The gun points at his head. His friend’s eyes are white open—betrayal and rage welling up within them. Ash hands over the remote.

Why would you do this?

It all happens so fast, yet every heartbeat lingers, echoes with even the slightest movement. The train lurches, they all trip over. The world tips sideways in all the wrong angles. Bill knocks the pistol to the side—a shot rings out, a bullet ricochets into nothingness.

Jay’s down, the detonator next to him. Bill wants to dive for it, but someone pulls him back.

Ash. She holds him, steadies him, drags him to the door. “We have to go,” she says, pleas, cries.

One last look back to Jay lying on the floor, twisted, staggered. Rocking gently with the rumbling train.

Control is an illusion.

They run down the center, rushing between seats. In some of them, people sit, reading papers, playing on their phones, passing time. Most look up at Ash and Bill, curious, confused. Maybe they heard the shot, maybe they can tell those two strangers are on the run. None of it matters.

Someone steps out of a restroom, just in time for Bill to run into him.

“Hey,” the guy says. Bill tosses him aside and against the wall. “Asshole.”

Car after car, Ash and Bill move further into the back of the train. Further away from Jay, who is, no doubt, chasing them already. Maybe he knocked his head against the wall, dazed and stunned. But he will catch up. And all they can do is run further and further to the back.

Toward the bomb.

Reaching the realization like running into a wall, Bill stops.

Ash takes a few more steps, but nearly falls over as her arm extends fully. Their hands refuse to let go.

“What is it, Billy?”

“The bomb,” he replies, his voice half lost in some other place. “It’s in the back, right?”

She catches on now, thinking what he’s thinking. “Yes, and Jay say it’s armed.”

Sure, the Boss said it’s fake—or at least the arming mechanism is. But how can he trust anything she says? Best assume it’s live and ready to blow.

Bill moves close to Ash, or she moves close to him. The weight of the moving train makes them fall into each other. But Bill pushes past her, toward the next door, the car.

“Why did you give him the remote, Lee?”

This time, she doesn’t correct him. “Not sure if you noticed, but he had a gun pointed at you.”

A heavy sigh escapes him, then Ash makes him turn around.

“Is it true, what Jay said?” Concern in her voice, the question might just be genuine.

What could he possibly say to that? The truth is stuck in his throat like a big, heavy blob. A simple “yes” seems so incredibly complex and impossible. Not that he feels up to talking this out with his ex-girlfriend right this moment. They’re stuck between a bomb and a gun on a running train, after all.

“We have to find a way out of here,” Bill says.

“It’s a moving train, Billy. What would you have us do? Jump?”

“Yeah, I know. I know.” Bill checks the door to the front of the train. Jay could burst through at any moment.

Something vibrates in his pocket. “What the hell?” Ash looks at him with confusion. Of course! The phone. Her phone—the Boss’s. He took it from her before jumping into the train. He pulls it out, its vibration sending shivers down his entire body.

Blocked number.

“Billy?” But then Ash recognizes it. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Boss’s phone, yeah. Took it from her before, you know.” He declines the call.

“So it is true.” Something inside of Ash wins out over her (admittedly already thin) composure, and she hits Bill in the chest, pushing him back. Caught in the movement of the train, he staggers backwards more than expected. “Why didn’t you tell me? You let Jay and I get on this damn train with a damn bomb.” Her voice is anything but calm or quiet. No passengers this far back in the train, but still.

The phone vibrates again. Blocked number, of course.

Bill stares at it, before dismissing the call again.

“What is your plan here, Billy?” Ash steps back, leaning against the restroom door of this car.

“Kind of improvising at the moment, tell you the truth.”

“Great job you’re doing of it, too.” He doesn’t remember her being that sarcastic. Then again, it’s been ten years and two very different career paths since. Still, something of his Lee is still somewhere in the woman stuck in this train with him.

“Okay.” Nothing left to lose, right? “It’s all true. All of it. I can’t”—won’t—”get into details right now, but I was tasked with collecting evidence to bring down the Boss. But she found me out, fucked me over. Gloated over me and everything back at the platform.”

Ash says, “I knew there was a reason she wanted me for this job. Wanted me to keep an eye on you.”

Naturally, this is no surprise, but it still hurts him to hear these words. Like Ash is the one betraying him, somehow. “Yeah, she knew about our connection, that you would make me slip up or something. That I would still…”

He can’t say it. Neither can she, yet as their eyes meet, nothing needs to be said. For a moment, their two clueless teenagers on a train to nowhere. Like it everything makes sense, and is a confusing mess all the same.

The phone vibrates a third time.

Bill collects himself, breaks away from their shared spell. “I have an idea, but I need to know that you’re with me.”

“Alright, Billy,” she replies, torn from their past just the same by the vibrating phone. She nods at him, takes his other hand.

He nods at her, holding her hand in his, and answers the phone.

The other end is quiet, just some muffled sound of what he assumes is the back of a car. A black, expensive one. He turns the speak on, so Ash can listen in.

“I asked you not to disappoint me, Billy. And, while your stunt was reckless, you didn’t disappoint.” The Boss’s voice is calm, as it always is. No hint of emotion, of give-a-shit. Like this is all part of the plan, the cost of doing business.

Hell, maybe it is.

“Glad to be of service, Boss.” The words taste sour, spiteful.

“Too bad your journey ends now. You’re not worth the trouble anymore.” Matter-of-fact, cold.

“Way I see it, there are two options.” he says, checking in with Ash. Far as he can tell, she’s still with him. Her hand squeezes his tight, shared tension binding them together in this. “First, I take out my other phone, call my people, and tell them where to find this phone of yours on the train. Maybe you’ll get to it before they do, but I doubt you’d love that risk. I’ve watched you do all of your business on this thing, contacts, codes, message logs. Sure, you have encryption and security and probably a decent cyber-security awareness, but something’s gotta be on this, right?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, William. Anything implicating me, whatever little you think you’re holding in your hand, would also implicate your friends. Your Ashley.” Ash shutters, starts to shake. “Tell me, could you live that?”

“Maybe, but there’s also a chance Ashley would flip. Make a deal. Especially with the endorsement of the agent who’s bringing you down.”

This is it. This will make or break his plan. Her eyes fixed on his, wide open, questioning, searching. He moves her hand up to his chest, turning its palm toward him, and holds it to his heart.

Ash takes in a deep breath, her voice cracking. “Hey aunt. Billy is right. This must end. I can’t do this anymore.”

The Boss sighs. “Now I’m disappointed for an entirely different reason.”

“Let me tell you about the second option, then.” Bill takes the phone closer to himself. “You let us go. At the next stop, I will toss the phone out the window, into the snow. Then, Lee and I will stay on the train. You let us drive off, collect your precious phone, and we never speak again.”

Ash smiles a broken smile. Not entirely happy, but a smile nonetheless.

“And what of your career, William? Your job, your assignment?” At least it’s not an outright refusal.

He says, “I’ll cross that bridge when I burn it.”

“Jason?” the Boss asks.

His head turns to the door. He half expects it to burst open in just this moment, bullets flying his direction. He tenses for a moment, as it plays it before his mind’s eye.

Nothing. Yet. He pulls Ash toward him and guides her through the door leading further toward the back. Better stay moving—Jay will catch up sooner or later.

Bill says, “About that. He isn’t exactly happy right now, given the most recent developments. In fact, I need you to call him up and tell him to stand down. He’s still on your side, I think.”

“Then I can just have him deal with the two of you, can’t I?” A hint of desperation in her voice.

“If you can risk losing your phone, sure.”

The pause on the other end is excruciating. She’s weighing her options, playing through the odds in her mind.

Bill hits the MUTE button on the phone, then says to Ash, “Don’t think she likes ultimatums.”

They still move at a fast pace toward the cars, though their path is coming to an end soon enough.

Ash says, “Not a fan of losing control, that’s for sure. My aunt won’t go for it, you know?”

Bill stops them both.

She continues, “Letting us go, I mean. And even if she does, she’ll find us, wherever we go.”

“I don’t care. We have to take a chance, right? We’ll find a way to start over, somewhere, somehow. We just need to make it out of here, first.” This time, his words are steadfast. Certain. This can work. It has to.

And Ash agrees with not so many words. Instead, she kisses him.

For a brief moment, they are two teenagers on a train toward the future.

---