He tears after, his heart hammering, his lungs on fire.

This isn't how it's supposed to go. This isn't how it happens. He just medicated. Things were getting better. They were getting better.

There's no one out. New York in the middle of the night, and there's no one out?

He cuts out the vocal cues. He doesn't have the breath for it. He doesn't have the breath for anything but bolting blindly ahead, down the street, down the sidewalk, in a direction he desperately hopes will lead them home, away from whatever the hell this thing is -

He's reduced to gasping, breath ragged in his throat. He can't keep this up. Maybe Jay can, nimble little wisp that he is, but not someone with a lifelong, chest-crushing case of smoker's cough and health issues and worse.

He can't look back. He can't.

That's how it finds them.

He can't put a word to how he knows that with such bleak and utter certainty.

It's cold and it's flooding the edges of his vision, wreathing everything in something just a shade darker.

He can't keep it up. He can't. Even the roaring surge of adrenaline to his system isn't enough to push him on.

Tim stumbles to a halt, nearly collapsing as he staggers wildly against the nearest building wall.

"Keep - going - " he pants, sagging. "Just - go - "