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“Even though you knew it was wrong?”
Seamus jerks his head toward the row of cars behind them. “Whattheydid was wrong, Anna. They murdered our brothers, along with dozens of other people. They framed your father. Your mother went insane because of it. Don’t you dare sit here and pretend they don’t deserve exactly the same treatment.”
“They deserve worse,” Anna says. “But not at our hands. We’re better than that.”
“You might be,” Seamus says. “But I’m not. When I got the opportunity to murder one of those bastards, I took it.”
Still unable to look at him, Anna keeps her gaze on the river outside. Despite going in the same direction, both train and water are gradually splitting away from each other in elevation. As the river dips lower, flowing through a snow-filled valley it carved millennia ago, the train climbs higher, following the gentle rise of the valley’s edge.
“The opportunity was there without resorting to murder,” she says. “You thought Lapsford was going to die. You even pleaded with me to give him the pill before it was too late.”
“Because I didn’t just want him dead. I wanted to be the one to kill him.”
Yet Lapsford is still alive, thanks to Anna. Ironic, considering that, other than Kenneth Wentworth, he’s the one she despises the most.
“Now that I know, are you still going to try?”
“No,” Seamus says. “I’ve killed enough.”
Anna wishes she still had her knife, because she longs to stab him in the heart. Not to fight him, and certainly not to kill him. She just wants Seamus to feel as much pain there as she does. Without the knife, all she can do is say, “I’ll never forgive you.”
Seamus nods. “I don’t expect you to.”
“They’re going to arrest you, you know. Once we reach Chicago, you’ll be rounded up along with the rest of them.”
“You don’t have to tell,” Seamus says, even as his eyes—those windows to his soul—make it clear he knows she will.
Anna’s own eyes well with tears. She might not reciprocate his romantic feelings, but she does love Seamus, in her own wounded way. Even now. Theirs is a more intimate bond than love, in which people sand down their rough edges for each other. She and Seamus sharpened theirs to brittle points.
Anna always knew one of them would draw blood. She just assumed it would be her.
“I wish you had trusted me.” Anna shakes her head, the motion unleashing a single tear that rolls down her cheek. “I wish you had stuck to the plan.”
“I couldn’t,” Seamus says.
Anna finally looks his way, overcome with curiosity. “How did it feel?”
“It was—” Seamus pauses, searching for the right word. “Beautiful. The sweetest release I’ve ever felt.”
“Even though it also meant dooming yourself?”
“You’re forgetting I’m already doomed.”
Seamus removes her father’s silver locomotive pin from his pocket. With extreme gentleness, he leans over and attaches it to the front of Anna’s dress.
“This belongs to you,” he says.
Seamus then kisses her on the cheek, stands, and, without another word, exits the front of the car. Anna remains seated a few more seconds. Just long enough for her to understand what he’s about to do. When she does, she leaps from the chair and follows Seamus into the dining car. He’s already on the other side, moving into the galley, the door swinging shut behind him.
And so it goes for the next several cars. Through the club car, the coach lounge, the sleeper car. Anna, quickening her pace in each one, doesn’t fully catch up to Seamus until they’ve reached the baggage car. By then, he’s already at the double doors in the side of the car, pulling one of them open.
“Seamus, stop!” Anna yells, her voice clanging off the walls.
He ignores her, moving to the second door and forcing it open, letting in the chaos of the outside world. The gusting snow. The whipping wind. The clattering wheels. It all makes Anna wince, even as she takes several steps toward the open doors.
“What are you doing?” she says, when deep down she already knows.
Seamus inches closer to the yawning opening, stopping only when he’s on the precipice. The rush of air lifts his hair and flutters his jacket, which makes a flapping noise. Like a bird taking flight. Behind him, the snow-swept landscape passes in a blur of whites and grays. They’re high above the river now, approaching a trestle bridge that crosses it.