Without a care for the blood, Thomas drops into the seat and takes his phone out, chewing on his lip as he types for a moment.
“You think there’ll be a manual online?” I ask, grunting as the hammering intensifies. “Yeah, yeah, you want in, fuckers. Well, it ain’t happening!”
“There really is a tutorial for everything!” Thomas exclaims, placing his phone upright on the controls to show a YouTube video titled ‘Train 101 - How To Make An Emergency Stop’.
“I could kiss you right now!”
“Save it for after I stop this thing,” he shoots back, all business, which only makes me want to kiss him more.
I have to physically hold myself back from going to my soulmate. Mostly because the door crashes open in that moment, and I’m pushed to the ground.
‘Hello and welcome to my channel, Training 101.’
“Looks like you proved me wrong, fuckers!” With all my strength and speed, I shove the door up and use it to force back the shifters.
“C’mon, c’mon!” Thomas yells at the video.
‘First, I’d like to thank the sponsor of this episode, Hello Fre—’
“Fucking hell, why is this intro so long!” my treasure shouts and skips ahead.
I’m forced back a few steps. A clawed hand sneaks around to scratch at me. Through gritted teeth, I use the door like a shield and push the shifters back into the corridor.
‘On this episode, we’ll be going over how to find the emergency stop.’
Something solid bashes into one side of my makeshift shield. Thrown off balance, I drop the door, and it clatters into the empty seat opposite Thomas.
I stare down three shifters. The fourth one is slumped and bleeding out against a wall further down the corridor.
“Give us the damn egg, Ketill!” The one on my left side orders.
“How about fuck you?” I duck just as the one who shouted throws a punch. My own fist meets his jaw as I bolt upright. There’s a nastycrunch,and the shifter topples into his friend behind him, both of them falling like bowling pins.
‘And as you can imagine, you’d only need this in a high-stress situation.’
“Finally!” Thomas shouts.
‘So, because of that, I’d like to thank my next sponsor of this video, BetterHel—’
“Are you kidding me?!” Thomas screeches.
The shifter at my right tackles me into the controls, knocking the wind out of me. He hisses, his spittle splatting onto my face.
“Gross.” I bring my knee up between his legs. He cries out, his whole face turning a pale green, and I shove him off me just before he vomits.
Out the window, the Scottish countryside whizzes past as we head onto the bridge rising from the frozen lake and towards a deadly drop.
Spinning, my foot sinks into the gut of one of the shifters just as he comes for me. My thoughts are no longer on the fight, how to stop the train or even on the dragon egg—I need to get out of here with Thomas alive.
“Treasure, we’re running out of time.” My fist swings into the face of the last conscious shifter.
If every life on this damned train has to end for Thomas, then so be it.
Once I’ve confirmed that no other shifter is going to get up, I whip around to Thomas so I can grab him and chance it out the window, but just as the train is about to race towards the broken end, it lurches and comes to a screaming halt.
I stumble, grabbing hold of Thomas’s chair for support, and narrowly miss the back of his head meeting my nose as he shoots up.
“We did it!” he shouts, smiling big and bright with tears in his eyes.
