Page 49 of Fractured Chances

We’vebeenfollowingJulissafor quite some time and now we’re in the middle of nowhere. Her car skids and bounces over the slight bumps in the road but the speed of the car causes it to bounce harder than it needs to. I’m struggling to keep up with her because I’m unsure what she’s doing or where she’s going. She turns off the road and her car jumps onto a dirt path to follow next to the longest fucking train in the world. This is absolute lunacy. I can’t tell where the fucking train starts or ends and I don’t have the time to wrap my head around what the fuck she wants with it.

She guns it, speeding up faster than she was before and Mikhail starts yelling at me. “Hurry up! Will you catch up to her already?”

“I’m motherfucking trying, damn it!” I scream back. “What in the fucking tarnation is happening here?”

“There are some kids on that train. They’re being trafficked to New York! Julissa’s not about to let that happen!” he shouts.

Dagonnit! Neither the fuck am I! The length of the train sends chills through my body. How many fucking kids are in that thing? That kind of train isn’t for carrying passengers, it’s for carrying inanimate cargo, objects that don’t need air or comfort. I can’t imagine what they must be going through and I can’t bear the thought of having them go through it any longer, not if I can help it. I fucking throw my whole foot against the gas in desperation and I hope for the fucking best.

As Julissa swerves, so do I and soon we’re bumper to bumper. I’ve got her safety, the kids’ safety, and our fucking safety to think about. My forehead and my palms are sweating as I grip the steering wheel holding on for dear life. And whaddya know! We’re coming up on the nose of the train. There are no friggin’ windows on it and I can’t help thinking about how fucking hot and icky and dirty the inside must be. Just piling a bunch of kids in that train for hours and miles is torture enough. And then to go on and sell them? These people are fucking sick. Sick and evil.

Julissa makes an unexpected turn and I fucking try my best not to crash into her as she begins pulling away from the train now. I’m so fucking confused. I know she isn’t changing her mind. What the fuck is she up to now?! I slow down to see if something happened to her while driving, knowing that train isn’t going anywhere fast and if I have to go for it alone after, I can. Or I can pick her up if her gas has run out or something.

My car skids off to the side because slowing down after going so fucking fast is not an option. Julissa’s car spins a few times until it comes to a stop. She jumps out of the car and runs to the passenger seat in a panic. I squint against the sun pelting my windshield, still clueless as fuck. She opens the door and leans in for a bit. What’s going on? When she comes back out, so do two kids along with her. Where the hell did they come from?

“Kids?” is the only thing I can manage to say it seems. I find it unbelievable that there were fucking kids in the car while she was driving like a fucking psycho.

Mikhail rubs his forehead. “She rescued those kids from her dad,” he says as if he is feeling the same fear I am for those kids.

I watch her as she checks them over, lifting their hair and checking their foreheads before lowering herself into a crouch before them. She speaks to them a bit, holding them by the shoulders as if she’s consoling them, and then she jumps into her car again.

This whole fucking day has been a “What the fuck?!” moment for me. Did she just abandon the kids?

I’m unsure what to think and I don’t want to leave the kids out in the fucking hot weather. I’m about to go pick them up when I see Julissa speed up next to the train again and when she gets in front of it this time, a good distance ahead, she fucking swerves her motherfucking car on the fucking railroad track as the massive train comes toward her. My eyes widen and my heart stops at the thought of her killing herself.

I’m torn. I don’t want to leave the kids by themselves here but I know where they are, I can come back for them. I need to go fucking see what the fuck Julissa is up to. And if I need to pull her away from the fucking railroad track, I motherfucking will!

As the train advances, I’m driving next to it like a mad man, keeping my eye on Julissa who I notice isn’t fucking moving. The side of my head starts pounding, aching with fear that the next thing I’ll witness is her being crushed beneath it. No motherfucking wonder she left the kids behind. She couldn’t carry them with her to do this.

“Come on fucking car! Faster!” I yell as I press the gas pedal into the floor of the car until it bangs against the metal. I’m no longer even aware of Mikhail beside me. If he’s saying anything, I’m not fucking hearing him. My sole focus is on trying to get to Julissa before the train does. But it’s still ahead of me and it’s getting closer and closer to Julissa.

I’m only conscious of my breathing again when the train lets out a wailing sound and pulls to a halt. Thank fucking goodness! I didn’t think fucking traffickers would give a fuck about running someone over to keep going. So I’m just glad they fucking stopped.

I’m catching up to them now when I notice Julissa’s car door opening. Out she comes, standing by the side of her car while my mouth drops open in complete bewilderment. What the fuck is she doing now?

Chapter 34

Mikhail

Ishakemyheadat the charade playing out in front of me as Julissa steps out of her car, the buttons of the bluish-gray shirt she’s wearing undone down to her stomach. She’s ruffled her hair up a bit and now she’s walking toward the track like a woman that needs help. She looks dehydrated and out of it as she kind of drags her feet, stumbling a few times, really selling the whole damsel in distress act. I know this tactic all too well since she used several of them on me in the beginning. I lean over to Axel who looks dumbfounded.

“She’s creating a distraction, we don’t have a lot of time. Before she reaches that train, we need to act fast,” I tell him as I open the passenger door and step out with my guns.

Axel understands and jumps out of the driver’s seat, hurrying to his trunk where he starts loading bullets into the guns. I’m looking at him with my eyebrows all crooked because I’m pretty sure I loaded these guns before I left. Anyway, as soon as he’s armed, we get low and take off running. Sure there are no windows, but there might be mirrors so while Julissa keeps the perverts distracted we make our way to the carriages. The locks on this thing are pretty hard to find but as soon as we locate them we start trying to figure out how to open them. We start taking the butts of our guns, trying to bash the locks off but we’re unsuccessful.

I take a look to see how far Julissa is knowing that if she reaches them before we get this started, she’s not gonna wait and we can’t leave her up there to take on whoever’s up at the front on her own. But I know the reason for her creating a distraction is so that we can at least help her get the ball rolling with freeing the victims.

So I make eye contact with Axel before aiming my gun at the locks. We exchange a nod before we both start shooting the locks off. It doesn’t take long after the gunshots go off for retaliation that we were not expecting and of course we should have but we haven’t been thinking straight all day. We’ve pretty much been acting like dumbasses.

As soon as we start firing, the doors on the carriages start opening. We know it’s not because we’ve shot the locks off because the bullets didn’t even start to make a dent in the locks yet. We know it’s because someone’s opened it and it’s definitely NOT the kids being trafficked so we take off running toward one of the little pockets between each carriage. We manage to hide just in time for the doors to open completely and one by one, we see gunmen jumping out of the carriage, looking for us.

Of course, there are fucking gunmen! Damn it. Of course, they weren’t just going to send the victims by themselves. They sent some of their foot soldiers to make sure that their “cargo” doesn’t escape and makes it to their fucking clients. Fuck!

Okay, Axel and I are fucking dead if we don’t come up with a plan soon. We’re outnumbered. So we decide to take each side of the train as we keep ourselves hidden in the pocket only peeking out from our respective sides to see where the guys are. From Axel’s side, he tells me that he can see that the guys spotted our car and a few of them take off running toward it. Okay, they’ve split up and I remember the hand grenades that we weren’t sure we would ever need but which we had collected on our way to this town. I have only two of them on me now. I hand Axel one of them.

He looks at it with wide eyes. . So, on the count of three, we’re going to throw this on each side. I’ll hit the ones, you hit the ones headed toward your car. Then we’ll take off running, spraying bullets their way, okay?” I suggest.

“We’re not blowing up my fucking car,” he asserts.

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