whispered, ‘No, she didn’t.’
The man’s eyes flicked to the boy.
Daniel did not wait.
He shoved a broken suitcase into the aisle with his foot. The man stumbled over it, catching himself on a seat. Daniel lifted Noah and pushed him through the service window into the snow outside.
‘Crawl upward!’ Daniel shouted. ‘Toward the lights!’
Noah landed with a soft cry on the slope beyond the carriage. For one awful second, he slid backward toward the ravine. Daniel lunged through the window and caught his coat sleeve. Pain tore through Daniel’s ribs, white and hot.
‘Climb!’ he gasped.
Noah dug his knees into the snow.
A hand grabbed Daniel from behind and yanked him back through the window.
He hit the floor hard. The dark-coated man stood over him, breathing fast now, the polite mask gone.
‘You have no idea what you’re interfering with,’ the man said.
Daniel tasted blood. ‘A kidnapping looks the same from every angle.’
The man kicked him in the side.
For a second Daniel could not breathe. The carriage blurred. Snow spun through the broken window. From outside, Noah cried his name.
The sound steadied him.
Daniel rolled as the man reached down. His hand found the blue toy car Noah had dropped. Small. Metal. Heavy enough. He drove it into the man’s wrist.
The phone flew from the man’s hand and slid across the tilted floor.
The screen lit when it struck a seat leg.
A message preview glowed through the cracked glass.
Do not let him reach the hospital.
Daniel stared at it.
The man lunged.
Daniel grabbed the phone and shoved it into his coat. Then he drove his shoulder into the emergency release panel beside the service window. The panel broke loose with a metallic snap. A cable dropped. He pulled it hard.
The rear service latch released.
The small window swung wider.
Outside, flashlight beams jerked across the snow.
‘Here!’ Daniel shouted, voice raw. ‘Child outside! Help him!’
The man grabbed his collar. ‘Give me the phone.’
‘Daniel!’ Noah screamed from the slope.
The train lurched.
This time the whole carriage dropped six inches with a brutal crack. Passengers screamed. The emergency door burst open at last, and people spilled into the snow beyond it. Cold air tore through the carriage, thinning the smoke but sharpening every sound.
Daniel and the man slammed against the seats. The man lost his grip first.
Daniel crawled through the widened service window, scraping his back on metal. He landed in snow up to his elbows. Noah was ten feet above him, held by an older woman in a red parka who had been thrown from another carriage but somehow remained on her feet.
‘Take him up!’ Daniel shouted.
The woman nodded, pulling Noah toward the trees.
Daniel tried to stand. His right knee buckled. Behind him, the dark-coated man climbed through the window with murder in his eyes.
Then a whistle shrieked from the forest.
Rail workers appeared between the pines, their orange jackets bright against the night. One carried a crowbar. Another dragged a medical kit. The dark-coated man saw them and changed instantly. His shoulders rounded. His face became frightened, injured, ordinary.
‘Help!’ he shouted. ‘That man stole a child!’
The words hit Daniel harder than the kick.
Two
