I expect her to put up a fight, but Swift immediately moves for the door, taking care that she doesn’t yank the cuffs against my wrist for once. We emerge into the sunlight, where the sea winds tousle her hair and the ocean stretches far into the distance. I watch her for a moment. She glows here. There’s something about the sunlight and her home and the straightness in her spine that makes her radiant.

“Come with me,” she says, a soft smile on her lips. “I want to show you something.”

She leads me around the side of her house to the space where another roof slopes just below hers. Before I can protest, she jumps from the path and slides onto the rough corrugated metal, towing me along for the ride. I panic, trying to stop, but she grabs my hand before I can get out a word of protest and guides me into a skid that sends us flying off the edge.

For a moment, all I can see is ocean.

Then we strike the next roof below us and Swift slams on the brakes, snaring my waist with her free arm to make sure I stop with her.

My heart thunders in my chest as Swift jumps back, stowing her hands nonchalantly in her pockets. We’ve landed in a little alcove, a den of metal and plastic siding that looks out on a spectacular view of the Flotilla’s western docks. The sun is sinking in the sky. It’s only early evening, but we’re on the cusp of winter.

As I look around, I realize that this place isn’t accessible by any other means. Every house around us has its back turned, and none of them have any sort of door or window. It’s like a little space that the Flotilla forgot, a secret it kept so long that everyone stopped looking for it.

“Was goofing around on the roof one day when I was a kid, slipped, and ended up here,” Swift says. “Nearly broke my ass, but I guess it was worth it, ’cause … well, y’know. House like that, never a moment to myself. I came here to think a lot. First when Mom shipped out. Then when Teresa and Eva’s mom shipped in. And then when she shipped out, and then … well, you get the picture.”

Her words echo against each other in the space, and I notice that there’s a little plastic bucket sitting quite intentionally in the middle. I picture a little blonde kid sitting on it, elbows on her knees, staring out at the sea. “It’s a good place to be when something’s bothering me, so I thought … ” She trails off, shrugging. “Want to talk about it?”

The bucket’s too small for either of us, let alone both of us, so we sit on the edge of the platform, our legs dangling out over the roofs below.