Page 52 of Trapped: Between Sky And Wind

“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.”

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