Despite that, I knew there were a couple booby traps around the door. Just because it was safe didn’t mean Jember trusted anyone.

“You may not want to touch anything,” I added.

Saba gave me a reassuring smile, waving me toward the door. I knelt in front of a small grate beside it, a forceful tug with both hands making it squeak against its metal chamber before yielding to me.

I grinned.

Lazy old man, still hadn’t gotten this fixed.

I peeked in to make sure the way was clear, then slid in through the small opening, legs first, landing on a crate right below, and closed the grate behind me.

There wasn’t much light, other than the little bit of daylight peeking through the grate. I got down from the crate, dust puffing up at my movement. I muted a cough with the bend of my elbow and used my welding pen to light the first oil lamp I could find. If I were still living here, this entryway would’ve been clear. Now it was cluttered like a storage closet, with books and boxes, vases, a bicycle. Our small cooking pit was completely blocked by wooden crates, a caked layer of dust and dirt confirming that it’d probably been that way for weeks.

If the door hadn’t been locked from the inside, I would’ve thought no one lived here anymore.

Looking down, I could see a path from the bedroom to the stairs leading up to the cellar doorway that was a little less dusty than the rest of it.

I picked up the oil lamp and shoved my way through the junk, pushing aside the curtain over the door at the back wall. The light of the lamp shone like a yellow path to the bed centered against the wall. I took a deep breath, then let my body deflate, my annoyance overtaking my relief. The silhouette of Jember lay on his back, and when I put the lamp on the dresser I saw that he was in nothing but his white pants and red leather gloves, peg leg missing. He’d never eaten any better than I had, but I guess older bodies processed food differently or just needed less of it, giving him a relatively fit chest and arms and a slight gut. Glass bottles and jars littered the bed, and there was a paper bag of pills on the side table that were most definitely illegal.

“Jember,” I called from the doorway, and only when he didn’t respond did I move closer, clapping my hands. “Get up, old man.”

Nothing. My heart suddenly picked up, and I couldn’t help but be annoyed with myself for it. He wasn’t dead, and I shouldn’t care if he was. But I was used to caring, and old habits were hard to break.