Chapter 7 · Last Train Blood

The first time Micah screamed my name, I nearly put my fist through Elias’s face.

It came through the blood pact like a live wire shoved under my ribs.

“Nora—”

Then it cut off.

I grabbed the cracked tile counter to keep from dropping. The abandoned subway kiosk around us jumped in and out of focus. Dead ticket machines. A busted map behind cloudy plastic. Emergency lights coughing weak red light over everything.

Elias caught my elbow.

I ripped free. “Don’t touch me.”

“You felt him?”

I laughed once. Ugly sound. “No, I just enjoy collapsing in filthy train stations. Yeah, I felt him.”

His face went tight. He had one hand pressed to the other, trying to keep blood from soaking through the strip of shirt he’d tied around his palm. The wound from last night should’ve been slowing down. Instead, the blood kept finding its way through the cloth, black-red under the emergency lights.

I stared at it.

“You sealed the memory bleed,” I said. “You said you sealed it.”

“I sealed the part that was pulling the gate toward you.”

“That is not what I asked.”

“No.” He looked down the dark platform tunnel.