Chapter 11

Chapter

Eleven

I'm growing increasingly nervous. The countless rails in the freight depot glisten in the red sunset and disappear into nowhere as uncertain as our entire undertaking.

Bren and I have been sitting in our hideout surrounded by green shrubs since we arrived late in the afternoon. Climbing onto a boxcar unseen by security personnel is harder than one would imagine. Security checks every single car before departure, especially for stowaways. A young man with a backpack was caught and taken away this afternoon.

For that reason, we'll have to jump on a moving train, preferably in the dark, so we won't get discovered.

I'm getting sick just thinking about it. I've read horror stories about it in the newspapers over the last few years. Riders who had their legs severed because they fell under the wheels or those who were surprised by a tunnel and crushed. Most of all, I'm afraid Grey won't be persuaded to jump onto a car.

I pet him soothingly, but Grey is relaxed. Once again, I'm the one nervously grasping his fur.

Tensely, I glance at Bren who is staring across the tracks with his brows furrowed in concentration, looking damn good despite today's sweaty march. I certainly look like an escaped scarecrow myself. My hair is stringy and my shorts and white T-shirt are clinging to my body. Bren doesn't appear tired or unkempt at all. I sigh loudly. Nobody should be allowed to be so beautiful with impunity.

Bren catches me looking at him. "Are you secretly watching me?"

"I'm obviously watching you!"

"And what are you thinking?"

"That I love you and that you are unearthly beautiful."

Bren gives me a reproachful look. "Don't you think we have other concerns?"

"It's a way of distracting myself, sorry, not sorry."

He nods absently and then points to the rails, whose red-orange glow is gradually fading into the twilight. "With the long trains, it's hard to tell where they begin and end. There's no way we can travel to Squamish, that's where they'll most likely be searching for us. Better would be Winnipeg, Quebec, or somewhere else. Definitely further east."

We have no idea of the trains' destinations, only their direction can help us make the right decision.

Bren watches a departing freight train with his signature X-ray vision. "You can't jump on every car," he says, pushing aside a twig. "Some don't have ladders to pull ourselves up or they don't have enough space."

"I know. Above all, I don't want to get on a chemical train, you never really know if it might explode while you're riding it. Bang!"

Bren laughs briefly. "That won't happen. One like that would be good"—he points to several cars rolling past with red containers—"it has room at the front and back, offering us plenty of space."

"It's going to be hard to run alongside a train in the dark, find a good car, and watch for security at the same time…and not lose a leg jumping." Even this morning, I would have never dreamed of what would be in store for us. I imagined it would be relatively simple: we take our time to look for a comfortable ride and head east. Then again, I'm so naive, I usually imagine things to be simpler than they are. Like this summer for example.

"You won't lose a leg." Bren gives me a stern look. "You can still change your mind. If it's too risky for you, we'll figure out something else."

"Sure, better we hitchhike," I say mockingly. "The good Samaritan will drive us straight to the nearest police station."

"We could continue to fight our way through the wilderness."

"Which they'll suspect we do."

"I only meant if you're too scared."

I tilt my head and look at him. "No more than when you're angry. Well, at least I can't lose any limbs then."

Bren jokingly grabs my neck and pulls me toward him before kissing me tenderly. I taste the heat of the day as salt on his lips, feel his cool fingers on my neck, and wrap my arms around him, pulling him to me. I would love to go back to Seattle to the suite with the huge picture window and stop time. Loving him and talking about our dreams like there's no tomorrow.

Stop dreaming and wake up! I hear Ethan's admonishing voice again. A life based on dreams is as unsteady as a house built on quicksand.

Oh, Ethan…the thought of him splits me in two. It's much easier to be angry than accept my disappointment. I thought maybe his love for me would spare Bren, but either he doesn't love me enough or he hates Bren too much.

I carefully detach myself from Bren, who immediately goes back to concentrating on the plan by watching the trains.

I don't know what will happen next, when and under what circumstances I will see my brothers again. I have no doubt I will see them again one day, but I cannot estimate how much time will have passed. A year or ten? Will Bren and I be safe then? Where will we be living? Will we ever be safe again? Can I endure such a life or is it naive to believe we will permanently elude the police?

Will I ever face Jay, Liam, Avy, and Ethan in court?

"Hey, Lou, are you listening to me?" Bren's voice snaps me out of my thoughts and I put my hands on my throbbing temples for a moment, overwhelmed by the thousand questions.

"Sorry!" I must look guilty. "I was thinking of my brothers."

"I thought so."

Sure, I haven't talked about anything else all morning and Bren, in his inimitable way, put up with my rantings.

Now he points to a moving train that looks to be overflowing with goods. "I wanted to show you this kind of car. See the ones with the green containers?"

"Yes." I spot the simple flat car shaped like a plank, the green container sticking out over the sides.

"Regardless of what we do or what happens, we must never jump on those with the green containers."

"But the containers have a ladder on the side."

"It's an emergency ladder. The car itself has none. And you can't get to the container roof from the emergency ladder nor do you have any other way of getting off. That means, you're stuck for hours and might run out of luck when a tunnel comes and…well…" He just looks at me and that's enough to picture the rest vividly.

At night, the freight yard is spooky. Everything appears more intense as if the gloom was compressing the impressions. I took the strongest painkiller Bren had and doubled it so I can run later.

Bren and I walk to the train tracks with our backpacks. We are now dressed all in black so as not to be spotted by security and move outside the large spotlights in the dark. I feel like a criminal. And it is a criminal act. Bren says train hopping is trespassing because the Canadian Pacific Railway is partially government-owned and also transports government goods. Oil and coal.

"Watch out for shunting trains," Bren says under his breath. The brakes of an approaching train squeal in the distance, an eerie specter like in a chamber of horrors.

I merely nod. My heart is beating twice as fast as usual. I still can't believe what we're about to do. This is insane, life-threatening. The station is huge. There must be more than thirty platforms and the chance of being run over is high. Red lights from passing locomotives flash like emergency signals through the night, cars are pushed back and forth repeatedly without any discernible purpose. Abandoned railroad cars stand on side tracks, sometimes a chain of cars. It is difficult to estimate which train is ready and will soon depart or which has already been checked. I have absolutely no idea what's going on.

I look around breathlessly and realize Grey has stopped and is drinking water from an old plastic container.

Bren walks ahead toward a train a few tracks further that appears to be assembled and ready to go.

"Grey, come on," I call out under my breath. He comes running and I continue on when Bren yells, "Watch out, Lou!"

I stop instinctively, and at that moment, a couple of unlit cars silently roll by on the track right in front of me as if being pushed by a ghostly hand. I let out a gasp and run back to a parked boxcar, taking cover behind it with Grey. The engine passes, but it's incredibly quiet and its lights are off.

Bren runs back and takes my hand tightly in his. "I told you to watch out for shunting trains," he scolds, shaking his head.

Together, we hurry toward the freight train with no idea where the front or back is because it stretches on forever. Today, I counted trains with over three hundred cars, some of which took minutes to pass.

"The security personnel have already finished," Bren says. "The last guard just left." The brakes hiss and Bren and I look at each other as the train begins to move.

I'm about to run when Bren stops me. "Wrong direction!" He grabs my hand again, but as the train passes, we suddenly notice the red and blue flashing lights at the edge of the station.

Police!

I feel like I'm having a heart attack. I can't see how many police cars there are, but there are definitely several.

My heart pounds in my ears. Did someone spot us and report us?

Bren curses and glances around frantically. "Over there!" He points to a train that's moving. It may be simply passing through since it moves by the train station at a slower pace without stopping.

We automatically start running, it's only a few tracks away. I see Grey out of the corner of my eye as we run parallel to the train in the same direction. Gravel crunches under my hiking boots. Adrenaline pumps through my veins, flushing the remaining pain out of my ankle. I want to turn to look for the police, but I suppress the instinct and chase after Bren.

"If a suitable car moves by, jump on it!" Bren calls out to me.

"No, you first!" I gasp. "You're who they want." He just needs to be safe. Nothing else matters.

Tanker and container cars with chemicals pass by. All unfit.

Bren falls back a bit. "Back there… I see suitable cars…" A few seconds later, the first of them rolls by. "Go on," he blurts out at me. "Jump already! No debating!"

The red-blue lights from the police cars break against the freight train, reminding me of Travel America. Bren has to jump up first, not me!

"Come on, Lou!" he yells when I hesitate.

Though I don't want to jump until he's safe, we don't have time to argue. "Sky and wind," I call to him.

"What?" he calls back blankly. The train is gaining speed.

"Sky and wind. I do not hear you!"

"Lou! You're crazy!" Bren screams, running after me. Another container car drives by without one of us jumping up. Hot air swirls around our legs, sucking us toward the wheels. Bren gives me a look as he runs, face grim and somber, but when the next car comes, he grabs the ladder and pulls himself up.

He deftly climbs into the hollow between the loaded containers, and the edge of the car and without calling Grey, the wolf makes a giant leap and lands in the space next to Bren.

"Now it's your turn!" Bren calls to me, but the train is speeding up by the second. I can't keep up, it's impossible to reach the ladder. Shock and horror paint Bren's face. He jumps onto the grating above the buffer connection and stretches out his hand to me, but I can't grab it, he's too far away.

My lungs burn from the exertion. "I can't make it." I hear police sirens in the distance and suddenly I'm sure they're here because of us. If they get me, they'll soon know where Bren is. Then he must go into a hole with no sky and light where he will perish like an animal.

The next car glides by loaded with a green container and an emergency ladder, one I'm absolutely not allowed to jump onto, but I have no choice.

I grab the rungs.

"No, Lou!" I hear Bren yell, though I've lost sight of him.

I grab the rung with one hand, keep running, stumble, and just manage to grab it with the other hand. My feet drag across the ground, the heavy backpack pulling me down.

Bren yells something I don't understand. Maybe: Let go! How am I supposed to let go when there are police everywhere?

I'm trying desperately to get my feet onto the bottom rung, but my center of gravity is too low and I don't have the strength to pull myself up farther without bracing my feet somewhere. Finally, I bend my legs so they aren't dragging across the ground. The train accelerates. If I let go now, the wind will suck me under the wheels. Panic rises in me, gripping my throat.

Again and again, I try to get up by doing a pull-up, but my wrists are too weak. "Bren!" My tendons burn like fire. I can't hold on any longer.

As my fingers almost open on their own accord, someone above me grabs the rungs and grasps me around the waist, pulling me up so my feet rest on the bottom rung of the ladder.

"Bren!" I gasp with immense relief when he places his other leg on the ladder and pushes me against the container with his body. He now stands behind me like a protective shield, encircling me like a security cage with only the backpack separating us.

"You're going to get us killed, Lou," he gasps above me. He sounds angry, but I don't blame him.

"Sorry," I gasp over the rattling of the wheels, leaning my cheek against his hand as he clutches the rungs in front of my face. My cheek feels wet, but not from tears, even though I feel like crying. "You're bleeding!" I say, startled. I want to inspect the wound, but it's impossible to move because I can't go forward or backward.

Bren growls impatiently. "It's only a scratch. I had to jump off and landed clumsily." He lets go of his hand, wipes it on his pants, then grips the rung again. "The next time I say something during a dangerous situation, just do it! We're lucky Grey didn't jump after me or we'd have lost him." At that moment, we hear him bark and Bren answers with a deceptively real wolf howl.

If I weren't so scared, I would laugh. My legs are still shaking. "I wanted you to be safe."

"And I wanted you to jump first because I run faster. I wanted you to be safe!"

I snuggle my face against his forearm, exhausted. "Bren."

"Lou?"

"I hope we don't kill each other one day, trying to protect the other. Is it possible to love each other too much?"

Bren rests his forehead on the top of my head, breathing into my hair. "There is no such thing as too much love. Not with us."

The lights of Vancouver pass by, but we only glimpse them because we're facing the container. At one point we enter a tunnel, but it is wide with several tracks and flickering neon lights on the concrete ceiling.

Shortly after we're out of town, Bren awkwardly pulls my backpack off.

"We have to toss it," he says behind me. "If there's a tunnel in the mountains, we must occupy as little space as possible."

I want to protest but swallow my words. According to Bren, there are mountain tunnels in Canada that are so narrow you can hardly fit a piece of paper between the train and the rock face on either side. "Do you know the contents by heart?" I ask bravely. After all, our predicament is my fault. Still, I hope it doesn't hold our sleeping bags or anything necessary for survival. Or my favorite clothes that Bren packed at the last second to make me happy.

"I'm afraid it's medicine and some of our clothes. A sleeping bag. I had divided them up."

Panic wells up in me. Losing the meds is bad. And in the next moment, Bren lets go of the backpack, the loud rattling drowning out the sound of it hitting the ground.

Will anyone find it and put two and two together? Bren wouldn't have done it if it wasn't absolutely necessary. I don't even know if my cell phone was in it. Or I might have put it in Bren's backpack this morning. We charged both cell phones with the solar power bank in case there is an emergency. I hope it's with Grey in Bren's luggage. All my photos are on the phone, photos of Jay, Liam, and Avy, and of course Ethan. A lump forms in my throat at the thought of the images. If I don't get to see my brothers for a long time, I must at least be able to look at them.

Tired, I close my eyes. Well, it was my fault. Everything. Why didn't I just do what was asked of me?

For a while, Bren and I stand back to front as the train rushes through the night. The wind is loud and tears at my hair, making every word difficult. Eventually, my hands grow numb and my legs burn from the day's exertion of standing motionlessly on the ladder. Bren hooks his arms with his elbows on the rung, pushing me even closer to the car. His fingers are probably as numb as mine. I don't know how long you can stand on a ladder like that without running out of strength. I probably would have fallen off by now, but Bren is Bren. He rappelled down ravines and hiked twenty-five miles a day with me on his back. He's never lost a fight—he'll definitely last several hours.

Nevertheless, I have a guilty conscience. His body also shields me from the night chill and headwind while he's at its mercy. And all this time, I'm trying so hard not to think about what he said about this type of car. About the tunnels. We can't let go because the night is pitch black and we can't see what's coming, it could be an abyss, a bridge, rocks, or water. I have no idea where we would end up and the train is going much too fast.

I don't know how much time passes. My ankle is throbbing despite the painkiller, but other than that, I can no longer feel my feet. Earlier, Bren even considered climbing on top of the container, but that's next to impossible; besides, we have no idea when a tunnel might appear and if there is enough space between the top of the train and the ceiling. My eyes are now constantly closed and Bren keeps waking me up because my feet are in danger of slipping off the rungs.

"Hey, Lou, don't fall asleep," he warns me for the umpteenth time. "Tell me something to keep you awake."

My stomach is growling, and oddly enough, I smell roasted turkey and sweet potato casserole. What I wouldn't give to sit at a festively set table, preferably in a room with a fireplace. "You tell me something," I mumble wearily.

"Okay, what do you want to know?"

The chance to learn more about him wakes me up a little. Of course, he knows that, it's just a tactic. "May I ask anything?"

"Anything that keeps you awake."

I decide on something I've been interested in for a while that doesn't refer to his past—I wouldn't want him to have another seizure. "In your dream of the future, why a farm and wheat fields?"

Bren stays relaxed or rather his body doesn't get any stiffer than it already is. "It's a childhood memory that I had forgotten for a long time," he says. "India Lee helped me recall it."

"So, what happened in that memory?"

"My mom played with me. I had a toy farm made out of wood with colorful figures, cattle, chickens, and such. And I also had a family, a husband, a wife, and two children. A boy and a girl." I hear the smile in his voice. "It was a good memory—so good that the little boy in me couldn't bear it in his new life. He locked it away and forgot about it."

I picture Bren as a kid suddenly alone in a strange house with a devilish man. How he believes his mom just left him. How he is chained and locked up all alone. I wonder if it's the right moment to tell him about his mom, but maybe he'll let go in shock or have an episode. Oh God, I'm screwed if the chili peppers were in my backpack!

"You know what my brothers told me after they dragged me out of the hotel? That they want to sell our house and invest the money in a farm. They wanted to take me there so you'd never…"

"Lou…wait!" Bren sounds alarmed, moves slightly, leaning back I think, and then suddenly he's pressing me against the container with his full weight. "Tunnel ahead!"

Every fiber of my body stiffens. I feel Bren's racing heartbeat against my back, and suddenly, the darkness of the night becomes as dark as a grave. The scream of fear sticks in my throat. I can no longer see anything, only feel the cold container against my cheek, stomach, and legs and Bren's warm body close to me.

Wind rushes by.

I silently pray there's no protruding rock outcrop to knock us off the train.

During these seconds, I realize with frightening clarity it could mean our deaths.

Behind me, I feel the chill of the rock thundering past Bren's back with just inches to spare. The cold is like an undertow. Exhaust fumes sting my lungs and it's eerie, dark, and noisy. My hands are clammy and I can hardly think of anything rational because of the fear. All I know is that Bren is far more exposed to danger than I am. If he gets hit now, it's my fault. He saved me earlier. It's only during these seconds that it fully sinks in. He saved my life by jumping down to pull me up, otherwise, I would have been pulled under the train's wheels. And he knows how risky it is to ride on this car, especially when there are two of you standing on the ladder.

The shock of his unconditional love turns something inside me. I hardly understand what I'm doing. In the darkness, I pry my fingers from the rungs and gently grope for his. He holds me with his body so close to the train that I don't have to hold on. But should he fall, I want to fall with him, to wherever.

I tentatively place my hands on his and feel the blood still oozing from his wound.

Oh, God!

His fingers clench, a single spasm.

That's when I realize we're deep underground. Buried deep by the rocky mountain masses. I don't know what Bren fears more right now, the darkness of the tunnel or death. Maybe it's the same for him. I want to comfort him, but the wind tears every word from my lips and shatters it against the rough stone. Maybe I can't help him this time. Maybe we're going to die now.

I wonder what is left in the face of death and only two things come to mind. Our love and our dreams. That's all. So I remind Bren of his farm, the boy, and the little blonde girl. In my mind, I speak of the yellow fields of wheat whose stalks bend in the wind, filling the roaring darkness and fears with dreams. And as I speak, it's as if the words slide from my mind into his, as if they drift from me into him along the fluttering ribbon between us.

His fingers soften, the tension lessens, and finally, Bren rests his head on the crown of my head, breathing against my hair, calmly and evenly, as if he's heard my every silent word.

I don't know what's happening, but suddenly everything becomes clear to me. It seems to me that in the drag of the wind and the darkness of the tunnel, everything unimportant is pulled out of me, leaving only the essential behind.

I never want to be without Bren again, I never want to live without him. Everything else has no meaning at all. I'll live and die for him, whatever happens. The past, what he's done, Liam's concerns that I might be sick, my fear during his flashes, I'm leaving it all behind. And if we die here and now, it will be buried with us forever.

Later, when the sky appears above us, I cannot say how long the passage through the tunnel took.

At some point, the brakes squeal and the train slows and Bren finally jumps next to the track and catches me. Grey rushes toward us like an arrow, yelping and barking like a maniac and I climb onto the car to grab the backpack.

"Why is the train stopping here? There's no train station, is there?" At least not one I can see from here. I look around carefully to see if I can spot blue lights anywhere, but there are only forests and mountains everywhere. The sky has cleared and the crescent moon casts a faint glow on a dark mountain range. Snow covers the peaks like a thick layer of icing.

Bren bends down and peers under the train. I notice his hands are shaking. The left is smeared with blood, but I don't see a wound. "There's a second track over there," he notes. "Maybe this train has to let another pass. The line may eventually become a single track." He looks at me and then back under the car. "The tracks are humming." A dark, eerie honk resounds through the night, and in the distance, the rhythmic clatter of train wheels approaches. "You see, our train only stopped to let another one by. It'll continue in a bit."

Hand in hand, we run to the car Grey was riding on and climb onto the gap between the car and the container. Grey follows us, and a few minutes later, the train starts moving again.

"Do you think the police were at the station for us? If so, they'll assume we're traveling by train."

"If they were there for us, they certainly wouldn't have let a train go by like that. Besides"—he eyes me with a strange intensity—"there are a hundred other reasons, like drug smuggling or suicide." For a moment, he looks like he's about to add something, but then he seems to change his mind.

"We have to take care of your wound," I say, pointing to his bloody fingers.

He pulls his hoodie up a bit and only then do I realize his injury isn't on his hand but laterally near his wrist. Despite the darkness, I can make out the depth of the cut, possibly made by a shard of glass.

Bren inspects the wound, frowning. "Doesn't seem to have anything in it."

"That needs stitches," I say worriedly. The cut is at least three inches long.

"Nonsense, it's nothing." He forces a smile onto his pale face.

"Yeah, right, it's nothing." Blood oozes from the edges like seeping water, I can even see white flesh. I open the backpack and remove the sleeping bag before rummaging around for bandages or disinfectant, but I can't find any. Bren wasn't wrong, all the medical supplies were in my backpack. I push aside the shock for now and pull out one of Bren's dark bandanas and a packet of tissues.

"If it bleeds, at least all the dirt will be flushed out." Bren nods to the cloth and the tissues. "That's what you're using for a bandage?" He grins faintly, but I can see exhaustion in his tired eyes. He stood behind me the entire ride, keeping me awake and shielding me from the wind, cold, and death. Who knows how much blood he lost during that time.

I point my chin at his injury. "We have to stop the bleeding. I'll make a compression bandage."

"You know how to do that?" Bren gives me a look that's half amused and half skeptical.

I determinedly stretch the cloth between my fingers as if I wanted to strangle someone with it. "We had a first-aid class at school and I bandaged Emma."

"Aha!" Sighing in surrender, Bren offers his arm. "I take it you didn't find disinfectant in the backpack."

I shake my head silently, then place a few tissues on the cut and wrap the triangular bandage around it tight to build up enough pressure.

"Lou, it's called a compression bandage because it's supposed to be tight." Bren grins again, which is a rarity. I make a mental note to remember the moment.

"I don't want to cut off the blood flow, either."

Bren takes a corner of the cloth from my hand. We pull together and I knot the ends. Hopefully the bandage will serve its purpose.

We learned in school that losing too much blood can cause shock, but Bren doesn't look like he's about to collapse, he just looks tired. It's probably not as bad as it looks, otherwise, he'd be off a lot worse.

"We'll see what else we have tomorrow, okay?" Bren hands me a water bottle from the backpack. I just nod. I looked inside the bag earlier, but I was fixated on finding bandages. I'm so worn out I can't even eat the hardtack Bren is holding out to me.

Exhausted, we spread out the sleeping bag and crawl into it in our jeans and T-shirts. Our bodies are cold and frozen stiff and we lie in a narrow depression like sardines. Grey lies at our feet and whines a little. The rattling of the train is probably too loud for him. At some point, he crawls up to us and ends up lying next to me as the third occupant.

I blink tiredly as I look at Bren, whose face is right in front of mine.

"It reminds me of the Flying J parking lot, where I slept next to you when you were in the box," he says suddenly, wrapping his arms around me inside the sleeping bag.

"Where you were so happy?" I ask.

He just nods and closes his eyes.

I stare at his smooth face and silky dark hair, unable to imagine that he drugged and kidnapped me once. It seems so long ago. The Travel America lettering, the RV, Bren, the kidnapping—everything that used to scare me so much is now a distant memory, almost like I truly left it all in the tunnel.

Bren said we can't run from the past and its demons. I suppose he's right as always; he knows a lot more about life than I do. The past is not like a backpack that can easily be discarded when its load becomes too heavy and dangerous.

I still believe what I thought at Crescent City's Walmart: the more Bren and I experience, the more memories we make. We don't remove a burden from the backpack but add other many beautiful things to it so that the weight grows lighter even as it increases. This does not correspond to any mathematical logic and it is completely irrational but true nevertheless.

Today, Bren risked his life for me by standing behind me and I was willing to die with him. It wasn't about whose fault it was. It was all about us. And now I know we will survive anything.