Shark Boy stepped behind Susan and wrapped his arms around her, pinning her arms to her sides. Her mouth opened, more out of surprise than fear, and she struggled for something in her purse, but Shark Boy pulled the purse off her arm and threw it across the room.
Archie could see it happening, see the man in the mask lift something sharp and silver to Susan’s face—a piercing needle. Shark Boy tightened his grip. Susan struggled but the masked man held the sharp needle against the smooth flushed flesh of her cheek, and she froze.
The masked man’s featureless face was pointed at Archie. “I think you came for something else,” he said.
Nobody moved. The needle was nearly touching Susan’s face, so close that if Susan flinched, it would pierce the skin. Susan’s eyes widened.
“The major vessels of the lingual artery go through the tongue,” the masked man continued. “That’s that big vein you were talking about. Ever had Manchego cheese? That’s what pushing a needle through a tongue feels like. Like slicing a knife through Manchego cheese. Cartilage makes a popping, squashy sound, like poking through the skin of a baked acorn squash.”
“Let me guess,” Susan said. “You work in food service?”
Shark Boy put a hand on Susan’s forehead and snapped her head back, securing the back of her skull against his shoulder.
She didn’t know what was happening yet, but Archie did. He couldn’t stop it. “It’s going to be okay,” he said.
The masked man slid one end of the needle into Susan’s cheek. It went in effortlessly, like a thumbtack into corkboard. The skin tented on the other side for a moment and then the tip of the needle popped through, just under her eye. It happened in an instant. Susan barely had time to cry out. Then it was over. The two-inch needle was threaded through her cheek.
The gun pressed insistently into Archie’s back. He could recover it, but it was under his shirt, and he would have to fumble for it. It would take seconds. So would they hurt her more in the panic of those few seconds, or if Archie did nothing?
Susan’s eyes were wild with anger and disbelief. She fought to lift her hands up, but Shark Boy held her tight.
“Jesus fuck!” Susan screamed. “You pierced my fucking face!” She looked at Archie, her eyes pleading with him to do something. She knew he had a gun. It was not unthinkable that she would wonder why the hell he wasn’t using it.
“Flesh,” the man in the mask said, producing another needle, “is more like a frozen grape.” He moved the needle down just below Susan’s bottom lip. “Is this about where Gretchen cut your noble immigrant?”
Susan stopped struggling and squeezed her eyes shut. A tiny rivulet of blood made a trail down her chin and neck, and under the collar of her white shirt.
Archie summoned all the calm in his body and focused on Susan. “Susan,” he said. “Look at me.”
He half expected her to ignore him. He’d brought her down here, into this. No backup. No badge. And a masked madman had just put a needle through her face. Trust was probably not high on her emotional agenda right now.
But she opened her eyes.
Archie tried to exude confidence, to project mettle into her gaze. “It’s going to be okay,” he told her.
She nodded. It was a tiny movement. Archie might have imagined it.
Without taking his eyes off Susan, he asked the masked man, “What do you want?”
Archie needed to get Susan out of this.
“I want you to do me a favor,” the man in the mask said.
“I’m not going to help you move,” Archie said.
“I want you to cut me.”
His words floated in the air like dust. Everyone waited. Archie could hear Susan breathing.
Shark Boy started rummaging around in a pocket and then they heard the snap of a case opening. Archie refused to unlock his eyes from Susan’s. He refused to look away. He could do that, at least, for her. He could keep her calm.
Susan caught sight of what Shark Boy had in his hands a split second before Archie did. He saw the fear register in her eyes. But Archie already knew what it was. He knew it from the word “cut.” So when Shark Boy lifted the tempered steel blade to Susan’s throat, Archie did not react at all.
Resolve.
Susan’s breathing now came in short little bursts. Archie worried she was going to hyperventilate. He needed her thinking straight.
He reached forward with his left hand, took her right hand, and squeezed it. Her hand was cold to the touch. He could feel her pulse through his palm.
But she looked at him. And she squeezed his hand back.
Archie had a plan.
He held his right hand out for the scalpel. Shark Boy set it in his palm. It was larger than the scalpel that Gretchen had used to carve into Archie’s chest, but not as pretty. This one was disposable, plastic and steel. Gretchen’s was top-of-the-line.
Archie folded his hand around the plastic handle.
“Where?” he asked the masked man.