“Hold on Red Line passengers,” the conductor’s voice garbles out of the speaker. “It’s called slip-slide. Sometimes, when the tracks get wet, it’s hard to stop and start the train, so we get these little jolts. Slip-slide.” He sounds relaxed, as though he’s telling us this information over a bottle of wine in a warm apartment, as opposed to the freezing cold El in the middle of January.

I push my hands deeper into my pockets, trying to let the conductor’s easy tone rub off on me. An inch of my puffy jacket spreads onto the empty seat to my right, and I carefully tuck it back underneath me. Out of the corner of my eye, a man in a large black coat stands near the doors. His entire body is turned toward me. My heart rate picks up, and I keep my eyes lifted, pretending to examine the aggressive ad in front of me: GET THE FAMILY PLAN! TAKE CARE OF THE WHOLE FAMILY FOR A WORRY-FREE FUTURE.

In my periphery, the man takes a step closer. I suck in a breath and focus on the fact that it’s only a few more stops to the hotel, on the warmth of the bag in my lap, and the delicious wafts of chicken floating from it. Water streaks across the dark windows as the El rockets through the city, and my breath makes little puffs of mist in front of me.

The man watching me takes another step. My stomach tightens, but I know getting up might encourage him. Some creeps like a game of cat and mouse. He probably wants a reaction. My best bet is to continue looking disinterested, so I try to distract myself with something else.

Unfortunately, a memory of Alyssa fills my mind. We’re in our apartment, and she’s blowing into a trumpet so hard that spittle drips from the valve. The sound it makes is just as unpalatable.

“Would you please shut up?!” I remember screaming at her. “I’m trying to study for the MCAT right now, and I can’t find my meds, and if I even want a chance with the tuition-free schools, I have to be fucking perfect—”

“I have to practice for band, Kate,” she interrupted, her voice somehow louder and more blaring than the trumpet itself. “Just put on some headphones or something. You can still study for the KitKat.” She went back to spitting through the trumpet.

I blink the memory from my eyes. She never understood how important becoming a doctor was to me, and the necessity of perfection to make it happen. I sigh. I used to dream about the day she’d be out of my life, but now I think about her more than ever.

The train jerks as we slow, coming into the next station. Suddenly, I’m aware that the man is much closer, and, instinctually, I glance over at him. Our eyes meet, and he grins at me with his milky gaze. My heart jumps, and my legs tense as I prepare to shoot from the train, but then the train shudders to a stop, and he gets off, along with most of the car. Relief rushes through me as my muscles unknot. Thank God.

“We missed you at therapy group today, Kate.” There’s a presence in the seat next to me that wasn’t there before.

My stomach drops and I stiffen as my heart jumps back into my throat.

“Aw, Raising Cane’s? Wasn’t that our thing to get together?” His voice is low and full of steel. I whip my head toward the open doors, but the heavy weight of a hand presses down on my knee.

I glance around to see if anyone notices, if anyone will help me, but the few people remaining sit straight-backed, eyes forward or averted, trying to stay out of any trouble on the Red Line.

This cannot be happening. Shouldn’t he have been taken into custody?

The rain pelts down onto the station outside and patters on the train’s roof. Cold air gusts through and my car shivers collectively. The doors close and the train jerks as it picks up speed again.

With a swallow, I twist to face the person who’s been haunting my dreams for the past week. His black eyes stare back at me. His face looks gaunt, pale.

Logan.

I met him a year ago through my therapy group. He was even more messed up than me, but he had an edge to his dark humor and we became friends. But, that was before…

“Get away from me, Logan,” I whisper, my voice wavering.

Just his teeth smile at me. I see his reflection glinting in the rain-streaked glass.

“You know that’s not an option,” he says. “Or have you already forgotten about Alyssa?”

My throat closes, and I try my very best not to remember the last time I saw Alyssa. But, I can’t help but flash back to Logan standing over her in our apartment, the wild expression in his eyes as he lurched toward me.

He shifts, something bulky obscured under his coat. A gun? He wouldn’t shoot me in public, right?

My heart threatens to explode from my chest, but I force myself to remain calm. I got away from him before. I can do it again. Softly, my fingers unclasp the container in my take-out bag.

“So here’s what— ” Logan starts, but before he can finish, I dump the food onto his lap and tear away from him. He’s shocked enough to give me time to sprint to the connecting car door.

The smell of spilled chicken floats up to my nostrils, and images flash before my eyes, memories of when I got Raising Cane’s after therapy with Logan. I always spent most of the time complaining about Alyssa.

“She acts like she lives alone,” I told him. “Always making noise or barging into my room while I’m on a call. It’s like she doesn’t understand that I’ve got to be perfect. I can’t let myself slip even once if I want a chance at med school.” To become a psychiatrist, to help other people like me.

“That’s just Alyssa,” he said, shaking his head, “You’ve got to learn to ignore it.”

“Or she’s got to learn to stop,” I muttered back. I paused, then leaned forward. “I think she hid my meds.”

“Don’t be paranoid, you’re just saying that because she’s getting under your skin. And trust me, I get it,” Logan took a sip of sweet tea, his eyes glinting. “There’s been more than one time when I’ve wanted to wring her neck.”

Whipping wind and sleet break me from the memory as I step outside the train car. The cold bites into my skin and my feet wobble on the slick metal car-connector. I gasp as I push down the handle and stumble into the next car. The car reeks of smoke, and I cough as my shoes stick to the beer-coated floor. There’s only two people in this car: one man and one woman.

 “Help,” I pant. The woman looks terrified and scoots a couple seats away. The man stumbles drunkenly over to me.

“I protect you, sweetheart,” he slurs, wrapping a hand around my waist. Heat and desperation course through my veins. I push him off in disgust and rush to the next connecting door. Logan bangs at the doors behind me, so I throw myself toward the partition between the seats and the platform doors, crouching behind the panel of metal. I try to calm my breathing as I slowly unzip my jacket. Did he see me? Was I fast enough? Fear chokes me and I want nothing more than to run into the next car, away from him, but I force myself to remain still.

The door thuds open. Heavy breathing fills the carriage. I work desperately to quiet my own breaths, my hand pressed over my mouth. Please, let him run past to the next car. Please don’t let him see me. Time slows as I hear the squelch of his wet shoes. He takes a step. Another. And another. A stark shadow stretches out on the floor in front of me, and his footsteps beat through my head almost rhythmically, methodical and unrelenting. Any closer and he’ll see me.

Squelch…squelch…

The rusty stench of the cold metal partition assaults me as I press against it, my heart beating in my throat. Hiding isn’t working. He’s going to see me.

I have to run.

I swallow. It feels like I’m gulping down blood, but I force myself to shoot up and tear toward the next connecting door. Logan sees me immediately and grabs my hood, yanking backward, but I let the unzipped jacket slide off my arms and throw myself at the doors. Adrenaline pumps through me as I hurtle through them, sprinting when I hit the floor.

“Move!” I scream, because I know he’s behind me. “He’s trying to kill me!”

The few passengers glance at me with wide eyes, but no one does anything as I barrel to the next door. The door clangs open behind me, and a furious “Kate!” rings through the car. I spring like a rabbit into the next car, my chest heaving. The train shakes around a turn. I scramble from train car to train car, even as I hear his heavy breathing and feet pounding behind me. It’s late, and most of the cars are empty. I know I must be nearing the last car, the end of the line. Nowhere left to run.

Suddenly, the train jolts violently, and I reel forward and slam to the floor. The breath whisks from my lungs, and I gasp for air, my knee twinging alarmingly when I put weight on it. No one is in this car, and I drag my injured leg behind me, half-running towards the last car. The door bangs behind me and thick hands wrap around my neck.

Logan rips me to the floor then towers over me. Soaked with sweat and rain, I have to blink the water from my eyes to see him clearly. The fluorescent ceiling lights flicker, glinting off the knife in his hand.

He’s breathing hard, but he smiles as he looks down at me. “Stay,” he huffs out, pointing the knife at me.

My breath catches as I stare at the knife, then I scramble over to the wall. The train shakes again and my stomach wrenches, its contents threatening to come up.

“I can’t believe…I introduced you…to Alyssa,” he says. Gradually, his breathing slows. “Normally, I’d never introduce someone from group to my sister, but you were broke and I felt sorry for you.” There’s a glint in his eyes. “You seemed so…together. Like, you were getting your life on track.”

My head pounds and heat pushes through my veins. Something snaps in my mind.

“I was,” I hiss back, still crouched on the floor. “I was gonna have a future, a life, get away from all this bullshit. I was gonna help other people who struggled. She ruined everything. Barging in during interviews. Hiding my meds as a joke. She was asking for it.”

Logan’s black eyes turn a shade darker and his jaw tightens. “We are going to wait here until the police arrive,” he whispers. “You’re going to explain what happened, that you did it, not me. And then you are going to jail forever.”

No.

This can’t be happening.

I squeeze my eyes shut and I’m back in my apartment. I was through to the final round of interviews. This was it—a chance to finally change my life and turn things around. They were known to cut you for any little thing, but I’d been perfect. I just needed to end this interview well.

And then Alyssa bulldozed in, snapped my laptop shut in front of me. “You’re never going to believe what happened to me,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows.

My vision went black. My future flew out the window in front of me. Everything I worked for, gone. The next thing I knew, Alyssa was dead on the floor. Blood was caked under my fingernails, and she had little half-moon cuts on her mottled neck. I sat there, staring at her, and only stirred when Logan came in, screamed, and rushed to her side.

Sirens echo in the distance and my eyes snap open. Logan’s still pointing the knife at me, a mixture of rage and satisfaction in his eyes. “I’m done running from the cops,” he says. “My name gets cleared tonight.”

Suddenly, the train brakes hard.

Logan tips backward, his eyes widening as he falls to the floor. The knife clatters at his feet. We both lunge for it, but I rip it away from his slick palm. Without thinking, I punch it through his chest, one, two, three, four times. The knife grates against the bone, a strangely high-pitched sound. Logan lets out a rattled breath, and his eyes take on that same dull look as Alyssa’s. Blood gushes away from his body, painting a gruesome red line across the floor.

I stare at him for a second before the train lurches to a stop. I stand, still gripping the knife, the FAMILY PLAN ad floating before my face again. I can’t help it. I burst into laughter, and not even the pain in my knee bothers me as the doors slide open. TAKE CARE OF THE WHOLE FAMILY FOR A WORRY-FREE FUTURE lingers in my head as I run off into the night, the sirens fading into the distance.

First the sister, then the brother. Maybe there really is something to this family plan idea.