In the late morning light, the streets of Las Vegas are gray and weary, like all excitement and energy drained when the electrical switches were turned off at sunrise. Now everything’s getting beaten by the sun, including us, as Marcus parks the bike and we shuffle across melting asphalt toward the slumped stucco building.

We trudge upstairs to the second floor and stop at room 252, its door dented in the perfect shape of a fist. There’s space at the bottom of the door for any and all desert creatures to crawl inside and join us. Or crawl out, depending on what currently lives inside.

We’re about to find out.

Marcus unlocks the door and swings it open to reveal just how much $69.99 per day gets you in Las Vegas. My eyes jump across the cracked linoleum and threadbare carpet. The dingy walls. A sagging bed on a rusty frame that perfectly matches the feelings we’re carrying with us. The quilted bedspread looks like it’s been here since the 1970s and the sea green accent wall is chipped and faded. There’s a tiny TV mounted on the wall, slightly crooked. A miniature kitchen is shoved in the corner, and the bathroom door is next to the beige fridge, which doesn’t match the white two-unit stove or black microwave. I’m afraid to see the bathroom. I will spend any amount of money necessary on cleaning supplies and shower shoes. We’re definitely going to need shower shoes.

It’s a perfect hideout for drug dealers, prostitutes, or a couple on the run from a released rapist, human trafficker, and felon. Nick will never think to look for us here. No one will. If we die from murder, rat bites, or the secondhand smoke stuck to the walls, no one will ever find us.

“Ahhh.” Marcus tosses his bag on the wobbly, faux wood table. “Home sweet hell on earth. So appropriate.”