Jay’s feet rest on the seat across from him, as he lounges back, sliding down his own seat a bit. He takes a deep drag from his cigarette, both hands resting behind his head.

“Don’t think you’re allowed to smoke in here,” Ash says, herself leaning forward with her arms resting on her knees. Jay tossed the duffel bag next to him, a bit too carefree for her liking. Same old Jay, she thinks.

He speaks through the corner of his mouth, smoke escaping in small puffs with every word. “Relax, Ash. No one’s gonna bother us here. Nice touch with the private room.” He looks around, nodding and smiling in agreement with himself.

“Boss paid for it. She wanted us to have privacy.” Ash leans back, but can’t get even remotely comfortable. There’s a bomb resting right across from her, after all. A bomb she and Jay are to set up in the back of the train. This train, the very same one they’re currently riding on. Why would her aunt not have warned her, told her what this job was really about?

And what did Billy mean, when he said the Boss suspects one of them to be a rat?

“Jay?” He perks up, seemingly from being half asleep. The cigarette hangs half burnt from his lips, causing him to startle up and grab it before it burns his chin. Ash sighs. “What are we doing here, Jay?”

He wipes the cigarette ashes, which broke off when he sat up, from his clothes. Unsuccessful, at that, as just smears and grinds them into the fabric. “Shit.”

“Jay.”

“Yeah, what?” He looks up at her, annoyed.

Ash balls her hand into a fist, her teeth clenching, and grunts. “Can you just focus, Jay? Just once? Focus?”

“Why are you getting so emotional, man? We’ve got it good here, easy job, first class cabin, see? Can you”—his finger pointing at her with conviction—”just relax for once?”

She leans back, mostly to escape this finger so close to her face—the cabin isn’t that big, after all. “Do you really want to do this?” She nods at the bag. “Isn’t this a bit extreme? If I’d know I would sign up for this—”

“Then what, Ash?” Jay also leans back into his seat, turning his face to look out of the window. Snow-covered trees fill the view, only broken up by perfectly white fields, untouched by human steps or tracks. “You would have said ‘no’ to the Boss? Come on, I doubt that. No one says ‘no’ to her.”

“She sure has a way with people.” Ash thinks back to her conversation in the jail cell. It wasn’t even so much as a conversation; her Aunt talked, Ash listened. The Boss convinced her to follow her out of the cell, and to take on this job. Babysitting two of her men on a simple job meant to send a message. That’s all she said, that’s all Ash knew.

Jay, who seems to fixate on the serene winter landscape outside, nods. “Way I see it,” he says without turning away from the window. “We have a little over an hour before we hit the next station. Plenty of time to plant the bag in the back of the train. Once we are out of here, Bill will pick us up, and then it’s just a matter of pushing a button from a safe distance. Easy as pie.”

Something doesn’t feel right to Ash. About Jay, about this job, and about the things Billy was talking about. Why is Jay so calm about all of this, and so happy-go-lucky in general? Ash focuses on him intensely, like she could read his mind or something in his body language. But all she comes away with are old memories of a pot smoking nerd. Not a criminal or gangster—surely not an aspiring terrorist. None of this is how she remembers Jay. Nor does she remember Billy being so paranoid and borderline distraught. All she remembers of him in this moment, much to her own surprise, is the moment he left. That last kiss, that tight hug. How he looked back at her through the rear of the car as it drove away. Her heart lurches, a well of emotions forcing itself up her throat. Tears forming in her eyes.

Like he can feel something being wrong, Jay turns away from the window just in time to catch her wipe those tears away. “Hey, hey, it’s okay, Ash. I get that this is a lot. It’s for me, too, see?” He rummages around in his pocket, arching his back to get a better hold of whatever he’s looking for. From it, he pulls out a few paper napkins he took from the restaurant and hands them to her. “Here. I grab some whenever I can. Nose gets runny this time of year.” Ash looks at the napkins in his hand. “Don’t worry, they’re clean, see?” He reaches over to make it easier for her to take them.

“Thank you.” She dabs the rough, cheap paper against her eyes to dry them off.

“No sweat. And, er, sorry I called you emotional.” He clears his throat, as if he doesn’t usually apologize for saying something stupid. Then again, no one would have that much time on their hands.

Ash sniffs, trying to push down these feelings she all but forgot about. Suppressed, really. “I just don’t know if I can go through with this, Jay. There’s people on this train. I doubt they have anything to do with whoever she wants to screw over with this.”

Jay rests a hand on the duffel bag, tapping his fingers on the outside of it. “Yeah, that occurred to me, too. But she must have a good reason for this, no?”

“Maybe,” Ash says, really not knowing. Her aunt doesn’t talk about her motivations and ambitions often. She just delegates others to get the job done. Like a spider at her web of crime and gangsters. “Why are you doing this, Jay?”

He leans back, feet back up on the seat next to her. “It’s a job. Been working my way up the gang for a while. Boss treats me well enough, and when she selected me for this job, I was happy as pig in shit, see?”

“She told you about what she wanted, gave you the bomb.”

“Well, I had to pick it up, but yeah. She told me. Wanted Bill with me, as well. Far as I see it, this is a great opportunity for both of us. All three of us, really. Think about it.” He lights a new cigarette. “Why else would she choose us, if not to give us a chance to prove ourselves? After this, we’ll be legends in the gang. She’ll promote us, maybe even to someone working directly under her.” A big drag of his cigarette, the ashen tip lighting up in bright red. “We get to wear suits and fancy shoes. Drink only the finest stuff.” Once again, Jay’s tendency to day-dream takes the better of his focus.

Did the Boss know about their prior relationship? Maybe was aware of Jay and her being friends in the past, but Billy? He moved away years before she came to town. But he’s Jay’s friend, so it stands to reason that she believed all three of them knew each other from way back. Then why didn’t she mention any of this to Ash?

Billy showing back up after all of these years sure complicated things for her. Bringing up all sorts of unresolved emotions and ancient memories. And his plea in the parking lot earlier confused her even more. At first, it seemed to have fueled her ambition; his needing her to step away from this somehow confirming to her how important this job really is. And if her aunt is really suspecting Jay or herself to be a rat, not seeing this through would be bad, indeed.

And yet, she can’t help but doubt all of that now. Sure, she would like to move up, prove herself, make something of herself. But is this really it? A life of a gangster, which starts by blowing up a train? If this is her first true job, then what else will she be required to do in the future to keep up her aunt’s favor?

She got the sense that Billy doubts all of this, as well. He pushed back hard against Jay and this plan, and he wanted to tell her something when they were alone. So much she is sure of, feels it in her heart. That look in his eyes, the tremble in his voice. He knows something, doesn’t he? About this job, or the Boss. Ash has no way of confirming this, but something tells her that Billy wanted her to step away from this, to get out. Does he have a way to do that; does he want her to get out together with him?

The train rumbles rhythmical below her feet, just chugging away on the tracks. Only way forward for it; no complicated choices or dangerous aunts. It just keeps going, nice and steady on its tracks.

Suddenly, Jay gets up. He leans over the bag, opens it, taking a good look at its contents. At the bomb. “Well,” he says with determination, “it’s now or never. Time to get going.”

She hears herself saying these words before she can stop herself: “Jay, we can’t do this.”

He zips the bag closed and lifts it up as he turns to face her. “Not this again, Ash. We’ve been through this. This is our shot. Our only shot.”

Ash wants to protest, wants him to sit back down. Wants to tell him to just stay on the train, let it take them wherever it’s going. Go far away from here, never come back. Or get off the train with her at the next station, get into Billy’s car. The three of them can go to the cops. Tell them about the bomb. Inform them about everything they know in exchange for protection. Then she thinks of the sheriff back at the station. The reach her aunt must have. Just like that, Ash realizes that she has no idea how far she would need to run to be safe. So she stays quiet.

Jay, sensing something being off about her, sighs. He already opened the cabin door halfway, but then closes it again. “I know you have your doubts, Ash. So do I. Tell you what, I go set it up myself.” He sets the bag down for a moment, opens it once again, and takes something out of it. The remote detonator. He hands it to her.

Confused, Ash looks at it in his hand the same way she did when he handed her the napkin. “What are you doing?”

“You hold on to that. Think about it, okay? We’re both in this together, and we can see this through together. But I want you to know that I trust you. When I come back, we should be arriving at the station. We get out, get in the car, and you make the call,see? We do this together. Partners. This is our ticket out of the shit, and toward a better life next to the Boss. Your aunt will be proud of you.” He nods, confidence beaming in his eyes. “Here, take it.”

So she does.

His speech, his trust in her, it’s all very sweet. In a twisted sort of way, given the nature of what’s about to happen. But she is in control. The detonator in her hand, she can stop this, if she wanted to. Jay trusts her completely, she has no doubt in that. The success of this mission now rests, literally, in her palm. A heavy weight, a burden, but also an opportunity.

Jay grins at her, then pushes through the door of the cabin. The duffel bag in tow, he makes his way to the back of the train.

Her heart’s pounding. But her confidence is, strangely, soaring. While she has the detonator, she is in control. And for the first time since she woke up in that damn cell, she feels like it, too.