The boards gave when I pushed at them, and I was able to get my hand into the opening, though I couldn’t see what I was reaching for. What I felt mostly was grime and cobwebs, and I was certain I was thrusting my hand into a place that had long been a nest for rats and mice. I felt what seemed like pencils, and some little rock-like things that were probably petrified rodent turds, but then I hit something smooth and thin and plasticky. I carefully pulled this out of the opening. It was a syringe, capped and pristine, and full of something.

“Take the cap off and inject him,” Newman said.

“Where?”

“In the upper arm.”

I approached Stephen, who looked up at me with a sweatslicked face.

“Don’t do this,” he said. “Don’t let him have it.”

I pulled the cap off the needle end and jammed it into Stephen’s arm. It took a lot of force to get it through the sweater and the shirt and his skin. It didn’t go in all the way on the first try, so I had to keep pressing down to get into the muscle.

“Sorry,” I said.

The plunger was equally hard to depress, but I eventually got it down, and whatever was in the syringe was now in Stephen. As I pulled it out, Newman put me in a choke hold and held the knife up to my eye.

“Stay exactly where you are,” he said to Callum. “If I so much as think I hear you following, I’ll slice her open.”

I had been alone with the Ripper before, but he had never had me before. When Jo touched you, it felt like a gentle breeze. The Ripper felt like he had the contained wind strength of a hurricane—or at least a pretty serious storm, one that could rip off a roof or pull up a tree. He dragged me backward up the steps until we reached the spiral section, then pushed me ahead of him.

“If I don’t get my terminus, I won’t hold myself back,” he said. “The girl with the long hair, your friend in the window? The boy with the curly hair? They’ll be scrubbing the walls for weeks, trying to get the blood off. And what I will do to you will be even worse. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said. I was crying a little, but I wiped my face and started the climb. I stumbled frequently as we went up, and I’d feel the knife tap the middle of my back. Once we got to the basement, he locked the access door, sealing Stephen and Callum inside. He allowed me to walk on my own, knowing that his threat kept me tethered.

“Where is it?” he snapped as we got into the elevator.

“It’s at Wexford,” I said.

“I will lead, and you will follow.”