Read Chapter 14: Rooftop Signals

The stairwell to the roof had been blocked since the second day—a fallen water tank and a tangle of rusted pipes that three residents had deemed too heavy to move. Julien didn't bother with the door. He found the access ladder on the south wall of the fifth-floor landing, tested the first rung, and gestured upward.

“You first, or me?” Léa asked, slinging her rifle strap over her shoulder.

“Me. Then Camille. You watch the landing until we're up.”

Léa nodded, already scanning the dark corridor below. Camille watched her for half a second—seventeen years old and holding the safety of twenty-three people in her steady hands—then turned to climb.

The roof was an ocean of tar and gravel under a moonless sky. Paris stretched out around them like a drowned city, its landmarks reduced to black silhouettes against the faint charcoal glow of cloud cover. The Eiffel Tower was a ghost, unlit and barely visible. Camille had lived here for eleven years and never seen it dark. The sight made something cold settle in her chest.

Julien scanned the horizon with a pair of binoculars Léa had found in the fire captain's locker. “Smoke,” he said. “Two columns, west. Maybe a warehouse fire burning out of control. That one's been going since last night.”

“And that one?” Camille pointed south, where a thin but rising plume of gray dissolved into the clouds.

“Hard to tell from here. Could be anything. Could be a hospital incinerator running off a backup generator.”

“Or a building full of people who couldn't get out.”

Julien lowered the binoculars and looked at her. The cut on his cheek was scabbing clean, but exhaustion had carved deeper lines around his eyes than the ones she'd memorized over the past nine days. “You're thinking about Saint-Vincent.”

“You're thinking about Marc.”

“Both.” He handed her the binoculars. “You'll see better with these.”

She pressed the lenses to her eyes and swept the horizon southward. The city was a maze of rooftops and dead streetlights, broken only by the occasional flicker of candlelight from a window or the distant headlamp of a vehicle moving against the current of darkness. She adjusted the focus, searching for the familiar silhouette of the hospital complex—

There. A red bloom of light, arcing upward from the roof of Saint-Vincent's east wing. It hung for a moment, glowing like a slow-burning star, then guttered and fell.

“It's still going,” she said. “There's another one.”

Julien stepped closer, his shoulder brushing hers as he peered through the binoculars. “That's the third flare in twenty minutes. The first two were from the same direction. That one was too.”

“Fire station map showed Saint-Vincent's generator outage on day four. They were supposed to have it fixed by now.”

“Supposed to.” Julien's voice was dry. “We're eight days past supposed to.”

Camille watched another flare arc upward, this one faint—farther south, maybe another hospital. But the Saint-Vincent signal was still pulsing, one after another, like a heartbeat that refused to stop.

“That's a medical emergency code,” she said. “Red flares, repeated at regular intervals. It means they're overwhelmed. They're calling for help.”

“You don't know that from just watching flares.”

“My hospital has a similar protocol. We tested it twice a year during joint civilian-defense drills. If they're burning through their flare supply, it means they've been signaling for days.”

Julien was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was low. “And Marc would know that code. If he's out there, if he's injured or sick, he'd head toward the biggest concentration of medical supplies he knows.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

“You're not going alone.”

Camille lowered the binoculars and turned to face him. In the dark, his features were harder to read, but she could feel the weight of his presence, solid and grounding. “It's a forty-minute walk. Maybe longer with the roads the way they are. That's two hours round trip.”

“If we're back before dawn, fine. If not, the residents have the block.”

“And if we don't come back at all?”

Julien's mouth twitched into something that wasn't quite a smile. “Then Léa runs the building better than either of us could.”

Over his shoulder, Camille saw smoke rising from another direction—a fourth column now, this one closer, greasy and black. The city was burning in slow motion, scattered fires feeding on the wreckage that no one could fight. She tried to count them. Four columns visible from a single roof. Multiply that across Paris, and the scale of the disaster pressed down on her chest like a physical weight.

“We have maybe ninety minutes of darkness left,” she said. “If we go now, we can make it before dawn. But we'll have to come back in daylight. That's when the looters are boldest.”

“We'll deal with that when we get there.” Julien pulled his coat tight and moved toward the ladder. “Let's get Léa. She'll need to know what's happening.”

“Wait.” Camille caught his sleeve. “Before we go—I need you to hold this.” She unzipped the inner pocket of her jacket and pulled out a small, sealed pouch. “Insulin. Basal dose. Just in case Marc's not at the hospital. If he's out there somewhere without his supplies, he'll need it within a day or two.”

Julien took the pouch and looked at it. “You've been carrying this since we left the apartment.”

“Since we knew he was missing.”

“You thought we might find him tonight.”

“I thought we might need it.” She let go of his sleeve. “And if we do find him, I don't want to have to go back for the rest of the stash. It's a partial dose. Enough to keep him stable for a few hours.”

Julien tucked the pouch into his own jacket, careful and deliberate. “He's lucky you're looking for him.”

“He's lucky you drew the map.”

Camille turned away before he could respond and descended the ladder, her boots hitting the gravel of the roof with a soft crunch. She paused halfway down, looking back at the skyline one more time. The smoke columns were growing, darkening the horizon like encroaching storm clouds. The red flare from Saint-Vincent flickered again, fainter than before—or maybe the smoke was just making it harder to see.

“Julien,” she said. “Those smoke columns. How many did you count?”

“Two, originally. Now more.”

“They're spreading. And they're all moving west.”

He climbed down beside her, landing softly on the gravel. “So?”

“So whatever started this blackout, it was aimed at the east first. The grid failure, the fires, the chaos—they all concentrated here. West is still functioning, at least partially. That's where the military came from.”

Julien's face went still. “You're saying the substation markers on Marc's map are wrong.”

“I'm saying whoever is restoring the grid is doing it from the west side. Moving east. If Marc found out where they were working, he might have gone to meet them. To stop them—or to help them.”

“And instead of walking into Saint-Vincent, we should be walking toward Q-4.”

Camille started down the ladder, her voice floating up from below. “First things first. We follow the flares. Marc's insulin might be the clue that leads us to Q-4. But the flares are the clue that leads us to Marc.”

The metal of the ladder was cold under her hands. Above her, Julien's shadow blocked out what little light the clouds provided. She heard him exhale, long and slow.

“Then we move fast,” he said. “Dawn comes quick this time of year.”