He jagged right, cutting into the bathroom and pressing the door shut, letting all his weight fall against it. A moment later, Matty crashed into the door. Wood splintered and popped. Matty hammered on it, and fury rendered his screams unintelligible—just long, bloody shrieks. Then Matty crashed into the door again, and it humped open a few inches before Shaw managed to slam it shut again.

Matty screamed again, wordless until two distinct sounds emerged again and again: “Kill you. Kill you. Kill you.”

Wood buckled. Splintered. Shaw contorted his upper body, bracing his shoulders against the door, his waist arching out so that he could work the blade up and back. The edge of the knife sliced along the inside of his arm, but it caught the rope too, and hope ignited in Shaw’s chest as frayed strands of hemp uncurled and tickled his raw, bloody skin. Sawing back and forth with the knife, Shaw staggered as Matty hurled himself against the door again. The wood bucked out under Matty’s weight. It skidded a half inch before catching on Shaw’s heels, hitting hard enough to bruise—but at least it stopped. Shaw’s hands jumped with the force of the impact, and the blade skipped up, lacerating his arm again, and he wanted to howl. He wanted to scream.

So he did. He screamed, and his screams were wordless like Matty’s. Some of the scream was hurt. Some of it was for Matty, and some of it was for North, and for the first time in seven years, since that moment in the alley when Shaw’s brain started skipping forward, leaving blanks in the events of that night, he screamed for himself.

The sudden razoring of pain at his wrist was the first sign that the knife had passed through the ropes. Hemp spilled down, brushing the back of his legs, sticking to bloodstains that had already coagulated on pale skin. Shaw spun against the splintering wood of the door so that he faced the doorway. In places, the paneling had already split, and when Matty crashed into the barrier again, the wood gave way and revealed a rough triangle of the hall.

Shifting the knife, adjusting its weight in his hand, Shaw hammered on the door. “Come on, you stupid shiteater. Come on. Come the fuck on!”

Nothing from the hallway. Only the hurricane of Shaw’s breathing echoing back from the bathroom tile.

Then, footsteps.

Heavy footsteps.

Clunky footsteps.

Distant footsteps.

The creak of the stairs under the weight of serious muscle.

Floorboards under the tread of a beat-up pair of Red Wings.

“North,” Shaw shouted. “North, get the fuck out. Run!”

The steps stopped; they started again immediately with a speed and force that grew louder. He was coming up the stairs. He was running. Shaw wanted to scream. He did scream. He wondered why he’d spent so much of his life not screaming because it felt like the only natural sound, the only real sound he’d ever made.