Alexander Darcy was lying in bed still, pretending he didn't have to go to work. "Five," he thought to himself, counting the number of sirens he'd heard this morning since being rudely awakened by one. He rolled over onto his side to see how late it was. "Only 10 o'clock, not too bad..." Alex thought, suddenly motivated to get out of bed, or at least sit up. "Goddammit," he thought as his head throbbed with renewed intensity. "I knew I shouldn't have had that many PBRs."
Alex had had a bit too much to drink last night when Kara's dad came home. Jeremiah Taylor, Kara's dad, and him were good friends from less than desirable circumstances since Taylor was a drug dealer. Alex had no intention of selling Taylor out, but many of his cohorts had needed to go down to provide a smokescreen, many of whom Alex had gotten to know, which only doubled his guilt when he saw them being led away in handcuffs. Alex had really liked Tyrone, he was an amusing fellow, and a bit gruff, but you could count on him. "You can't really count on me, can you?" Alex thought and sighed.
Alex was about to settle into a long afternoon of wallowing in his own guilt when the fire alarm went off. Realizing he had no clothes on, Alex quickly shoved on yesterday's clothes, hurried down the hall, and stabbed the elevator button. Remembering that you shouldn't take an elevator in case of fire, he looked around the hallway for the stairs. Finally, giving up, he went back to his room, pushed up the window, dropped down to the fire escape. Alex allowed himself a brief smile at the fact that someone was actually using the fire escape to escape from a fire. He went around to the front of the apartment building and saw a clutter of people, awkwardly he remained some distance away from them. Looking around he noticed a gruff man head towards the package store, feeling inspired by the idea, Alex followed. "What could possibly happen, right? My headache can't possibly get any worse...."