Larkin swore, holstered his weapon, and crouched beside Armstrong. The man’s nose was clearly broken, his cheek sliced open, with blood all over his face, but when Larkin reached under his head, he pulled his hand back with a start to see it covered in dark, warm blood. He grabbed his own fallen flashlight to see Armstrong had hit his head on one of the track fastenings.

“Larkin!”

“I’m right behind you,” Larkin shouted, already stepping around Armstrong, reaching under his arms, and heaving the bigger-built man into a sitting position. He couldn’t leave Armstrong lying right beside the track—God forbid an unanticipated train pass through and immediately kill him. Larkin turned, his derbies scraping loudly as he dug his heels into the ballast and gravel, dragging Armstrong toward the wall for safety. He couldn’t linger, not even to check Armstrong’s vitals, because Doyle was already through the door and he was the priority.

Larkin drew his SIG P226, moved to the door, and made a quick check of the situation. Doyle stood at the edge of the walkway, looking down—onto a lower-level track, perhaps—bare cables and supports running overhead. Larkin slipped through the doorway in time to make out Doyle’s next words:

“Megan, listen to me. I know you’re scared. It’s okay to be scared. But violence is always a choice, and you can choose, right now, to let him go.”

Larkin wiped his bloody hand on his trouser leg before adjusting his grip on the pistol and edging forward. He looked over the embankment to see an abandoned and flooded system. The MTA pumped nearly fourteen million gallons of water from their active tracks daily—Larkin supposed an unused tunnel was the least of their concerns. But standing in the calf-high water was Megan Flouride, dressed in the same clothes she’d been wearing when they rescued her from Reynold’s apartment. She stood behind an older, gaunt man on his knees in the muck, with one arm wrapped around his neck and, in her other hand, what looked like a heavy-duty plastic knife, like those that would have been served with her hospital meals, carved into a deadly point. The man was alive, but bleeding from a neck wound. He was struggling to bat her away, but he looked so high, it was amazing he was even conscious.

“Megan,” Doyle tried again.

“No!” She pointed the homemade weapon in Larkin’s direction before pressing it to Dicky’s neck, tears and snot streaming down her face as she screamed, “Make him go away or I’ll do it! I’ll fuckin’ stab this motherfuckin’ junkie right now.”

“Larkin,” Doyle said calmly. “Take a few steps back.”

Larkin hesitated, then did as asked, instead taking the rear in order to search up and down the walkway for wherever Megan’s hired muscle had disappeared.

“It’s just you and me,” Doyle insisted.