“No,” said her aunt.
“That hallway to the right. Maybe there’s another door out. Or if there’s a room open, we could get out a window.”
Chelsea spun right and started sprinting down the hall. The first door on the right was a women’s restroom; she decided to try it, pushing inside. Her aunt followed.
There was a window on the far wall, but a thick antitheft screen of wire mesh filled the space beyond the glass. Chelsea pushed up the window and examined the panel. At least a quarter of an inch thick, the diamond-patterned metal remained stout as she pounded against it; her fist didn’t even make an indent.
“We’ll try another room,” Chelsea said.
“I need a breath first,” said her aunt.
“We have to keep trying.”
“I know, I know. Just a minute. A second.”
Victoria exhaled heavily, as if she were blowing out two dozen candles on a birthday cake. She gulped air and pushed it out again.
“Slow breaths, deep,” Chelsea told her. “Slow. Try to relax.”
You don’t give up on a problem, no matter how hard it is.
Her father’s voice, in her head, urging her on.
It was his voice she’d heard upstairs. She hadn’t listened. Her hesitation had cost them their chance, maybe.
Don’t dwell on your mistakes. Move ahead!
“Yes, go,” she told herself, answering him.
Victoria thought she was talking to her. “OK.”
Chelsea stopped at the door, peeked out, then held it open for her aunt. Out in the hall, they started running again, bypassing the men’s room — surely it would have the same window arrangement — in favor of an office a little farther down. The door was locked, requiring a card to open.
“Next one,” said Chelsea, already in motion.
She put her fingers on the handle, already calculating that it would be locked and they would have to move on. But by some miracle, the latch sprung open and she nearly tumbled inside.
The room was an office, with a desk, some empty shelves, and a pair of file cabinets. There were two casement windows on the far wall, covered by open blinds but large enough to let in considerable light.
Unlike the windows in the restroom, these opened horizontally, with a hand crank at the bottom. Chelsea flipped the locks open and cranked; the space was narrow but she figured she could pass through. The only problem was the screen separating the room from the outside. There didn’t seem to be an easy way to remove it; they’d have to break it down.
“We’ll break it with the chair legs,” she said, turning back to get her aunt.
She wasn’t there. In her haste, Chelsea had left her back in the hall, if not the bathroom.
The door started to open.
Thank God!
“We have a way out,” Chelsea said, grabbing the chair. “Come on!”
“You’ll come with me,” answered the man who entered the room. “Come now or I’ll shoot you.”
7
Borya Tolevi always had bad luck with the Blue Line. Always. While many aficionados of the city’s subway system rated its trains at the top of the T lines — dubious praise, surely — in her opinion they were the worst. Hers always ran late or was way crowded or smelled beyond human habitation.
Usually all three.
But today was unreal. They were barely out of State Station when the train stopped with a screech.
STOPPED! IN THE TUNNEL!! IN THE F-ING TUNNEL!!!
The lights flickered on and off. Onoffonoffonoff, then full on, then full off, emergency lights coming on, then off and on.
Like bullshit!
Borya looked at her watch. She was due at the Aquarium to meet her friend, mentor, and honorary aunt Chelsea Goodman, along with Chelsea’s actual real aunt, in forty-five minutes. Granted, she had plenty of time to get there — the Aquarium was the next stop — but that required the train moving again.
Maybe it would. Maybe it wouldn’t.
In the meantime, she was going to completely gag on the stench wafting from the old men crowding the seats nearby. She was standing in the aisle — easier to avoid perverts that way. But if she had to stand here for two more minutes she was going to either fall over or puke on the floor from the fart-stench wafting her way.
Borya decided her only recourse was to move to another car. She squirmed her way to the door at the end of the car, only to find it blocked by a woman who could have played on the Patriots’ front line.
“Excuse me,” Borya told her.
“Where you goin’, hon?” said the woman. “There’s no seats in that car.”
“I want to see for myself.”
“You’re not supposed to ride between the trains,” said Fattie. “Or walk between them.”
“That’s only when they’re moving.”
“The alarm will sound,” she said.
“Alarm? There are no alarms on the doors. What are you, like, a drug addict? Or just from New York?”
Fattie crossed her eyes. Borya thought she might have to poke her to get her to move — the target opportunities were rich — but finally she stepped aside.
As Borya squeezed out onto the minuscule platform between the two cars, she realized that the Aquarium Station was no more than a hundred yards away, a yellowish-red glow down the tracks.
Just as easy to walk.
And why not?
There were a million reasons, death and dismemberment being numbers one and two, with electrocution a close third. But as good at math as Borya was — and she was very, very good — statistics of life and death were not one of her strong points. It took longer — a half second — for her to decide to get off the train than for her to climb up onto the swaying chain gate between the cars and leap onto the narrow ledge next to the tracks. Misjudging the distance, she rebounded back, bouncing off the side of the train car and coming perilously close to slipping between the train and the ledge.
Had the train started to move, she surely would have fallen. What happened next would not have been pretty.
But the train didn’t move. Borya bounced to her feet and started along the ledge, steadying herself with her left hand against the train.
It was trickier beyond the subway car, with nothing to help her stay on the ledge. The walkway was barely that, with no rail and a rather slippery surface.
But it figured it would be wet near the Aquarium. Duh.
“You! What the hell are you doing!”
The shout took her by surprise. Borya started to slip but managed to catch herself by falling on her knees.
“Get out of the tunnel! You can’t be in the tunnel!”
It was the conductor, shouting through the window at the front of the train. He waved a beam of light at her from his flashlight.
“I’m going home!” Borya yelled back.
It was a lie — a stupid one, but stupid lies were better than nothing, in her experience.
“You’ll get killed!” sputtered the conductor. “Get back here! Get back here! Watch out for the third rail! Idiot!”
His words spurred her on. She couldn’t run — the ledge was too slippery and narrow for that, and she also worried that he had jinxed her. The third rail loomed large whenever she glanced to her left, monstrously magnified by her imagination.
The station platform was lit by emergency lights. It was deserted.
Had there been a fire? Was there still a fire?
No smoke. The air was — not clean, exactly, but not sulfur-choking, eye-tearing putrid either.
Was the power off all over town? Awesome.
Borya ran across the platform to the turnstiles. Since there were no police, no attendants, and no witnesses, she leaped over the turnstile rather than turning it — she’d always wanted to do that.