“I can’t just sit here,” Yelena muttered to the empty room. She cast the chair aside, a flashlight gripped tightly in one hand and her phone in the other, 911 already typed into the keypad. Her hand shook violently as she reached out. The hidden panel came away much easier than she expected, swinging open onto a dark, narrow crawlspace that smelled heavily of stale dust and cold stone.
The flashlight beam cut through the pitch black, illuminating a maze of old pipes and a phone charger plugged into a bootleg junction box. Then the light caught a sleeping bag, a duffel, and finally, a man sitting bolt upright against the far wall. He blinked hard, raising his hands to shield his eyes from the blinding glare. “Please!” he gasped, his voice cracked and raw. “Please, don’t call! I haven’t hurt anything, I swear to you!”
“Who are you? What are you doing in my apartment?” Yelena screamed, stepping back into the living room as her thumb slammed down on the green call button. The line connected instantly, the operator’s crisp voice demanding her emergency. Yelena kept her eyes locked on the dark opening, her heart hammering against her ribs as she shouted her address, refusing to look away from the shadow in her wall.