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I drive my forearm across the back of his neck and slam his face into the asphalt. Once. His lip splits against the pavement, and one tooth cracks loose with a small, wet click. Blood streaks the ground beneath his mouth.

Not enough to knock him out.

I need him awake.

The man beneath me groans, blood slicking his chin. “Get off me.”

I haul him up by the back of his jacket and shove him against the alley wall. His head smacks brick. Dust rains from between the old mortar lines, catching in his patchy beard and the blood on his chin. He’s younger than I expected. Late twenties, maybe. Thin face. Sunken eyes. A red rose tattoo on the side of his neck. His gaze jumps from me to the others, searching for the softest one in the group.

There isn’t one.

Not tonight.

I grab his jaw with one hand, hard enough that his mouth opens around a pained sound as my fingers dig into the hinge. I force his face toward mine until he has nowhere else to look.

I pull my notebook from my pocket with my free hand. Four words, already on the page, big and ugly, then hold it in front of his face.

Where are my girls?

His gaze flicks over the words. Confusion first, then understanding covered by fear. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

My fingers tighten. His jaw creaks under my hand, and he gasps.

Lyla steps into the mouth of the alley, rifle lifted, watching the street behind us. “You’re gonna want to answer him.”

All of this is too slow.

The man tries again. “I’m telling you, I don’t know any girls.”

Liar.

Something quiet and awful opens inside me.

I shove him down onto his knees, grab his wrist, and pin his hand against the brick wall. His breathing turns sharp.

“No,” he says, finally understanding. “Wait. Wait.”

I bend his smallest finger back until it snaps.

The crack is tiny. The scream is not.

It rips through the alley, high and raw, bouncing off brick and broken windows. The finger bends at the wrong angle, already swelling around the knuckle, the skin pulled tight and white where bone pushes beneath it. Somewhere down the street, a dead thing moans in answer. Then another.

Trish flinches. Jacob cocks his gun. Lyla smiles. Joanie mutters, “Well, shit.”

The man sobs, clutching his injured hand to his chest. “Fuck. Fuck, what is wrong with you?”

Everything. Right now, everything.

I grab his jaw again and turn the notebook back toward him. Where are my girls?

His face crumples. “I don’t know names. I swear. I swear I don’t know names.”

I write one more word underneath. Child.

His eyes squeeze shut.

Recognition.