floor. She’d been good to me. She’d been honest with me, and she’d tried to help, and now . . . either the Consort would kill her, or they’d interrogate her and then kill her. All because she’d tried to help me.
I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, trying to hold back tears, but I couldn’t help the scream of frustration that burst from my chest.
My only ally, my link to the Free Walkers, my chance to reach Simon, all of them gone. I was more alone than ever.
The train headed into the city, and I sat in the cold, echoing boxcar, trying to figure out my options.
By the time the skyline slid into view, I’d eliminated all the unlikely ones and zeroed in on the most impossible option of all. The only one left.
Monty.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I ENDED UP IN A freight yard, somewhere on the southwest side of Chicago, numb with cold and shock.
I’d been so sure of myself. So confident that this time I would fix things instead of breaking them. I would bring Simon home. Now he was farther away than ever.
I wondered what had become of Ms. Powell’s contact, or the other Free Walkers involved in the transfer. If the Consort had traced them back to Simon. The worry was like a kick to the stomach.
As the train slowed to a crawl, I threw my weight against the door, forcing it open. Stacks of metal containers, like children’s blocks, towered above me. In the dusky half-light, their colors appeared muted, their shadows ominous.
The car lurched, throwing me into the wall and sending my backpack sliding across the floor. At least we weren’t moving any more.
Muscles cramped, head ringing, I jumped out. Gravel scattered underfoot. The first step was getting back to the Key World before the frequency poisoning disabled me. I hitched my bag over my shoulder and made my way out of the massive, fenced-in lot. I spotted a highway overpass nearby and headed toward it. We had a similar one back home, so if I found a pivot, it would be a relatively safe journey back.
Fifteen minutes later I was standing underneath a massive concrete bridge in the Key World, clutching my phone, trying to explain to Eliot how I’d landed so far from home.
He found me in an IHOP, warming my hands on a mug of heavily sweetened tea, pausing only to shovel in bites of syrup-drenched pancakes.
“This is the most repulsive thing I’ve ever eaten,” I said as he loomed over me. “It’s delicious. Want some?”
He didn’t sit down. He didn’t greet me. He stood in the bustling restaurant and stared at me like I was a stranger. I set my fork on the plate, tossed a twenty at the cashier, and followed him out to the car.
“Can you turn the heat on?” I asked when we were buckled in, my voice small in the dark interior.
He jammed the key in the ignition and cranked the heat. But instead of checking his mirrors and executing a textbook three-point turn, he glowered.
“Explain.”
I held my hands up to the vents, but the numbness wouldn’t go away.
Ever since Ms. Powell had revealed herself, I’d tried separating the various parts of my life: Simon and training and the Free Walkers and Monty and Amelia and my family, each in their own cocoon. But instead of protecting what mattered, the divisions had cost me, time and again.
Now it could cost me Eliot.
Instead of lying, or asking him to trust me, I did what I should have all along—I trusted him. Exhaustion made my words thick and clumsy. “Ms. Powell’s a Free Walker.”
Eliot blinked. “Come again?”
“Ms. Powell’s a Free Walker. She was sent here to keep an eye on Simon.”
He scowled. “And you know this how, exactly?”
“She asked me to join them.”
His jaw clenched, as if he was biting back words. His eyes took on the cool, distant look that meant he was sifting through possibilities, analyzing data, figuring out the best approach to the problem.
I was the problem, and watching Eliot try to solve me was unsettling.
“When?”
“You believe me?”
He jerked his shoulder, the only outward sign of the anger he was filing away to process later. “Either you lied before, or you’re lying now. You had more to gain by keeping Ms. Powell a secret than you do by outing her. And this is your pattern, isn’t it? Hide the truth until you’re in so much trouble you can’t handle it?”