Something goes awry.

"Clear," you and Devi whisper to one another before ducking back into the apartment to don latex gloves. It is, at first, a small blessing that no one checked on you, or seemed to call the police regarding the brief ruckus and shouting from the ganger... a blessing you quickly find troubling. What if you didn't have the strength and reflexes of a triathlete? Would you have been left bleeding out on your apartment floor all night? A sobering lesson, even if it pales in comparison to the pale form wrapped up for disposal.

The trash room is built into the center pillar of the apartment building, sharing that space with a maintenance closet, laundry room, and elevator. With one of those on each side, you've lived in proximity to the trash chute since you moved here, with your nights and days framed with occasionally hearing massive bags of garbage rustle and tumble downward. Only now do you have a reason to be grateful for this arrangement: you had less than half the buildings length to cross before you'd be inside, the dead thug in tow.

You direct Devi to grab the legs of the improvised body bag while you scoop the head, easily carrying his weight by tucking his head in the loop of your arm and holding him up with your hand on his stiffening back. If he wasn't so awkwardly tall, you'd carry him on your own; it seems ridiculous now to watch Devi strain to carry him by her end, but she does her best to not show her effort. "Ready?"

"Ready," she grunts.

With no one on your floor, and only a handful of peepholes that could even discern what you two were up to, it really feels like you're going to get away with this. You take the lead out of the apartment, giving some spare glances around one more time before snaking the unwanted stiff out of your home. Devi follows behind, not bothering to close your apartment door for fear of even the smallest delay. Your short march begins, you walking backwards and looking over her shoulder, and her doing the same for your six. Out of your peripheral, you see the stained, ugly gray of the trash room door-

The sound of an apartment door opening. An innocuous thing in this building, normally, but it freezes your blood while cradling your end of a bagged-up gangbanger. This wasn't supposed to happen; you were as careful as panicked minds could be... Hell, if you had gone earlier without all the care and hesitation, it wouldn't have happened. You were both so careful, so why-

You stop the train of self-loathing and terror long enough to try and focus on the new threat. You look past Devi, imagining the horrified face of some pedestrian, ready to run away and find the police... but are greeted, instead, by the hunched back of a venerable old maid. Mrs. Fields fidgets with her lock, her back turned to you. She's clad from head to toe in black with a matching veil, as if she were off to a midnight funeral.