
Don’t put it off.
Go.
He slips out of the warm office, his false safety. His chest hurts, his head is still completely scrambled from the meds, which is probably why he’s making this stupid bid for freedom instead of waiting. He’s doing this.
He gets to the top of the stairs and ducks down, peering through the banister rails to survey the damage.
The damage is immense.
There truly are half a million people down there. Bodies twist and tangle in a dance of musical chairs and potato salad as they pile the long table with a feast. Toddlers sprawl on the floor or twirl round and round the haphazardly placed furniture on a trike that someone yells at them to take outside. A baby cries. A plate breaks. The TV booms the theme song of a car racing game that a group of wild-haired kids cluster around. Someone yells for them to turn it down. No, turn it off. No, get ready for lunch. Get the baby. Wash your hands. Stop eating all the corn chips.
Conversations mix. Explode.
People laugh. Faces light up.
They are all hopelessly consumed with each other. Drunk on people and noise and food. Sam can do this. He can just walk down those stairs and out the door and no one will think to stop him. They’ll see him, sure, but he’s forgettable enough to be invisible.
Isn’t that his entire life?
Sam moves for the stairs, hand on the rail. Blood pulses in his ears. The noise is deafening, not unhappy, but it seems everyone has something to say and they try to say it the loudest.
There’s a flash of purple amongst the masses – that girl from the office. At this higher vantage point Sam can make out a twisted bun of unruly chocolate hair and sharp elbows. He has a feeling that if he’s caught, it’ll be her shrewd eyes picking him out as the impostor.
Do not look at her at all. Just don’t.
Sam’s whitened knuckles are just about to release the rail so he can sprint, when air brushes behind him. A boy, taller than Sam and with the tiniest spiky ponytail and hands full of batteries, clatters down the stairs past Sam without even looking at him.
Sam nearly hopes, nearly breathes—
The boy hesitates on the last step and then swivels back to look at Sam. His eyebrows are angry forests.
‘Dude, I don’t even recognise you,’ he says. ‘Jeremy’s friend? He cycles through them so fast I never know anyone any more. Don’t you know how Sundays work? Get a plate or you’ll end up on the floor with the brat brigade.’
Sam manages to sweep the panic off his face and he nods quickly.
The boy shrugs and heads towards the TV and the teens bickering amiably over chip packets and remotes.
The exit is officially an ocean away.
Sam just stands there, swaying slightly in the middle of the stairs. The flu still clings to the corners of his tired eyes, his numb brain, and he trembles with indecision.
One step.
The next.
They could all see him if only they looked up.
Next step.
Several kids tumble past in a shower of crumbs and sauce and Sam lurches back on instinct. They’re shooed along by another boy. He’s tall and neat, with glasses and a disapproving older brother aura. When this boy’s eyes fall on him, Sam’s mouth opens to blurt something like, I’m Jeremy’s friend? But the boy beats him to it.