Ethan had learned that the building was never quiet, only crowded.
Standing at the stairwell door on the 19th floor, he could hear the rain on the glass, his mother's breathing through the wall, the hiss of a camp stove two doors down. Past those, if he let the nearer sounds fall away one by one, he could reach lower. Concrete dulled sound, but it didn't stop it. Tonight, ten floors below, a low murmur of many voices was trying not to be voices, and then a word stopped him cold.
Gate.
He stayed where he was and let everything else go.
It cost him. It always did. Hearing that far meant holding every nearer sound at arm's length while he strained for one small room. By the time the meeting ended, a high thin whine had settled behind his eyes, and his hands were cold. But he had heard all of it. Every word.
He woke his father first.
