legs up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. My eyes burned. Hell, my whole body was still on fire from that man’s touch. I’d always heard stories about incubi and succubi. I’d just never entertained the idea they were real.
Then again, I hadn’t suspected witches to be either…and here we were.
As the train rolled along the track and the soft hum started to lull me to sleep, I tried to think of my game plan. There were no paintings on the walls of this train but I clung to hope. There was plenty of wall space. If I could just get my hands on a marker or something I could draw the front gateway of Lancaster Estate…maybe that’ll work.
Or maybe the next train station would have some painting on its wall.
Or at least a phone.
I took a deep breath and then let it out. I had a plan. It was weak but it was something. The incubus had no way of knowing where I’d gone. The only reason he’d found me was because Tegan had summoned his hellhound. And I was definitely not bloody doing that again. This would be fine. Totally fine. Perfectly, normal, safe, and fine.
“Fahrkarte?”
Shit. I knew that word. Fahrkarte. That was German for ticket. Bollocks. The few times I’d been on a train in Germany, no one had checked for a ticket. Of all times for that luck to fail me. I didn’t have a ticket. I’d never rode on a train without one. Edith once did and she’d told me they made her get off at the next station. I figured I had at least that much going for me. But this was Germany. They took their public transportation seriously. Which meant I was about to be in trouble.
“Fahrkarte?” The deep voice of the controller said to the row right behind me.
I squeezed my eyes shut and pretended to be asleep. If I wasn’t awake, maybe he’d have to assume I had a ticket. And if he woke me – well, I doubted he’d throw me off the train in the middle of a forest in the winter. I just needed to ride this long enough to get to a new station.
“Fahrkarte?” The man said right beside me.
I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. Maybe he was like a T-Rex and he’d not see me sitting there.
“Fräulein,” the controller said and tapped my shoulder with his warm hand. “Fahrkarte.”
My stubbornness clung to the hope that he’d give up and leave me be.
“Fräulein.” He shook my shoulder a bit harder.
I gave up. I pretended to be startled as I glanced around and then looked up to him. Fortunately, I spoke a little bit of German. Well, I could read and write it, but speaking it in conversation was a different story. This was a man with a thick handlebar white mustache and thick brow – not a book.
“Fräulein?”
“Hallo.”
He frowned and looked at me like I was a monster. “Fahrkarte.”
Ticket. I cleared my throat. I could do this. Think, Chloe. How do you say ‘I don’t have a ticket’? Words came to mind and I just hoped they were right. I licked my lips. “Ich habe kein Fahrkarte?”
He sighed and shook his head, then lifted his little machine up to look at it. “Wenn sie kein Fahrkarte haben, müssen sie die geldstrafe bezahlen.”
My eyes widened. That was a lot of words. It took me a second but I was fairly sure he told me if I didn’t have a ticket I had to pay a fine. Normally, that would have been fine. Normally, I kept money on me at all times. But this wasn’t normally. I had nothing.
“Es tut mir lied, ich habe kein geld.” Which meant, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t have money’.
His face fell. “Sie können hier nicht bezahlen. Sie müssen in Hinterzarten abreisen.”
“Oh.” I nodded.
He’d told me I couldn’t pay on the train, that I had to get off at the next station. He’d probably meant for that to be a bad thing, a punishment. But that had been my goal anyway, so I just nodded and accepted his bored chastising. He didn’t yell or cause a scene, just handed me the paper with my fine. I took it and shoved it in my dress, nestled against my chest and the gold material.
He grumbled and moved on to the people seated in front of me without a second glance.
I sighed and fell back against my seat, then turned to look out the window.