Chapter 30 · The Light Bomb

"Run," Maya mouths through the train window.

She's hanging off the side of the car, one wrist trapped in a chain bolted to the steel. Black corruption crawls up her arm like spilled ink. Cracks split her skin around it.

I punch through the glass.

Wind slams into my face. Rachel shouts behind me, but I lean out and grab Maya before the train can throw her into the dark.

Her skin is cold enough to burn.

"I got you."

Maya's eyes snap open. Brown. Hers. Then her pupils split into narrow black slits.

She jerks against the chain. "Eli, don't touch me."

"Not leaving you out here."

"You have to." Her voice doubles, one layer hers and one low enough to scrape my ribs. "It's too deep."

"Then help me get it out."

"That's not how this works."

Behind her, something huge keeps pace with the train. My light reaches ten feet into the dark, then stops against empty space.

The empty space moves.

Rachel wedges herself beside me, gun raised. "That's not an extraction. It's bait."

"I know what it is."

"Do you? If she turns, we're dead. If that thing reaches the car, we're all dead.