Passenger

If he thought he was going to grab her, he was going to get every last ounce of New York City she possessed. Etta swung her head around, searching for something sharp.

If he thought he was going to grab her, he was going to get every last ounce of New York City she possessed. Etta swung her head around, searching for something sharp.

She drew the knife up, her chest heaving, body trembling as she pressed it against the other girl’s neck. Instinct overrode logic, compassion, patience. The ugliness that poured through her veins was unfamiliar and frightening.

Sophia stared up at her, dark eyes widening just a fraction. Then she clucked her tongue impatiently and leaned forward into the blade, until a droplet of blood welled up at the tip.

Before Etta could stumble back, Sophia wrapped her hand around hers, pulling it back a fraction of a centimeter from her throat. Her dark eyes burned with a wild kind of approval. Like Etta had passed an unspoken test.

Etta could feel Sophia’s pulse flutter, light and warm, as the girl drew their hands toward her own throat again, skimming the exposed flesh.

“Here,” she said, “right here. They’ll bleed out like a stuck pig before they can squeal, and you’ll be able to get away. Remember that.”

“They won’t expect it from you,” she continued, “and, fool that I am, I didn’t either. Good for you. I like a fighter. But it won’t do you much good against me.”

“You don’t think I’m good enough, do you?”

“No, duck, no—”

“Don’t call me that!” Etta said, backing out of the office. “Do you realize I don’t even have a friend left? You told me I needed to focus if I wanted my debut. I gave it all up! I don’t have anything else!”

“Etta—Henrietta,” Alice tried, but Etta was past the point of listening, of caring what either of them had to say.

“I’m playing,” she told her instructor, “tonight, and at the debut. I don’t care what you think, or if you believe in me—I believe in myself, and there is literally nothing in this world that can keep me from playing.”

You can do this.

Her mom’s words floated through her mind. Etta can handle this.

She could. She would.

“The best way to explain this is to think of the timeline as a kind of…constant, roaring stream. Its path is set, but we create ripples by jumping in and out. Time corrects itself the best it can to keep later events consistent. But if a small change snowballs into a much larger one, or if a traveler’s actions are devastating enough, it can actually shift the flow of the timeline, thereby changing the shape of the future from that point on.”