Chapter 14 - The Train That Should Have Crashed
The horn grew louder.
Wind rushed through the underground station as the black train emerged from the tunnel.
It was moving at impossible speed.
Helena shouted for everyone to get back.
We pressed against the tiled wall.
The train screamed along the rails.
Sparks exploded beneath its wheels.
For one terrifying moment, I believed it would crash into the sealed barrier at the end of the platform.
Then the tracks shifted.
A hidden junction opened beneath the first carriage.
The entire train split.
The front half continued into the darkness.
The final three carriages curved toward Platform Nine and stopped with a violent metallic jolt.
Doors opened.
No one stepped out.
Steam rolled across the floor.
My mother grabbed my arm.
“Your daughter is in the last carriage.”
I ran toward it.
The door had no handle.
Only two narrow openings in the metal.
One shaped like the pendant.
The other shaped like the object beneath my scar.
My palm began burning.
Not from fear.
From heat.
The hidden key was reacting.
Helena approached with the medical case.
“Now we remove it.”
My mother struck the case from her hands.
“No.”
“It is the only way.”
“It opens through contact.”
Helena stared at her.
“That was never tested.”
“It was tested on me.”
My mother pulled back her sleeve.
A matching scar crossed her wrist.
She pressed it against the second opening.
Nothing happened.
“The key was transferred,” she whispered.
“To me?”
“To you when you were six.”
I placed my palm against the metal.
A sharp pain shot through my hand.
The lock clicked.
But the door remained closed.
“The pendant,” I said.
My husband had the outer shell.
The inner cylinder was missing.
From inside the carriage came three knocks.
My daughter.
“Mom!”
I pressed my ear to the door.
“I’m here.”
“Grandpa isn’t moving.”
My heart seized.
“Can you see the pendant?”
“No. He took it.”
“Who?”
She hesitated.
Then whispered, “Your husband isn’t alone.”
A second voice came from inside.
Female.
Calm.
Familiar.
“You always were too impatient, Anna.”
I stepped back.
The door’s narrow viewing panel slid open.
A face appeared behind the glass.
My daughter stood in the background beside my wounded father.
But the woman closest to the window was someone I had seen many times before.
In family photographs.
At birthdays.
At my wedding.
My husband’s supposedly dead wife.
The woman he claimed had died from illness years ago.
She smiled.
“He did not lose me,” she said.
“He recruited you.”
My mother gripped her cane.
The woman inside continued.
“And your daughter was never the final target.”
Her eyes lowered toward my scarred palm.
“You were.”
The carriage lights suddenly turned off.
A lock disengaged somewhere beneath us.
Then another door opened behind the station wall.
Dozens of footsteps approached.
May you like
Platform Nine was no longer empty.
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