Trainwreck

Chapter 3

Minji's voice had been so full of command that Hanni had started running well before her brain caught up to her legs.

Behind her, the brawl continued, punctuated by snarls and the occasional curse. The Alpha she'd hit with the can of deodorant was hunched over in a corner, the heel of his hand pressed against one eye. He glared at her with the good one when she rushed by, but didn't try to follow.

A sardonic sneer twisted Hanni's lips.

All the years she'd spent playing softball in high school and college had not been the waste of time her mother claimed after all.

Having taken the last train turned out to be a blessing. The wagons were empty for as far as she could see – the few people she ran past Betas, most of them as scared and pale-faced as she was feeling.

She didn't know what to think of the fact she was broadcasting hard enough that she'd managed to attract every single Alpha aboard the train, but one clear emotion wormed its way into her heart.

Guilt.

These people were acting out because of her . Sure, a lot of Alphas took their status to asshole level, but she'd met enough kind hearted ones in her life to know not all of them were like that. Her dad had been one, and Hyunjin another. He'd grumped hard for a month when she'd made it clear they would never be more than friends, but once that storm had passed he'd become like a brother. He had been her very own one man fan club whenever Hanni had felt she wouldn't make it through med school.

And now, she'd stumbled into Minji.

What more proof do you need?

Hanni got to the end of the wagon and paused briefly to regain her breath. When she'd ran its length the other way – frantically looking for a place to hide – it hadn't seemed such a great distance. The train had not suddenly grown longer, or crossed into a dimension in which space as she knew it had no meaning, but in the time that had passed between the first panicked flight and this one, her body had grown weaker.

Now that she had gotten away from the open window and back within the stifling confines of the train wagon, Hanni could easily tell that her fever had spiked. Her temples pulsed in time with her heart, and her eyes itched the same way they had when she pulled an all-nighter to prepare an exam. The train swayed slightly as it sped through the night, and the motion made her sick enough now that she'd stopped, that Hanni had to throw out a hand and grab the back of a seat for support.

A yowl of pain had her cast a glance the way she'd come to find that the tussle had spilled out of the limited room the bathroom permitted. Despite being outnumbered, Minji was holding her own, but even from the other end of the compartment Hanni could see that she was bleeding from a gash under one eye.

The guilt that had gathered inside her bubbled up to boiling point, its acidic taste filling Hanni's mouth. The Alpha had come to her rescue when every other one of her kind had been trying to get to Hanni for an entirely different reason, and now she was abandoning her.

Coward.

The air was full of Alpha pheromones now, so saturated that her own scent was almost blotted out by the waves of aggression coming from the group.

Hanni looked around quickly, searching for anything – or anyone – that would help. There was a man sitting in the row closest to where she'd stopped, but when their eyes met – Hanni's full of a silent plea – he shook his head vehemently.

"They'll tear us both apart." He whispered, rising high enough to peek over the back of his seat before he dropped back down with a fearful whine. "You should keep running."