Chapter 1: Third Rail
The car jolted, steel screaming against steel in the ancient dark, and the shudder travelled up through the grimy floor, through the soles of her shoes, into the base of her spine where a permanent ache now lived. Evelyn Hayes pressed a palm to the curve of her belly, a silent apology. The world was too loud, too sharp. The fluorescent tube above her buzzed and flickered, casting a sickly, intermittent light over the other passengers—a mosaic of worn faces and winter coats, swaying in unison like a tide of grey seaweed.
She watched her reflection in the black window, a ghost superimposed on the rushing brick of the tunnel. Her own fiery hair looked dulled here, her freckles absorbed by the shadowed hollows beneath her eyes. Six months. The swell of it still felt alien sometimes, a separate moon tethered to her, pulling at her centre of gravity. She’d chosen this, alone, a deliberate act of will with a catalogue number and a sterile cup. A sane choice in an insane dating world, or so she’d reasoned at two in the morning, cursor hovering over the ‘confirm purchase’ of a future. Now, in the rattling gloom, the solitude of it felt vast, a corridor with only her heartbeat for an echo.
A man across the aisle coughed, a wet, rattling sound. The air smelled of damp wool, of ozone and the faint, sweet decay of something left in a pocket too long.
Her stop was next. Five more minutes of this suspended animation. She closed her eyes, just for a second, letting the rhythm of the train lull her. The art therapy session today had been draining; trying to channel the chaotic anger of eight-year-old Leo, his grief over his dog a torrent of black paint and jagged clay. She’d held the space, calm, grounded. Now she was empty.
The warmth came first. A proximity. Then the breath, moist and sour with cheap coffee, ghosting across the exposed nape of her neck. Her eyes snapped open. In the fogged glass, another shape materialized behind her own reflection, taller, darker, featureless.
A voice, a low scrape of sound meant only for her, slithered into her ear. “Your glow could power this whole train, darling.”
Every muscle in her body seized. Frozen. The clinical part of her brain catalogued sensations: the prickling heat on her neck, the press of woolen coat against her shoulder, the overwhelming scent of stale tobacco and something else, chemical, like nail polish remover.
She dared not turn. Her gaze remained fixed on the window. A hand, clad in leather the colour of dried blood, entered the periphery of the reflection. It didn’t touch her. Instead, it planted itself on the fogged pane beside her head, fingers splayed. A slow, possessive smear across the condensation, leaving behind a clear trail in the veil of mist. It rested there, beside her thigh, a dark starfish against the glass.
The train began to slow, the lights of the platform floating into view. Salvation.
Now. Move now.
She wrenched herself sideways, a clumsy, graceless pivot made awkward by the weight she carried. Her tote bag thumped against a pole. She didn’t look at him. Looking was an engagement, a connection. She kept her eyes on the flashing yellow of the platform tiles as they slid past the windows.
The doors opened with a hydraulic sigh. Cold, clean air rushed in. She launched herself into it, feet hitting the concrete, walking fast, faster, not running, never run, just walk with purpose. Her heart was a frantic bird in her throat. The crowd swallowed her. She didn’t look back.
Three blocks to her apartment. The night air was a balm. She focused on her breathing, in through the nose, out through the mouth, the technique she taught her clients. It was okay. He was gone. A creep, a weirdo, just a thing that happens. Your glow. The words echoed, vile. He’d taken something warm, a word she’d sometimes let herself think in the quiet mirror, and smeared it with his thumb.
She fumbled with her keys at the building door, hands shaking. The lobby was blessedly empty, the fluorescent light steady and silent.
Inside her apartment, she double-locked the door, slid the chain. Leaned against the solid wood. Safe. The familiar scent of lemongrass cleaner and her own lingering chamomile tea. She dropped her bag, shrugged off her coat.
It was only as she moved to hang it in the closet that she saw it. In the harsh hallway light, on the pale grey wool of her coat, just below the right shoulder.
A faint, greasy smudge.
She brought the fabric closer to her face. Not a fingerprint. A print from something textured. Leather. The exact, minute pattern of grain, pressed into the fibre.
He hadn’t touched her. But he’d touched her coat. Leaning in, breathing his words, leaving his mark. A claim. She stood there for a long time, the coat held away from her body as if it were radioactive. The quiet hum of her refrigerator seemed suddenly menacing. The ache in her back sharpened. She looked down at the swell of her stomach, covered by her thin sweater, and for the first time, the life inside felt not like a moon, but a beacon, drawing things from the dark.
She balled the coat up, shoving it deep into the trash bin under the sink. She scrubbed her hands at the sink until the skin was red.
Later, in bed, the city’s nocturnal symphony floating through the window, she placed a hand on her belly. A small, firm kick answered. A flutter. A hiccup of movement. She stared at the ceiling, tracing the crack that ran from the light fixture to the corner.
Your glow could power this whole train.
The words were inside her now, a splinter. And the mark on the glass, that clear, hand-shaped portal in the fog, remained more vivid in her mind than the face of any other passenger. A vacancy. A door left open.