Dane

            Sometimes I wonder what other people think of us. I suppose they hate us, those that know we exist, because we steal from them. Take their precious things, their jewellery, their cameras, their stupid tourist toys. It's obscene that they can afford things like that when we have to steal to survive.

            My name's Dane by the way. I don't have a second name, because you have to have a family to have a second name, and I don't have one of those. I live on the streets of Paris, and I guess as much as anything that's my home.

            It's a standard enough trick. We've done it hundreds of times before. Here's how it goes:

            The train stops, people get on, people get off. We wait; timing is crucial. At the right moment Fey and Crowe go running on quickly, quietly. I keep watch. They grab something: camera, briefcase, handbag, whatever they can get their hands on, then quickly duck out just as the doors are closing. Before anyone can react the train is pulling away and we're out of there.

            Simple, no?

            It's kind of foggy this morning, a special, rich kind of fog carrying with it the smell of batter and corn from street vendors. We've chosen Tuileries station. There are always a lot of tourists here in the mornings, lots of choice, none of them used to the metro either. We wait on a wooden bench at the back of the platform, playing the innocent little kids. Fey's toying with her hair, nervous. You're always nervous right before, but you deal with it.

            A train approaching. I stand up.

            "Come on, this is our train." I say. They'll know what I mean. "Third carriage."

            Fey and Crowe go for it. I stop halfway across the platform, fake-searching my pockets for something, subtly deciding which route we'd take out, wondering if anyone is likely to try and stop us. We're alright this time though, no guards, no gendarmes, not even many people. The fog should make it hard for anybody to follow us.

            Before I know what's happening I hear screams and I recognise Fey's voice. Fey screaming. Something's gone wrong.

            Crowe comes sprinting out of the car in front of me.

            "Go." He yells, and I go, the near exit at the front of the platform.

            "What about Fey?"

            "She's coming, she went for the other door. Just go!"

            I pause as I reach the exit and turn back to find Fey. She's not there. I grab Crowe by the wrist to stop him.

            "Where's Fey?" I shout.

            He looks back wildly, and his face falls.

            "Some guy tried to grab her, I thought she got away, I thought . . . she's not . . ." Words seem to fail him.

            A tone sounds. The doors are closing.

            As one Crowe and I begin to run back towards the train, feet loud on the grey concrete of the platform. It's already pulling away though, the doors sealed. Crowe gets there first, practically running into it. I see his gloved fingers scrabble at the crack in between the door, clumsy in desperation. I join him, sprinting awkwardly sideways and suddenly, unbelievably the door hisses open. We leap aboard, three cars down from where we lost Fey.

Fey

            He's a business man I think. Expensive suit, expensive shoes and a bag that might be a computer. He's youngish looking and the hand that's locked round my arm has a ring on it, wedding ring.

            Nothing like this has ever happened before. I'm used to being scared but this is something else, like something's exploded inside of me, uncontrollable, animal, and I can't think and can't breathe. He saying something to me, not nastily, not angrily but I'm too scared to understand. Can't even move.

            He pulls a mobile out of his pocket - expensive looking like everything else about him - and I know with a horrible certainty he's calling the police. God, the police. Can't let myself be caught, can't let them get me.

            I go mad struggling against his grip, trying to pull away, but he's too strong and there's nothing I can do. One thing actually, and if I wasn't so scared I'd never even consider it, but I have to, have to get away.

            I bite him.

            He screams and lets me go and for a second I don't know what to do, then the hot-salt taste of his blood fills my mouth and I almost vomit. The world comes rushing back, and I know I'm trapped, the train speeding along below the city. Through my fear and disgust I focus on one thing. The connecting door.

            I run for it and people leap, screaming out of my way. I wrench it open and hot air blasts past me. Struggle through, and then another door. Pull it closed behind me and now I'm safe. Safer at least.

            Then I do vomit, puking out in one sick rush the businessman's blood, my own bile, my terror. I look up to see that half the carriage is gazing at me with expressions ranging from disgust to fear to sympathy.

            Dane, where's Dane?

            "Dane!" I yell thickly, spitting little drops of sick. "Crowe!"

           They're not here. Crowe must have run away and then the train left without them. I've never been on my own before, never been without Crowe or Dane.

            Nobody. Now I can hear shouts of pain and alarm coming from the carriage behind me. For a second I feel like puking again but I don't.  Can't spare any thought for that now, have to get away. No thought for his pain, his blood spilled, his fear . . . .all because of me. Me all on my own . . .

            All the years I've been doing this and this is the first time I ever, ever hurt anyone. God what a mess.

            Get away.

            I start running down the carriage and once again people draw back as though I might shock them. Through another heavy set of doors, hot air rushing past. New carriage, head down, running and suddenly - a moment of clarity in the confusion - I see Dane and Crowe, desperate, scared, forcing their way down the carriage towards me. The people part like the Red Sea and I'm there and we're hugging like we've been gone for a thousand years.

Crowe

            Fey looks sick. As we pull back from each other I notice there's blood around her mouth, but I don't say anything, not enough time for that. Not enough time for anything.

            "Fey, thank God." Dane sounds weaker than he's ever sounded before. I can sense everything around me falling apart, like the fibres of a cloth pulling away, unwinding.

            "We have to go." Says Fey. "I . . . I bit him."

            We look to Dane. Dane has always led us.

            "Let's go." He says, and we all run down the train. Nobody even tries to stop us. Through the connecting door, back the way we came. Fey is saying something, shouting to be heard as we run.

            "Dane . . . he was . . . he was calling the police."

            I can hear the blood pounding through my body. Feel my heartbeat as though my heart is about to burst from my chest. Passengers stare as we pass, but none of them make a move to stop us. Too scared, don't want to be involved.

            We cross through to another carriage, and I realise that the train is slowing.

            "Dane, we're stopping." I say to him, even I can hear the panic in my voice.       We stop running in the middle of the carriage, together away from everyone else. Unconsciously we all huddle in, join hands. I look to Dane, his face covered by a sheen of sweat, haggard and scared. Fey's face is still smeared with blood, her usually tanned skin pale as chalk.  

            "Alright." Says Dane and he's struggling to keep his voice calm. "When we stop the police might be waiting. We run." Then he pauses and goes on as though what he is about to say hurts him. "I think to give us the best chance we should split up . . ."

            "No!" Fey and I together. I know we should split up really, but right now I don't think I could deal without Dane.

            "Alright. Together."

            The train halts with a squeal of metal on metal and the doors hiss open. We're gone before anyone else, heading up the platform to a metal staircase down to the street. Fey on my left, Dane on my right, heads down, focussed.

            Before we get there I catch a flash of blue and a policeman appears on the top step. He catches sight of us and then of blood smeared Fey and draws his baton. Without even talking we turn, but the only other exit is right at the other end of the platform and as I watch another blue clad gendarme arrives there, out of breath.

            "The bridge!" Shouts Fey. It takes me a moment to realise what she means, then I see halfway up the platform a cast iron bridge that leads to the other side of the station.

The run there feels like it lasts forever. Surely we can't keep running like this, surely. We clatter up the iron steps, the noise of our feet muted by the train pulling screechingly out of the station below us. One spiral, two, then we reach the top and it's a straight run across the bridge. Halfway across Dane stops. So do me and Fey for there on the other side is a train guard, speaking casually into his lapel. We're trapped the gendarmes behind us, the guard in front.

            Dane falls to his knees and we go down to help him, but we can't, nobody can help him. Instead we turn our faces into each other, interlock arms, so there's just us and the outside world isn't there.

            Fey is crying, and I realise that I am too.

            "They'll split us up." Moans Fey, her voice cracked. "I bit him. They'll take me away."

            Dane doesn't have an answer to that.

            "I can't be without you guys. I can't. When I was there in the train on my own . . ."

            Dane is shaking. Actually shaking, I can feel him.

            "I love you, you know." He says, nearly in a whisper. "I love you both."

            Then I feel a hand on my shoulder and it's real and it's happening and suddenly the idea of being away from Dane and from Fey for even a second is impossible, because if that happens the dread inside me will get so large it'll kill me.

            I drive my elbow back and it hits a face. We stand as one and we only have a few seconds to do what we have to, but us three - you see - have always thought the same way.

            Another train is approaching below us. This one is our train.

            Wherever we go, we go together.