The door to the apartment was still chained. The landlord's body had been gone for three days—they'd shoved it down the garbage chute in pieces, working in silent tandem like a two-headed animal. No one had come looking. No one ever did.
Leyley was quiet for a long time. Then she turned in his arms, faced him in the near-dark. Her breath smelled like canned peaches.
She smiled. It was the saddest, most terrible smile he'd ever seen. the coffin of andy and leyley
That night, they didn't sleep apart. They never did anymore. She pressed her back against his chest, and he wrapped an arm around her waist, and they lay in the dark listening to the building settle—or maybe it was the demon, shifting its weight in the ducts, patient as a spider.
"You're faking sleep again."
"Feel that?" she whispered. "Still going. As long as that's going, you don't get to check out on me. You don't get to see ghosts. You look at me."
And that was the problem. He loved her like a scab he couldn't stop picking. The door to the apartment was still chained
He didn't ask what she meant. He didn't have to.