Still nothing. Not a sound.

All right, Shaw thought. Work backward toward Matty’s loft. He took a step toward the darkness of the alley. The sound of a can skipping off cement came from that blind spot ahead, and Shaw froze. All of the sudden, his sweating doubled. Tripled. Why didn’t he have a gun? Why didn’t he have a can of pepper spray? Why didn’t he have anything? Because he, Kingsley Shaw Wilder Aldrich, was an absolute bonehead. A fucking moron, as North would have put it.

But if Matty were out here, alone, with someone chasing him—

Matty had called Shaw. He had wanted Shaw’s help. And somehow, that decided it.

Shaw walked into the darkness. His footsteps echoed off the laundromat’s brick on one side and the privacy fence on the other. Butted up against the brick, the two dumpsters sat with lids thrown back. A cat leapt out of the dumpster, scrabbling to a perch on the dumpster’s rim, and then disappeared into the night. Shaw almost fell on his ass; his heart had climbed up between his ears and was pounding so loud he couldn’t hear anything else.

Fucking cats, Shaw thought, but he felt . . . alive. Awake. Energized. Fucking cats, he thought. But he was grinning.

Then something clanged against the dumpster, the sound hollow and vast, and rubber squeaked on cement, and Shaw glimpsed a pair of Sperrys between the dumpster’s massive casters.

“Matty?”

Another of those booming clangs as the Sperrys tried to draw deeper into the shadows behind the dumpster.

“It’s me. Shaw.” Shaw picked his way through piles of wet, flattened cardboard. “Matty, you can come out. You’re ok. Everything’s going to be ok.”

The only answer was a soft shuffle across the cement.

Sidestepping, Shaw cleared the dumpster and peered into the cramped space between the dinged-up metal and the laundromat’s brick wall. Matty Fennmore had squirreled himself as deep into the space as he could go, and he had his knees drawn up to his chest and his head on top of his arms. The unruly wave of blond hair glinted at the rim of the light.

“Come on, Matty. Come out here.”

But Matty wouldn’t move. Wouldn’t do anything, in fact, until Shaw dragged him out from behind the dumpster. Then Matty turned into a whirlwind of fists and elbows and knees. Shaw tried to deflect the blows as best he could, but more than a few connected, and Shaw’s ear was puffy and hot, and his cheek stung, and he could feel a bruise already blooming just below his ribs. Finally Shaw had to pin the boy’s arms to his side and force him up against the brick while Matty panted, blowing bubbles at the sides of his mouth like rabid froth, and driving his head toward Shaw—whether to bite or to headbutt, Shaw didn’t know.

“Whoa,” Shaw said. “Calm down. Breathe. Matty, just listen to my voice.” Shaw knew what North would do. North would knock the kid out. Or maybe just slap him around until Matty’s world was crystal again. But that was North, and the thought of him brought that soft pop of the strap into Shaw’s head. He had to shake it away before he started crumbling again. Instead, he focused on Matty.