Chris tried to get a handhold on the doorframe, but his fingers pinged off like Wile E. Coyote letting go of the cliff edge. The Yo-Yo swung him up like a rag doll over the railing, dangling him over nothingness.

“Yo-Yo!”

The Yo-Yo looked back to see Spencer standing with his left hand curled in a fist over the pot of boiling oil.

“Watch this, you sick fuck!”

He plunged his fist in. The initial shock froze his brain, because he only started screaming after he’d yanked it out. When he could speak, it was in gasping sobs. He held it aloft, scarlet and dripping oil, even though he longed to cradle or, better yet, plunge it under the cold faucet.

“You see that, Yo-Yo! Sweet Jesus.” He struggled to stay upright. “That’s my steering hand, just my steering hand.”

Now he brought his right hand to within inches of the bubbling, roiling yellow liquid. As he felt his knuckles blister, he thought of Milt, whom he hadn’t been able to save, shot, in fact, while Spencer cowered in a restroom, and of Lonnie, a decent woman who had meant nothing to him. But he wouldn’t lose Chris.

“My right hand, Yo-Yo!” Lungs tightened by shock made his breathing shallow. He spoke in high-pitched, broken tones. “My right! I shift with this. You understand me, you fucker? If this goes in, I can’t change gears. That means I can’t drive. How are you going to explain that to Dom? That was your job, looking after me till tomorrow. I swear to God if he dies, tomorrow won’t happen!”

The Yo-Yo looked at Spencer from the fire escape. His outstretched arm lurched and trembled as Chris front crawled in the dark void below. Spencer, eyes wet with pain, met his gaze. But the Yo-Yo saw in them the resolve of someone who no longer cared about living or dying, so long as they went out fighting. And that was one of the few sentiments with which he empathized. He jerked his arm up.

Chris crashed headfirst in a heap on the metal fire escape floor, right on top of the chalk outline he’d drawn around Spencer what seemed like a lifetime ago.

If Spencer held on to the railing of Chris’s bed, he could take the weight off the cable tie and stop it from cutting into his wrist. His palm had come through surprisingly fine because he’d kept his fist so tightly clenched in the oil. He hadn’t thought it through at the time so this was pure luck. Even so, the rest of his hand was a marbled mix of white, red, and yellow, pulse beaming its agony to his brain.

Chris lay beside him, also cable tied to the bed. It was going to be the longest night with nothing to look forward to.