Chapter 2
TWO
For a second, when she opened her eyes, Selah was back under a tamarind tree in Nigeria, sweaty, hungry, hurt…
Her skull throbbed as consciousness crept back.
No, not Nigeria.
Washington State, and oh wow, talk about trouble following her.
Selah opened her eyes to darkness broken by shafts of sunlight piercing through shattered windows.
Smoke drifted through the air, stinging her throat.
Her body lay twisted against what used to be one of the train car’s oversized windows, now the floor.
Screams filtered in from somewhere—high-pitched, terrified. A child. More voices joined in, a cacophony of pain and fear echoing through the wreckage.
She pushed herself up, groaned as she pressed a hand to her head. Heat on her forehead, and her hand cooled it. But otherwise, she seemed intact. She sat up and glass fell off her shirt.
“Hello?” Her voice rose, feeble in the chaos.
Her phone. She searched the wan light for it but didn’t see it. Chloe! Oh, she’d be…Selah closed her eyes. God, please get me out of here.
“Selah!” The voice cut through the chaos. “Selah?”
She searched for the owner as she moved to her hands and knees, glass crunching beneath her.
James. The businessman from the dining car. He appeared in the twisted doorway, blood trickling from a cut above his eyebrow.
“Here—I’m here!”
His gaze landed on her, and a full breath rocked through her. Found. Not alone. “Are you okay?”
“I think so,” he said, now crawling toward her. “Can you move?”
She did a quick body check. Everything worked, though her shoulder screamed in protest. “Yeah.”
He reached her. “I smell smoke. I think the train’s on fire. We need to get out. Now.” He extended his hand.
She took it, and his grip turned solid and warm in hers.
He made to help her back toward the dining car when she spotted her phone a few feet away, screen a web of cracked glass.
She snatched it up, shoved it into her cargo pants’ pocket.
The acrid scent of burning plastic filled her nose as James helped her navigate through the wreckage.
The dining car had split open, half of the car attached to the train, the other half ripped away. James guided her around a fallen table, past spilled coffee and broken dishes. “Watch your head,” he said, helping her duck under a twisted metal beam.
They tumbled out through the sheared-off section.
Outside, the morning sun illuminated a scene from her worst nightmares. Train cars scattered across the tracks like discarded toys, a few on their sides, others completely overturned. Smoke rose somewhere up ahead.
The river flowed some hundred yards away, and on the other side, the highway.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.” James stood beside her, breathing hard, looking back toward the end of the train. Just a few cars down, it looked like the last cars had managed to stay on the track. “How far are we from Wenatchee?”
“Wenatchee?” Oh, right, the previous stop. “I don’t know.”
He was nodding, his hand against his wound, blood seeping around his fingers.
She spotted the waiter from earlier. He sat on the ground, dazed, bloody, and…Oh no. That’s when she spotted the protrusion he held—from his gut. What looked like a piece of metal sheared from the door.
Scrambling up, she limped over to him. “Don’t pull it out.”
He winced. “I—”
“You’ll bleed out. Stay put. We’ll get help.” She shot a glance at James, but he’d gone to—oh no.
The kid with the Disney shirt. He sat with his mother, who cradled her arm, face white with pain. The little girl hugged her knees, tears cutting tracks through the dirt on her face. But it was the little boy who drew Selah’s attention—he clutched his wrist, crying.
His dad lay unmoving not far away.
“I’ll be back.” Selah left the waiter and moved toward the family, toward James, who was already trying to assess the boy’s injury.
His wrist had snapped two inches above his joint, the arm twisted slightly. The little boy held on to his arm, gulping back shock.
James had taken hold of the boy’s arm, his other hand behind the boy’s back. “We need a splint or something.”
Selah knelt beside the boy. “Hi there. I’m Selah. What’s your name?”
“T-Tommy,” he hiccupped.
“Tommy, it’s going to be okay.” She glanced at James. “I have a first aid kit in my backpack—” She made to get up.
“I’ll get it.” He glanced at her, and she put her hand on the boy’s arm. “I’ll be right back.” He took off toward the wreckage of the dining car.
She glanced at the mother. “You okay?”
“I think I broke my collarbone, but…” Her gaze went to her husband. “He was fine and then he just fell over.”
Which meant not fine. Selah moved over to the man. He still had a pulse. She glanced at the woman. “I’m sure help is on the way.” Selah kept her voice steady, gentle. The train ran parallel to the road in some areas—certainly some passersby would stop.
And it simply wasn’t the time, thank you, for North’s voice to slide into her brain with Don’t expect me to show up next time you—
Fine, fine. She knew that. Sheesh.
James appeared from the dining car, her pack in hand, and slid down the bank.
A burst of gunfire cracked through the air—distant but clear.
Selah whipped around, body tensing. “What was that?”
“Probably just something exploding in the wreck,” James said, but something flickered in his gaze.
Fear? Yeah, well, she was scared too. “Hand me the pack.”
He took Tommy’s wrist and she opened her pack, pulled out a first aid kit. Opened it up. The kit came with a portable splint, and now she unrolled it.
“You travel with a splint?” This from James.
“You’d be surprised what’s in that pack.” She glanced at him. “Have to be ready for anything. Hold him steady.”
She didn’t try to adjust his arm, just set it against the aluminum splint and used medical tape to secure it. Then she pulled out an instant cold pack. The snap and shake of the chemical activation drew the boy’s attention. “See? Magic ice.”
Tommy’s tears slowed as she worked.
She glanced at the boy’s dad but got up and went to the mother for a quick look. Yes, the knotted collarbone definitely looked broken. “Can you put her arm in a sling?” She directed the question to James, whose cut had stopped bleeding, although he probably needed stitches.
She moved to check on the dad, who lay on his side. She stepped over him. He didn’t seem injured…
Wait.
His eyes were open. “I can’t…breathe.” The words struggled out.
Oh no.
More gunfire, closer now.
“I’ll get help.” She returned to James, who was finishing up with the mom.
The little girl next to her seemed scraped up but wasn’t bleeding.
Selah pointed to the man. “We need to get him to a hospital, right now. I think he might have internal bleeding or a collapsed lung. I don’t know—but he can’t breathe. ”
“Grant?” The woman started toward him.
Selah put a hand to her mouth, not sure—
James touched her shoulder. “I’ll get help. Stay with them.”
“But we’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“Trust me. I promise I’ll be back.” He got up, running again toward the space between the dining cars. Maybe the road lay on the other side.
Selah pulled out her phone, but the shattered screen remained dark. Dead.
The little girl had gone to sit by her mother, who knelt by Grant, sobbing.
Selah headed back to the waiter. He lay on the ground, clearly in pain. Blood trickled from a cut on his forehead. She spotted a few other patrons from the dining car, a number of them not moving.
“What’s your name?”
“David,” the man said.
“I’m Selah Silver.” She found a napkin nearby and pressed it to his head.
He was mumbling. “See America, she said. It’ll be fun, she said.”
“Who’s she?”
He glanced over at her. “My mom. I wanted to get a job mowing lawns.”
“You’re going to see Mom again, I promise. You can mow her lawn.”
He managed a slight smile.
She got back up and headed over to Grant and his family. Crouched by the woman.
“He’s still breathing,” the woman said quietly and met Selah’s eyes.
Please, James, hurry up. “What’s your name?”
“Sarah Hendrickson. And this is Amy.” She glanced to her son, who’d joined them. “And Tommy.”
“We met.”
“We’re on the way to visit Grant’s parents. They were supposed to meet us at the Leavenworth station.”
Another burst of gunfire. Closer. Sarah pulled Amy tighter against her good side.
“I’m going to check the road,” Selah said. “Stay here.”
She climbed up the embankment, legs shaking. At the top, she spotted—what on earth? An old blue pickup truck bounced along the gravel road that paralleled the track, heading toward her from the front of the train. James stuck his arm out the window, waving. He pulled up beside her.
“The track’s blocked ahead,” he said. “But I think if we follow this, we’ll track back to that little town we passed. My guess is they have an Urgent Care.”
“Hopefully more than that, but okay. How did you—”
“Local farmer let me borrow his truck.” He glanced over his shoulder. “We need to move. Now.”
Something in his tone—urgent but controlled—sent a chill down her spine. “The shooting—”
“Trust me, Selah. Please.”
She studied his face—the steady eyes, the set of his jaw.
“Okay.” She turned and headed back to the family. “We’ve got a ride.”
James came with her, stood over Grant. “Okay, so…”
“I can help.” David had hobbled over. “I’ll take a leg.” He held the metal in place even as he grabbed Grant around the ankle.
Selah took the other ankle, and they struggled up the hill, finally putting him into the back of the pickup.
Grant wore panic in his eyes. Selah climbed in beside him, and Tommy sat next to her. She put her arm around him as James got into the front with Sarah and Amy.
David climbed into the back. “This is going to hurt.” He made a face.
She banged on the cab and James took off, leaving behind the chaos and fire and smoke and…
Behind them, as they cleared the train, an explosion shook the sky. She screamed, ducked her head, and put her arm around Tommy.