Midnight Frost

use him to block her blow, I put my hands on the brass railing behind me, hefted myself up off the ground, and kicked out with my feet, catching her in the stomach.
    The Reaper girl let out a loud oof! as the air hissed out of her lungs, but she didn’t go down. I braced myself on the seats, pushed up, and kicked her again. This time, she staggered to the side—and landed right on top of Oliver and Alexei.
    “Hey!” Oliver snapped. “I’m sleeping here!”
    “What the—” Alexei muttered.
    I didn’t bother yelling about how I was getting attacked by yet another Reaper. The guys would figure that out soon enough. Looked like Ajax’s plan to travel on the down low hadn’t worked quite as well as he and Metis had thought it would.
    While the girl scrambled up off Oliver’s lap, I reached over and grabbed Vic.
    “Look,” I said, slipping out from behind the bench so that I was standing in the middle of the aisle. “A Reaper. Do you forgive me now?”
    The sword eyed the girl, who was once again raising her sword and charging at me. “I’ll let you know after we kill her.”
    I didn’t have time to respond before the Reaper was on me.
    Clash-clash-clang!
    Up and down the aisle we fought, each one of us trying to drive her sword into the other. I ducked under the Reaper girl’s swing and shoved past her, putting myself between her and my friends. I glanced over my shoulder. Behind me, I could see Oliver trying to crawl over the benches in order to get behind the Reaper girl, while Alexei was struggling to pull his two swords out of his black backpack. I knew my friends wanted to help me, but there wasn’t time. Besides, I wanted to fight the Reaper, wanted to take my pain, anger, worry, and fear out on her. So I stepped up and focused on my enemy.
    The girl was unbelievably quick, like all Amazons are, but the constant lurching of the train was messing with her balance more than it was mine. It made all of her attacks miss the mark by just that much. Through the windows, I could see a large curve coming up ahead, and I knew the train would lurch to the left. So I parried the girl’s blows and waited for the right moment.
    A minute later, the train screeched around the curve just as the girl raised her sword over her head. Her vicious strike, along with the train’s rocking, put her even that much more off balance, and she almost fell onto one of the benches before she managed to right herself.
    I leaned into the curve and let the train’s momentum carry me forward into the girl—and help me bury Vic’s sharp point in her stomach.
    She sucked in a breath that was equal parts pain and surprise. The train swayed the other way, and I pulled the blade free.
    The girl’s sword fell to the floor, and she pressed her hands to her stomach, her breath coming in short, painful gasps. She looked down in disbelief at all the blood gushing out of her wound, then back up at me. For a moment, a spark of Reaper red fire shimmered in her eyes. Then, it was abruptly snuffed out, like a light that had been turned off. The girl pitched forward onto one of the tables, her head cracking against the window, even as her legs went out from under her. She didn’t move after that.
    Breathing hard, I stared down at the dead Reaper. I didn’t know her, had never seen her before, but the thing that struck me the most was that she appeared to be about the same age as Jason Anderson. Just a kid. Just like me. And now she was dead like he was—all because of me.
    “Gwen?” Oliver slid free of the bench he’d been trying to crawl over, stepped forward, and put a hand on my shoulder.
    “I’m okay,” I said. “She didn’t hurt me.”
    Not on the outside anyway, even though killing her had caused another little painful crack to zigzag across my heart. I wondered how many more cracks it could take before it crumbled completely.
    Naturally, the fight had attracted the attention of the other passengers, and they scrambled to their feet and turned around to see what had caused all the commotion.
    I let out a breath and raised Vic. “So do you forgive me now?”
    “I might,” the sword said. “If you live through the rest of the fight.”
    I frowned. “Rest of the fight? What are you talking about?”
    Vic rolled his eye forward.
    I looked in that direction and got my answer a second later. Because the folks in the front of the car weren’t getting up because they were concerned about the battle. Oh no. They were getting