His eyes darted away, then returned.
The roar grew into a rumble. The concrete platform vibrated.
“You killed my mother. You lied about loving me. Take me out of my misery, you son of a bitch!”
“I’ll do it,” he said.
Nikki smiled and spread her arms before him, daring him to go ahead.
And then she heard the whine of a small power tool and metal grinding. Sparks showered down through the ventilation grate at the top of the stairway, falling into the dark tunnel like fireflies.
Petar turned to look at them.
Nikki made her move.
She threw herself toward him, leaping inside the danger circle of the gun on his right side. Her arms were already up from her “go ahead and shoot me” gesture, and as she brought her body next to his, her right hand was in position to lock onto his wrist to aim the gun away. At the same time, Heat brought her left elbow up over his shoulder and spiked it into his nose.
He cried out but managed to keep his grip on the pistol. Heat delivered a sharp knee to his quad. With her right hand still clamping his wrist, she wrapped her left on top of the Glock and began to twist the barrel inward to point back at him.
Petar must have had some combat training, too. He surprised her by suddenly dropping his butt to the floor, pulling her off balance. Nikki fell forward and hit the deck on top of him, still clutching his gun wrist, but her other hand had come free of the Glock.
He tried to head butt her nose. She slipped it and went for the gun again with her free hand, but he pulled it away.
She called out to Rook, but he couldn’t hear her over his grinding.
Nikki leaped back to her feet. Keeping her joint lock on his wrist, she yanked his arm to full extension and smacked it, trying to break the elbow. But Petar jerked his arm back defensively, just enough for her blow to hit his forearm instead. She didn’t disable the joint, but the punch did loosen his hold on the Glock. It dropped to the floor.
Heat dove for it, but the gun landed just beyond her reach, skimming across the deck. Scrambling to snatch it, she reached the edge of the platform just as the pistol tumbled over the side onto the tracks below.
She almost went over after it. But bright light grew in the tunnel. The train raced toward her, seconds away.
Heat shouted for Rook again.
The sparks continued to fall.
Petar got to his feet. He reached for her Sig Sauer in his waistband.
Nikki scoped the platform in the light from the train. No cover for her.
The Sig came out.
The train broke the mouth of the station.
Petar brought it up to aim.
Heat made a choice.
She dove over the side.
Nikki stretched herself out lengthwise and hunkered as flat as she could in the grimy ditch between the rails. In the two seconds before the lead car got to her, she flashed on news stories she’d seen on subway commuters who had fallen on the tracks and survived that way. And those who hadn’t; it all depended on the terrain.
Heat had never been in a tornado, but that’s what it felt like to her. A ten-car cyclone of howling wind and screaming steel. The ground quaked, her body shuddered. She screamed a scream that nobody heard.
On the hike to get there, Nikki had cursed the deep depression in the railroad bed. It had created an obstacle course, making her climb up and over the crossties. Now she hoped that trenching would save her life. She pressed her face hard against the soil and emptied her lungs to make her torso smaller. The tiny breath she dared take made her mouth taste of stagnant water and rust.
Unable to count the cars, they seemed to go on forever. Hundreds more than ten. Which car, she worried, would be the one with the protruding bolt that would carve her open? Or have the dangling loop of chain to snag her and decapitate her?
Then, sudden silence. Except for the grinding of Rook’s power tool, above.
Nikki didn’t wait. She rolled under the edge of the platform and looked for the Glock in the dim spill from Petar’s Maglite. She swept the area but couldn’t see the gun. Only more plastic soda bottles and old spray cans left by taggers.
The flashlight beam hit the tracks. He was searching for her body.
Heat didn’t call to Rook again. She scrunched herself further underneath the lip of the platform and waited quietly. The concrete felt cold on her back where her flesh touched it. The bottom of one of the cars must have sliced her coat and blouse.
The light grew more intense directly in front of her. That put Petar right over her head. “Nikki?” he said tentatively. She had never hated the sound of her name so much as in his mouth just then. Heat readied herself. Made sure of her footing. Waited for his next “Nikki,” and then sprung.
She popped up and twisted to square herself with Petar where he knelt, peering over the edge of the platform, and sprayed his eyes with aerosol paint. He screamed and put his hand to his face, dropping his flashlight but not the Sig. Nikki tossed the spray can and reached up for him with both hands. Clawing him by the shirtfront, she hauled him over the side, letting go of him midair. He landed shoulder-first on the railroad bed and screamed again.
Nikki went for him, reaching for her handcuffs, but he rolled over onto his back and swung a beer bottle at her. It connected with her jaw hard enough for her to see stars. She staggered back, dazed, and sat down clumsily, just breaking her fall by putting one hand behind her.
Petar got up. His hands were empty. He wanted the Sig. Nikki had heard it hit the ground when he landed but couldn’t see it in the bad light, either.
He tried to boost himself up on the platform to get his flashlight, but it was too high. Petar had gotten to the metal ladder but had only cleared two rungs when she grabbed him again to pull him back down with her. He didn’t resist. Instead, he tried to pile drive her, letting himself be pulled and falling on top of her.
When they landed in a heap, he didn’t go for the ladder again. He tried to make a run for the station at 96th.
Without good light, he misjudged the height of the crossties and tripped, once again, landing between the rails. He hauled himself up to his feet but too slowly. Nikki hopped on him, throwing a blindside tackle. He spun himself on the way down, making her take the brunt of the landing. The wind got knocked out of her, and she ached for air so she could go after him. But he wasn’t running. Petar had her by the lapels of her coat. He was dragging her. When Heat turned her head and could see where, she was inches from the third rail.
In seconds he would drop Nikki on it and she’d take six hundred fifty volts.
Heat kicked a leg up into his crotch. They were too close together for her to generate the swing power to drop him, but it hurt enough to make him moan and loosen his grip. The back of her head hit the ground an inch from the hot rail.
He staggered away.
A downtown express was coming on the center rails. Petar started for those tracks. He was going to try to beat it across and put the train between them to give himself a chance to get away. Nikki stopped him before he got there.
She slammed a fist behind his ear and his knees buckled. He grabbed a metal beam with one hand to support himself and used it to swing his body around to strike back. But his own momentum carried him into her next blow, a fist to the temple. His eyelids fluttered and he started to lose balance.
The express train was fast approaching behind him. Heat pulled him up and slammed him against the steel beam. He took a looping swing at her. She tilted her head to dodge it and hit him with another punch in the nose. And then another. Blood gushed out his nostrils, mixing with the blue spray paint on his face.
As the telltale rush of wind from the oncoming train pushed into the tunnel, he lolled his head north, turned glazed eyes over his shoulder at the approaching headlight, and then back to her with resignation. He regarded her with the look of a man prepared to receive his fate. They both knew there were no witnesses.
