I am going to be killed and eaten by a wolf on an English train, Saunders thought again, and for a moment the idea wasn’t the worst notion in the world. It was bad, but even worse would be sitting here letting himself be taunted before it happened, taking it with his tail between his legs.

“Fuck you,” Saunders said. “We smell like money. Which beats the hell out of stinking like wet dog.” His voice shaking just slightly when he said it.

He didn’t dare turn his head to look at the wolf directly, but he could watch him from the corner of his eye, and he saw one of those erect, bushy ears rotate toward him, tuning in on his signal.

Then the first-class businesswolf laughed—another harsh woof. “Don’t mind me. My portfolio has taken a beating the last couple months. Too many American stocks. It’s left me a bit sore, as much at myself as at you lot. It aggravates me that I bought into the whole thing, like everyone else in this blighted country.”

“Bought into what whole thing?” Saunders asked. A part of his mind cried out in alarm, Shut the fuck up! What are you doing? Why are you talking to it?

Except.

Except the train was slowing, almost imperceptibly. Saunders doubted that under normal circumstances he would’ve noticed, but now he was attuned to fine details. That was how it worked when your life was measured in seconds: You felt your own breath, were aware of the temperature and weight of the air on your own skin, heard the prickling tic-tic of the rain on the windows. The train had hitched, slowed, and hitched again. The night continued to blur past the windows, some rain splatter sprinkling against the glass, but Saunders thought there was a chance they were closing on Foxham, or whatever was next down the tracks. And if the businesswolf was talking to him, then he wasn’t attacking.

“The American fairy tale,” the wolf said. “You know the one. That we can all be like you. That we should all want to be like you. That you can wave your American Tinker Bell dust over our pathetic countries and abracadabra! A McDonald’s here and an Urban Outfitters there and England will be just like home. Your home. I am honestly humiliated to ever have believed it. You would think a bloke like me, of all people, would know it isn’t true. You can stick a Disneyland T-shirt on a wolf, but it’s still a wolf.”