The Man the City Swallowed

cabinet. The girl underneath was maybe nineteen, face gray with dust, one leg pinned, eyes huge and wet. "Don't move," Ethan said, crouching low. "Listen to me. Give me your hand." When she did, the ceiling above them let out a high, thin creak. Something in the structure was slipping. Ethan felt it the way a person feels a car start to fishtail before the crash. A load-bearing pipe in the wall was deforming. One more violent shake and the whole section would go. "What's your name?" he asked. "Maria," she gasped. "I just deliver food. I didn't take anything. I didn't steal anything, I swear..." "I know." He didn't know why he said it. Maybe because the look on her face was the same one Noah wore whenever he apologized for existing.