When Liana Davis moves to Massachusetts, she brings her only daughter, an emergency fund, and what may be her late husband's most valuable and dangerous secret.
When Dominic Carter moves into his fourteenth foster home, he is given an ultimatum: ge...
─── When the night was full of terrors, And your eyes were filled with tears ───
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Dominic Carter, 13 years old
It's only six PM when a freezing cold Dominic Carter stumbles into the South End train station, but it looks much later. Storm clouds roll in low, blocking what little sun is left of the day and giving the sky a sort of grayish-purplish hue. Dominic tugs the sleeves of his dark blue winter coat down to his wrists, only for them to inch up once again. He needs a new one, but with the weight of the broken backpack on his shoulders and the tearing soles on his converse, he can't really find it in him to care.
He pulls his gray scarf up higher to cover his ears, breathing out into his hands before rubbing them together, hoping to preserve what little warmth is left in his body as he waits for the next train. His heart is still pumping viciously from his rush to make it to the platform before they did, hoping against all reason that the three boys decided to take the bus or at least a different train after detention.
The clock above the platform reads 6:07 PM; Dominic wills the tracks in front of him to rattle, signaling the arrival the evening train, but they don't. He swears he can feel them mocking him with their absolute unmoving silence.
Just a few more minutes, he thinks to himself. A few more minutes, and they'll be stuck waiting her for the 7:12.
But just as he hears the tell-tale rattle of the tracks, he also hears, among the murmurs of the crowd, the three voices which he's learned to dread more than anything in the couple months he's lived in Massachusetts. He readjusts the straps of his backpack, hoping that the people around him conceal his tall, lanky form well enough as the little announcement chime plays and the train shudders to a stop.
As the doors unseal, Dominic slips inside with the first crowd of people, scrambling to sit in the furthest corner before Michael, Evan, and Walker can even see him on the platform. Flakes of melting snow drip from the strands of his dark hair as he looks down at his battered shoes, looking out from beneath it to watch the three fifteen-year-old boys stop to sit somewhere near the center, sliding their backpacks off their shoulders and placing them between their legs, whereas Dominic keeps his on his shoulders in case he needs to run.
The train lurches to a start. He releases a small breath of relief at going seemingly unnoticed, yet his shoulders stay tense with the knowledge that all it would take would be for Evan to turn his head ever so slightly in his direction, or for Michael to check the time, and they would see him sitting there.
6:13 PM.
He sits still like a statue, the rumbling of the train dulling to the back of his mind as he focuses entirely on giving no sign that he is there. He is painfully aware of each breath he takes. Staring out the window as the lights of North End fade duller and duller, he watches the snow catch on the glass and gradually melt away. He imagines himself turning to ice, dissolving away before evaporating up into the clouds, becoming too heavy a burden to carry and dropping back down to Earth where he started.
