“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Where are you guys heading off to?” Levi asked from behind the bar in the dining room.
Frankie and Evelyn slowed their quick pursuit out at the sound of his voice. The place was empty, which explained why Levi was sitting at a high-top chair with the newspaper spread out on the counter in front of him.
“Lady Luck is about to strike again,” Frankie said.
“Lady who?”
“We don’t have time!” Evelyn said. “We need to go now!”
Levi jumped from his chair and came around the counter. “Then I’m going with you.”
Frankie looked to Evelyn to make sure it was safe for someone without powers to go. He hadn’t seen the vision—or heard much else about it—so he didn’t know what they were walking into.
“Hurry up,” she told Levi.
They raced out the door. Levi barely had time to flip the sign over to “Closed” before they were gone.
On the sidewalk, Frankie asked, “So where exactly are we going?”
“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I saw a man stuck on the railroad tracks with an oncoming train. I couldn’t make out exactly where, but I figured these tracks here would be a good enough place to start.”
She led them down Turnpike Street and under the railroad tracks. Right before they reached Peach Street, she started climbing up the embankment to the top of the steel railroad bridges crossing over the street.
“Help!” they heard a man calling. “Help me! I’m stuck!”
“This way!” Evelyn called out frantically as she tried to hurry up the slope.
Frankie and Levi raced up behind her.
At the top, they saw the man in the center of the railroad tracks. His foot was lodged between the railroad tie and the steel track. In the distance, they could see an oncoming train approaching. It was moving slower than normal, being that it was passing through the city, but it was still going fast enough to kill the man if they couldn’t get him out of there in time.
“Use your power!” Evelyn told Frankie.
The witch shook his head. “That would derail the whole train. Potentially kill more people and cause all kinds of damage. We need to get him out of there ourselves.”
Evelyn rushed to the man’s aid, careful to step around the tracks so she didn’t get stuck herself.
Behind them, the train blared its horn in warning.
“Why is it always trains?” Levi asked.
“You’re okay.” Frankie told the man. “We’ll get you out of here. Just hold on.”
“What about using your power on him?” Levi suggested.
“Can’t. I’d break his ankle.”
“Power?” the man asked. “What power?”
Evelyn ignored the man’s question. “At least he’d be alive.” She cast a worried look over her shoulder. “We don’t have much time!”
Levi stepped up and grabbed the man’s leg. “Help me pull!” He told him. They counted down from three, putting all of their strength into pulling him free.
His leg still didn’t budge.
“It’s not working!” the man cried.
Frankie surveyed the distance between them and the train. They only had seconds left. “I have an idea.”
“Do it quick,” Evelyn said.
Standing to the side, Frankie focused on the steel track where the man’s foot was stuck and moved his fingers toward himself. Nothing happened at first. He tried again and the steel track moved only a fraction, which allowed enough space for the man to free his leg.
“Got it!” Levi shouted.
Evelyn grabbed both his arm and the man’s arm and pulled them down on top of her on the stone beside the tracks. All four of them crumpled down as the train passed by with a roar of its engine.
Frankie watched anxiously as the train whipped by. Once it was out of the way, he let out the breath he’d been holding and relaxed. “That was close.”
Evelyn sized them all up. “Too close.”