He lowered himself to his knees, keeping his hands visible.Miles approached carefully, his weapon never wavering.Something about this felt wrong.Too easy.Too quick.
"Hands behind your head," Miles ordered.
Hartley complied, lacing his fingers behind his skull.Miles was three feet away now, reaching for his cuffs with his free hand.
Hartley's right hand moved so fast Miles almost didn't see it.A syringe appeared from somewhere, probably his pocket, the needle glinting in the moonlight.Hartley lunged forward and up, driving the syringe toward Miles's neck.
Miles twisted away and the needle scraped across his jaw instead of finding its target.He grabbed Hartley's wrist and yanked it down, but Hartley was fighting like a man with nothing to lose.They grappled, spinning between the statues.
Miles couldn't shoot.Not here, not with marble and guests and priceless artifacts all around them.A stray bullet could kill someone or destroy something irreplaceable.He holstered his weapon and focused on controlling Hartley's wrist, keeping that needle away from his skin.
Hartley swung wildly with his free hand, catching Miles in the ribs.Pain flared but Miles held on, forcing Hartley backward into a statue of Athena.The marble didn't give, making the impact all the more brutal.
Images flashed through Miles's mind.He saw news footage of Kane escaping from prison.He saw all of the victims, all the families destroyed—not just in this case, but for each and every one of the disciples they’d tracked down.And as all of this broiled and unraveled in his head, something inside of Miles snapped.
Anger surged forward like a flood of lava, taking over his mind, every nerve and muscle.He wrenched Hartley's arm with both hands, twisting it at an angle no joint was meant to go.Hartley screamed.The syringe clattered to the floor.But Miles didn't stop.He pulled harder, feeling tendons strain and bones grind.
"Miles!"Vic's voice came from somewhere behind him, but it sounded distant.
Miles pulled Hartley's arm further, past the point of pain into the realm of damage.The anger was a roaring in his ears.All the therapy sessions, all the careful control, all the pretending he was fine when he wasn't.It all evaporated in the face of this killer who had been so close to murdering another innocent person.
The bone broke with a sharp crack that Miles felt more than heard.
Hartley's scream went up an octave, raw and like that of an animal.He collapsed, trying to cradle his ruined arm, but Miles still had hold of it.Miles kept pulling, kept applying pressure, watching Hartley writhe and knowing he should stop but unable to make his hands release.He pressed down harder on the man, ensuring he could not escape, making sure the bastard knew he’d been caught just like Kane had been caught, just like all of the other wretched disciples had been caught.
"Miles, let go!"Vic was there now, grabbing his shoulders."Let go!"
She pulled him backward and Miles finally released Hartley's arm.The killer remained on the marble floor, curling around his injury, sobbing and screaming.The sound echoed off the stone statues and glass ceiling.Some of the on lookers looked quite disturbed.A few had taken out their phones to video it.
“Put your fucking phones away,” Vic snapped.
At the same time, Miles staggered backward into Vic.His hands were shaking and his breath came in ragged gasps that he was pretty sure came from much more than just running.He looked down at Hartley writhing on the floor and felt something break loose inside his chest.
Tears came suddenly, hot and unwelcome.They replaced the anger he’d been feeling so quickly that he felt dizzy for a moment.Miles tried to stop them but couldn't.His vision blurred.The adrenaline was draining away, leaving behind only the realization of what he had just done.He’d completely lost control and would have done far more damage if Vic had not appeared when she did.
"I've got you," Vic said quietly.In hearing her voice, he realized that he was moving; she was escorting him away from the crowd, away from Hartley.The security guards were blocking him off from the crowd.Vaguely, he was also aware that Detective Linhart had come into the room.But those details were fuzzy and muddied as Vic guided him away from Hartley, away from the screaming and the broken man on the floor."I've got you," she said.“It’s okay…you’re okay, Miles…”
Miles let Vic led him to the far side of the gallery, away from all of it.He pressed his palms against his eyes, trying to force the tears to stop, but they kept coming.His whole body was shaking now.
"I'm not okay," Miles said.His voice cracked on the words."Vic, I'm not okay."
"You’re fine," Vic said.She kept one hand on his shoulder, grounding him."It’s going to be okay."
Behind them, Hartley continued to mewl in pain, the sound mixing with the approaching sirens outside the museum.The noise of it all painted a clear picture; it reminded him that despite whatever emotional turmoil he was currently feeling, he had done his job.They had caught another disciple and had saved a life.
But standing there weeping in the Greek and Roman gallery while Vic held him upright, Miles realized that Dr.Mitchell had been right all along.Something had to change.Because whatever was happening inside him, whatever had broken inside of him at some point during this string of cases, it was getting worse.
And he had no idea how to fix it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Miles and Vic stood near a statue of Zeus, far enough from the chaos to be out of the way but close enough to watch everything unfold.The Greek and Roman gallery had transformed into something resembling a crime scene crossed with a disaster zone.Museum security personnel moved through the space with handheld radios, their voices clipped and professional as they coordinated with NYPD officers who had flooded into the building.Toss in all of the art everywhere, and it felt like some very strange, abstract performance piece.
Guests in evening gowns and tuxedos clustered in the doorways, phones raised to capture photos and video of the scene.Flash photography lit up the marble statues in bursts of white light.Miles could hear fragments of excited conversation, people speculating about what had happened, who the man on the floor was, and whether this would make the morning news.
"Put your phones away, please," a museum security guard said, his voice strained."This is an active investigation.No photographs."NYPD was infiltrating the space, making the same requests but a bit more forcefully.
No one listened.If anything, more phones appeared, held high to get better angles over the crowd.
