Read Chapter 12: After the Storm

The air still tasted of smoke and cordite. Élise knelt beside the wounded, her hands slick with blood that was not her own. A middle-aged woman from the tourist group had taken a ricochet to the shoulder—the bullet had passed clean through, but the bleeding was stubborn. Élise pressed a folded linen napkin against the wound, feeling the woman’s pulse flutter beneath her fingers.

“You’re going to be fine,” Élise said, more for her own benefit than the woman’s. “Just keep pressure on this.”

The woman nodded weakly, her eyes glassy with shock. Around them, the dining car had become a makeshift triage. Passengers moved in dazed circles, some tending to the wounded, others simply staring at the still body of the young hostage, covered now with a tablecloth that had once been white.

Élise stood, wiping her hands on her trousers. Her gaze drifted to the dead soldier—subdued but alive, pinned to the floor by two security men, his face a mask of sullen fury. He would become a symbol to the hardliners. She knew that. A martyr, or a monster, depending on who told the story.

Renaud stood near the shattered doorway, speaking in low tones with one of his men. His posture was composed, almost arrogant. He caught Élise’s eye and broke away from his subordinate, striding toward her.

“We need to talk,” he said.

“We need a lot of things,” Élise replied. “Talk is low on the list.”

He ignored her tone. “The passengers are scared. Scared people do stupid things. That soldier—” he gestured toward the subdued man—“he gave them permission to be stupid. If we don’t give them something, they’ll invent their own justice.”

Élise studied him. The hard line of his jaw. The way he kept his hands visible, palms open. A performance, she thought. Everything about him was a performance.

“Give them a forum,” she said.

He blinked. “A what?”

“A public meeting. Let them speak. Let them shout. Instead of them talking in corners and working themselves into a frenzy, bring it out into the open. In the first-class lounge. Where we can hear them. Where they can hear each other.”

Renaud’s mouth thinned. “That’s how riots start.”

“That’s how mobs are dismantled,” she countered. “You can’t suppress fear. It only grows in the dark. Let the air in, Renaud. Let them see each other as people, not threats.”

He was silent for a long moment. She could see him weighing it, calculating the risk to his authority. Finally, he gave a curt nod.

“One hour. First-class lounge. But you’ll be there with me.”

“I wouldn’t miss it.”

He turned away, barking orders to his men. Élise let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. It wasn’t trust. It was leverage. She’d offered him a way to look magnanimous, and he’d taken it. Fine. Whatever kept the peace long enough for her to find the truth.

She moved through the car, checking on the wounded, offering words of comfort she didn’t entirely believe. When she reached the edge of the dining car, she saw Marcel standing in the corridor, his face drawn.

“The ventilation system is compromised,” he said quietly. “Smoke from the fire. And other things.”

“I know.”

He looked at her, something unspoken passing between them. He’d watched the shootout. He’d watched Renaud let it happen. “The meeting. You think it will help?”

“I think it’s the only thing that might.”

Marcel nodded slowly, then moved past her into the car. She watched him go, wondering if he was an ally, an enemy, or simply a man trying to hold his train together.

She ducked into the corridor and nearly collided with Alfred.

The older man startled, clutching a large canvas bag to his chest. His eyes darted sideways.

“Dr. Fournier,” he said, breathless. “I was just—the supplies. Checking the supplies.”

“Alfred,” she said. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, yes. Just shaken. All this violence.” He shook his head. “It’s not right. Not right at all.”

She studied his face. There was something off in his manner, a jittery energy that didn’t fit his usual placid demeanor. But before she could press, he turned and hurried down the corridor, the canvas bag clutched tight.

She let him go. She had too many other concerns.

But something nagged at her. The way he’d gripped that bag. The way he’d avoided her eyes.

She followed.

She kept her distance, watching from angles as he moved past the dining car, past the restrooms, deeper into the service areas where passengers rarely went. He stopped at a utilitarian door marked STORAGE—CREW ONLY. He glanced around, fumbled with a key, and slipped inside.

Élise waited a heartbeats-long count, then approached the door. She pressed her ear to the cold metal. She could hear movement inside. A scraping sound. Something heavy being shifted.

She tried the handle. It wasn’t locked.

She eased the door open a crack.

The storage room was dim, lit by a single flickering fluorescent tube. Shelves lined the walls, stacked with cleaning supplies, spare parts, and boxes of prepackaged food. In the center of the room, Alfred was crouched over the canvas bag.

He pulled it open and removed a bundle wrapped in butcher paper. As he unwrapped it, the smell hit her—sweet and putrid, a cloying odor of decay that cut through the other scents. Dark, glistening meat. Bat meat, she recognized. The same kind she’d seen wrapped in plastic in the galley waste bin, the kind that had been served in an unmarked dish to certain passengers.

Alfred worked quickly, tearing the paper into strips and stuffing it into a black trash bag. Then he lifted a heavy bin of cleaning chemicals, placed it on the floor, and dragged something else out from beneath a shelf.

Frozen bricks of it, wrapped in more butcher paper. More meat. He was disposing of it all.

Élise stood frozen at the door, watching. This was it. The source. The bat meat had been brought aboard by someone, served to passengers, and now Alfred was trying to erase every trace of it.

A chill ran through her. It hadn’t come from the ventilation system. Or it hadn’t only come from there. The engineered pathogen she’d found on the filters—that was a delivery mechanism. But this, this meat, had been the original vector. Someone had brought the contagion aboard in physical form. They had fed it to people.

She thought of Antoine. The text message warning him to move before the lockdown. He knew. He’d known, and he’d gone into the walls to hide.

The faucets in London. The event she was traveling to. The sponsors who had arranged her travel.

Her stomach turned.

She pulled back from the door, pressing herself against the corridor wall. Her heart hammered. She could walk in. Confront Alfred. Demand answers. But what would she do with them? If she exposed him now, if she revealed the true source of the outbreak, the fragile peace she was trying to maintain would shatter. The mob wouldn’t target just one soldier anymore. They would target everyone. They would tear the train apart looking for more guilty parties, for anyone who might have touched the meat, for anyone who might have served it or eaten it or known about it.

She couldn’t. Not yet.

She heard the rustle of movement from inside the storage room, the zip of the trash bag being sealed. She backed away down the corridor, quick and silent. She reached the edge of the car just as Alfred emerged from the storage room, the canvas bag over his shoulder, visibly lighter now.

He looked around, saw no one, and moved in the opposite direction, toward the rear of the train.

Élise watched him go.

She stood in the corridor for a long time, breathing slowly. The truth weighed heavy in her chest, cold and dense.

Bat meat. It had come from bat meat.

But that wasn’t the whole story. The pathogen she’d found on the filters hadn’t been natural. It had been engineered. Someone had refined it, aerosolized it, and sprayed it into the ventilation system. The meat was the seed, but someone had cultivated it.

Alfred was cleaning up. Cleaning up the evidence.

But Alfred was no scientist.

He was a train attendant. Someone else had directed him. Someone else had planned this.

That person was still here, somewhere.

She made her way to the first-class lounge. Passengers were already filing in, their faces drawn with exhaustion and fear. Renaud stood at the front, his hands clasped behind his back. He nodded to her when she entered.

Élise took a seat near the back, out of the line of sight.

The public forum would begin soon. People would shout. They would demand answers. She would stand beside Renaud and let them exhaust their anger, let them voice their fears until the sound of their own voices no longer scared them.

And she would not tell them about the meat.

Because the truth, right now, would only get more people killed.

She settled into her chair, folded her hands in her lap, and waited for the storm of voices to begin.