MOSTLY without trouble.

Gina took a deep breath and pushed herself into action, carefully stretching her legs and gripping the cold metal rungs of the fire escape. Her fingers, still damp from the shower, clung to the rough surface of the ladder. The chill in the air made her skin prickle with each movement, but she focused on the task at hand: getting to the roof and out of sight.

The sensation of the metal under her bare feet added the discomfort. She moved cautiously, trying to make as little noise as possible, her body tense from both the cold and the anxiety of being out in the open. The last thing she needed was for someone to look out of their window and spot her on the fire escape.

The faint hum of the city carried up to her as she climbed, but she ignored it. Every time she passed a window, her pulse quickened, her breath holding in her chest. One wrong step, one wrong move, and she’d be exposed.

As she neared the rooftop level, her foot landed on something sharp. A small, pointed object jabbed into the soft pad of her bare foot. She froze, a wince of pain flashing across her face. The sting was immediate, and she stifled a curse as she tried to hold back a pained gasp.

She glanced down at her foot and saw the offending object—a small bottle cap, carelessly discarded and now embedded into the skin of her foot. “Of course,” she muttered, her voice tight with frustration.

With a small, painful hiss, she carefully shifted her weight, lifting her foot off the bottle cap, the metal surface still biting against her skin. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. The pain in her foot was nothing compared to the bigger problem at hand: getting to safety without anyone seeing her.

-

Gina’s fingers gripped the final rung, and with one last strained pull, she hoisted herself up over the lip of the rooftop. The cold gravel bit into her knees as she landed, and the rough tar patches stuck in uncomfortable places. But she made it. She was up.

She paused there for a moment, catching her breath, her arms instinctively wrapping around her body—left arm over her chest, right hand covering below. Her skin was goose-pimpled from head to toe, and the breeze only made it worse, lifting damp strands of hair from her face as she scanned her surroundings.

The rooftop was empty. No deck chairs, no maintenance crew, no late-night stargazers. Just the low hum of a rooftop vent and the occasional flicker of neon from the street below.

She rose and hurried forward in a quick, awkward shuffle, one eye always on the edges of the building in case someone from the opposite street had a clear view. Her bare feet crunched over gravel as she crossed toward the door on the far side—the old maintenance access she'd seen a dozen times before.

Her heart pounded with hope as she reached for the handle.

She gripped it.

Turned.

Jiggled.

Pulled.

“Please don’t be—”

Note: This chapter was initially composed with the help of ChatGPT and then edited with the help of Gemini.