Zack carried the small bag of nearly rotten food they had bought as the duo hurried back to the apartment. The longer they had remained in the shopping area, the more gang members they had seen hanging around the fringes. Ducking through the throng of crowded people, they quickly made their way unseen back to the main road.

Neither wanted to stick around and see what would happen if they were caught.

Their disappearance was quickly noticed and yells of “Find them!” echoed through the area as they ran. The back alleys kept them safe long enough to reach the apartment building and then their home. Down below, they could see the angry, flushed faces of the people that had been chasing them.

“Are the locks going to be enough to keep them out tonight?” Zara asked, scared, and holding tightly to her brother and the bear.

“The door will hold, but the locks might not if they try long enough and with enough force.” Zack frowned and ushered her inside, beginning to flip the myriad of locks closed. “We’ll move the couch and anything else heavy in front of the door tonight before going to bed.”

The rest of the day was spent in subdued silence, with both of the siblings repeatedly checking the locks on the door. It was a good thing their apartment didn’t come with any windows that looked out over the corridor. It was one less thing that they would need to worry about securing that night.

Dinner that night consisted of oatmeal and washed overripe berries. The water took care of the parts too far gone to eat. The peppers would keep until morning and would be used to spice and flavor the can of meat they had gotten with the rest of his money. That would be their breakfast. If the soldier didn’t come back, then they would simply go shopping again.

They assumed that the issue with the gang was resolved that night. If it wasn’t, then that would severely restrict their options in the future.

After dinner, Zara wordlessly began carrying her stuffed animals into his room, and then took her bath.

Meanwhile, he began moving the old heavy couch into position, jamming it against the door and the lip of the floor. Just inside the front door was a small, tiled area for them to leave their shoes before continuing farther inside the apartment. The siblings rarely bothered with it, but the small step up from the tiles to the fake paneling of the hallway was useful in this instance.

She was dressed in a snug onesie when she came out of the bath a while later. The outfit had rabbit ears on top of a hood he had sewn to it for her years before. It was an outfit he hated seeing. She only wore it when things were really bad, and clutching her bears tight wasn’t enough.

Zack sighed and shut off all the lights in the apartment. Moments later, he followed her into his room, where she was busy drying her hair. A bear had been placed in each corner of the room, with two more on each side of the doorway. Her two favorites, Zelda and George, were splayed across the bed already, waiting for them.

“You know that doesn’t work here.”

Zara nodded and dropped the damp towel into his laundry bag. “I know, but it helps me to feel more secure.”

Closing the door to his room, he shut off the light and climbed into bed, fully dressed. If something did go wrong and they managed to get inside the apartment, he wanted to be ready.

It took a while, but Zara drifted off to sleep first. She had curled into a ball around Zelda, with George and her brother at her front and back, respectively. The soft, even breaths of his sister lulled him to sleep a few minutes later.

Muffled swearing and the repeated impacts against the front door of the apartment woke him sometime later. The gangsters had finally started to try breaking down the door. The modifications he had made to the door when they first moved in would keep them at bay. The strips of heavy metal meant to reinforce it and the entryway wouldn’t break easily.

These weren’t the first people who had attempted to break into the run-down apartment. They were simply the latest, and possibly the most determined. It wouldn’t matter, in the end, they still weren’t going to make it inside the apartment. The couch would ensure that.

There was no chance of it magically making its way over the lip of the floor, no matter what they tried. The piece of furniture may have been old and worn, but it was solidly built and wouldn’t break. Not with the door in the way, blunting any impact that made it through.

Zack put a hand on Zara’s back, making sure she was still asleep, and looked blankly up at the darkness above. He would stay awake, listening, just in case that one-in-a-million chance of them breaking through happened. He wasn’t going to play around with either of their lives.

He strained his ears for the next hour, picking up each muffled noise he could before they stopped entirely. As far as the people outside were concerned, they could come back the next night or the one after that with better equipment and force their way inside. Only he and Zara knew there was a possibility they would be gone by then.

A slim one admittedly, but there was a chance the military man would actually do what he said he would.

Either way, they would be packing up everything in the apartment that day. There was no way they could stick around after this. He had been blacklisted, which meant he had no way of making legitimate money. If he went the other way, against his sister’s wishes, then it would have been for Jace, someone he somewhat respected. There was no way he would work under Cooper.

All of which pointed to them needing to move on somewhere else. Hopefully, it would be to a school, but either way, they were leaving.

Exhausted, he slipped into a light, troubled sleep sometime after the people outside left.

A knocking on the front door hours later woke him a second time. The room had begun to lighten with the early morning sun as he carefully extricated himself from the bed. Stumbling blearily towards the front door, he stopped abruptly, noticing where the metal had deformed near the top.

“Who is it?” He called out, carefully inspecting the damage before moving onto the couch.

“It is Sergeant Grieves. We met in the parking lot yesterday.” He paused and tapped lightly on the door. “Is everything alright in there, the door is looking rather… broken on this side.”

“Give me a moment,” Zack replied, recognizing the voice. “There is a couch in the way, let me move it and then I’ll open the door.”

“Did he just say there is a couch in the way?” Grieves asked someone outside.

“I believe that is what he said,” Someone else answered in a less military-stiff tone.

Zack grunted and strained to move the heavy piece of furniture. He hadn’t realized just how jammed into place it would get during the night. It did not want to move in the slightest.

Taking a step back, he eyed the spot closest to the floor, where it was jammed tightly against the lip of the floor. Grabbing his boots, he quickly pulled them on and tied them tight. Kicking the couch near the floor repeatedly, he was able to break it free. It was only then that he was able to pull it fully away from the door and out of the entryway.

Clear of the furniture obstructing his view, he was able to see the condition of the door for the first time. The metal was bent and pulling against the frame and the locks. It had held strong throughout the night; however, it had taken some damage doing so.

Metal screeched as he forced open the locks after peeking through the spyhole. Content with the knowledge that it was the same person they had met before, he tugged on the door. It opened about a foot before squealing to a stop on bent hinges.

He poked his head around it and into the corridor beyond. “Can I get a little help here? It’s stuck.”

A heavy foot slammed into the door. The warped joints screamed and buckled into useless pieces of metal as they were forced past their respective breaking points. With a crash, the door swung open and rebounded off the wall. It came to a stop, tilting uselessly to the side as a single screw held a broken hinge mostly in place.