North was going to come up the stairs, and Matty was out there. Matty was dangerous.

Shaw threw open the door before that realization had finished crystalizing in his head. Matty charged out of the darkness. He had been waiting. He had calculated the most likely way for Shaw to react, and once again, he had been right. As Matty bore down on Shaw, Matty swung a length of chain. It was an ugly weapon, a street weapon, and Shaw knew with the instinctive appraisal that lurked under the level of consciousness that Matty had carried the chain on the street, had carried it when he hustled, had carried it with the same vicious survival instinct that manifested now.

The chain swept out, lashing toward Shaw’s neck. Shaw flinched, bringing up the knife, and the combination of movements saved his life. The chain cracked against the blade first with a metallic shimmer, then snapped hard against Shaw’s hand, and then the end of the chain popped like a whip against the back of Shaw’s neck. If the knife and Shaw’s hand hadn’t absorbed some of the force, the chain would have ripped open skin. It might have broken his neck.

Shaw didn’t even feel the blow. Something had changed inside his head. It had changed the moment he had heard North’s steps. Conscious thought was gone, but instead of the darkness that had swallowed so much of Shaw’s life—that black surf washing over him, drowning him—everything grew bright. North. North was here. North was in danger. That thought threw off sparks like light refracted by arctic ice. The glitter of light on ice blinded Shaw, but it wasn’t dark. It was so bright that there wasn’t room for anything else.

Inside that brightness, Shaw lunged at Matty. Matty pulled back the chain, but he was too slow. Shaw reached him first. Shaw was moving easily. Quickly, yes. But easily. Every move controlled. Every move calm. Every move coming from that spin of frozen, shattered light.

Yoga was about the mind, the body, the spirit. It was about being present in the moment. And this moment was Shaw’s mind and body and spirit driving toward a single goal. This moment was the ice-rim light of North’s eyes. This moment was the blade stuttering in Shaw’s hand as it bucked along Matty’s ribs, found passage, and slid into the boy’s thin chest. Matty slapped the chain against Shaw’s side, but the blow was half-hearted, and Shaw didn’t feel it inside that brilliant, glittering space. Then Matty staggered back, coughing blood. He sat hard, his hand going to his chest, to the knife still stuck there, and he looked like he might try to pull it free. Then he coughed again, and more blood spilled down his chest, and he laid his head back against the wall, and he died.

“Shaw, holy fuck, Shaw, Shaw.” North slammed into him at something like twenty miles an hour, carrying both of them another yard down the hall, past Matty, past the blood draining across the floor. North’s arms wrapped around Shaw, cradling him, North’s face pressed against Shaw’s, North’s breath hot on Shaw’s cheeks, North’s voice cracking in Shaw’s ears as he swore a blue streak. Then North pushed back, studying Shaw, turning his head, grabbing his arms, his fingers running bloody prints up to the ribboned flesh at Shaw’s wrists where he had cut away the ropes. North was yelling. North was screaming. But his hands were steady as he wrapped towels around Shaw’s arms. His touch was soft.