"Don't let go," Gavin echoed. "Madison—go."
Madison slid the landing door a hand's width and pivoted, forearm under the bar so pressure from the other side didn't become an invitation. The woman in the black vest gripped the back of his shirt with two fists. Gavin stepped backward, blade crosswise, eyes on the turn above where the tux and the barefoot woman took the steps like clocks—tick, tick, tick.
"Inside rail," he said. "Little steps."
Madison went first, big man made narrow by will. The server tucked behind him, her breathing counting with his feet. Gavin yielded ground by inches. The tux lunged; Gavin chopped the shin and slid. Fingers combed for fabric and found air.
Behind, the landing door rattled. Something heavy hit and slid, then tried again with patience. The bar knocked a rhythm against its seat. The stairwell air tasted like soap and penny-copper; the block walls leaked cool into his sweat.
"Two on us," Gavin said. "Third maybe. Tux is dumb. Barefoot is fast."
They made the turn. Metal answered their weight with a warble. The emergency light threw their shadows big, then snapped them back to size. A flake of paint let go under his hand and stuck to his palm like a white fish scale.
The barefoot woman came high. Gavin met her wrists with the guard, knocked them down, then took her shin with the flat. She didn't cry—just re-angled and tried to climb him like a ladder. He backed, stamped where her toes had to be. Bone turned to gravel. She slid, still reaching, nails squealing on tread paint.
"Keep moving," he said, coach calm over panic. "Rail. Hips."
"Copy," Madison said. The woman behind him tightened her grip and kept pace, shoulder brushing the cinderblock once, a small friction sound that made her hiss through her teeth.
At the next landing, a beige door shivered as something tried the bar from the far side without understanding it. The door flexed and came back. A slow palm stroked the wired glass as if it could memorize them by touch.
"Don't open," Gavin said, and met the tux again—crowding his shin into the stair lip so the man folded over his own geometry. The tumble bought heartbeats and a small rain of plaster crumbs.
"Down one more," he said.
"Reassess at the bottom," Madison said. "Less thinking."
"Fair." Don't pay attention to jokes; pay attention to feet.
They started the next flight. A rubber nosing peeled up in a black tongue. The woman's toe caught; Madison caught her with hip and arm—holding penalty on turf. She grunted and clung harder.
"You good?" he asked.
"Yes," she said.
"Eyes on the stair," Gavin said. "Not the dark."
From below, a sound rose: three knuckle raps on metal, then nothing. Ritual when tools ran out. Dust drifted; the emergency light hummed like a refrigerator trying to remember its job.
"Below's waking up," Madison said.
"I hear it." Gavin lowered the blade. He wasn't going to arm-wrestle; he was going to interrupt knees and let gravity do work. He tasted old cigar and bile and pushed both down.
The next landing's door had a wired-glass rectangle. A shadow leaned. The bar flexed under Madison's forearm as weight tested hope.
"Not today," Madison told the door, and pushed it back into place. The woman tucked tighter, one fist still in his shirt, the other on the rail. The hinge squealed once and then held its breath.
"Two more above," Gavin said. The first arrived like a sprinter. Gavin jammed his thigh into the post and took the ankle when the man tried to step around. The ankle failed. The second had a broken wrist that wobbled like a tail; he tried to hook with it. Gavin let the wrong hand have his arm and used the saber like a shepherd's staff on the shin, guiding the knee into the tread's edge. The man's breath left him in a noise like air escaping a pool toy.
"Down," Gavin said, and they moved.
They were three people trying to be one animal. It worked until the house added a variable. A maintenance door beneath the last flight banged open and half-closed. Something big came through low and started up on all fours, tie knotted around his own throat, teeth clicking like practice. His knees left wet crescents on each tread.
"Fast below," Madison said.
"Keep the lane. Don't kick faces," Gavin said. Boots in mouths meant teeth in boots. "Use posts. Make them hit architecture."
The woman made a thin sound. "Please."
"We've got you." He didn't look back. Cash the faith now; balance later.
The all-fours thing reached for the rail with both hands. Gavin knocked one off with the guard; Madison smacked the other with the poker, flat and mean. Momentum stole the thing's options. It slammed its chest into the post and wedged a shoulder between tread and stringer, stuck there fighting the building like a trapped animal. Spit strung from its teeth and swung.
"Go," Gavin said, and they did.
He filed a note: the woman matched cadence; she didn't yank or sprint; she became small and precise. Asset. Her shoes were cheap flats; one heel had bent sideways and she ran without it now, foot slapping soft against metal.
Above, new feet committed. The heavy stride turned liquid—running now. The tux reassembled into motion like pain was a bug he'd patched. The barefoot woman slid along the rail like glue. Someone else scraped a cuff on the wall, a zipper-teeth sound.
"Two flights," Gavin said, truth or lie. "Two flights and we choose a door."
"Choose an exit," Madison said. "Words matter."
They punched through one more landing. This door had a push-plate and a key cylinder. A sign above it glowed EXIT in red—the right promise in the wrong language. [CHECK: presence of EXIT signage]
Gavin listened. On the far side: air that moved; a bigger room; voices pitched to panic, not hunting. Metal rattled once as if a cart had kissed a wall.
"Later," he said. If it was locked or a crowd, they'd be meat in a frame.
Their feet hit the next flight like a metronome going too fast. Madison's breath rasped. The woman's breaths were small dog things that wanted to turn into sobs and didn't. Gavin's forearms buzzed; his hands were old tools he trusted. Sweat made the saber's grip feel like a bar of soap.
"Left," he said. Madison checked a too-big step like a pro. The all-fours below twisted free and found momentum again. Above, someone dropped to hands and slid down the rail like a child who'd learned the wrong game.
"I see him," Gavin said.
He changed the picture. He let the slider make speed, then left a knee where the hip wanted to be. The impact sounded like a one-string instrument. The man flopped onto the landing and stayed. The woman stepped over him without looking; she did what the voice ordered and nothing extra.
The light hiccuped. Once. Twice. The red rectangles pulsed like they were trying not to drown. A moth battered itself against one of them and fell.
"Don't do that," Madison told the building.
The building did that.
The emergency lights died.
The stairwell kept its shape for a blink. Then that went, too. They had breath, touch, the line of the rail, the woman's fists, the taste of metal and dust. Above: feet close enough that air changed before they hit. Below: the fast thing found the next post with a thud.
"Stop," Gavin said. "Hands on the rail. Small."
They froze as much as fear allows. In the blank, hearing grew teeth. A barefoot slap two treads above. A cuff scraping paint a tread below. A breath that wasn't theirs at elbow height. Somewhere far off, a pipe pinged—afterheat fading.
"Gavin," Madison said, voice small for a big man.
"I've got you," Gavin said. For once it felt like an oath he could keep if he didn't get clever. "We wait for the step, then move on it."
"What step?" the woman whispered.
"The wrong one," he said. Step by step, no gaps. The stairwell chose for them as a foot came down exactly where his would have if he hadn't stopped.
He pivoted blind and put the guard into the dark where a shin should be. The impact said yes. A body toppled past, shoulder to his thigh, hot air washing him. Fingers brushed his knee. He kicked without thinking and felt knuckles go away.
"Now," he said, and they began to move, three parts, one animal, down into the dark while the stair above and the stair below both gathered themselves to meet them.