The Survivor

CHAPTER ONE

SOUTH FERRY

At the entrance to the subway station, the stairs lead down from the street until they are swallowed by darkness. Standing four steps from the top, Ben Cross grips the railing tighter and watches as people walk past him and down with no hesitation at all: tourists straight from the ferry, personal trainers from sessions in the park, enough suits to start up a small but tasteful menswear store. Every one of them passes by and vanishes into the black as though stepping down and knowing that a step will even be there to meet your foot descending is the most everyday and normal thing a person could do.

Ben did it himself this morning, but that was a different Ben. One with a good night's sleep and a strong cup of coffee in him, and the promise of a new life waiting at the other end of the journey.

A lot has changed in the six hours since.

Someone bumps his shoulder, and Ben flinches at the contact. It isn't much, but his hands feel slick on the railing, like at any moment his grip could slip and send him tumbling down the steps. He is scared that if he holds on any tighter, it will just make that fate even more likely. The guy says something as he passes, but with all his attention focused on the long shadow that swallows up the last few steps, Ben doesn't catch the exact wording. Still, the rest of the stairs aren't crowded, and the intent behind the bump is clear enough. What are you doing just standing there? Are you some kind of idiot?

He doesn't have to do this. The subway is quick, but it's not convenient—for him, at least—and it's not like he has anywhere to be all of a sudden. A cab would be ideal—a box where he can sit and try and make some kind of sense of the past half hour—but Ben can hear the sound of distant traffic, and it has the same frantic energy as the sound of a domestic argument two apartments over. All things considered, just the risk of sitting in traffic at seventy cents a minute feels too rich for Ben's blood.

There are buses he can take, but every bus he has ever taken is its own special brand of hell. The last time Ben was on a bus there was a lady with a stroller full—or, briefly full—of cats.

He could always just walk.

Ben stops himself before he can entertain that thought any further. It's almost a hundred degrees out, and the forecast is even higher. He's wearing a suit that is meant to be dark blue, but right now feels like it is one of those special kinds of black that absorbs 100 percent of the heat that lands on it.

Ben can imagine what that walk uptown would feel like after the first ten minutes. He can almost imagine how bad it would be after an hour.

The thought of free air-conditioning on the subway gets him down two more steps, hand over hand on the railing, three points of contact at all times, like a mountain climber, before the dark stops him again.

A friendly hand settles on his shoulder and gives him a shake. Not hard enough to startle, more like it is intended to bring him back to himself. A grounding. The effect is the exact opposite. It feels like the steps are falling away from under him, and the past fifteen years along with them.

You thought people would forget. It rises up through him, a column of heat building in his chest. You thought you would forget.

One of Ben's therapists told him once that people have bad thoughts all the time. That having them is part of living: we think of the worst things first so we can stop them from happening. Like driving your car over a bridge and entertaining for one brief moment the urge to yank the wheel to one side and drive clean through the barrier.

Ben never asked if everyone else's bad thoughts spoke to them like his do. Even when the voice isn't there, he can still feel it, like someone hanging on to his shoulder waiting to criticize him, to tell him how worthless he is.

"First step's always the hardest, right?"

The man's voice is deep, and has a little of the South in it. Ben had a lecturer from Charlotte who spoke the same way, and that association more than anything else breaks his train of thought, straightening him up to answer the man.

"I just—" Ben starts, and finds himself stumbling over the words. The black rectangle of shadow seems to tighten in on itself as he looks at it. "I think I'm going to take the bus," he says.