The needle went through the torn flesh above his elbow with a dry, tough crunch.
Jack didn't use a mirror. He used his teeth to pull the black nylon thread tight after every third loop, his right thumb pressing hard against the skin to keep the blood from pooling over the needle hole. His left hand was grey, cold, and entirely numb, but the deep meat of his tricep burned like someone had dropped a lit flare inside his arm.
"...dare..." he muttered into the dark, his jaw locking around the thread. "...dare to take it... dare to lose..."
Pull.
The thread hissed through his skin.
He tied the final knot with a clumsy one-handed hitch, bit the excess nylon off, and spat the bloody thread onto the floorboards. He didn't wrap a bandage over it. He just dragged his wet, sulfur-stained trench coat back over his shoulder, wincing as the wool scraped against the fresh stitches.
His revolver was empty. The Remington shotgun was a rusted iron paperweight.
Jack reached into the low wooden crate under the worktable with his good hand. He didn't take the spare ammunition; he took two of the remaining Mark III titanium cylinders, shoving them deep into his coat pockets until his shoulders hung lopsided under the weight.
He stood up, his knees shaking so badly his boots knocked against the workbench.
The world tilted thirty degrees to the left. The blue system text flashed once, faint and jagged across his peripheral sight: [6.2%... MOTOR CONTROL SEVERELY IMPAIRED].
Jack giggled. It was a dry, breathless wheeze that caught in his throat, making him cough up a dark spot of phlegm onto the floor.
"Dare... dare..." he hummed, leaning his forehead against the damp doorframe for five seconds to let the black spots clear from his eyes. "...dare to walk... dare to crawl..."
He didn't take the van. The van was a dead metal box that Fisk’s men knew by heart.
Jack pushed open the rear pedestrian door of Pier 54 and stepped straight out into the freezing rain.
The counting house on 38th Street didn't look like a mob bank.
It looked like an abandoned wholesale florist shop, its front windows covered in thick sheets of plywood and faded green paint. Behind the wood, two heavy steel doors locked down three million dollars in illegal union pension funds and waterfront protection money every Sunday night.
Four men sat inside the back office, drinking lukewarm coffee out of paper cups. They weren't soldiers like Cooley’s crew. They were accountants with shoulder holsters, men who spent twelve hours a day counting stacked twenties and checking offshore ledger numbers.
The front door didn't burst open.
The brass doorknob simply rattled, turned twice, and stopped.
"The hell was that?" one of the counters asked, his hand hovering over the Glock on his hip. "Delivery ain't till two."
Outside on the wet pavement, Jack leaned his entire weight against the steel doorframe, his forehead resting against the cold iron. His right hand was tucked into his coat pocket, his fingers locked around the pressure cap of the first Mark III canister.
His skin was burning with fever. Sweat ran down his neck, cold as the rain, mixing with the dried blood on his collar.
"...dare..." Jack whispered to the keyhole, his breath fogging the brass plate. "...dare to open... dare to let me in..."
"Hey!" a voice barked from the inner security slit. "Get the fuck off the door, pal! This is private property!"
Jack didn't answer with a threat. He didn't demand the money.
He began to hum. Loudly. A flat, off-key tune that vibrated right through the iron paneling.
"...dare to jump... dare to fall... dare, dare, dare..."
"Is that guy drunk?" the shooter inside muttered, sliding the viewport open two inches to look out into the rain.
Jack saw the sliver of light from the viewport.
He didn't draw a gun. He jammed the nozzle of the Mark III canister straight into the narrow two-inch gap between the iron slide and the frame.
He didn't wait. He slammed his right palm down on the release valve.
PFT-SSSSSSSS!
A high-pressure jet of dense, greyish-green aerosol shot straight through the viewport, blasting directly into the security guard's face and eyes.
The man didn't even have time to scream. He choked, a sharp, wet gasp ripping through his throat as he stumbled backward, his hands slamming into the metal doorframe.
"What is that—"
Jack shoved his boot against the base of the door, riding the momentum as the guard's collapsing weight pushed the deadbolt free. He slid inside, his left arm pinned uselessly against his ribs, his right hand holding the spraying canister low like a garden hose.
The room was instantly flooded with thick, sweet-smelling fog.
The three accountants scrambled up from their folding chairs, their handguns clearing leather, but the mist moved faster than they could aim. It rolled across the linoleum, filling their lungs with every panicked breath they drew.
"Cough... cough... Jesus..."
One of the counters dropped his pistol, his knees locking up as he fell sideways against a stack of cash bricks. His face turned a deep, mottled purple, his mouth twitching violently as his diaphragm began to contract in rapid, uncontrollable spasms.
Jack didn't go for the money. He didn't even look at the green stacks piled high on the steel tables.
He walked past the writhing men, his heavy boots dragging across the floorboards with a wet, uneven rhythm. He stopped in front of the primary wall safe—a massive six-foot iron vault left wide open for the night shift tally.
Jack reached in with his good hand, grabbed a thick bundle of hundred-dollar bills, and pulled a heavy black permanent marker from his pocket.
His hand was shaking so violently he could barely hold the plastic cap.
He popped it with his teeth, spat the cap onto a pile of money, and began to scrawl across the bright stainless steel door of the vault in massive, jagged strokes.
DARE
DARE
DARE
He laughed—a raspy, broken sound that echoed off the cold iron walls of the counting house.
He didn't take the three million. He stuffed twenty thousand dollars into his coat pocket—just enough for cheap antibiotics, ammunition, and a clean room—and tossed the remaining Mark III canister directly onto the central counting table, pulling the safety pin with his teeth.
Jack turned his back on the room, stumbling back out into the alley as the green fog began to pour out of the broken doorway behind him.
He hit the wet asphalt of 38th Street, his knees giving out for three seconds before he forced himself back up against a brick wall.
Rain washed over his face, stinging the open cut on his lip, but his mouth stayed pulled back into that tight, crazy grin.
"...dare..." he whispered to the empty street, his boots splashing through the gutters as he vanished into the dark. "...dare... dare... dare..."
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