Dave's face crumpled.
"If you were any kind of friend to her, you wouldn't drag her into this shit," Luis told Val, twisting away from Lolli.
"How many people are down here? Come out where I can see you," a gruff voice called.
Two policemen walked down the stairs. Lolli froze, the spoon in her hand still over the fire. The drug started to blacken and burn. Dave laughed, a weird crazy laugh that went on and on.
Flashlights cut through the dim station. Lolli dropped her spoon, grown too hot to hold, and the beams converged on her, then moved to blind Val. She shaded her eyes with her hand.
"All of you." One of the cops was a woman, her face stern. "Stand against the wall, hands on your head."
One beam caught Luis and the male cop nudged him with his boot. "Go. Let's go. We heard some reports there were kids down here, but I didn't believe it."
Val stood slowly and walked to the wall, Ruth beside her. She felt so sick with guilt that she wanted to vomit. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
Dave just stood stock still in the middle of the platform. He was shaking.
"Something wrong?" the female cop shouted, making it not at all a question. "Against the wall!" With that, her speech turned to barking. Where she had stood was a black dog, larger than a Rottweiler, with foam running from its mouth.
"What the hell?" The other cop turned, pulled out his gun. "That your dog? Call it off."
"It's not our dog," Dave said with an eerie smile.
The dog turned toward Dave, growling and barking. Dave just laughed.
"Masollino?" the policeman yelled. "Masollino?"
"Stop fucking around," Luis called. "Dave, what are you doing?"
Ruth dropped her arms from her head. "What's going on?"
The dog's teeth were bright as it advanced against the policeman. He pointed the gun at it and the dog stopped. It whined and he hesitated. "Where's my partner?"
Lolli giggled and the man looked up sharply, then quickly back at the dog.
Val took a step forward, Ruth still holding her arm so tight that it hurt. "Dave," she hissed. "Come on. Let's go."
"Dave!" Luis yelled. "Turn her back!"
The dog moved at that, turning and leaping toward where they stood, lolling tongue a slash of red in the dark.
Two sharp pops were followed by silence. Val opened her eyes, not even aware she had closed them. Ruth screamed.
Lying on the ground was the female cop, bleeding from her neck and side. The other officer stared in horror at his own gun. Val froze, too stunned to move, her feet like lead. Her mind was still groping for a solution, some way to undo what had been done. This is just an illusion, she told herself. Dave is playing a joke on all of us.
Lolli jumped down into the well of the tracks and took off, gravel crunching under her boots. Luis grabbed Dave's arm and pulled him toward the tunnels. "We have to get out of here," he said.
The police officer looked up as Val leaped off the side of the platform, Ruth behind her. Luis and Dave were already disappearing into the darkness.
A shot rang out behind them. Val didn't look back. She ran along the track, clutching Ruth's hand like they were little kids crossing the road. Ruth squeezed twice, but Val could hear her start to sob.
"Cops never understand anything," Dave said as they moved through the tunnels. "They got all these quotas about arresting people and that's all they care about. They found our place and they were just going to lock it up so nobody could ever use it and where's the sense in that? We're not hurting anyone by being down there. It's our place. We found it."
"What are you talking about?" Luis said. "What were you thinking back there? Are you bug-fuck crazy?"
"It's not my fault," Dave said. "It's not your fault. It's not anybody's fault."
Val wished he would shut up.
"That's right," Luis said, his voice shaking. "It's nobody's fault."
They emerged in the Canal Street station, hopping on the platform and getting on the first train that stopped. The car was mostly empty, but they stood anyway, braced against the door as the train swayed along.
Ruth had stopped crying, but her makeup made dark smudges on her cheeks and her nose was red. Dave seemed emptied of all emotion, his eyes not meeting anyone else's. Val couldn't imagine what he was feeling at that moment. She wasn't even sure how to name what she felt.
"We can crash in the park tonight," Luis said. "Dave and I did that before we found the tunnel."
"I'm going to take Ruth to Penn Station," Val said suddenly. She thought of the policewoman, the memory of her death like a weight that got heavier with each step away from the corpse. She didn't want Ruth dragged down with the rest of them.
Luis nodded. "And you're going with her?"
Val hesitated.
"I'm not getting on that train alone," Ruth said fiercely.
"There's someone I have to say good-bye to," Val said. "I can't just disappear."
They got off at the next stop, transferring to an uptown train and rode to Penn Station, then walked upstairs to check the times. Afterward they settled in the Amtrak waiting area, and Lolli bought coffee and soup that none of them touched.