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//chapter forty-four • reckless driving
𓅰彡𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐃𝐀𝐘
WILMINGTON'S STATION WAS deserted, at this hour, which is sort of the point. The hardest part was mostly the fact that it was filled with trains that would take forever to examine one by one before getting the Cross, if it was in one of those trains and not one that was coming. Standing on top of an unmoving car, it really just put everything into perspective for Andrew.
"Well, there's like a thousand trains here," Sarah sighed.
"Well," Pope echoed, "We know it's seven-fifty-X on the track to Raleigh."
"Which just leaves us with the small task of actually finding it," Andrew snapped, still pissed he had to flirt his way to a truck which Spencer was now driving.
"And news flash," Kie interrupted, leaning over towards Pope, and seeming like she thought this was a bad, impossible idea all along. "We're not getting out of here unnoticed with a giant Cross."
"We don't have to," Pope told her. "We can nab it somewhere in the country."
Which just meant finding the car, then figuring out which tracks it was on, and then being fast enough to stop it further down. Not to mention actually stopping it.
Andrew hummed and crossed his arms. "And we'll be stopping that train with, what? Our own personal, Tobey Maguire?"
"Leave that to me."
Everyone turned their heads to stare at JJ Maybank. Of course he'd say something like that.
"I got an uncle in New Bern, right? When he got tipsy, he'd just throw an old chain across the tracks, just for shits and giggles. And that old little chain would stop all the train traffic in coastal Carolina."
"A chain?" Kie repeated, dubious.
While it sounded crazy, and Andrew hated to say it: "It's the low voltage current in the tracks. If you put metal on it, you close that circuit. Close that circuit, and it reads as a train, and the crossing lights come down. I'm pissed to say that it's science, not bullshit."
"Science. I knew my science."
"Except we don't have a chain, dipshit. Loads of help that science gets us."
"I'm just tryna help."
Sarah spoke up. "No, but I bet Sheri's dad has jump cables in the truck. Would that work?"
Pope nodded. "Yeah."
"Alright." Cleo straightened up. "You all wait here, me and Pope will go look for it and send a signal when we find it.
Sarah looked around at her friends. "Do we actually have a plan right now?"
