“Help me!” I turned to the neighbors, my hands clasped together in pure desperation. I locked eyes with the teenager from the corner unit, who was still holding his phone up. “Please! Call 911! Tell them it’s a fire! He’s trying to save her!”
The teenager hesitated, lowering his phone an inch, his brow furrowing as he squinted up at the balcony. But Mrs. Gable stepped in front of him, her arms crossed tightly over her floral blouse.
“We know what we see, Sarah,” she said, her voice dripping with venomous judgment. “That boy has been a menace since the day you moved in. Wandering the halls at all hours, looking at people with those angry eyes. We all knew it was just a matter of time before he snapped.”
“He’s walking home from the library, you miserable old woman!” I shrieked, the last shred of my sanity snapping. “He’s ten years old!”
I couldn’t waste another second on these people. I spun away from the crowd and sprinted toward the main lobby entrance. The heavy, glass-paneled double doors sat just twenty feet away, the only point of access to the interior stairwell.
I hit the right door with my shoulder, expecting it to give way. Instead, I bounced off the thick safety glass with a sickening thud. The door didn’t budge.
I grabbed the heavy brass handle and yanked with all my body weight. The metal mechanism rattled uselessly. It was locked.
Panic, cold and sharp, spiked through my veins. I yanked it again, planting my foot against the metal doorframe for leverage. “No, no, no, please,” I begged, my breath fogging the glass.
I knew exactly what this was. Three weeks ago, the electronic key-fob reader on this door had short-circuited. Instead of calling a professional locksmith to fix the commercial deadbolt, Greg had tried to pry it open himself, completely destroying the internal tumblers. For nearly a month, the door had been jammed shut. I had emailed him twice about it, warning him it was a massive safety violation to block the primary fire exit. His reply, which was still sitting in my inbox, had told me to “stop being dramatic” and use the rear basement entrance—a rusted service door on the completely opposite side of the sprawling complex, at least a five-minute sprint away.
I didn’t have five minutes. Mia didn’t have five minutes.
“Open the door!” I screamed, turning back to the courtyard. Greg was standing five feet away, perfectly framed by the crowd, still narrating his twisted version of reality to his live stream. “Greg! Unlock this door right now!”
“It’s out of order,” Greg said smoothly, not even glancing away from his screen. “Management is waiting on parts. Use the back.”
“I don’t have time to run around the building!” I slammed my fists against the wire-reinforced glass, the impact bruising my palms. “My kids are up there! Give me your master keys! You have the emergency override!”
I knew he had it. Every building manager carried a heavy ring of brass override keys hooked to their belt. I could see the metallic glint of the carabiner attached to his belt loop right now.
“I’m not giving you anything,” Greg said, a cruel, satisfied smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He was relishing this. He had spent two years trying to find a valid reason to break my lease so he could renovate my unit and double the rent. Now, he thought he had the ultimate leverage playing out on live video. “I’m securing the perimeter until law enforcement arrives. That’s protocol. You’re not going up there to help him hide what he did.”
“Are you insane?!” I screamed, the edges of my vision going dark with sheer, unadulterated rage. I abandoned the door and sprinted straight at him.
I didn’t care about his size. I didn’t care about the cameras. I slammed into his chest, my hands clawing wildly at his waist, desperately trying to unhook the metal ring of keys from his belt loop.
“Get off me, you crazy bitch!” Greg roared.
He didn’t drop his iPad. With his free hand, he grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked me backward with brutal, terrifying force. Pain exploded across my scalp, and I was thrown backward into the dirt. My knees scraped violently against the asphalt, tearing my jeans and drawing blood.
“Did you guys catch that?” Greg yelled at the onlookers, straightening his polo shirt. “She just assaulted me! You all saw it! Add it to the police report!”
I ignored the stinging in my knees and the throbbing in my scalp. I pushed myself up from the dirt, my chest heaving, my eyes darting frantically around the courtyard for anything I could use. A heavy landscaping rock. A metal folding chair. Anything to smash the lobby glass.
But before I could move, a new sound cut through the noise of the crowd.
It was a thin, reedy, terrifying shriek.
“Leo, please! My arms hurt!”
It was Mia. Her voice was faint, carrying down from the fourth floor, stretched thin by absolute terror.
I whipped my head upward.
Above us, the situation had deteriorated drastically. Leo’s posture had changed. He was no longer standing fully upright. His knees were buckling, pressing hard against the vertical iron bars of the railing. His arms were shaking so violently that the vibrations were traveling all the way down to Mia’s dangling body.
“Hold on, baby!” I screamed up to them, my voice cracking into a sob. “Leo, hold on! Mommy is coming! I’m coming!”
“He’s dropping her!” a woman in the crowd shrieked, her voice finally tinged with actual alarm rather than righteous anger.
“I can’t… I can’t hold it…” Leo’s voice drifted down, raspy, choked, and barely audible.
I stared at the balcony, and that was when the horrifying details I had been trying to point out finally became impossible for anyone with eyes to ignore.