in a cell like Monty’s, drain in the floor, restraints on the table, and find out what we knew.
I ducked into the next car, twisting to avoid the other passengers, and ran through as many compartments as I could.
The train squealed to a stop. The doors slid open. I jumped to the pavement, glancing around wildly. Several cars back, one of the guards climbed down, Ms. Powell slung over his shoulder. Two more Walkers approached him, and I dove back into the vestibule before they spotted me.
Guards must have been waiting at every platform from here into the city. If I tried to leave, they’d hear my Key World signal and track me down. If they could ID me, they wouldn’t even have to give chase. They could wait until I went home—or go after my family.
Anonymity was my only defense.
Where was the second guard? Looking for Ms. Powell’s contact, or coming for me? The train started again, and I stumbled, grabbing on to seat backs as I made my way through the car. The conductor’s voice crackled over the speaker, announcing that the rest of trip would be a nonstop express into the city. I couldn’t get off even if I wanted to.
The doors behind me opened, letting in the Key World frequency. For the first time in my life, it signaled danger instead of safety.
No time to look back. I joined the crowd, careful not to touch anyone, hoping the guard wouldn’t be able to pinpoint my signal amid the others.
Through the doors. Into the next car. Another vestibule. Another car, and I hauled on the doors.
They didn’t move.
I was out of cars.
But not out of trains.
We’d always been taught that people made a lot of decisions at train stations—but it turned out the trains themselves carried a lot of pivots too. Maybe people were making big life choices while the car rocked its way toward the city, or maybe they were deciding to nap. I didn’t care what decisions the passengers had made, only that they’d made them.
The trick was matching schedules, Ms. Powell had said. But I didn’t know the schedules anywhere except the Key World, and if I tried to go back there, this guy would follow me. I’d have to pick a familiar frequency—one where the world was similar enough that the trains probably overlapped.
I reached into the nearest pivot.
The door at the other end of the car opened, and the guard stepped through.
On instinct, my trembling fingers caught Doughnut World’s thread, and I stumbled through.
The compartment I landed in was empty except for a group of girlfriends, dressed for a night on the town. I gasped in relief, then sprinted to the other end of the train, scenery blurring.
Ms. Powell was gone. My one link to Simon, gone. I bent over, hands on knees, fighting for air and control.
Behind me, I heard the sound of the pivot opening. The guard had tracked my signal, followed me through. Doughnut World wasn’t the refuge I’d hoped.
I took off again, searching for a clear pivot. The train shook, throwing me into one of the seats, but I scrambled up and kept moving.
I found a rift, slender but strong, in the next car.
“Stop!” shouted the guard, twenty feet behind me. “Identify yourself!”
I didn’t look. I didn’t think. I heard the whine of his Taser charging, and I lunged at the pivot, taking hold of the first string I found. I half-Walked, half-fell into nothingness . . .
• • •
. . . and slammed into the wall of a boxcar, landing on the wooden planks, splinters gouging my palms. Pale bars of sunlight shot through the slats onto the floor, and the air smelled of dust and machine oil. A freight train.
I was trapped. There was no door to the next car; no way to get out if the guard followed me. The best I could do was jump and hope I survived the fall.
Over the roar and clatter of the wheels, I heard a scream that ended as abruptly as it started. I pulled myself up and peered through the back slats of the car. A hundred yards away, the guard who’d been chasing me rolled limply along the ground. Then he lay silent and unmoving on the tracks.
He’d Walked into thin air. If I’d waited ten seconds longer, I would have met the same fate.
I always think it’s going to be my last Walk, Ms. Powell had said.