“Stop it! Leave him alone!” I launched myself at the heaving pile, snatching at arms and legs. “The walkway’s going! Move it! Move it!”

A screeching banshee dropping out of nowhere, even a middling one, got their attention. The pile staggered apart. Rubio sank to his knees on the quaking deck. The three, Unca Joes each one but just teener boys, not even full lads, regrouped and turned animal glowers on me.

“Three on one? What kind of crap is that?” I tore a loose brace off the railing and raked it wildly back and forth. So what if they could toss me over the rail in less than a heartbeat? “Wait till the boss hears! Now, get the fuck out of here, all of you!”

Cracks rang out like pistol shots. The walkway dropped a foot. The three lads-in-training chose survival and took off for solid ground.

I hauled Rubio up and got him moving, grabbing at the building façade for support.

He leaned on me, like a tall crane with a broken wing. “Stupid motherfuckers!”

“Save your breath,” I advised.

Foam licked up between the floorboards and washed away red. He was bleeding from somewhere. The new walkway was narrower, more fragile than the mainline Broadway one. The whole thing could break away and float out to sea in big chunks. I didn’t want us to be on board.

“Sixteenth,” Rubio hissed through a swollen jaw.

“Right.”

A long seven blocks of bad footing and shivery support. Where the surge had ripped gaps in the walkway, window ledges were the only crossover. The wind had blown its worst, so less debris was flying around, but then the rain piled in again, a stinging downpour hard as hail.

At 16th, we stumbled through a blown-out window into a cleared third-floor corner, a public waystation where the new walkway joined the Broadway line. Dark, breezy, and wet inside, but it got us out of the worst of it, and this sturdy old building wasn’t going anywhere. Exactly the point.

Other caught-short storm-waifs had taken shelter, scattered about in wet huddles. Complaints and groans, some sobs. People comforting each other. Too dark to read den sign, but this was neutral turf. I didn’t expect trouble except what I’d brought with me. I found an open stretch of floor, eased Rubio down, and dropped beside him, our backs to bare brick. When I could breathe steady again, I did a quick self-inventory: no broken skin or bones, likely a serious bruise or two. My grab bag and I had parted ways in the surge, but my gut wallet hung tight at my waist. Check later for water damage. I looked over at Rubio.

“You there?”

“I’m . . . here.”

“You’re bleeding.” It was internals that really worried me. He’d taken some mean kicks and punches.

“I’ll make it.” Forehead to his knees, his ribs heaving. “Glad you came along.”