Clenching her fists, she took a deep breath and crouched beside the corpses. Two skulls. Not three. Roughly the same size. No phlogiston floated, no smoke, barely any warmth remained. In fact, the macaroni was warmer than the carcasses. A cracking sound echoed from inside the house.
“Ruby!” Jonah yelled a few moments later. “Watch the roof!”
A small red-topped form darted from a second floor window, scuttling toward the top of the sloped roof. A little girl with a messy red ponytail, Barbie-themed sunglasses, and a softball uniform clung to the bricks of the chimney, her arms only reaching halfway.
“Help!” Her tiny voice cracked. “I can’t get down and there’s a scary man in my house and I don’t know where my parents are and—” She cut herself off with a sob.
“Shit, stay there!” Ruby yelled back, sprinting her way through the backyard and into the house.
Kavya met her at the front door with a bewildered look. “Why is there a child on the roof?”
“Fuck if I know.”
They jogged up the stairs. Jonah stood in the hallway, his hands in his hair, gun safely back in his holster. “Door was locked. I kicked it in, thinking it was Edward or a different thermy. I didn’t know it was a kid.”
“Scuse me, scary man, gotta get a kid off the roof.” Ruby stepped around him and over the fragments of the door.
Glass littered the floor around the bathroom’s tiny window. She turned back to Jonah, eyebrows furrowed. He put his hands up. “The glass broke when the kid opened the window. Must be old.”
Shit.A familiar dread settled in her chest. Hands on the edge of the sill, she lifted out of the bathroom. Glass scraped against her legs as they dragged through the window and out onto the roof.
“Hi, cutie,” Ruby called out, standing and finding her balance. “What’s your name?”
Pink sunglasses peeked out from behind the red brick. “Ellie.”
“I’m Ruby. The ‘scary man’ earlier was my good friend Jonah. He didn’t mean to scare you. He’s pretty big, but he’s honestly just a teddy bear.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah.” Ruby took a few steps toward the girl. A tile moved beneath her foot, sliding down the roof and landing on the grass below. “He’s really a wimp. You’re definitely tougher than him.”
The resulting laugh was more of a wheeze than anything, stunted by fear, but Ruby would take it. She took a few more steps, meeting Ellie at the chimney.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to go down the same way. There’s sharp glass all over the window and the roof is pretty steep.” Ruby crouched beside the girl. “So I’m going to scoop you up, and we’re going to hop down, okay?”
“No!” Ellie shrieked, ducking back behind the chimney.
“Okay… okay.” Putting her hands up, Ruby sat on the top of the roof. The asphalt pressed into the backs of her thighs. She waited. Empty, brown fields stretched out as far as she could see. The sun hovered over the horizon, slowly descending.
“What are you doing?” Ellie asked.
Ruby crossed her legs. “I think I’m going to watch the sunset. Would you like to join me?”
“You’re not going to make me come down?”
“Nope.” She patted the spot beside her.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Ellie took a wobbly step around the tower. Ruby held her hand out and the child took it, using it to balance herself as she carefully squatted beside Ruby.
“The sunset is pretty out here. It’s hard to see it where I live,” Ruby commented.
Ellie cocked her head to the side. “Where do you live?”
“Denver. Have you ever heard of it?”
