I should keep looking for a place, but instead, I grab the bottle of wine and start to read.

I COME TO with half my body slid off my office chair, the low grunt and moan of porn buzzing from my headphones, which lie across the desk. Some weird shit that I can only assume is the result of autoplay and someone else’s eclectic video playlist is happening on my screen. I don’t remember pulling up any porn. I don’t remember anything after staring at an ad for a shitty basement apartment in Mill Basin. The giant bottle of wine is mostly empty, but my head is spinning like I don’t regularly crush a six-pack a night by myself.

I reach out to slam the laptop screen down, but my motion is slow and unsteady, so I just tap pause and try to get my bearings.

I hit tab to change the screen and end up in the document. I blink and watch as a gap opens up between Sydney’s single-spaced paragraphs, white space eating the screen. Fear tingles up the back of my neck for some reason, until I realize my own hand is resting on the space bar. I lift it with some effort . . . and the white space keeps eating the page, then suddenly stops. The cursor blinks there in the whiteness, then words start to type:

Not feeling too hot, are you?

Sydney?

No. When I look into the right-hand corner, the cartoon bean is gone, replaced by a black circle. Someone else is in the document.

Too much wine’ll do that to you, whoever it is types.

I manage to get the screen down even though my arms feel numb, but when I try to stand up, a painful retch ripples through my stomach and diaphragm.

“Ugh.”

I burp, the taste of bile on my tongue giving an additional warning that moving isn’t a great idea right now. I can’t stand and I also don’t want to puke on one of the few things of value that I’ll be able to take with me when I move out, so I use my feet to propel myself away from the desk, slowly rolling to the window beside it. I park myself directly in front of the fan shoved into the casing, then carefully lean back in the chair and sit still with the nausea. Very still.

How did I get this drunk?

I spent a significant portion of my early twenties pounding vodka in Russian social clubs and never suffered worse than a few blackouts.

The last time I threw up was in high school. I’d gone to a party where I’d unsuccessfully tried to hit on five girls and ended up nursing a bottle of 151 in a corner. Maybe this is how my body responds to rejection.

Wait. Someone was in the document. Someone not Sydney was in the document, typing like they could see me. What was that about?

A deep and melodious howl pierces the night, raising the hairs on my arms. I know this sound—one of my mom’s shitty exes was a hunter, and this is the sound of a hound raising the alarm.

Count.

In the months we’ve lived here, I’ve heard the occasional bark from him—it’s usually Toby that engages in barkapalooza—but nothing like this.

There’s a movement across the street, in Mr. Perkins’s place, on the first floor. I feel woozy and the flickering light from the television in his living room doesn’t help, but there’s definitely someone moving around in there.

Shit.

A post on the OurHood app said there’s been a spate of break-ins, but I know the cause of that rumor. And no one around here would choose his house of all places, would they?

Maybe he’s getting a late-night snack, but I’ve never seen him up this late. He’s usually awake and outside by six—he’s one of my constants, sometimes deviating but generally always following the same pattern. Something is extremely off right now, and out of it as I am, my unease solidifies into clear foreboding; something bad is about to happen. When you have been the bad thing, you get pretty good at knowing what the calm before the storm feels like.

I lean forward, peering through the whirring blades of the fan; the motion makes me want to hurl so I reach up to turn the power switch to zero.

Count barks again, and I squint to see what’s happening through the slowing blades. Mr. Perkins walks into the living room slowly, then is blocked by the fan blade. He looks left—fan blade. Now his head is turned back sharply over his shoulder—fan blade. When I look at the other front-facing window, I spot two bulky shadows pass the glow of the television. Another revolution of the fan blade and the shadows are gone. I want to say it was my imagination, but Count is barking more insistently now.

I see a light turn on in one of Terry and Josie’s windows—she’s likely up to post a noise complaint on the OurHood app—but it’s taking all of my concentration to focus on what’s going on at Mr. Perkins’s.

I grip the edge of the window frame and pull myself to a standing position. Black spots appear at the edges of my vision and my body is bathed in sweat, but I have a better view now. I see Mr. Perkins turning around, his eyes going wide as he takes a step back.

Count is barking and barking.

Shit.

I have to go help, but my body is so heavy. Have to call someone at least, but when I turn my head to look for my phone the room ripples and spins and I dry-heave.

Three things happen in quick succession: the TV shuts off in Mr. Perkins’s living room, leaving the windows dark; there’s a loud crash; and Count stops barking abruptly.

Actually, four things happen: I black out.

Gifford Place OurHood/privateusergroup/Rejuvenation

The Housing Authority has relayed some information: internal files regarding the project have been accessed. Likely nothing, but the matter should be looked into and dealt with, along with the FOIA requests.

Chapter 10

Sydney

I JERK AWAKE ON THE FLOOR BY THE BACK DOOR, CURLED UP like a dog that needs to go out. The haze of a bad dream releases its stranglehold on me, but the dirty mop taste in my mouth, residue of rosé and Ambien, persists.

I shouldn’t have taken the pills, but alcohol hadn’t knocked me out and my mind had been running laps around bad memories, and around good memories that now felt worse than the bad ones. I’d drunkenly grabbed the pills out of desperation; I don’t even remember how many I downed.

I sit up, wince at the pain in my neck. All of my attempts to knock out and have a few hours of peace were for nothing because the nightmares were so realistic that I’m even more exhausted.

There’d been demons in the walls, banging and scratching as they burrowed their way into the house to make me pay for my lies. I’d tried to run for help, to go to Mommy . . .

I wait for the anxiety from the dream to release its hold on me now that I’m awake, but nothing unclenches. Probably because reality is just as shitty and—oh fuck. It’s Thursday.

I push myself up to my feet and jog to my bedroom. My cell phone isn’t on the charger, and I start pulling pillows, duvet, sheets onto the floor until I hear a thud and grab for it.

The phone is dead. It was charging last I remember, so I must have used it during my Ambien stupor, as if things aren’t already bad enough.

“Shit, shit, shit.”

I snatch up the end of the charging cord and plug it in, that annoying image of a battery with a slim red line sitting on the screen forever, like it’s purposely fucking with me. Finally, a white apple appears, and then the security code prompt. Without thinking, I enter my old code—the date of the first day me and Marcus had met—which is, of course, wrong. I changed it three years ago, when I started to suspect he was checking my phone.

“You’re being paranoid, Sydney.”

I put in the new code, the numbers Mommy always played in the lotto.

The phone unlocks and after it connects to the network, the first thing that comes through is a text from Claude.

Yo, you need to chill. My girl saw your wild texts and now she’s mad at ME. You’re going through something, I get it, but please delete my number.

Ouch.

I can’t bring myself to look at whatever humiliating, pathetic message I sent him, so I just delete the whole text chain. I expect to see a response from Drea letting me know how her night went, but she’s either still on her date from last night or is trying to enforce her “you can’t use me as a therapist” boundary.

None of that matters, though; there’s a voicemail from the lawyers. The call I’ve been waiting on, and maybe my last hope, and I slept through it. I ball my fist and dig it into my thigh as I return the call.

“Gladstone and Gianetti.”

“Hi, this is Sydney Green, I—”

“Hello, Ms. Green. Ms. Gianetti left you a message, but her schedule is packed for the next few weeks.”

“I’m sorry I missed her call. Is there really no way—”

“No.” The receptionist’s tone says this is final. “Unfortunately, it seems that there’s not much that can be done at this point with your mother’s case. She’ll be in contact via email. There’s also the matter of outstanding payment, which we understand might be difficult considering the situation.”