“They pretend their fingers are guns?” The guy looked interested. “Does that work?”

“No,” I said, feeling like he’d taken the wrong thing from this conversation. “That wasn’t—”

“You really lost your phone?” He sounded horrified.

I nodded and wiped the back of my hand across my cheek again. “It got run over.”

“That sucks.” Then he smiled, like he’d just gotten an idea. “Do you want one of these?” He slid his backpack off his shoulder and put it down at his feet. He opened it and I could see there was a pile of cell phones—and what looked like a laptop—inside.

“Oh,” I said, taking a step away from all the stolen goods. “Um, that’s really—nice—of you, but I’m okay.”

“All right,” he said with a shrug, zipping up his bag. “Suit yourself.”

Brad looked up at me, and I ran my hand over his head, pushing his ears back, and he closed his eyes when I did it, as though he liked that. He was no longer baring his teeth and growling, like he’d picked up on the vibe change.

The guy stood up and slung his backpack onto his back. A man who looked like he was in his thirties walked past, texting on his phone. My would-be mugger’s eyes lit up. “I gotta go,” he said. “Good luck.”

“You too,” I said, then regretted it a second later, because I had just said it automatically. I hadn’t meant, Good luck taking that guy’s phone. He started to walk away, and I decided I might as well ask rather than stand around trying to read these signs and make myself a target for someone else to mug me. “Do you know where I get the downtown train?”

“You have to cross the platform,” the guy said, pointing across the tracks. “It says uptown, but with the construction, they’re running downtown.”

“Thanks,” I called, giving him a quick wave. He may have been a phone bandit, but there was no need to be rude.

I could hear the sound of a train coming and I knew I needed to make this one—from my little experience, it seemed like the more of these paper track service flyers there were in a station, the less frequently the trains ran.

I pulled Brad closer to me as I ran up the staircase, crossed to the other side, and started to run down the other staircase just as the train was stopping. I hurried down the steps, cursing my heels with every step, and Brad and I squeezed onto the half-empty car a second before the “stand clear of the closing doors” announcement sounded.