I grab my ratty slippers from the hall closet. Pushing aside the curtains on our French doors, I scan the blackened space for any sign of a scum reporter trying to snap a shot or a disguised teenager waiting to murder me. When I see nothing, I crack the door and peer into the night. Sconces shine over the scattered garage doors, filling the alley with cones of light. I flip on our floodlights, illuminating the square patch of land constituting our backyard. Our Japanese maple shivers in the breeze. Its leaves have turned bright red—a sign that fall has set in.

A car drives along the side street a few houses down. Its tires roll across the gravel. Other than that, nothing. Everything looks quiet. Safe.

Back inside, I grab a quilt from the couch. My cell sits on the coffee table. A few days ago, I never went anywhere without it. Now, the threat of anyone hacking into my phone and stalking my activity makes it a liability. If checked tonight, someone would find hits on Dopney’s condition, local news reporting about Cullen and me, and my social media sites, which I hadn’t touched since I set them up years ago. But tonight, I added my first post to each—a picture of Cullen and me from today’s interview. Within a couple hours, I had six hundred and eighty-two new followers on one account, three hundred and eighty friend requests on another, and just like that, I have an audience. Of course, the fact that anyone in Chicago cares about me or my love life with everything else going on is disturbing. Though not as disturbing as Dopney still in the ICU. He isn’t improving.

Refusing to be a caged rat in my own house, I leave the phone and head up to our rooftop deck.

My dad used to say the view from our roof was the reason he bought the house. At night, the city’s skyline towers over our home, sparkling like Emerald City and shrouding me in commotion. A CTA rattles as it slides around the elevated tracks. A city bus squeaks and hisses as it stops to pick up passengers. A siren wails as a fire truck pulls out of its station a few blocks away. The city never sleeps, which is reassuring. Out here, I’m never alone. I wrap the quilt around my shoulders and fall into a swivel chair at our outdoor table, letting the tension melt away as I watch the city’s shifting lights.

I’m twisting my necklace around my index finger until the blood drains from it when something scrapes the concrete next to me. I inhale a sharp, raspy breath, trapping the scream in my throat as Ryan pulls a chair away from the table and sits down like he’s having lunch with a friend.