They’d passed a shelter in Leicester Square and had seen the tube stop nearby, but Etta didn’t want them to go back, not when they could get out of London tonight. The Thorns seemed to be hoping they would bail, ditch the streets for cover, and Etta had the unsettling feeling of being caught in a deadly game of chicken. Ending up in the same shelter as them would only get her and Nicholas caught again in Ironwood’s web. She needed them to take the nearest shelter, and she needed to get her and Nicholas the hell out of London.
This was war, this was real, and they were going to die if she didn’t make a decision right now.
“Let’s double back,” Nicholas said. “That square had shelter—”
“No,” Etta said, “we can make it to the Aldwych station!”
“No—the other one is closer!” he shouted over the sirens. “We can cut a path around them if we have to!”
I am getting us out of here.
I am getting us out of here.
I am getting myself home.
She grabbed his hand tightly in hers and dragged him forward. Nicholas tried to pull her back around, but Etta wouldn’t turn. “We can make it! We can’t lead them to the passage—Ironwood can’t know which one we take! We have to lose them!”
We. They had to do it together, or not at all.
“Damn you—” he swore, but when she started running, he did too.
It sounded like thunder from a late summer storm—the kind that used to rattle her and her mom’s apartment windows, a boom that cracked over the city and echoed against the glass-and-steel structures. The whistling alone made her eardrums feel as if they were about to split; the high whines fell eerily silent before each tremendous, deafening crash. Her skin prickled, feeling as if it was about to peel away.
Etta would never complain about the sound of the passage now, not ever again. Not after hearing this.
Nicholas craned his neck up to watch the shapes ripping through the night sky. It looked as though a thousand black bugs were being released from each plane, all streaming down to the city around them. The eager curiosity she’d seen earlier on his face had vanished.
Etta turned—the street was empty behind them. “They’re gone!”
She pushed her legs harder until she felt her ankle turn on a piece of rubble. But Etta didn’t stop, and neither did Nicholas. He looped her arm around his neck and carried her forward as they turned onto Catherine Street.
“It’s at the end of the—road—” she gasped out.
“I see others, they’re going the same way—” he said, the words rumbling in his chest, echoing the planes’ thunder. “We’re almost there.”
Families, couples, policemen were all converging in front of a building with a redbrick fa?ade. A white banner ran along the top, over the arch of windows: first, PICCADILLY RLY, then the smaller lettering below: ALDWYCH STATION.
She let out a sharp “Yes!” at the same moment that Nicholas shuddered and said, “Thank God.”
A man in a dark police uniform stood at the entrance, waving everyone in. They dodged the clothes, bedding, toys, and suitcases that had been dropped in the panicked flight down, and joined the flow of bodies. Just before they were swallowed into the horde, Nicholas shifted her arm, wrapping it around his waist instead. His other arm fixed across her shoulders, drawing her closer, squeezing them between the dozens of people around them who were all quietly trying to fight their way down an endless series of stairs.
“How far underground are we?” Nicholas asked, eyeing the pale lights running along the ceiling.
“Very far,” Etta said, hoping the words were more reassuring than they felt. The pounding hadn’t stopped; it was only muffled. The world flickered around them as the electricity was tested by the bombing. Sweat poured down her back, and Etta couldn’t stop shaking, even as they broke off from some of the others and headed for the eastern track, as Alice had instructed.
Some part of Etta had hoped that they would be able to just walk to the very end of the platform, jump down onto the track, and slip away into the tunnel. No hassle, no fuss, no questions. But as they came down the last steps and rounded the corner, she could see they had a problem.
That problem being the hundreds of others who had already beaten them down there. Londoners had spread out across the platform, even nestling down on the track. The press of humanity filled the air with a damp, sticky warmth. Many of the men and women had taken off their coats and jackets and hung them up along the walls. Someone had even engineered a kind of clothesline at the entrance to the actual track tunnel.
They couldn’t spend the night here—they couldn’t lose that bit of time when the old man’s deadline was edging closer by the second.
Nicholas’s arm tightened around her again as they were gently pushed forward by the people behind them.
“Damn,” he swore softly. “Which way did we need to go?”
She pointed to the other end of the track, where rows upon rows of people were curled up on blankets or gathered in circles of friends and families. Many were talking quietly, or trying to entertain the few little kids she saw with toys or books, but most remained close to silent, their faces stoic.