Descendant by Lesley Livingston Page B

and then held it up in front of Heather’s face.
    “Take this,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at the compartment door. “It’s marked with a protection rune. It should keep them from being able to find you while you’re in possession of it. At least, for a while. Don’t lose it.”
    Heather reached out a shaky hand. Outside the train, they heard a car start up, the engine loud and echoing in the tunnel. Then the sound moved off into the distance, and all was deathly silent again.
    “Keep your wits, Heather. I know you’ve got ’em,” Toby said, his eyes like burning coals in his head. “I can’t help you any further from here on—and I’m a dead man if he finds out about this.”
    “Why are you doing this?” Heather asked.
    He didn’t answer her. Just grabbed her shaking fingers and wrapped them tightly around the rune-inscribed gold acorn. “Listen to me: go back to Gosforth. The school is neutral ground, protected . They can’t touch you there. Be strong, be smart . . . and pray that someone finds a way to stop Gunnar Starling before it’s too late. Now go. Run like hell!”
    She nodded. He didn’t need to tell her twice.
    Blindly, instinctively, until the breath seared in her lungs and her pounding feet ached, Heather ran, heading west when she could, keeping her head down in the darkness and hoping she wasn’t being followed. When the stitch in her side made it impossible to keep running,Heather slowed to a stumbling jog and massaged the muscles over her ribs, glancing nervously over her shoulder every few seconds at the virtually empty street behind her. Eventually, blind panic ebbed and she stopped at an intersection to get her bearings. Twenty-Eighth Avenue and Thirty-First. Okay. She knew where she was now. If she turned south, in a few blocks she’d hit the aboveground station where the N train stopped. She’d taken it a couple of times with Cal when they’d come over to Queens for one reason or another when they’d been dating. The N train would get her back into Manhattan. In Manhattan she would be safe.
    Heather wasn’t used to taking the subway, but she’d done it often enough that she knew her way around. She rifled through the pockets of her jeans and found a crumpled five-dollar bill—enough to get her a ticket card that would get her on the train. She had no idea where her cell phone was, and she hadn’t been carrying her wallet when she’d run to find Mason at the academy.
    Up ahead in the darkness, she saw the elevated station platform floating above the street, and her heart started to flutter. She almost sprinted the last hundred yards and up the stairs. Her fingers shook as she stabbed at the touch-screen buttons on the ticket machine, and then she was through the turnstile, getting on a brightly lit, empty train car. She almost wept with relief when the train started to move. She slumped down onto a seat and slowly began to relax. For the first four stops, the train car remained unoccupied, and Heather closed her eyes and dropped her head wearily into her hands for a moment.
    “Hi.”
    Heather nearly jumped out of her skin. She lifted her head and turned a shaky attempt at her best withering glare on the stranger who sat opposite her, a slight grin curving his mouth.
    “Sorry?” she said coldly.
    It was just some teenage guy she didn’t know, but it still freaked her out. The last stop had been Queensboro Plaza, and Heather was positive that no one had gotten on the train. There wasn’t another stop until Lexington Avenue, once the train had crossed over the river into Manhattan.
    “It’s a typical North American greeting,” the stranger said. “Hi.”
    He wore a black leather jacket, faded jeans, and a pair of Ray-Bans, darker than the sky outside the train window, that completely hid his eyes.
    “Right,” Heather muttered. “Whatever.”
    Her fingers gripped the golden acorn tightly, and she found herself slightly reassured by the gentle, tingling