It took me a few seconds to shake away sleep and remind myself that I was on a train bound for California instead of in my cozy bed in Florida. The lights had been dimmed in our car and yet the train's engine hummed around us in a hypnotic rhythm.  I had no idea at first what time it was, only that it was late enough that this voice, a man's voice, was a jarring disruption in the otherwise peaceful train car.

Mr. Dean's face was crimson and glossy with perspiration. At first, I didn't realize that he was intoxicated; my own parents drank so infrequently that I'd only seen my dad drunk a handful of times. But the stale smell of beer on his sweat gave him away. He must have either tied a few on in the dining car, or been drinking in his seat prior to deciding to visit the dining car for a snack. Either way, he stood mere inches away from me and glared right at Trey, who stirred awake in the seat next to mine.

"What's going on, man? Could you shut up? It's like eleven o'clock," another passenger a few rows ahead of ours snapped at Mr. Dean.

I reached for Trey with both hands and gripped his arms. There was a vicious light in Mr. Dean's eyes; it was obvious that he was quite pleased with himself for having spotted Trey in the shadowy seat where he'd tucked himself away. As soon as I realized that there was no way Mr. Dean was going to pipe down and leave us alone, I also realized that he didn't recognize me. Since freshman year I'd been one of Mr. Dean's pet students; he'd even personally encouraged me to run for Student Government Treasurer earlier that year. But who he saw sitting next to Trey wasn't McKenna Brady, his former star history student. It was instead just a blond girl who could have gone to any high school, anywhere.

"Do you realize who this is sitting back here? This is Trey Emory, the high school student from Wisconsin on the run from police!" Mr. Dean continued excitedly, shaking a pointed finger at Trey. "Someone needs to tell the conductor to stop the train!"

My adrenal glands kicked into high gear and flooded my body with the urge to run. Heads turned toward us throughout our train car, and curious eyes peered at us over the tops of blue seats. But next to me, Trey remained calm. "You're nuts, man. You're seeing things," Trey told Mr. Dean. In my peripheral vision, I saw one of the other passengers in our car pass through the doors to the next car, presumably in pursuit of a member of the Amtrak staff. "You should go have a seat and lay off the brewski's."

Trey's complacency seemed to rile up Mr. Dean even more. His fists tightened into little balls at his sides and his shoulders tensed. "You always were quite a little smart ass, Emory. You're going to regret running away from the prison where you belong."

"What prison, man? I'm not whoever you think I am. Leave me and my girlfriend alone. We're just trying to get some rest," Trey said, making no attempt to get up.

"Just you wait, young man. The police have plenty of questions to ask you about McKenna Brady," Mr. Dean said with so much hatred that tiny sparks of saliva flew from his mouth and landed upon my cheek in a gross spray. Trey and I hadn't come across a television in two days. On the back burner of my mind I'd been a little worried that police might assume Trey had harmed me since we'd both gone missing around the same time, and certainly my strange new appearance wasn't going to put fears to rest about the fate of poor, vanished McKenna Brady. It certainly would have looked to anyone else like Trey and some mysterious blond chick were on the run together.

"Okay, whatever, man." Trey continued his attempt to brush off Mr. Dean's accusations. "You should really go sober up." He raised his voice so that the other passengers could hear him. "This guy is totally wasted, everyone."  

A woman entered our train car with a man wearing an Amtrak uniform following her. Although they were at the far end of our car, their eyes remained fixed on us as they approached.

"Hey, come on," I told Trey. I reached for my purse and Laura's purse, both of which were under the seat in front of me, and clutched my winter coat to my chest with my left arm. "We have to go. Now."

Without further discussion, Trey and I bolted out of our seats and pushed past Mr. Dean. The train was already slowing down as we approached whatever our next stop was, and it was just too great a possibility that police would board once we pulled into the station for Trey and I to risk.  Seeing that we were making a break for it, the Amtrak employee trotted down the center aisle of the car toward us. "Hey, wait a second! I need to have a word with you!"

Not having any kind of plan in place, we dashed down the three stairs to the door, which was of course not open. "How do we open it?" I asked breathlessly, scanning the door for some kind of knob or lever.

Without saying a word, Trey nodded upward to a metal latch over the door with an EMERGENCY sticker affixed above it on the train's stainless steel wall. I didn't even think about what I was doing before I pulled it on my tiptoes and the double doors slid open, putting me face to face with the cold night landscape. If Trey hadn't grabbed me by the back of my sweatshirt, I would have fallen face-first through the doors. The train's horn blasted twice, and I could see the lights of the station up ahead where more passengers waited with their suitcases on the platform, staring at their mobile phones in the palms of their hands and glancing impatiently upward at the oncoming train.

"Hold it, kids. Don't jump! It's more dangerous than it looks." The Amtrak conductor cautioned us when he reached the top of the three stairs and saw that we'd already managed to open the doors. His hands were spread wide open like he wanted us to pass him a basketball.  Only then—staring out into the dark movement of the landscape through the train doors with the terrifying thrill of being faced with no other option but to jump—did I remember that Trey had dreamt about this exact moment earlier that afternoon.

"Come on," Trey said simply right before he jumped through the doors to the gravel below. I heard him hit the ground on his side with a hard crunch and he rolled a few times. I looked over my shoulder at the conductor in pure panic. I'd read about how dangerous it was to jump out of trains. A million things could go wrong and you could easily end up dead or dismembered. Your clothes could catch on the doors just as you were jumping. You could not land far enough from the track and the wheels of the train could sever your legs. You could hit the ground at a goofy angle and break your spine or your neck. Right at that moment, it didn't seem quite as dangerous as jumping out of a moving car because we'd been on the train so long that it didn't really feel like we were moving fast anymore, but the train was still rolling into the station at fifty miles an hour or more. I was stalling, and losing precious time. This was not the time to be attempting to do math equations involving the speed of trains in my head.

"Miss!" the conductor said, his eyes huge behind his wire-rimmed glasses. Although the train was decreasing its speed, in the seconds that had passed since Trey had jumped, the distance between us had already placed him far behind me now... twenty feet, then thirty, then forty. I saw him climb up on his feet and brush himself off, completely unhurt. In the inky blue-black of night, his silhouette turned toward the train as if he could see me leaning out of the illuminated doorway, hesitating. The growing distance between us made panic swell in my throat.

So I swallowed hard and threw myself forward.

Despite my intention to land gracefully on my feet, I landed at such a high speed that I fell on my behind and kind of slid-rolled a few yards. At some point, whether while in mid-air or after my collision with the ground, I let go of my winter jacket. My purse soared through the air and landed elsewhere in the train yard as did Laura's; I heard the jingle of my keys settling in the distance. As soon as I came to a stop I looked over my shoulder to see the open doorway of the train through which I'd jumped already at least one hundred feet away. Above me, stars shone clearly in the cloudless winter sky and I tried to focus on their steadiness to reduce my dizziness. I held perfectly still while I mentally assessed every part of my body to see if I could determine whether or not I'd broken anything. My heart was still pumping blood as if I was on a roller coaster.

Rapid footsteps approached on the gravel, and within seconds Trey was crouching next to me, offering to help me stand. "Are you okay?" he asked.

Every part of my body hurt, but all in equal measure. Trey extended a hand and helped pull me up. Once standing, I was relieved that I hadn't broken anything in my feet or legs that would have seriously slowed us down or prevented us from going any further. The palms of my hands were bleeding with flecks of gravel embedded in my skin, which probably hurt the most of anything. There was a throbbing ache at the bottom of my spine, and I pressed the back of my hand to it while wincing.

"Damn. Your shirt is all messed up!" Trey exclaimed.

"Is it torn?" I asked as I reached upward. My fingers slipped right through the fleece and grazed my flesh.

"Yeah, it's like... mutilated."

The freezing night air blew against my bare skin; the back of my sweatshirt had been torn to shreds when I landed and rolled. Similarly, the knees of Trey's jeans had been totally blown out, and both of his knee caps were slick with blood. Thankfully the train yard was illuminated by the lights from the train station in the distance, and I spotted my winter jacket not too far from where we stood. As I took a first step toward it, in unison we both heard police sirens in the distance. We were going to have to make a run for it, but I couldn't even consider leaving my winter coat behind. Back in Michigan, Trey and I had learned the importance of making warm clothing our top priority. Pain shot through my back as I leaned forward to grab my jacket; my body still hadn't gotten over the shock of what I'd just put it through.

"We need your purse!" Trey said, and darted off farther in the direction of the sirens to grab a dark lump on the ground next to another set of train tracks.

As I wiggled into my jacket I was about to advise him to just leave it, but he was right.  We didn't only need my purse but we needed Laura's, since we were going to be in pretty pitiful shape without her cell phone and credit cards. "Get Laura's, too!" I shouted, although I had no idea where her bag had ended up. The train yard was criss-crossed by train tracks, and several other stationary cargo trains stood still on all sides. Laura's bag had been swallowed by shadows. While my bag contained my student ID and personal belongings (including the letter that Violet had given me that had been authored by Grandmother Simmons' attorney and an iPod that received ghostly broadcasts from Candace Cotton) that might have put Trey in danger of being arrested for suspected murder if found by the wrong people, Laura's bag contained everything we'd need to get ourselves out of the middle of wherever the heck we were.

Trey spun around in circles. "Do you see it?" he asked. The sirens came to a cascade of abrupt stops. However many police cars had been called to the train station had arrived, and the train was pulling into a dramatic stop at the station's platform. In a matter of minutes—or seconds—there would be police with flashlights all over the train yard.

"No," I hoarsely said. I trotted back toward the area where I'd leapt from the train, not especially wanting to get closer to the station, but hoping that I might remember at what point in my tumble the bags had flown out of my arms. There were still patches of snow on the ground even though the tracks were clean, and my eyes scoured the area from left to right, and then left again. Finally, I spied what looked like it might be a brown leather strap peeking out over one of the iron railroad ties. Laura's bag was Navajo-print knit with a zipper and brown straps.

"Hold it right there!" a man's voice called out to us from over the expanse of the train yard. I sensed the dim light of a distant flashlight's beam on my face and turned to see six uniformed police in heavy winter coats descending a staircase at the end of the train station platform, flashlights raised.

"Go, Trey! Run!" I called as I sprang toward Laura's bag. Of course, he didn't budge until I'd managed to snatch Laura's bag and get within ten feet of him. The police ran toward us, but by the time I reached Trey, we had a solid lead by at least two hundred feet. We sprinted over two sets of tracks and ran most of the length of a quiet, immobile freight train. In the space between two freight containers, one blue and one orange, Trey waited for me to catch up to him and assisted me in climbing over the massive, rusty hitch that held the cars together. Light from the policemen's bouncing flashlights unsteadily illuminated our escape across that set of train tracks, and I followed Trey's lead as he surprised me by doubling back in the direction toward the train station.

Without wasting a moment, he silently motioned for me to follow him in ducking under a hitch between two cars of an idle train on the next track over. This was a completely different kind of train that transported oblong, white metal cylindrical-shaped containers instead of rectangular freight trailers. Right before I slipped underneath the hitch, I noticed that the words "LIQUID GAS" were printed on one of those cylindrical containers. Once on the other side, Trey motioned for me to hold still. We'd reached the last track in the yard, and about thirty feet in front of us was a flimsy fence. Beyond the fence were trees, and the wooded area appeared to be pretty heavily littered.  We both pressed our backs against the train's cold metal exterior and tried to stifle our heavy breathing as we heard the police clamber over the first hitch we'd crossed. We couldn't discern the details of what they were saying, but it sounded like they were trying to figure out where we'd gone.

Only when we heard their crunchy footsteps resume—it sounded like they were splitting up—did Trey motion for me to follow him again. Staying close to the train, we walked slowly, carefully—trying not to let the sound of gravel beneath our feet give us away—onward toward the station. Every single move I made seemed to result in a ton of unwanted noise, from the swish-swish of the shiny nylon of my winter jacket as I moved to my ragged breath releasing steam into the cold night air. I cringed at how much of a racket I felt like I was making; being apprehended by cops in the middle of Arkansas while I looked like a completely different person was not likely to be a fun experience.

We finally reached the first car of the train and Trey took the lead in climbing up the metal ladder to its platform to see if the door to the conductor's booth was open. By some great miracle, it was. When the door slid to one side, Trey grimaced down at me with such a zany expression of pleased surprise that I almost giggled. He motioned for me to hand him my purse and Laura's bag to make my ascent up the ladder easier, and once we were both in the train's cab, he silently slid the door closed again and locked it.

We inhaled deeply and sank to the floor in a heap of relief.

"That sucked," Trey whispered after catching his breath.

Illuminated by moonlight, the train's control booth was a little scary. There was a conductor's chair, which neither of us dared to touch, and several levers and gears on one of the walls. We kept our distance from those; neither of us wanted to accidentally set a train burdened with highly flammable cargo into motion. Irrationally, my thoughts remained on the train from which we'd just jumped. Even though Mr. Dean had just totally destroyed any chance of us making it all the way to California aboard that train, my brain hadn't given up on it yet. It was our train. We had tickets for those seats. It was really infuriating that nothing we'd attempted to do since November had been as simple as it should have been.

After a few minutes, we heard two sets of footsteps pass cab where we hid, and we remained silent with our eyes locked, both of us fearful that the police might climb up the ladder and peer through the windows on the cab door with their flashlights. If they'd done that, there would have been nowhere to hide and we'd have been trapped, but thankfully, we instead heard the static of their walkie-talkies.

"We lost them," one of the policemen said. "They probably scaled the fence. Get a couple cars out on Hudman Road and see if any kids turn up."

Even after it was probably safe for us to talk in normal speaking voices and get up to stretch, we remained seated on the floor. Trey held me close to his body with one arm swung around my shoulders. We heard the horn of a nearby train and figured that our Texas Eagle was continuing its Texas-bound journey without us, leaving us stranded wherever we were. I picked as much of the gravel out of my hands as I could with my fingernails, and wiped away the blood on Trey's knees with a handi-pac of Kleenex from Laura's purse. Underneath the blood, he'd merely suffered a few scrapes, although I was uncomfortable enough sitting on the floor of the conductor's cab to wonder if I'd actually hurt myself pretty badly.

"You probably bruised your tailbone," Trey said. "Do you want me to kiss it and make it better?"

"Um, no thanks. But you can kiss me anywhere else, wise guy."

By consulting Laura's phone (for which we didn't have an adapter to recharge, which was soon going to be a problem), we determined that we were in Arkansas, halfway between Arkadelphia and Hope. As I held the phone in my hand and we zoomed in on the Google map of our location to get a better sense of our surroundings, both of us nearly jumped out of our skin when the phone rang.

It was a 312 number that neither of us recognized. "Chicago," Trey muttered after the second ring.

"Hello?" I said as I answered, wondering if it was just one of Laura's friends calling. We had little reason to suspect that the cops were still skulking around, but the ringing phone made me uncomfortable. It was reasonable to think that Laura might have friends who'd call to check in on her after she didn't show up at work that day, and presumably hadn't been back to her own apartment in over twenty-four hours. It was even possible that Henry was calling from an unfamiliar number.

But it wasn't one of Laura's friends calling. It was Laura. "You guys didn't call at eleven," she said without even saying hello.

The reaction on my face clued Trey into my surprise at hearing Laura's voice. "Um," I stammered, "We encountered kind of a problem. Is Esther mad?"

Laura hesitated and then sighed loudly before replying. "She was mad. Now she's kind of... dead."