YesterWorld (Book 2 of the Down World Series)

Original Edition: Chapter Forty-Three

My new friend's name was J.P., and he wheezed like an asthmatic child every time he took a step around the small confined space between us. I had told him everything I could think of to sway him, and near as I could tell, he was still considering my words.

The fate of everything was now in his hands. I couldn't stop this train myself. I didn't even know how. But he could. And once it was stopped, we would just have to get to Alexei.

The train continued to rumble beneath my feet, swaying and lurching suddenly as it emerged from the cover of trees and plunged into the stark, unrelenting light of the bright summer day. My nostrils filled with J.P.'s sweat, mixed with coal dust, cigarette smoke, and what I assumed was the metallic odor of his hair tonic. Despite everything, though, I found the smells comforting. I was reminded of the late nights in my father's workshop, when he'd get so caught up in a project he'd forget to come in to eat or even shower until Laura or I would all but drag him back inside.

A sting of tears lashed at my eyes as my father's memory became more vivid in my mind. I knew I had committed to finish this mission; I knew that the future of everyone in the under-lake world was riding on it; that Adam was depending on me; that Jenny getting shot and maybe even dying would be all for nothing if I didn't pull this one off. But all I could think about was getting back to that garage—back to that jumble of computer wires and hard drives that he called an office. Back to my father's arms. Back to the girl I'd been when I'd last seen him.

If it wasn't too late.

And that's when J.P. pulled the brake, and the painful screeching of the train's brakes whipped me back into reality as the imposing behemoth beneath our feet ground its way to a determined halt.

We had stopped in the middle of sunlight, but I had no idea where.

Without so much as a word, J.P. yanked open the steel door the engine car and descending with a plop to the ground below. And though he didn't even acknowledge me as he did so, I got the feeling I was supposed to follow him, and so I did.

I kept myself safely hidden behind his broad back as we walked in a terrifying dual beat towards the back train of the car. One of J.P.'s feet—the left one—was apparently smaller than the other, making him twist awkwardly at the end of each stride, and he sometimes had to stop and collect his breath before continuing.

I stayed a couple inches behind his back like it was a force field, my eyes popping out in intervals to scan the scene before me for any sign of Alexei.

I could see now that we had stopped in the middle of the track, not really in any specific place. But soon a glimpse of Graussman's pharmacy brought me to the realization that I knew exactly where we were—in town, maybe a hundred feet from the station I had known my whole life.

It was the station where Robbie and Kieren and I had waited for our fathers to arrive on the evening commuter train from work when we were kids.

It was the station where Piper McMahon had gotten on the westbound train in another reality—a reality where I was a scared fifteen-year-old kid following her hopeless crush on what would turn out to be the most fateful day of his life.

And it was the station where my brother Robbie and Kieren had been popping wheelies and playing chicken with the train when Robbie, only thirteen years old—Robbie who had been my hero, Robbie who had been my best friend, sometimes my only friend—Robbie had followed his friend Kieren down the track, within feet of where the train had now stopped, and been struck by the oncoming train.

That was the day that he died, and a part of me did too.

And this was also the place where Kieren made me the magical coin that would be Robbie's salvation, and yet his undoing. And it was fitting, then, that this was where I would have to confront Alexei. Because if I was going to die today, I might as well do it in the same place my brother did.