Someone bumps into me. He sprawls to the sidewalk, into the dust of snow.
“Ay, sorry.” I put out my hand to help the guy up. Danny blinks from deep inside his jacket. “¡Oye!” I shout. I yank him to his feet. “Where you been?” I hate that he doesn’t return my calls. I’ve got a thing about it now. “Mami invited you and your abuela to dinner para Nochebuena. Your abuela, she said she don’t know your plans.” I put my arm around him. “I told Mami I’d find you. You’re coming, right? You don’t got nowhere else to be? Not on Christmas, ¿veldad?”
Danny looks behind him. “Yeah, yeah sure. Hey, where you going now?”
I point to the bakery. He lifts a hand and follows me inside.
I ask about school and his abuela and his visit to his brother over Thanksgiving. Danny’s answers are mostly nods, an occasional word. He leans against the display case as my order is wrapped. He stays facing the door, watching the sidewalk. I keep on talking like normal though I know something’s up.
Outside, the snow has thickened into a screen of white. Light from lamps and Christmas bulbs stays trapped around us. Half a block up, four guys draw designs in the snow on a parked car. A flag. A gun. A face with an X across it. They step onto the sidewalk next to us.
Danny shoots me a look of hunger and thirst and every type of desperation there is.
“This him? ¿El Cuchillo?” one of them asks.
“Sí,” says another. “But who’s this?” He motions to me.
The smallest one moves forward. He’s got feathers instead of a beard on his chin. “I seen him around. He’s one of ’em too.”
Cold locks around me like a rope wound too tight. He thinks because I’m with Danny that I’m with Pinchón too?
Feather-beard grins. He slides sharp steel from his pocket.
Danny grabs my arm. “Go!” he shouts. His voice is my coach, an ump, the crack of a ball on a bat.
We bolt. The cars on Broadway are driving slow. Slower than us. Still they honk with surprise. Shouts of anger rise above it. And the squealing of brakes. Wheels spin. There’s a crunch and a horrible thud. The outline of a truck comes out of the falling snow. Its rear swings toward me. Hands on my back push me hard. I land on my knees in the slush.
“Come on!” Danny’s fingers sink into my shoulder. He drags me up by my coat. We fly, skidding, down 165th. Danny glances behind us. He jerks his head left. We duck onto Audubon Avenue. We hug the buildings. Dive into a parking lot. Run doubled-over between cars growing fat with snow. Danny finds a break in the chain link and slips right through. We come out onto 168th. Danny aims for St. Nicholas. His shoes kick up white clumps. I grab him and pull him into the subway.
“Come on,” I grunt at him. “We can go to Brooklyn.” They don’t really know who I am. They don’t know my papi lives there.
Danny’s gasping. He can hardly breathe. He hasn’t been training like me. Even with all the training, my heart is an engine, churning and burning with smoke.
I make for the A train. Danny’s hand finds my arm.
“The 1,” he pants. “The platform’s darker. More places to hide.” He takes off for the elevator. He doesn’t check to see if I follow.
I tear through the tunnel behind him. I stick close to the wall. I try not to bump anyone. Still, people cry out as if I might scald them.
The elevator to the 1 is just closing. Danny sticks his hand in the gap and wrenches the doors open. We tumble inside. The few passengers scatter out of our way. Danny jams at the button until the door finally shuts. His phone is out. He texts with fury, trying to send a message before the signal is swallowed.
I tip my head against the wall. Drips patter as fast as my heartbeat into a puddle of melting snow. That guy had a knife. A really big one. They all did, I’m sure.
Danny pockets his phone. His eyes dart through the elevator then land on me. A smile ghosts over his lips. “It’s OK.” He says it as if it’s true. I love him for trying. But those guys, they’re looking for blood. I wouldn’t have let Danny face them alone. I would have made myself a part of this. What scares me is they didn’t give me a choice. They pushed me into it because I look the part.
The doors let us out deep underground. We take the stairs for the downtown track. I’m about to head toward the back of the train. Behind me Danny hisses, like he’s talking to a cat. He squeezes beneath the overpass to the uptown platform.
“¿Qué—?”
He waves a hand to cut me off. His eyes are white in the darkness. Across the tracks, a guy with a blue bandana paces.
I dodge under, squatting beside Danny. I fold myself into the shadows. The guy walks the length of the platform three times. He crosses back over to the downtown side. Danny creeps out as the guy heads to the rear of the train, toward the same car we wanted.
We take slow, casual steps to the uptown tracks. Danny doesn’t seem worried we might get trapped on this side. There are only two ways out, two overpasses leading to the downtown trains and the elevators to the street. Danny walks to the other end of the platform, as far from the other guy as we can get. He stops at the white-tiled pillars. He slides around the edge of one, motioning for me to take another. A South Ferry–bound train rushes in. It blocks us from view. We should’ve stayed on the other side. We could’ve boarded that train, be on our way to Brooklyn.
Danny’s up against a column. He stares at the tiled walls that turn to arches over our heads. He doesn’t scan the rest of the station. He doesn’t see the train pull away. Or the four guys rush out from the elevators, coats and pants damp with snow. They throw out their arms at the departing train. The one who was pacing the platform joins them. All five come onto the overpass. They come down to the same platform as Danny and me.
I whistle at Danny. He hears me too late. The guy who showed us the knife sees us.
The uptown train is coming. “Should we get on it?” I ask. Maybe they’ll be less likely to fight with other people around. Only, I remember last year. Thanksgiving. The subway car didn’t stop them then.
Danny gives a sharp shake of his head. He passes a hand over his scarred lip. “Pinchón is coming. Anyway”—he motions to the guys approaching—“they’ll just follow us onto the train.”
Words I do not want to hear.
The five guys who want to fight Danny, and now me, stop paces away. Waiting for the train. Waiting for no witnesses. They separate to block our path should we try to escape.
Feather-beard is chanting lyrics about hate and death and blood. His hand goes to his waist. To his pocket that’s a sheath for a blade.
We can’t stay here, Danny and me. We can’t fight them if they’ve got knives. If we get on the train, maybe we can run through it to another car. If we’re fast, we can jump out again closer to the overpass.
I try to tell Danny what I’m thinking without using words, without using signals they can read. I position myself in front of a door that will open. Feather-beard grins.
The train moans to a stop. Metal doors fly open like shutters.
I’m ready to dash in. To weave through people and push through cars.
The revving in my heart chokes.
Isa stands in front of me.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 23
ISA
At 168th Street we rise from our seats. My foot is throbbing again. Merrit frowns at the effort it costs me to take the ten steps or so to the door. He swears softly as he removes his Santa hat from his pocket. He pulls it down over his wet hair.
“You hurt your ankle again, didn’t you?”
When I nod, he swears once more.
He readjusts Santa’s hat. “I’m so stupid,” he mumbles. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s OK,” I tell him.
“No. No, it’s not. I’m selfish. I didn’t think what could happen to you.” His arm comes around me and his hand grips my shoulder. “I never wanted to hurt you. Yet that’s all I seem to do.”
“That’s not true.” I almost tell him how I hurt him. By not
watching out for him when I was with Alex, like I should have.
Merrit stares at his reflection in the window, hat tipping again to the side. “I’ll take you to urgent care before our session. Dr. Peterson can wait.”
“No, he can’t.” Merrit staying stable is most important. “Anyway, I know what my ankle needs. We’ve got ice and bandages at home, plus crutches.” I want to believe what I say. I don’t want to think it’s anything more than a sprain.
“OK. But we’re taking a taxi home. I can carry you up the stairs to the elevator, even.”
I’m telling him no, that I just need to lean on him, when the doors fall open.
Alex is in the doorway. His hands are clenched. The dark slash of his brow is pulled low. His body’s angled forward, his knees slightly bent, like a sprinter ready to run.
An uncomfortable prickling works up my spine.
Alex straightens when he sees me. The hard determination falls from his face. His eyes widen, catching the subway’s flickering light. His eyes round even more, confusion replaced by what I can only call horror. He stumbles back, out of our way.
He probably hasn’t checked his phone yet. He hasn’t read my message. He remembers how I ran away from him outside the Academy. How I wouldn’t tell him why I left. I’ve become a nightmare to Alex, something for him to run from.
I was holding on to Merrit pretty hard already. Now my fingers dig into his arm so much he winces. He’s looking at me and then at Alex. He saw my phone. He saw photos of me and Alex together. He isn’t stupid. Please just let him not say anything. Not now.
Merrit helps me off the train, his arm still around my shoulder. I almost jump when I see Danny on our other side, his back against one of the arches. He catches my gaze, gives a faint shake of his head. He flicks two fingers as if tossing a gum wrapper. I deserve it, the look, the dismissal, all of it.
There are too many steps to the stairs for me to count. The pain in my ankle echoes like a hammer inside my head. Three other guys are in front of us. They look through us as if we’re invisible. Their faces are drawn with the same cold intent I saw on Alex, their gazes locked on him and Danny. They’re all here together, that’s for sure.
Merrit stops when we’re only halfway to the bridge. His frown has turned thoughtful. “That’s him, isn’t it?” he asks. “That’s Alex?” Merrit snakes his arm out from under mine, and before I can tell him to wait, he’s striding back toward Alex and Danny. “I’ll talk to him for you.”
“No—Merrit!”
Two other guys come up alongside my brother. There’s a whole group of them now.
“Hey, Santa,” one of them says. He says something else I can’t hear that makes Merrit stop.
The train pulls out, sucking air with it down the tunnel. The last of the passengers are crossing to the elevators.
Danny and Alex have moved closer to each other. Alex’s gaze sweeps from my brother to me. He looks at me like he’s about to either yell or be sick.
Something’s wrong. These guys, they’re not friends of Danny and Alex’s.
Merrit turns and looks back at me. He takes in the three guys between me and the stairs, not that I could climb them by myself. His Santa hat has fallen over one of his eyebrows. He doesn’t fix it. He just moves his head, surveying the platform, taking all of us in.
“Who’s this?”
I stiffen as one of the guys behind me drapes a hand across my back.
“She yours?”
I don’t know who he’s speaking to. The whiplash from my emotions—my relief from talking to Merrit, my shame at seeing Alex, and now my fear that something is very, very wrong—makes me dizzy. I feel like I might be sick too.
Danny puts out his hand, low, as if to block Alex or steady him somehow. Merrit raises his hand into the air, like the first-row, straight-A student he is. He doesn’t wait to be called on. He shouts out, “She’s mine. That’s my sister. Though the implication that she’s an object to be possessed by another person is not just anachronistic but also rather discourteous, to her mostly, but also to me.” He steps from between the two guys as casually as if he knows them from school. One takes hold of his elbow, but Merrit shrugs it off like a suggestion he’s not going to even consider. “I also object to the nature of this encounter. I mean, what is this? A game of urban chess?” Merrit’s voice speeds over the words. His eyes take on the fevered glow I dread. The one that tells me he believes he can fix this. He believes he can fix anything the world throws at him.
“Who is this guy?” one of them asks. “What’s he talking about?”
“Pero ese tipo está loco,” another adds. They move closer to Merrit, away from me.
It’s getting harder to breathe. The air seems too thin. I tell them quickly in Spanish that Merrit’s not well. That he doesn’t know what he’s saying. I don’t look at Alex as I say this.
Merrit frowns just a bit. He doesn’t stop or acknowledge me or my claim. He says the next line in perfect Castellano, accentuating the accent from Madrid where he spent a summer, so different from the DR or Cuba.
“What? You guys’ve never heard of human chess? She is the queen.” He gestures at me. “I presume he is the king.” Merrit points at Alex and then at Danny. “That would make you the knight. But what would that make me?”
Four guys are closing in on Merrit. My brother’s eyes are bulging out at me. He’s telling me to move, to run, to get out of here. He’s telling me he’s acting this way on purpose, to confuse them. Only I can’t run. Not with my foot.
“What did he just say? And what did you say, before?” The guy beside me jerks my arm. I fall onto my ankle and gasp. I gasp again because a knife is tucked into the waist of his pants. I tell him, in English, what we said, gritting through the pain in my leg and the alarm speeding through me. They’re going to hurt us. All of us. Alex and Danny too.
Merrit races ahead, switching out of Spanish. He doesn’t read the warning in my face. “I’ve thought about it and a bishop appeals most to me. Straight lines are really not my thing.” Merrit dashes across the concrete, cutting geometric shapes over the platform. The two guys jump forward to grab him. Merrit switches direction and comes toward me.
“The rest of you are pawns!” he shouts. “And in case you don’t understand the game, this label is purposeful and it is my intention to offend.” He grins almost maliciously as he nears. “Ho ho ho. Merry Christmas!” Merrit slams his Santa hat onto the head of the guy beside me, covering his eyes. The guy slaps it away. But Merrit’s already between us. He nudges me back even as he cackles. His laugh grows louder as another train approaches. “Check,” Merrit says, triumphant. There will be more people around us soon. People means safety.
The guy throws off the Santa hat. He grabs Merrit’s wrist. A blade winks in his hand.
My heart stumbles as time seems to slow.
Merrit whips his arm around, dragging the guy with him. He uses the momentum of the spin to swing the guy with the knife away from me. Only the guy doesn’t let go. The guy sprawls toward the platform edge, still holding on to Merrit. They both go over. They fall onto the tracks.
I scream.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 23
ALEX
Blood rushes like a river in my ears. It pounds. I’ll use the same rhythm when beating Feather-beard for putting his hand on Isa. I’m seconds away from going for him. I’ll rip him off her like a bloodsucking worm. Merrit shouts insults. He grabs the guy’s attention as if he were grabbing his neck. The pendejo doesn’t even get what Isa’s brother is doing. When they speak Spanish, he’s only more confused.
Isa watches her brother parade like a clown, working his magic of distraction. But she doesn’t run. She stays where she is, her face flushed with panic and pain.
Danny and I jump the other two as soon as Merrit puts the hat on the dumbass’s face. We grab their arms. They can’t reach for their blades. I’ve got my boy on the ground, my knee in his back. Danny’s scuffling a bit, but he’s got this.
Isa screams. Everything else goes silent. I turn to her, ready to run and pound and rip. Seeing her step off the train, knowing she was heading straight into this mess, was a nightmare turned real. Hearing her cry out is worse.
She’s standing alone. Merrit and the feather-beard guy are gone. Across the tracks, people point and take out their phones. Isa falls to her knees. She crawls toward the edge of the platform. The two guys behind her rush forward.
Understanding hits like cold water to my face.
A train horn sounds. There’s a light deep in the tunnel. It’s no bigger than a flashlight. It flickers and swells.
The guys pull Feather-beard up off the tracks. The three of them break for the overpass.
Isa gets to the edge. Her hand goes out, as if for a partner below. No fingers appear. No hand finds hers. She slides forward. She eases herself down onto the tracks.
NO. The fury inside me breaks.
I spring off the guy in front of me. My feet slap gray tile. My heart slaps my chest. The yellow strip is my line between second and third. I am a runner, a thief of bases.
The gold of Isa’s hair bends low over the slats. Beside her, Merrit lies still, a crumple of fine clothes.
The train roars. I roar with it. And jump.
I slam onto wood and concrete. With a grunt, I grab up her brother.
Isa’s face, white and tear-stained, is lit up by the flashlight that is now a flood lamp.
“Here!” Danny hauls Isa’s brother out of my arms. He lays him on the platform. He glares at the other two guys running away.
I reach back for Isa. She’s still on her knees. The train shoots from the tunnel. Sparks fly from its wheels.
“NO!” My shout is drowned by the blare.
Danny’s eyes are caught in the gleam. “Run!” his mouth says.
I grab Isa’s hands. I yank her up. I hold her against me. Our feet jam into the gaps between rails. I think of Papi’s drills, of hours in biting cold, running laps and sprints and burpees. I tell myself this is nothing compared to that.
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