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PANIC CLAWED AT MY insides, rising to my throat and suppressing my air supply. Pressing my palm into the glass pane, I gripped my phone with the other hand and fought for breath.
“Are you okay?” Ewan’s voice stirred me from my frantic stupor, my gaze rising to meet his concerned eyes.
“Yes, I...”
Head falling, I struggled to find the words. No doubt, it would seem pathetic that I was so worried about not having a phone signal as if I was a teenager surgically attached to my device, but to me, the phone represented my one link to the world beyond the waiting room door. To my daughter.
“You don’t look okay.” Maneuvering his way in front of me, he fell to his haunches, looking up at my flustered face. “Maybe you should sit down.”
“I just need some fresh air,” I countered, steering around him and heading for the door.
“Hang on!”
My feet halted at Maureen’s voice.
“You can’t go back out there,” she insisted. “You’ll let that fog back in and you’ll only get lost.”
“She’s right.” Sally was at my side, though I swore I hadn’t noticed her moving toward me. “You’ll lose your bearings in a few seconds.”
“I’ll wait by the door,” I told her, meeting her kind eyes. “I just can’t breathe in here.”
My fingers gripped the handle before anyone else could argue, yanking the door open before I walked back into the opaque vapor. Stepping into the murkiness, I pushed the door closed behind me and glanced anxiously at my phone to see if my message had sent. It was an insane hope, especially as most of us seemed to have lost connectivity on board the train, but it was the only one I had. Moving forward, I lifted the device in the air and waved it around. The screen was almost completely lost to the suffocating smog. It was a crazy thing to say, but in the moments that I’d been inside, I’d forgotten how intense the mist was. How it oozed its way inside my pores and choked me of air.
“Hey.”
Startling at Ewan’s voice, I spun to see his silhouette standing by the door. If I hadn’t recognized his voice, I wouldn’t have been able to see it was him.
“I’m worried about you.”
“You don’t have to worry,” I answered. You don’t even know me.
I held back the final thought, conscious that, although it was true, I wasn’t unhappy that he seemed to want to rectify it.
“I just needed air and to see if there is any signal out here.”
“Still no signal?” Tension was etched in his tone, and nearing, he pulled a device from his pocket and checked for himself.
“Do you have one?” Urgency resonated in my voice.
“No.” Ewan’s tone was clipped, his brow furrowing as he reached for me. “The weather is probably affecting connectivity. I’m sure it’ll come back.”
“Yeah.” Trepidation caught in my throat, closing it up as the concept of being incommunicado washed over me. I couldn’t be out of touch with Laurel and the school. What if she needed me? If the fog continued, she would need me. “I hope so.”
“Is there someone you’re worried about?” His gaze spoke of genuine disquiet on my behalf, but after years of living with Sam, I couldn’t help my suspicious mind.
He doesn’t know me. Why would he care?
“No.” Feigning a smile, I slipped my phone into my pocket. “It’s nothing.”
But it wasn’t nothing. Being able to stay in touch with Laurel was everything. It had taken months of therapy to even cope with being away from her side.
“Listen.” Blowing out a breath, Ewan inched closer. “I know you don’t know me, but I’m a good guy and I want to help if I can.”
“Thanks.”
He was dangerously close to me. Close enough that his tantalizing cologne taunted me, forcing me to imagine what might be hiding beneath his jacket.
“I appreciate it. It’s just been a peculiar day, and—”
A noise from behind me splintered the end of my sentence. Spinning, I tried to decide what I was hearing. With knitted brows, I strained into the fog and thought harder. The repetitive high-pitched chimes were familiar, but without the usual visual cues, I couldn’t conclude what was causing them.
“The train.” Not for the first time that morning, it was Ewan who seemed to read my mind and answer the question I hadn’t vocalized. “That’s the noise the train makes before the doors close.”
“Of course.” How had I not known that? I’d heard that damn sound a thousand times before. “So, the doors are closing?”
A surge of reflexive panic seared through me. There was no point in us getting back on the train if it wasn’t going to move, but the idea of being abandoned on this Godforsaken platform was far from reassuring.
“Apparently.” He was right behind me, a proximity that might have either disturbed or aroused me had I not been so fixated on the train.
“What does that mean?” I demanded, though I didn’t know why. Whoever Ewan was, he knew no more than I did. We were all just passengers on this insane journey. “Should we get back on board?”
“I don’t think so,” he replied. “For all we know, it’s—”
His response was drowned out by the volume of the closing doors, and then, as if the train sought to answer, it lurched into life. We couldn’t see its movement, but it was clearly audible as it crawled along the tracks only a few feet from where we stood.
“It’s going!” Turning to him, I met his knowing eyes. “Ewan, it’s leaving without us!”
“It’s okay,” he soothed, reaching for my shoulder. “There’ll be another train.”
He’s right. Swallowing back my surging mistrust, I shook my head. What the hell was wrong with me? An hour of heavy fog and I was losing the plot in front of a guy I’d only just met. I needed to calm the hell down.
“What was that?” Sally’s voice cut through the cloud behind us. “Was that the train?”
“We think it’s leaving,” I called, conscious that the noise of its departure had already diminished. It wasn’t leaving. It had already left.
“What?” The panic in Sally’s voice matched how I felt. “It can’t just go and leave us here!”
“Well, it has.”
I wasn’t sure if she’d heard my reply, but I stood there staring blankly into the gloom. I couldn’t even decide if I cared. Nothing about the day had gone the way I’d anticipated, and at the current juncture, I had no way of knowing how it would end. Stuck there on the desolate platform, Ewan and Sally were suddenly all I had. The hole of despair that gaped with every passing thought of Laurel stretched wider at the bleak thought. Sally was someone I’d met for coffee once or twice. Nothing more.
“Come on.” His hand squeezed my shoulder gently. “We should get back inside.”
“Why?”
Tears brimmed in my eyes, but I wiped them away with the heel of my hand. I wasn’t doing this. Wasn’t losing my shit on this crappy platform.
“It’s safer in there,” he explained, and deep down, I knew he was right. “We don’t know what’s causing this fog or whether we should even be exposed to it for long periods.”
“What?” Turning to him, I met his serious expression. “What do you mean exposed?”
“I don’t know.” His palms rose into the air. “I’m just saying because no one knows, we should lean on the side of caution.”
“Okay.” My head was pounding, and while I had no desire to be trapped inside with idiots like Old Tom, being out in the mist was equally as oppressive.
“Em, come inside!” Sally cried out. “They want me to close the door.”
“She’s right.” Leaning closer, Ewan’s lips curled as one hand snaked around my middle. “We should go back.”
“We will.”
I should have been fending off his advance, resisting the brush of his fingers, but the attraction sizzling between us was the only brief remedy for the escalating sense of alarm ballooning inside me.
“What’s your name?” His green eyes drilled into me. “She called you Em. Is it Emma?”
“Emelia.” Holding his gaze, I whispered my name.
“It’s beautiful.” His hand splayed on the middle of my back, steadying me. “Like you.”
Oh, come on. He has to be joking, right? Had he seen me recently because I had—every damn day in the mirror when my reflection less and less resembled the woman I recalled. There were zero traits in that reflection that could be described as beautiful.
“Thanks.”
In the end, it was all I could think to say. The weight of his stare had already encouraged a fresh bloom of heat to my cheeks. The only saving grace was that he might not have noticed it in the mist.
“Emelia!”
The desperation in Sally’s voice jarred me from the odd visceral connection swirling between Ewan and me. Reaching for his hand, I guided him toward her voice.
“Okay,” I called back. “We’re coming.”