Chapter Twelve
I jump out of the car and grab Copper’s leash as Lane makes his way to my side of the car. I grab his hand and run inside but am instantly stopped by people milling about like they’re out for a leisurely day. “We need a ticket.”
“Jump the turnstile,” he says.
“Okay…sure. Let’s stage a getaway with a blind man and a dog,” I say as I push some guy out of the way and jump up onto the turnstile. “Come on.” I tug on Lane’s arm.
He clambers up as Copper leaps up and over, instead of going under like I thought he would.
“Hey!” someone shouts as I pull Lane off it and onto the other side.
“Which train?” I ask as I look at the signs. They’re pointing every which way and I don’t understand any of it.
“Any.”
“I’ve never been to Chicago, this is so confusing,” I say as I look at the arrows and the colors.
“Just pick one and run.”
I nod and yank him up the stairs as I hear someone screaming behind us. “Is that the ‘bad guys with guns are here’ signal?” I ask.
“It’s highly likely,” he says as he slows on the stairs.
I can tell he’s trying to concentrate and my tugging probably isn’t helping, but I’d really like to live through this.
“They’re probably not carrying their guns, but I’m sure they’re being none too gentle with pushing people out of their way. ”
A woman carrying fifteen tons of bags is coming down at us and Lane plows into her bags, nearly sending them all flying
“Sorry!” I say. “He’s blind! And not the cool kind of blind like Daredevil!”
She just stares at us as we rush past and up onto the platform.
“Did we have to add that last part?” Lane asks.
“Well…yeah,” I say as we reach the platform. “What now?”
“Which train is coming next?”
I look around, curious about how I am supposed to figure that out. Unlike the movies, there isn’t a train already sitting, door open. Instead, there are people spread out, sitting on benches, or waiting. Then I see a little screen hanging from the ceiling.
“Says eight minutes.” There are a few people staring at us, telling me that we aren’t being too inconspicuous.
“What about the other side?” Lane asks.
I look to my left and see that there’s nothing but a fence there before realizing he means the other side of the tracks . “Um…death?”
“How long?”
I catch sight of the sign from this angle. “Two minutes.”
“Let’s go,” he says as he turns right sharply. “Where’s the drop off?”
“NO!” The man has clearly lost his mind. There’s no way he actually intends on jumping the tracks.
“Come on.”
“TWO MINUTES,” I remind him in case he has forgotten how to tell time. But his expression is completely steady like he is trying to talk me into trying a new restaurant, or maybe getting water instead of drowning my worries away with alcohol. Which I plan to do after this.
“It’ll be one if you don’t hurry up,” he says as he slides his feet along the ground until he feels the drop-off.
He tests it with his toe like he’s testing the temperature in a pool.
Then he just jumps right down onto the track like a fucking madman.
Because I’m still holding his hand, it yanks me forward, but I persist. My feet lock and I look down at the man that I could have grown to really like, but now he was going to die.
I’m still standing on the platform, bent over because his grasp on my hand is keeping me from fleeing. “Lane, really?”
Copper leaps in and now I know that I have to go. I can’t let the dog die.
“Hey! What are you doing!” a man shouts as I lean forward and jump down.
Lane yanks me forward and stumbles on the track but keeps moving. He reaches the other end, grabs me around the waist and pushes me up like I weigh nothing. I grab onto the edge as I hear shouting on the other side. I clamber my way up as Copper rears up onto the wall.
“Get the dog!” I demand.
“He can jump,” he says.
“If the dog dies, I will force him to haunt you.”
He feels around for the dog before grabbing him and tossing him like he’s a rag doll. I catch him as his feet flail and bear hug him. He looks slightly alarmed as I drop him onto his feet and turn my attention back to Lane. It’s then that I feel the floor begin to rattle.
“Get your ass up here, Lane,” I say as I grab for him.
I catch his shirt in one hand and slide my fingers around his wrist as I tug.
He hoists himself up with his arms as I see some commotion on the other side.
I see some of the men that had been in the alleyway four nights ago rush out onto the platform just as Lane pulls himself up next to me.
I tug him as hard as I can, and he rolls up onto the platform.
“Hurry, hurry!” I say.
“Sorry, I had to save the dog that has the training to scale up walls ,” he says sarcastically as he climbs to his feet.
I can hear them shouting something as I start dragging Lane.
I keep my eyes trained on the men as I move until the train turns the corner and cuts away my view.
We keep moving until it stops next to us and the doors open.
I rush inside with Lane’s wrist in one hand and Copper’s leash in the other.
As I’m barging my way in, someone bumps into me as they try to get out.
Ignoring the shove, I drag Lane to the middle and turn my attention to the two doors that are open in this car.
“Come on, close, close, close,” I chant, now wishing I was Magneto so I could force the doors to work to my will. Or you know, just like destroy everything because I would be Magneto and I would be awesome, but obviously a less dicky version of him.
The doors close and I let out a deep breath a moment before the train lurches forward and I nearly fall.
Lane catches me with a steady hand and pulls me toward him as he wraps a strong arm around me.
He’s clearly used to these death machines because he stands rock still.
I take the opportunity to cling to his muscular upper arm like there isn’t a more appropriate area to hang onto, but I needed a little fix to calm me down. Sue me.
“Any open seats?” he asks.
The train car is about half full and about half of them are staring at us like we’re an oddity to be watched. Or maybe they are jealous of Lane’s muscular arm that I get to cling onto.
“Yeah…sure,” I say as I slowly shuffle over to some seats in the middle. I slump down into them as he sits down next to me.
I’m breathing ridiculously hard as I realize that I need to start exercising. Or stop hanging around Lane. That would probably be the wiser option. I have never been very wise, though. Especially when it comes to hot, mysterious, and dangerous men.
“How are you doing?” Lane asks.
“Lane?” I ask as I reach out and gently squeeze his hand, almost in a caring gesture.
“Hmm?”
“OH… LANE .”
“What’s up?” he asks like he isn’t too concerned.
“I want to tell you something. Something very important. Something that could change everything as you know it—”
“I told you so?” he guesses.
“I fucking told you so,” I say as I shake his hand violently. “I. TOLD. YOU. SO .”
He snorts like he really doesn’t care about all that. “I know you did. I’m sorry for not listening.”
All the fight leaves me then and I sink against his shoulder. It’s kind of hard and not as comfy as it looked, but it still feels so damn good. He wraps an arm around my side and pulls me against him as I close my eyes and just sink into him.
“You did good,” he says.
For some reason the approval makes me feel good. It isn’t often someone tells me that I did something right. “Did I? ’Cause it really seemed like everything I tried to do turned into a bigger mess.”
He laughs, and I can feel the vibrations of it and it makes me smile. “How’d you figure out what was going on with Reed?” he asks as I feel the steady rise and fall of his chest.
“I broke into his iPad and read his text messages,” I say.
He snorts. “You nosy little bastard,” he says. “Good job.”
“Am I still not worthy to know what the hell is going on?” I ask.
“I’ll tell you, just not here,” he says. “See if you can borrow someone’s phone.”
“I can’t. I’m too exhausted.” Right now, I want nothing more than to just lie here against him and not move for maybe a couple of days. I don’t even care about the strange smell permeating the train car we are in.
“Can I borrow someone’s phone? It’s an emergency,” Lane says, disrupting my moment of paradise.
I open my eyes as a woman sitting near us holds her phone out. Taking her phone, I thank her since it seems like I don’t have much of a choice in the matter.
I look down at the keypad that she has up for us. “Who are you calling?”
“James.”
“Okay,” I say as I type in the numbers as he lists them. As soon as I’m done, he holds his hand out, so I reach out and set the phone into it. His hand closes over it before bringing it up to his ear. I notice the woman whose phone it is watching us very closely.
For a moment he just listens, then he hands it to me. “He’s not answering. I need to call the department.”
I end the call. “What’s the number?”
He tells me, so I type it in before handing it to him. He at least gets someone to answer this time.
“Hey, it’s Lane Price. Reed is working with Victor Red. Yeah…no…I’m positive. He took me to an abandoned factory where…Yeah, I can get you the address…Felix, what was the address?” he asks.
I look over at him, surprised he’d ask such a thing. “Uh…I don’t know.”
“Road?”
Is he crazy? I can’t even tell him the road he lives on. “I…don’t know?”
“Think…”
Think…think… “Queens Street!” I shout and quite a few people in the train car look over at us. I don’t know train car protocol, but it clearly doesn’t involve shouting.
“He said it was on Queens Street. Who? Felix…my babysitter. Yeah, I’m not sure if they’re still there. I think some of them followed us over to the station. Felix, which station were we at?”
“I don’t know.”
“The closest station to that location,” Lane says. “Yeah…yeah…alright, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”