‘There’s smoke!’
Daniel scanned the carriage. Not the door. The windows were too jagged for an adult. The roof hatch was blocked by a crushed luggage rack. Then he saw a service window near the rear, cracked open just enough for a child to pass through.
Beyond it lay a steep slope of snow and black pine trees. Far below, water rushed over rocks in the dark.
The train was hanging near a ravine.
Daniel set Noah on a tilted seat and pulled off his scarf.
‘Listen to me. I’m going to cover the sharp glass. Then I’ll lift you through.’
Noah shook his head immediately. ‘No.’
‘There are people outside. I saw flashlights.’
‘I can’t go without you.’
Daniel looked at the boy’s trembling mouth and felt something inside him shift painfully. He had spent two years telling himself he was finished with saving people. It was easier to be bitter when nobody needed him. It was easier to hate Lydia Vance when her name did not belong to a terrified child in one sock.
‘You won’t be without me for long,’ he said.
He wrapped the scarf around the lower edge of the broken service window. His fingers slipped on the icy metal. Smoke scratched at his throat. The carriage groaned again, lower this time, like a warning spoken through steel.
Behind him, someone shouted, ‘The front is on fire!’
Noah began to cough.
Daniel lifted him, careful of the cut hand. ‘Arms in.’
As he guided the boy toward the opening, Noah grabbed Daniel’s collar.
‘My mom said someone was coming,’ he whispered.
Daniel paused. ‘Coming where?’
Noah blinked hard, trying to think through shock. ‘At the station. She was scared. She said I had to stay on the train until she called. But a man came anyway.’
Cold moved through Daniel that had nothing to do with the broken window.
‘What man?’
Noah’s answer was swallowed by a voice from the smoke behind them.
‘That child comes with me.’
Daniel turned slowly.
At the far end of the carriage stood a man in a dark overcoat. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and too steady for someone who had just survived a derailment. Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow, but he ignored it. His eyes were fixed on Noah’s bracelet.
In his right hand, he held a phone with a cracked gold case.
Daniel recognized the photo on the lock screen even through the shattered glass.
Lydia Vance.
The man took one step forward. ‘Hand him over.’
Noah made a small sound and buried his face against Daniel’s chest.
Daniel lowered his voice. ‘Who are you?’
‘Family security.’
‘Then you know his mother’s full name.’
The man smiled without warmth. ‘Everyone knows Lydia Vance.’
Wrong answer.
Daniel shifted Noah behind him. ‘Back up.’
The man’s jaw tightened. Around them, passengers were too consumed by their own fear to notice the quiet confrontation near the rear. Someone finally cracked the emergency door open two inches. Snow hissed through the gap. People cried out in relief and desperation.
The man came closer.
Daniel saw the bulge under his coat. Not a gun, he thought, or at least not drawn. Maybe a radio. Maybe something worse.
‘I said hand him over,’ the man repeated. ‘His mother sent me.’
Noah
