Darker London

I'm here Cai messaged the others as soon as the signal returned to his phone, running up the escalators from the tube up into Paddington Station itself. The tube had been packed and the escalators were a crush (but, luckily, a crush that let the left half of itself actually move) and there must have been hundreds of people on the platforms. He felt his heart sink a little - there was no way he was going to be able to spot Alex in this crowd, if she was still here.

Still, he pushed his way through, elbows first and apologies after, toward the main ticket office and stopped under the huge hanging departures sign. The next train departed in seven minutes and was going to Hayes and Harlington, in eleven minutes one was going to Cardiff Central, in eighteen, Worcester Foregate.

He pushed toward platform three, Hayes and Harlington, trying to spot her from the other side of the barriers, couldn't, swore loudly, and crushed in behind a man in a suit as he swiped his ticket through the reader. He heard the man protest but was already running across the platform, his chest burning, searching for her. Couldn't see her in any of the windows but there was a lot he couldn't see, there were just too many people.

The crowd thinned out quickly, everyone on this platform had to be on this train in three minutes and everyone was very frantic about it. Cai wondered if he should but couldn't imagine Alex going to Hayes and Harlington, although he was having trouble doing any imagining at all through his panic. He should stop, and think, or - there was a conductor talking to him, now, asking if he was getting on, and Cai's eyes went wide and he very thoughtfully ran away.

He put it down to adrenaline, jumping over the barriers. He'd never done that before but this time there wasn't a rushed man to slip in behind. He felt guilty but also, he wasn't actually stealing train travel, he was heading back to the main platform and the main mass of people and it was against the rules but was it actually against the law?

His phone buzzed but he wove through several more groups of people to get away from platform three and anyone who might be after him before he checked it. Zoe was ten minutes away. Danny should be closer. Cai put his gloved hand against the pole and stretched up onto his toes, trying to see his brother - or Alex - through the crowd.

When the door opened again, Razvan had been dozing on the floor of his cage. He sound woke up, loud and definitive. He opened his eyes to see several people swarm into the container, dressed all in black. They were shouting directions at each other, but he was so completely out of it, it was hard to pick out any one thing.

( Awfulness )