Take Me Tomorrow

Chapter 17: He Was Watching Me

"You'll have fifteen seconds to cross."

The directions pounded as loud as my heart. My hands shook. If it weren't for the adrenaline, I wouldn't have been running, fast. I sprinted across the platforms as my eyes locked on Liam's back. He was four feet taller than me, years older, and my only focus was to keep up with him. Impossible. I tried to ignore my doubt, but it hit me at every turn. How he always beat me in races. How he always knew everything. How he survived when Mom didn't. "Our father is safe," Liam had said that morning. Now it was our turn to escape.

"Welcome to the Topeka Region, address of the State," the speaker blasted overhead, and I glanced up, only for a second, which resulted in me slamming into Liam's back. Instead of yelling at me, he curled his arm around my torso, keeping me back. 

He had stopped as the train rushed into the station. Right on time. Immediately, I copied Liam's guidance and shot out my arm. Rinley, my little sister, hit it just in time to stop herself from barreling into the machine. "We will make it," Liam had promised. "Just follow me." 

The train came to a halt, wind whooshing around us, my breath stolen. 

"Get them!" Only a few yards away, a herd of officers tried to push their way past the locked gates Liam had rigged. "Now!"

Liam leapt onto the train, then spun around to reach for me, but a gunshot split the air. Rinley crouched and covered her head. I only stared. The station smelled like gas. Something was dripping. I felt cold.

"Noah, focus!" Liam's shout sounded far away, underwater almost. Then the police broke through the gates. Sound ricocheted off the train, off the floors, off the walls. Their footsteps, their orders, their guns.

My blood rushed cold through my veins.

When someone grabbed me, I didn't realize it was Liam until my feet left the ground. He picked me up to toss me. I landed inside of the train with a roll, just as another gunshot burst through the air. Rinley screamed, only for the squeal of the train's tires to match her as it prepared to take off. Why were they not coming on board?

I inched forward to the edge of the train's cart, and I blinked, focusing on what was in front of me. Liam stood on the station's floor, clutching his bleeding arm. Before I could fathom he'd been shot, a cop's gun blasted again, and his body sprang up like a hunted deer. He fell to the ground. He spit up a red liquid. But he was still alive. For now. He wouldn't die quickly.

"Noah!" Rinley yelled beside him, but I couldn't say a word, not a thing, not even Run.

The cops closed in our her. If she ran, I didn't know. My vision clouded as the train rumbled beneath me. It took off so rapidly that my head smacked the floor. I clutched the wood, my heated face pressed to it, and my jaw shook as if I were crying, but nothing happened. The train sped out of the station, disappeared through the trees, and my eyes closed to the night.

Liam was dead, Rinley was alone, and I was safe.

...

I gasped as my eyes sprang open to the fluorescent lights on the school's ceiling. My vision blurred through my nightmare's tears. I had to bend over to prevent myself from heaving. When I looked down, I stared at the manicured hand clutching mine. Lily. My knuckles were white.

When I raised my head to look at my best friend, a warning crossed her dark brown eyes. Wake up, she screamed in silence. We were in an assembly with Phelps.

My chest pressed down on my heart, but I took a breath and straightened up. I had barely slept, barely ate, barely breathed really. It had been three days since Phelps arrived at my house. He ordered my father to leave the Topeka Region to collect military enforcement from Boise. He didn't even get a chance to say goodbye. But afterward, Phelps didn't search our house. His men didn't either. Broden stayed upstairs, only coming out after Phelps had been gone for three hours, but Noah refused to leave the forgery. Even I couldn't convince him to leave, not even when I pointed out the fake identity he was obligated to live by.