Armstrong began walking again, the scuff and crunch of his boots echoing off the arched walls and rounded ceiling.
“That wouldn’t be the case anymore, though,” Doyle called. “Right? Because of the new Q line?”
“Lots of nooks and crannies to hide in, Detective. Pop once found an access point some kids were using. They called it ‘The Hole,’ and that’s exactly what it was.”
The air was growing more humid and stagnant the deeper they walked, and perspiration prickled under Larkin’s arms, beads of sweat following the curve of his spine. He noted that the accumulated garbage, due to either obnoxious riders purposefully tossing it onto the tracks or the rush of wind that followed trains entering and exiting stations picking up loose debris, was thinning considerably, making the refuse thatwaspresent stand out in a more blatant manner.
As they turned a corner, the space around them opened suddenly, making for more than enough clearance on either side of the track so they no longer had to walk along the rails and sleepers. “We’re underneath Central Park now,” Armstrong explained.
Doyle made a sudden hushing sound. He had a finger to his lips when Larkin turned around. He pointed toward the right. “Hear that?”
Larkin listened. It took a moment for the echo of their steps to recede from memory and the uncanny silence of the underground to come in like a rogue wave, but then he heard it.
A distant, but consistentting,ting,ting.
Metal on metal.
He raised an eyebrow in question.
Doyle murmured, “Someone knows we’re coming. They’re warning others in the area.”
Armstrong turned his flashlight on the far wall, panning back and forth until pausing at an access door covered in grime. It’d practically blended into the darkness, save for the doorknob that was shiny from constant use.
“Where’s that door lead?” Doyle asked, keeping his voice low.
Armstrong shrugged. “Could be a utility room, cable room, maybe a shortcut between tracks. The Q, N, R runs this way too.” Armstrong stepped carefully as he made his way toward the door, so as to avoid making noise that’d echo and mark their position. He grabbed the handle and gave the door a hard yank.
Someone shouted—a roar of unbridled rage and fury—metalthwacked flesh and bone, and Armstrong was flung off his feet. His flashlight somersaulted through the air, illuminating the blade of a shovel, fresh blood glistening on its tip, and Armstrong’s boots as he fell backward, and then the light dropped to the gravel at the same time somethingcracked and Armstrong cried out in distress.
—Boom. Squish. Crack.—
In the doorway stood a stranger, his details scant in the haphazard glows of their flashlight beams: torn plaid pants, jean jacket, maybe a studded belt. He wielded the shovel, likely stolen from an MTA worksite, like a baseball bat.
Larkin froze in terror.
His fear was so unchecked, he imagined his expression comically grotesque in its inhumanness.
Because that monster, that ogre, that devil, stalked Larkin in that place where sleep and wake met and nightmares were real and thatcrack,crack,crackof his skull under the force of a baseball bat repeated forevermore.
“Drop it and put your hands up!” Doyle shouted.
Larkin snapped free from the choke hold of shock, of horror—Doyle’s voice an anchor to reality, a reminder that nightmares were only dreams shrouded in a black cloak and memories were only receipts of the past and that Larkin wasn’t prey, that he wassafe.
The man—boy, Larkin thought upon second glance—disappeared through to wherever the open door led.
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 andhewas 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 tracksdaily—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.
