Icarus

BOOK ONE
THE FIRST FALL
1969
ONE

The day started out beautifully for ten-year-old Jack Keller. First, Miss Roebuck, his fifth-grade teacher, was out sick, which meant he had a substitute teacher, which meant he didn't really have to do much work, which meant he could do some serious daydreaming about the Knicks, particularly Willis Reed, whom he pretty much worshiped. Second: Dom was taking him to a game that night, just the two of them, and there was nothing he liked more than going to a Knicks game with Dom. Ever since he'd been four years old, which was when they first met, man and boy had connected. There was just something about the crusty old man – he kept telling Jack he was only forty-four but Jack insisted on calling him "old man" – that made Jack feel safe and protected. He was never afraid of Dom's temper, which could be terrible, or put off by his curmudgeonly nature, which could drive almost everyone else crazy. People seemed to shrink back from Dom as if they were frightened of him, but Jack never understood what it was that frightened them. Dom was thin and wiry and he used to be a boxer, so he looked tough, but a lot of guys looked tough without scaring people. They couldn't possibly know about Dom. Not the thing that Jack knew, anyway. That was a secret. A big secret. If they knew, Jack thought, they'd really be frightened. But sometimes, especially when they were together in public, he thought that maybe Dom's secret was the kind of thing you didn't really have to know. Maybe it was the kind of thing you could understand simply by looking.

Then again, it could have been the old man's arm that made everyone uneasy; people never knew how to deal with stuff like that. Jack had never thought there was anything much to deal with. Dom was just Dom, arm and all, and when they were at the Garden, he would let Jack eat as many hot dogs as he wanted – his record was four – and drink Coke, which his mom hardly ever let him do.

Third: As if all that wasn't enough, the Celtics were in town that night, so he'd actually get to see, in person, the despised John Havlicek and Bill Russell, whom Jack knew he was supposed to hate, being a Knicks fanatic and all, but whom he had to admit, although never out loud, he really kind of liked.

When he got home from school, his day stayed just about perfect, too. Billy Kruse's mom walked him home, with Billy, because they lived a couple of buildings away. Jack's mom wasn't home from work yet, which was fine with Jack because he liked being alone. He could do his homework and sneak in some TV and daydream some more. Sometimes he daydreamed about his father, whom he hardly remembered. His mom had told him that his dad was dead, that he'd died when Jack was just a baby, but lately he'd begun to suspect otherwise. He wasn't exactly sure why he didn't believe her, except it just didn't ring true. He'd heard about men who'd deserted their families or who'd gone to prison – that wasn't so uncommon in Hell's Kitchen; Billy Kruse's dad was in for three years for armed robbery – and something about the way his mom told her story made him think his dad hadn't really died, that he'd just run away. Or been taken away. Jack asked Dom about it once because Dom had known Jack's dad, had been his friend – Bill Keller had worked at Dom's meatpacking plant – and Dom said, "He's gone, Jackie. That's all that matters." When Jack had said, "Yeah, but is he dead?" all Dom said back was "Gone is gone."

At about five o'clock, his mom called and said Dom was going to pick him up in about half an hour. "Isn't it kind of early?" he asked, and she said, "He's bringing you up here to my office before the game. I want to talk to you."

"Did I do somethin' wrong?" Jack asked and his mother laughed. "No, sweetie," she told him. "I just want to see you. I have something to tell you. Something good."

"Cool," he said, and he meant it because he liked his mom, even more than he liked Willis Reed, and he liked going to her office. She was a paralegal at a law firm. The office was in a midtown skyscraper, on the seventeenth floor, and it had a great view of the East River and Queens through its oversized windows. Jack liked to go right up to the window and put his nose flat up against the glass. He'd stretch his arms out, as high as he could get them, spread his legs just as wide, pressing as hard as he could against the pane, and pretend that he was flying. Earlier that year, Miss Roebuck had taught the class about Greek mythology. Jack's favorite story was the one about Daedalus and Icarus. He even went to the library and checked out several books, reading everything he could about the boy who dared to fly too close to the sun. Jack loved the idea of making wings, then soaring higher and higher up toward the heavens. He thought about it almost every day, imagining that he was Icarus, leaving the earth behind, going higher than anyone had ever gone. Mostly he thought only of the glory, and he could see himself so clearly that it became real to him. He could feel the air rushing over his body; he could immerse himself in the silence of flight and thrill in the extraordinary freedom. But sometimes he dared to think about the fall. Like Icarus, he, too, would climb too high and his wings would melt, and then Jack could feel, in the pit of his stomach, the sensation of plummeting, of falling straight down, and the fear that overcame him would jar him out of his fantasy and he'd find himself in his room or in class, his hands shaking, his mouth dry, and his fingers clenched tightly around whatever he could grasp as if that thing were a lifeline safely tethering him to the ground.

But up in his mother's office, arms raised, there was never any fear. Just outstretched arms and cool window glass against his body. And he could be the triumphant Icarus, flying out over the river, above the whole city. Looking down at the world, climbing toward the sun…

Jack quickly finished up his homework, nothing too hard, mostly math, and changed into a pair of jeans, sneakers, his gray Knicks T-shirt, and his blue and orange Knicks jacket. Then he went outside on the stoop to wait for Dom to pick him up. Sitting there on the rough cement, he wondered what his mom was going to tell him and if the Knicks would win that night. He wondered a little bit more about his dad, too. But mostly he wondered how many hot dogs he was going to be able to eat. He decided that tonight he was going to go for a new record.

– "-"-"JOANIE KELLER WAS nervous.

She didn't understand it exactly. She knew what she was nervous about but she didn't really know why.

Possibly it was because, more than anything else in her life, Joan Keller wanted her son to be happy and she didn't know if what she was going to tell him would make him happy. If it didn't, she wasn't quite sure what she would do. Go ahead with the plans anyway? She didn't know if she could do that. Don't go ahead with the plans? She didn't know if she could do that either. Oh, God. When she thought about it like that, she guessed she did know why she was nervous.

She didn't want to think about it right now, she'd thought about nothing else for days, so she decided she'd keep herself busy and get some tiresome filing out of the way. But it didn't take her long before her brow was furrowed and her lips were moving and she was practicing exactly what she was going to say. This is nuts, she realized. He's ten years old and he's a great kid, so why wouldn't he be happy with the news? There was no reason that she could think of. No reason at all. So just tell him and hug him and kiss him and hope that he hugged and kissed her back. And, of course, he would. That's exactly what he'd do. So why be nervous? Pretty soon they'd be hugging and kissing and laughing all over the place.

She checked her watch. It was five-fourteen. Any second now Gerald Aarons, one of her three bosses – the most important of the three, he really ran the place – would come out of his office, glance at her, mumble something nearly incoherent, and head toward the elevator. He did it every day, unless he had an important meeting, leaving right at a quarter after five so he could make the five forty-five train to Westport. The minute hand on Joanie's watch moved and… Yup. Right on time. Gerald's door was opening, he was stepping into the outer office, and there it was – the glance, something that sounded vaguely like "gnightseeya," and then he was down the hall and gone. It didn't take long for the rest of the office doors to open and shut. Soon the hallway was filled with three-piece suits rushing by. Most of the lawyers were gone by five-thirty since almost all of them had commutes and families waiting for them, too. The ones who didn't left just as early. They had martinis or stewardesses or poker games waiting for them.

Okay, enough worrying about Jack, Joanie thought. It was ridiculous. There was nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. He'd come, she'd tell him, he'd be thrilled. No problem. So just get back to work, she told herself. How often does this happen? You've got half an hour, free and clear, to really clean up your desk. No one's going to bother you now. There's no one left to bother you.

With a little shake of her head, Joanie realized it paid to be a lawyer instead of a paralegal. It was five thirty-one and the place was already deserted.

Unbelievable, she thought. One minute after quitting time.

Empty.

Just one meager minute and she was all alone in the office.

– "-"-"REGGIE IVERS WAS certain that people were staring at him and he hated that. Really hated that. It made him crazy.

Walking quickly down Forty-second Street – no one was walking as fast as he was, he was passing them by like they weren't even moving – Reggie giggled. So what if they were looking? It couldn't really make him crazy. He wasn't crazy. That's what the doctors had told him. Maybe he'd been crazy. But not anymore.

He'd never felt crazy, Reggie thought. But he must have been. At least, if he'd really done what everyone said he'd done. You'd have to be crazy to do that. To go up to a complete stranger on the street and hurt her like that. When he heard the details, he actually got sick. Look, he said to the lawyers, I couldn't have done it. It made me sick to my stomach just hearing about it. But the lawyers insisted he did do it and everyone else seemed to agree.

Christ.

He could never have done such a thing. Pick up an empty beer bottle on the street? That alone, with all the germs, was disgusting enough. Really. He would never do that, much less the other stuff. Much less hold the bottle in his hand and break it, smash it so it was all jagged and sharp and deadly. And then go up to a stranger in the street, a total stranger, and… and…

He couldn't even think about it. It was too awful. Too sick.

Too crazy.

She needed three hundred stitches, they said in court. And she lost an eye.

How could he have done such a thing?

He couldn't, that's how.

It was all the lawyers' fault. They made everyone believe he was guilty. No, not that, worse than guilty. Crazy. His own lawyer! Telling the whole world he was as cuckoo as a loon! And then smiling afterward, telling him how happy he should be because they weren't putting him in prison, they were putting him in a place for loons. A special hospital for nut jobs.

God, he hated fucking lawyers. Hated them the whole time he was in the loony bin. Seven years of hate. And getting out hadn't changed anything. It had been thirty days since they told him he wasn't crazy anymore. Thirty days since he'd been back on the streets. He'd hated them every one of those days, too. Every single minute of every single day for thirty days…

Reggie Ivers realized he'd stopped walking.

He must have walked really fast because it was pretty chilly and even though he wasn't wearing a jacket he was sweating. But why did he stop? Where was he?

Reggie looked up at the numbers over the front of the tall building on the corner: 527 East Forty-second Street. Why did that sound familiar? Why did he know that address?

He heard the sound of paper rustling and he looked down, realized there was paper in his hand. Yellow paper. He smoothed it out, saw it was from a phone book. Oh, yeah. He'd been looking in a phone book, he remembered that now. But why? What was he looking for?

Now he remembered that, too.

He was looking for lawyers. Lying, cheating, cocksucking lawyers.

Reggie stared at the ripped-out yellow page, saw that he'd circled the name of a. lawyer at the top of the page. The first lawyer in the phone book. It was the name of a firm.

Aarons, Reuss and Seaver.

And look at this. Look at their address: 527 East Forty-second Street. Right where he was.

Son of a bitch, Reggie Ivers thought. What a coincidence.

And you'd have to be crazy not to believe in coincidences.

– "-"-"DOM BERTONLINI WALKED with Jack into the lobby of the building on First Avenue and Forty-second Street.

"You know what floor she's on, right?"

"Seventeen. Aren't you comin' up?"

"No," Dom said. As usual, he spoke in a raspy growl and he knew it sounded harsher than he wanted it to. "I think she wants to talk to you herself. I'll be up in a little while."

"What's goin' on?" Jack asked. "What's the big secret?"

"You'll just have to ask her," Dom said. And then, with his good hand, he brushed Jack's hair back off his forehead. "We can talk about it at the game, Jackie, just you and me. But now I'm gonna take a little stroll around the block. And then I'll come up and see how you guys are doin'."

"Do you have to call me Jackie?"

Dom nodded. "It's what I've always called you."

"Grown-ups are weird," Jack said.

"You have no idea," Dom told him. "I'll see ya on seventeen."

He waited as Jack went up to the security guard, signed himself in, then stepped into the elevator. Dom watched the elevator door close before releasing the breath he'd been holding inside. Then he went back to the revolving door, pushed and stepped through, back to the sidewalk. He noticed the tall, skinny guy in the T-shirt coming across the street, heading right toward him, but he didn't really pay attention. He watched the guy go through the revolving door and into the building but all Dom thought was "Geez, he's walkin' fast." Then he shrugged and went for his stroll around the block.

– "-"-"REGGIE WISHED HE wasn't sweating so much when he went up to the guard at the front desk.

"What floor are the lawyers on?" he asked.

The guard smiled at him, not a friendly smile, more like you're-a-dumbshit smile, and said, "We got a lot of lawyers in this building. Which ones you want?"

Reggie held the yellow paper up so the guard could see it.

"Aarons, huh?" the guard said. "They're on seventeen but I think everyone's pretty much gone. You got a name? I can call up and see if he's still there."

When Reggie didn't answer, the guard repeated, "You got a name, pal? Or are you just droppin' somethin' off?"

"Droppin' off," Reggie said. "Droppin' somethin' off."

"Why don't you just leave it with me?" the guard told him. "I'll give it to 'em in the morning."

"Okay," Reggie said.

The guard waited but Reggie didn't move. "I don't see no package," he said. "You got somethin' or don't you?"

"I got somethin'," Reggie told him.

"Well, where is it?"

"Right here," Reggie said. And he pulled out the knife he'd been carrying in his back pocket, the one that folded, that he'd bought on the street a few days ago, and without another word he stabbed the guard in the heart, three, four, five, six, seven times, until he stopped moaning or moving or breathing. Reggie dragged the guard's body behind the lobby desk so no one would see it. Then he went to the elevator and pressed the up button.

It took him a second to remember what the guard had said, where he was going. Then he remembered.

He stepped into the elevator and headed up to the seventeenth floor.

– "-"-"JACK SAW HIS mom across the room, her back to him, busy filing. She didn't hear the elevator so she didn't know he was there. Half the lights were off and it looked like hardly anyone else was around. It was a little after six and the whole floor was in shadows; it was pretty spooky, and Jack knew he shouldn't do it, but he couldn't resist. He crept up until he was right behind her, she never heard a thing, and then he grabbed her around the waist and went "Boo!"

His mom jumped about three feet in the air and spun around. But when she landed she wasn't angry. She said, "Oh, my God, you scared me to death!" Then she hugged him, held him tight, and kissed him. She didn't usually hug him for so long, so when she let him go he ran across the room, right for one of the big windows. He pressed himself spread-eagle against the glass. Peering out over the city, he said, "Look, I'm flying, Mom, I'm flying!"

She was smiling at him, but he thought she looked a little… what was the word she liked to use sometimes?… edgy. Kind of like she had something to do and wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. She looked like he imagined he looked in the doctor's office right before he had to get a shot. Like something not so great was coming but then afterward you know you'll feel better.

"What is it, Mom?" he asked. He put his arms down and slid his feet together and took one step away from the window toward her. "Whatever it is…"

What he was going to say was "…it'll be all right," but he didn't get to finish the sentence because she wasn't watching him now, she was frowning and looking to her left, toward the elevators. Some guy had just stepped out and was walking up to her. He looked kind of weird, Jack thought, and he smelled bad. The man was sopping wet, too, almost like he'd been swimming, but he couldn't have been, so it had to be sweat. Jack had never seen anybody sweat so much. And the guy's clothes were filthy. He'd spilled something all over himself. On his shirt and arms, all over his neck, too. A Coke, maybe. No, maybe not. It wasn't quite the color of Coke.

The man got closer, was just a few feet away from his mother now. Jack saw that whatever the sticky-looking stuff was that he'd spilled, it was definitely not the color of Coke. But it was all over the guy. Even on his face and on his shoes.

And whatever it was, it was awfully red…

– "-"-"ARE YOU ALL right?" Joanie asked. "You're bleeding."

As soon as the man stepped off the elevator, Joan understood that something terrible was happening. This man should not have been allowed up to their floor. There was an emptiness in his eyes, a disturbing lack of humanity. And he was covered in blood, it was soaking through his clothes. At first she thought he was hurt, but he wasn't walking like he was hurt, he seemed fine, and that's when Joanie understood: it's someone else's blood.

That's when she knew that whatever was happening was beyond terrible.

"Can I help you?" She kept her voice as calm as she could. But the man didn't answer. Instead, he swiveled his head, taking in the entire office. She saw confusion on his face, then anger. She didn't know why the anger had appeared but it was definitely there and it was scary. He still didn't say anything, or even look directly at her, just kept turning his head, as if searching the empty office and bare cubicles. Joanie felt a surge of relief because maybe the anger wasn't directed at her, maybe it was for someone who'd already left. Maybe this wasn't as bad as she'd thought…

"Is there someone you're looking for?" Even as she spoke the question she knew she wasn't going to get an answer. Because it was as bad as she'd thought. As soon as he turned back to look at her, she could feel it. The man's smell, so pungent now it swept through the office, was not just sweat and filth; he gave off the odor of violence, and all Joan could think about now was: Get Jack out of here. Make sure nothing happens to my son.

She tried to catch Jack's eye, he'd understand her signal, but it was already too late to signal, it was already out of her control, because the man had picked up a chair, a heavy swivel chair on rollers, swooped it up as if it weighed nothing, and hurled it through the air, straight at the window where Jack was standing. Joan watched in disbelief as the chair slammed into the glass, shattering it, the most frightening noise she had ever heard, and then crashed through. It sailed out of the building, followed by a waterfall of thousands of tiny, glistening shards, then disappeared, plummeting to the street below.

She started to run to Jack, yelling at him now to get out, to run, to just get the hell away, but then she couldn't move, something was holding her back. She felt herself rising, being lifted into the air, and she heard her son screaming, "Mom! Mommy! Mommyyyyy…"

At first she didn't understand, then she knew what was happening, what this lunatic was doing, and she didn't want to, but she couldn't help herself: she had to scream, too, right back at her son. And she knew she was hysterical now, but she didn't care, she didn't care about anything other than the fact that she didn't want to die, not like this, so she screamed, "Help me! Help me, Jack! For God's sake, help

– "-"-"JACK WATCHED AS the man picked his mother up and carried her toward the shattered window. The hole that the chair had made looked like a raw wound in the glass. He saw his mom kick and punch and even try to bite, but the man didn't seem to feel any of it. Jack heard her screaming, begging him to help her. He was two feet from the window, he could feel the air being sucked in and out, could hear the horns honking down below and the people yelling as they looked up. It was hard to breathe, his stomach hurt so much now; all he wanted to do was run but he knew he couldn't. His mother was screaming, he couldn't leave her, he had to do something and he had to do it now because they were closer, the man was almost to the window, Jack could reach out and touch him…

Help me, Jack! You've got to help me.

He didn't know what would happen, it was the first time he'd ever tried this, but it was all he could think of, so Jack hurled himself in the air, low, shoulders down and tucked in, just like he'd seen Hornung do on TV when blocking for Taylor, and he hit the man right at the knees, exactly as he wanted to do…

Jack, help me!

The man was looking down at him, surprised that he was there, as if he hadn't even felt Jack's attempt to bring him down and cut his legs out from under him. Jack tried again, grunted when he hit the man's bony shins, but it didn't do a thing. He was too light and too young and too weak and…

The man was raising his arms now. Jack could see his mother's eyes go wide, he could see inside her, right down into her soul and feel her total, absolute terror.

He wanted to hit the man again, to run at him and topple him, but now he was paralyzed because he knew it was helpless. He was helpless.

She was writhing in the man's grip, hitting him, scratching him wildly with her nails, but the man didn't so much as change expression. He just reached the window, and Jack wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn't do that either, he could only watch as the man held his mother in front of the large, jagged hole. She turned to stare at Jack, pleading, her mouth open, saliva dripping in long, messy gobs down to the floor, and she wasn't screaming anymore, she was silent now. Silent and staring and pleading with him to save her.

He wanted to answer her stare. To say, I want to! I want to save you! But I can't! I tried, I swear to God I tried, only I can't! But he didn't open his mouth. He was silent, too. He understood that words were of no use. Nothing was of any use…

His mother never said another word. She just stared at Jack, who could see the love and forgiveness, the desperation and then, finally, the sadness on her face as the man swung his arms forward and threw Joan Keller out the shattered window on the seventeenth floor.

– "-"-"REGGIE IVERS WONDERED where he was. He couldn't figure out why he was standing in front of this broken window and why there was this small, terrified boy cowering next to him. He knew he would never do anything to scare such a small boy, so what was going on?

His confusion deepened when he took a step toward the boy and the kid tried to run. The boy was fast but Reggie was faster and he grabbed him, held him by the wrist so he couldn't move. Reggie shook his head so the boy could see there was nothing to be frightened of but the boy wouldn't stop shivering. And now he was crying. And not just regular crying, long, choking sobs. It sounded like the noise an animal would make. An animal in the woods, in a trap, crying to be let out. Crying because it knew it was dying.

Reggie tried to will the boy to stop. The noise was horrible. Going on and on, cutting into Reggie's brain until he couldn't stand it anymore. Until he had to make it stop. It was driving him crazy. So he had no choice but to stop it.

He wondered what had happened to the woman. He remembered seeing her when he stepped out of the elevator. As he'd gotten closer, he was sure he recognized her. He knew it couldn't be, it was impossible, but he was seeing it with his own eyes so it had to be true because he wasn't crazy anymore. He was certain she was the woman on the street, the one they said he hurt. But it couldn't be her. That one had blonde hair and this one's hair was black. And how did she get her eye back? The one on the street only had one eye now and this one had two. Two big round brown eyes that were staring straight at him.

It was then mat he realized: the lawyers, they lied again. She never lost her eye! She probably never even got hurt! It was a story they made up, the same as they made up the story that he was nutzoid. They made it all up so they could punish him and put him in the loony bin. He knew it! It was all one big lie!

And now it was too good to be true. Here he was and here she was. At the lying-liar lawyers!

Well, there was only one thing to do, wasn't there?

She'd tried to hurt him. She had hurt him.

So he had to hurt her right back.

Except he couldn't hurt her because now she was gone.

There was just the boy. The terrified, crying boy.

Maybe he should hug him, Reggie thought. Hug him and tell him he could stop crying because everything was going to be fine.

Unless, of course, he didn't stop crying. Then things wouldn't be so fine. Then he'd make him be quiet.

He'd have to, wouldn't he? What other choice did he have?

– "-"-"JACK WAS HORRIFIED to find himself crying. But he couldn't stop. His mother was gone and he hadn't helped her, and the man was reaching for him, was trying to pick him up, just like he'd picked up his mother, and Jack didn't want to cry, not now, but tears were all he was capable of.

He felt the man's fingers wrap around his wrist and then his shoulders. The touch of flesh against flesh repulsed him. The man's hands seared him like an iron pressed against his skin, and without even thinking about what he was doing, Jack flung himself at the man's leg, clutching it with all his might, not trying to knock him over this time, simply refusing to let go. He could feel the man trying to shake him free, but it couldn't be done, Jack was holding on for dear life, would hold on forever if he had to because if he didn't the man would throw him out the window, too. Up close, the man's smell was even worse, it filled Jack's nostrils and made him nauseous, and the man was shaking even harder now, and pulling Jack's hair, yanking his head back, but Jack knew he'd never let go. There was nothing this man could do that would make him let go.

Then the shaking stopped, and Jack thought somehow maybe he'd won, but then he realized, no, there's no winning here, and suddenly Jack felt his insides explode. The man was beating him on the back with his fists. Slow, brutal blows hammering away at him. He felt like he might break in two, but still he wouldn't let go. Couldn't let go. Five minutes earlier he was pressed against the window, wanting to fly. Now he was crying and holding on to a madman's leg because he knew that flying was impossible. It was a fantasy, a dream, and not the dream of a little boy having fun with his mother or of some make-believe superhero saving the earth. It was a nightmare that had no happy ending. It was not the glorious Icarus but the Icarus with wings melting, high above the earth on a flight that ended only with an excruciating fall. With failure. With the sadness and fear he saw on his mother's face. And with death.

The man dragged his leg over to the window and Jack thought, What's he doing, what now? Then he could feel the man's leg kick forward and Jack's eyes widened as he realized what was happening. He tucked his chin into his chest as his shoulder and then his back and then the side of his head slammed against the thick glass. Jack remembered hitting a baseball once, shattering a window in a first-floor apartment; that's what he felt like, that baseball, because he was being skewered by new pieces of broken glass. Jack felt sharp stings in his arms and neck, he watched more glass tumble and fall, then the man gave one more kick. Again Jack was flung against the glass, only now he felt wind rushing by his face and…

No, no, please, no, he thought. Please, this can't be true.

But it was true. He heard screams from down below, and the heat, he could feel it soaking into him.

He was outside the building.

He was dangling, hundreds of feet above the ground, and the man was trying again to shake him loose. The man's leg was twisting back and forth, and up and down; it was like riding a bucking bronco, and Jack knew it was the wrong thing to do, to look down, but he couldn't help it. He saw new shards of glass tumble by. Then he saw a flash of the crowd, and even though he turned away it was too late. The street seemed to rush up at him, he felt as if he were already falling. He nearly let go, thought for a horrible moment that he had, was sure he was somersaulting through the air; he was the boy with the useless wings tumbling from the warm sun to the cold, hard earth, but, no, he was still holding on, his body was still banging against the window and the steel casing, his arms were still wrapped tightly around the man's leg and the man was still shaking him. Staring at him and hating him and shaking him…

And then the man was still. No movement at all. Jack couldn't understand it and he looked up. The man's head was twisted back toward the elevator, looking at something behind him. No, not something.

Someone.

The man turned back to the window now. Looked down at Jack, still dangling outside the building, unreachable, inches away from the ledge. The man laughed then. A laugh like Jack had never heard before. A wild, savage, and mad laugh that might have come from some inhuman creature, something that had risen up from hell.

And Jack knew what he had to do. Didn't know if he could do it but he knew he had to, had to if he wanted to live.

Had to so he wouldn't fall and disappear.

So he wouldn't be gone…

– "-"-"DOM LISTENED TO the lunatic laugh and he ran forward, ran as fast as he could because he understood what was going to happen. But he was too late. He couldn't stop it.

The madman at the window laughed again and, with Jack clutching the man's leg, Dom watched helplessly as the sweating man leapt out the window, a powerful jump, far away from the building, and Dom, grabbing at him, touched only air. He saw Jack's face the instant before the man jumped, saw what Jack was trying to do, and Dom said, "Yes," and then again, "Yes!" and the little boy let go…

– "-"-"JACK COULD FEEL the strength gathering in the man's legs, could feel it as surely as if they were of the same body, and a split second before the man jumped, so did Jack, but in the opposite direction, toward the building, reaching up and out with both hands for the frame of the broken window. His fingers grasped at it, and he felt a hot, slicing burn, saw blood flowing, his blood, as the shards in the frame sliced into his small hands, but he didn't let go. He felt the man freefall past him, saw him disappear, and now Jack was slipping. He couldn't help it. The pain and the blood made it impossible for him to hold on. He didn't have the strength to pull himself up and one hand slid away from the building and now the other hand was sliding too, it was going, he couldn't stop it, he was falling, he was gone…

Except he wasn't.

Someone was holding him, had him by the wrist. Was holding him steady, pulling him up with one hand, and then it was a miracle because he was back inside. He wasn't dangling over the street, he was on solid ground, and a familiar raspy voice was telling him that it was all right, that he was safe. That there was nothing to be afraid of anymore. That it was all over.

Jack grabbed Dom around the neck and cried and hugged him and listened as the old man told him that it was over. He felt Dom pick him up and begin running. He heard Dom say, You're going to be fine, it's all over, we're going to get you to a doctor and you're going to be fine, and Jack believed him. He closed his eyes because suddenly he couldn't keep them open anymore, and somehow he knew they were back in the elevator. As he felt the whoosh of the elevator going down, Jack did not know what was going to happen now. He understood that his mother was dead and so was the bad man. He was with Dom, he understood that, too, and somehow that felt right, Dom would keep him safe. He remembered how this day had started out so special, and he didn't understand, didn't know if he'd ever understand, how it had all gone so wrong. And before the elevator doors opened, before the policemen and the media and the emergency medical crew and the crowds that had gathered on the street began talking and yelling and taking pictures and wrapping him in a blanket and carrying him away, Jack understood one thing above all else: for the rest of his life, for as long as he lived, forever and ever, this would be the worst thing that ever happened to him.

Ten-year-old Jack Keller knew this beyond a shadow of a doubt, with absolute certainty, and it was his only comfort. He could never again be hurt like this. Never again would he feel this kind of suffering. This kind of pain or loss or paralyzing terror.

He knew it.

But he was wrong.

And many years later, when the terror came back, when the pain was worse and the suffering unimaginable, Jack understood just how wrong he'd been.