Glitch

way was impaled on a
    spike of twisted metal. The metal sparked as it contacted the
    side of the outer tunnel, which cast enough light to see that
    the top half of his bloody body had been severed at the torso.
    Anderson hadn’t made it all the way through either.
    One leg was caught in the twist of metal near the fl oor and
    the whole train rocked unsteadily on its tracks every time he
    twisted his heavy body in an attempt to free himself.
    People banged against me on all sides in the darkness, los-
    ing their footing in the rocking train. I screamed and pushed
    at the bodies surrounding and suff ocating me. They were
    ripped violently away from me— but it wasn’t the chaos of
    the train that had sent them fl ying. It had been me, my power
    accidentally unleashed again.
    I tried to look and see if I’d hurt them, but between the
    howl of the wind, the screech of metal against the outer tun-
    nel, and my own screaming, I couldn’t make sense of any-
    thing. I couldn’t tell if the other Regulators were trying to
    fi x the situation and I couldn’t tell where Adrien was either.
    A large man fell against me when the train rounded another
    corner, knocking me to the ground. I managed to quiet the
    buzzing in my mind fast enough to keep from throwing him
    away from me.
    The train car scraped along against an especially tight por-
    tion of the outer tunnel and illuminated the interior long
    180

    G L I TC H
    enough for me to see the chaos of tossed bodies. A brown-
    haired woman stumbled toward the ripped- open wall. She
    tripped on the Regulator’s leg and tumbled out through the
    open space out into darkness.
    “No!” I screamed, but it was too late. She was already
    gone. The wail of my scream was swallowed in the roaring
    wind.
    The buzzing from fear and anger I’d been barely holding
    in seemed to explode outward from my body as I lost con-
    trol. I felt the energy pulse out, but couldn’t stop it. In the
    space of a single heartbeat, I saw the other Regulators fi -
    nally making their way across the train car toward the open
    space, but it didn’t matter— my power had already ripped
    away the rest of the panel and sent the glitching Regulator
    plunging into the darkness of the tunnel.
    The tenor of my scream changed as I realized what I’d
    just done. But I didn’t have time to feel the full horror of it,
    because the train car suddenly rocked violently to the left,
    sending all of us sliding into the opposite wall.
    My head banged painfully against a pole as we fl ew past
    and then other bodies piled up against mine until I felt suf-
    focated. I managed to push some of them off me, enough to
    realize that the entire train car was tilted sideways. I could
    tell from the unnatural angle of the car that one of our rails
    must not even be touching anymore. The body of the Regu-
    lator must have gotten caught underneath the train and de-
    railed us.
    Someone grabbed my arm and pulled themselves toward
    me.
    181

    Heather Anastasiu
    “Zoe!” Adrien’s voice screamed above the chaos. “We’re
    about to lose traction and jackknife!”
    I nodded. My head was a tornado of thoughts and sensa-
    tions, but I focused in on one thought: I was the one who’d
    thrown the Regulator’s body under the train. I had to fi x
    what I’d done. A high- pitched scream ripped its way out of
    me, in harmony with the buzzing in my head.
    In one painful instant I felt my mind split. I was expand-
    ing outward and it was like I could feel all nine of the cars in
    the subway train. We were the second to last in the line but
    if we kept pulling the rest sideways off the track with our
    momentum, Adrien was right— we’d fi shtail and all the cars
    would crumple into one another like an accordion. I took
    another deep breath and pushed with all my might, envi-
    sioning a huge counterweight on the train rails that weren’t
    touching, pulling us back down to the track.
    Sparks fl ew as we suddenly made contact again and the
    cabin righted itself. Another person fl ew toward the gaping
    hole in the side of the train, but I caught them just in time,
    fl inging them backward. My head was too cloudy and con-
    fused to be delicate about it.
    The lights in the cabin fl ickered back on as the train
    slowed. Blood was everywhere. Several other people had
    been crushed by the weight of the heavy Regulators who’d
    been thrown off balance just like everyone else. At least one
    person was slumped against the wall, eyes staring