The three of them stare inside the trunk. Jay’s the only one that’s smiling; he looks from Bill to Ash and back again, excitedly awaiting a reaction to what he’s showing them.

Bill can’t focus his thoughts. This is going too far. It’s too dangerous. Too damn crazy.

It’s Ash who breaks the tension. “Yeah, that’s a bit much,” she says in a tone that tells Bill that she’s as much in disbelief as he is.

Inside that trunk is a bomb. It just sits there, inactive, quiet and harmless, yet just a press of a button away going off. Bill has some basic training in identifying bombs—most of it focused on realizing that something’s an explosive, and then getting the hell out of there to let the expert handle it. “The fuck are we going to do with that, Jay?”

“Boss wants us to carry it on a train, place it in the last car, and blow it up.” Jay says it all matter-of-fact, like it’s business as usual.

Bill looks at Ash, whose eyes are still fixed on the explosive in the trunk. “Did you know about this?” Ash doesn’t react, at first. “Ash?”

She snaps out of it. “Yeah?”

“Did you know about the bomb?” Bill can’t decide which answer would be worse. If she knew, that means she’s in too deep. If she doesn’t, the Boss is playing a very dangerous game, very close to her vest.

Ash hesitates before looking around the parking lot. “Shit.” She slams the trunk close, causing Bill to startle, tense up.

“Easy, Ash. It’s a fucking—”

“I know what it is, Billy.” It’s at that moment she seems to realize that she just slammed the trunk shut with a damn explosive device inside of it, as she’s taking a few, sudden steps back. “She only wanted me here to make sure you guys are doing the job right. She made me buy train tickets, and told me to make sure you’re on schedule. That’s it.”

Of course she’s hiding something. Bill has a strong suspicion that there’s more to it than that.

Jay cuts in, saying, “It’s not a big deal, man. The last few cars belong to a rival in the big city, and the Boss wants to send them a message.”

“Not a big deal?” Bill steps up to Jay, coming face to face. “It’s terrorism, Jay.”

Jay puts up his hands in defense and backs off a bit. “Whoa, easy. It’s the job she sent us on. No turning back now.”

Bill grunts in frustration, kicks a pile of snow in front of him. “Fuck.”

The trio stands there for a while longer. How could the Boss want them to do this? Is this part of the test? A job so crazy, if there was a rat among them, they would not be able to see it through? Shit, how can Bill let this even happen? It’s one thing to commit small crimes to keep up his cover. But this? If he puts a stop to this before it goes too far, the Boss will know. Ash will tell her.

Ash is part of this. Bill’s stomach turns at the thought of this. He turns to her. “You okay with this?”

Ash shrugs. “Yeah, I mean, no. Shit, I don’t know. What choice do we have at this point?” Bill gets the sense that she’s not here by her own choosing—at least not fully.

“Looks like you have reservations, you two. I’ll go take a piss. Maybe you should talk this over, okay?” Jay pads them both on their shoulders, nods, and then turns to walk back into the restaurant.

Once he’s gone, Bill turns to Ash. It’s been a while since he last saw her, but he would never have thought that she’d get involved with this life. Since the day he left—when his parents just decided one day to leave town and move to the city—he thought back to Ash, back to the life they shared. This town was his home. Ash, at least in his mind—his heart—represents everything he wished he could return to. Return home to her, pick up their life where they left off.

In truth, though, when he was assigned to go under cover in his old hometown, he didn’t expect to find her here. Expected her to have moved on, moved away. Yet, he never looked her up since returning. Maybe he was afraid to find her again. Reunite with the first girl he ever loved. Still loves, as he now realizes. It would compromise his assignment. Compromise him.

Now she’s here, right in front of him. And just like that, the dream of a return to a home he was forced to leave just shatters. It all looks and smells and feels the same—the old fast food joint, the same streets, many of the same houses, even his best friend and the love of his life, it’s all still here. Like it never changed. But the facade is cracking. This is not his home anymore. It’s a trap.

Bill says to her, “What are you doing here, really? How did you get involved with all of this, anyway?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Billy.” She crosses her arms before her chest. Blocking him out.

“We have to talk about it. You know we can’t do this, right? Blow up a damn train? Come on, Ash. You must know how insane this is. Why would she want us to do this?” He hates himself for getting upset at Ash, hates the sound of his voice as these words escape him. How they focus his anger on her.

“I don’t know, Billy.” She narrows her eyes, purses her lips. She’s confused, too, but determined to see this through. It’s written all over her, the desperation-driven ambition. “But she trusts me to keep you guys on track. I intend to do that.”

“But—”

“No but, Billy!” Ash throws her hands up in frustration, turns, and walks away for a few steps. When she stops, she doesn’t turn around to say, “What do you think was going to happen here? You come back home and we pick up where we left off, like nothing’s changed in the last ten years?”

Bill walks up behind her, wanting to put his hand on her shoulder. Wanting to hold her like he used to. But he doesn’t. “No, I know it’s not that simple. Been a long time, Lee.” He closes his eyes tight, frustrated. “Ash, sorry. I just didn’t think that, if we would ever run into each other again, it would be like this.” Truth is, he did think about finding her a lot in the last decade. Get her number, her address, anything, and reconnect. Maybe even rekindle what they once had.

She turns around, gets startled at how close he is to her. But she doesn’t pull away. “Too much has changed, Billy. After you left…” She pauses, thinking. So much unsaid hides behind her eyes, yet Bill understands that she’s not ready—or willing—to talk about it. Not yet. Maybe never. “I’m not the same person anymore, Billy. Neither are you.”

You have no idea, Lee. If only I could tell you the truth of what’s about to happen. Of the danger you are in.

Bill takes a deep breath. He needs to talk her out of this. He just has to. If anything goes wrong—anything at all—Ash will get hurt. Best case, they get caught. Worst case, the bomb will blow them up, too. Not to speak of the Boss, her own suspicion. Maybe the Boss is losing it, too. Losing control. Maybe she’s just as desperate as they are right now. Either that, or this is the sickest power play.

That’s when Bill decides to make his one big move. He has one card to play, and he sees no other way. He meets her eyes with his. “Ash,” he says, his tone serious, his voice lowered. “She thinks one of us is a rat. She wants me to check whether you or Jay are not loyal to her.”

There it is. It’s out. The truth, or at least a good part of it. Maybe Ash will come to her senses after finding out that her Boss does not trust her.

Yet, Ash doesn’t bite. She finally steps away from him. The sudden distance feels nearly infinite, impossible to bridge. His heart sinks to his stomach. “Why would she trust you with something like that?”

Bill sighs. “I don’t know. Maybe she just likes me. I don’t think either of you are a rat, of course. But she believes that someone is working against her. And now she wants us to carry a bomb onto a passenger train. Something’s not adding up here, Ash. Please, I need you to listen to me.” I am an undercover cop, I am the rat. We can use this bomb as evidence, we can take her down. Together, Ash—Lee—we can get out of this. Get away, start over.

If only he had the balls to be honest to her right now. But something tells her that she wouldn’t take it the right way. He can’t blow his own cover. Not right now, not right here. She does not trust him. The Ashley he grew up with, fell in love with, dreamed up futures with, she’s not the woman standing before him now. It’s been ten years. She’s a criminal, the niece of the very crime boss Bill is tasked to take down. Everything he thinks to know about her, everything he feels about her, has been left behind in their past.

Jay comes back right about then. This conversation will remain unresolved. Maybe forever.

“So?” Jay’s smile returned.

Bill is about to answer, but he can’t find the words. Can’t decide on a direction. Instead, Ash says, “What’s the plan, Jay?” She throws a side glance at Bill, impossible for him to read.

Then Jay lays out the score. Him and Ash will board the train with the bomb in a duffel bag. They’ll stash it away in the last car, arm it, and leave the train at the next station.

“What about me?” Bill asks, trying his best to hide his mounting anxiety.

“You drive my car to the station, wait for us. We get off, you pick us up.” Jay goes over to the trunk of the car, opens it back up, and takes from it a small device. It has an antenna, a key in a keyhole, and a button under a safety cap. “Once the train leaves the station, we follow it for a while until it’s clear of the town. Then we blow it up.” The way he says it, the causality in his words, yet with a hit if excitement in his eyes, Bill wants to throw up

He wants to scream at him. Tell him to get his head out of his ass and see what he’s about to do. How stupid and dangerous this all is. But he just confessed to Ash that the Boss suspects a rat. He hoped it would break her from her spell, but it only seemed to have hardened her resolve. If Bill makes a scene now, if he interferes, Ash might just turn her own suspicion toward him. Giving her the same idea that he’s having—that the boss is testing him. And why wouldn’t it be that way? This job is so out of control, how could Bill not pull out all the stops to prevent it? Drop his cover to prevent disaster.

Instead, Bill is mentally, emotionally paralyzed. He feels stuck in a dark corner of his mind, watching him just going through the motions, as Jay drives to the train station, as he lets him and Ash board the train with a bomb in a bag. He can’t stop them. Can’t shake himself awake. It’s all just a bad dream. A nightmare.

Bill should never have come back to his old home.

Fuck.

He needs to do something. The train whistles loudly as it starts to move. He rushes back to the car and starts driving. He can still stop this. They won’t blow it up until after he collects them at the next station. Spinning his tires on ice and snow, he pulls out of the station parking lot. It won’t make a difference, but he wants to reach the next stop before the train does. Getting ahead of the train is, at least, a small measure of control. Something he desperately needs right now to stay sane.

The car is crashing down the road, skidding on ice and getting pulled into snowbanks constantly. It takes Bill all he’s got to keep the steering wheel under control with one hand, while fumbling with his phone’s SIM card slot. He has to switch it out with the one he’s been given by his handler. His superior at the force, running the undercover operation from their end. They need to know what Jay is up to. About the bomb and the train.

His eyes are barely on the road now, as he’s trying to insert the new SIM into that goddamn phone. Then the car hits a dirt-black piece of ice that fell off someone’s vehicle before him. The car pulls right, hard, and Bill drops the phone between the seats. The wheel in his hand pulls against his grip and he must use both hands to keep the car from turning too far into the side of the road.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he tries to finger the phone from between the center console and his seat, leaning over too much to make room for his hand. For just a split moment, he forgets about the road all together.

The car spins out, turns around itself until it slides backwards down the road. Bill grunts and yells, feeling the phone at his fingertips, unable to grab it.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” He gives up getting the phone, and finally gets the car back into some semblance of control, moments before it crashes sideways into a power pole.

In an instant, the world goes silent. As if it’s taking a deep breath together with Bill. Everything’s coming back into focus, finally.

Close one.

He puts the car in park, leans back, and rubs his forehead.

Just take a beat, Bill. Ash and Jay are on that train right now, setting up the bomb. You have to call it in, to prevent this from happening.

Now that he’s calming down, and without needing to worry about keeping the car on the road, he manages to get a hold of the phone. The SIM now replaced, he turns it on, goes to his contacts and finds the codename for his handler.

His thumb hovers over the button to call them up.

If he does, Ash and Jay are done for. There is still time for a taskforce to intercept the train, disarm the bomb. But he won’t have a choice but to give up his friends. Jay holds the detonator. Bill will have to tell his handler about that.

What’s it going to be, Bill? Get back on the road and pick up your friends, or call it in and put an end to this shit show?

In the far distance, he hears a train whistle. Right in front of him, he is one button press away from making the call.

Control is an illusion, man.