Wild Awake

messenger bag, my fingers close around exactly the right color. The paints shine up at me like little wet faces from the bottom of the jars.
    That’s rad, Kiri. You got a demo for me?
    As a matter of fact, I do.
    The fire hydrants stand stout and friendly on the street corners, and the sly little breezes push me forward through the city, and closer, closer, closer to my goal.
    When I get to the Imperial, the doors and first-floor windows are boarded up. There’s a new chain-link fence blocking the building off from the sidewalk, with a flimsy plastic sign that says PARAMOUNT PROPERTIES . I roll to a stop, clenching the brakes so hard, my knuckles whiten. There’s something scary about seeing a building boarded up, especially if you know who used to live there—it makes you think about your house and all your friends’ houses, and imagine the people erased. I gaze up at the dark windows, and the nothingness I see there terrifies me more than the hotel ever did when it was full.
    Where did Jasmine go, and Larry and Fink, and Jojo, the dog who trembles all over? Where would Doug have gone? They’ve been swept out like spiders, scattered to the streets. But even as my heart aches of think of it, another truth drops into my mind as clearly as a stone into a pool of water: If Sukey was alive, she would be right here beside me. She’d point to a fourth-story window and say, “I used to live in that one. Four-oh-nine.” I’d follow her gaze, hardly believing that my sister the painter had lived through such a time, when her only friends were an old man named Doug and a three-legged cat, and her studio was the rooftop of a derelict hotel.
    We’d stare at that window for a long time, me on my red bike and Sukey on her green one.
    “Let’s do this,” Sukey would say.
    And we’d do what I’m doing now:
    We’d hop the fence.
    We’d scurry up the fire escape without looking down.
    And we’d paint one last picture, together this time, in the place where Sukey had always stood alone.
    I lock my bike to a lamppost and clamber over the chain-link fence with a clumsiness that would make a ninja cry. It snags at my pajamas and rattles more noisily than a half dozen garbage cans knocked over by raccoons. I land with a thump on the other side and hurry down the alley without pausing to investigate the scratches on my arms and the tear on my sleeve. This time, I don’t hesitate on the fire escape. It’s like the critical moment in capture the flag when you spy a spot of color on a tree branch and there is nothing to do but run, no matter who is chasing you or how the rocks tear at your feet, to grab it and claim it for your own. The fire escape clangs, my bag bounces against my hip, and I swallow the night air in gasping lungfuls.
    Just when I’ve launched myself over the last few rungs of ladder and onto the roof, a car pulls up and a door slams. I drop to a crouch, my pulse a roar I am certain you could hear six stories down. A walkie-talkie crackles.
    Security guard .
    My body reacts instantly. Before I know it, I’ve flattened myself against the roof, my arms and legs splayed out. Whoever’s down there walks up and down the block, leaving the car idling by the curb. My ears strain to catch every footfall, every scratch of static from the walkie-talkie. Should have locked my bike farther away . I think of all the places I’ve marked with paint—the bridge and the bike trail and the tree. Does that count as vandalism? Am I about to get arrested? I press my face into the roof, as if that could hide me any more than I’m already hidden, thinking, please please please please please .
    The footsteps move back toward the idling car. The door opens and slams again, and after a thirty-second pause during which I am sure the person inside is dialing for reinforcement, the car drives off and the street is quiet.
    The breath I was holding scrapes my throat coming out, as if it had been sharpened into a knife blade in my lungs. My first instinct is to grab my bag and climb down before I have any more close calls. But when five minutes pass and the car hasn’t come back, my tensed muscles relax. If Sukey painted here in broad daylight without getting caught, what are the chances of anyone checking the rooftop tonight?
    I ease myself up and brush myself off, my ears buzzing faintly from adrenaline. Grabbing the bag, I fumble my way to the place where the drips from Sukey’s paintbrush have collected like the petals of an