Afton hustled up the street. Nick chased her, and Arik and I ran after them, flying around the corner into the Park Street station.
The creep was gaining on us. Arik grabbed a trash can and slammed it into the hunter. The man swayed on his feet, and Arik snatched my hand and pulled me down the steps, pushing between people along the way.
This isn’t happening. This is not happening.
My foot slipped on the last step and I nose-dived. Ripped from Arik’s grasp, I hit the floor. Screams pulled from my chest as I slid and crashed into a line of bicycles. A kickstand cut into my leg. The taste of salt and copper exploded on my tongue. I touched a crack in my lip, blood staining my fingertips.
Arik dropped to the floor beside me. Inside the train, Afton and Nick waved at us to hurry before the doors shut.
The hunter reached the platform. There wasn’t an iris or a pupil in either of his white marble eyes. A scowl crossed his mangled face as he sniffed the air. He passed us and headed toward Afton and Nick.
“He smells them and not me,” I whispered to Arik between breaths. “Why?” When I tried to move, the pain in my leg brought me back down to the floor.
“Stop moving,” Arik hissed. “Your brand shields you. He can’t sense you.”
Just like a bloodhound latching onto a scent, the hunter hurdled over fallen people and bolted for the train. Afton yanked the opened umbrella from Nick’s hand and threw it at the hunter’s feet. He tripped over it and landed on all fours.
The doors slid shut. The hunter jumped to his feet and slammed his bulk against the train, and the car rocked on the tracks. The passengers inside screamed and moved to the other side of the car as the train sped off. People on the platform ran from the hunter, screaming and crying. The ones that weren’t fast enough he punched or tossed out of the way.
The hunter sniffed the air again. His head shifted from side to side as he paced.
As he neared Arik and me by the bike pile, I struggled to get up again. I had to get away before he found me.
“I said don’t move. Hunters are nearly blind, which heightens their other senses,” Arik whispered in my ear, holding me tight against him, perfectly still. “It’s a sort of sonar. They can only detect movements and scents.”
I held my breath as the hunter passed. He growled and bounded up the steps, knocking people down. He crashed through the station doors. Glass clinked against the concrete and shrieks came from the streets above.
Arik eased away, and I tugged my skirt down to cover my thighs. The cut in my calf was deep and pulsing blood, but I hardly noticed. All I could think about was the way that beast had rammed the train. How could you stop something like that?
Arik ripped a section from the hem of my skirt and used it to bandage my leg, and I tried to keep my mind off the pain by surveying the destruction the hunter left behind. Several people lay around the platform, moaning and crying, with bashed heads and broken limbs. The scene was horrific, like one of those disaster movies in real life. What kind of world had we stumbled on? And if there were more like him…? What if he got hold of my friends? We couldn’t hide forever.
I grabbed Arik’s arm. “You’ve got to help Afton and Nick.”
“I won’t leave you.”
“He wasn’t after me. He’s after them.” I opened my messenger bag—twisted around my chest—and retrieved my cell phone. “I’ll text them to meet you.” I slid my finger across the screen to turn it on, racing my fingers over the lit-up keys and typing out a quick text to Nick’s phone. “Um…not at the station. But where?” I paused. “Quincy Market. It has tons of tourists.” I finished the text and hit send. “It’ll take that hunter a while to sniff them out. Do you know your way around Boston?”
“No.”
I glanced around for something to scribble directions on. A map stand lay on its side by the steps, the contents littering the floor. “Grab a map.”
Arik snatched one and brought it to me. I took a pen out of my bag, unfolded the paper, and flattened it on the floor. “We’re here.” I stabbed our location on the map with the pen. “Go down Washington and