TRAIN [FIRST DRAFT]

Chapter 9: Obsession

Aimee locked her bedroom door at once, and still I felt calmer than I had in Celeste's presence. I didn't trust her. I hardly trusted anyone because of what people put Aimee through.

It made me sick how they talked about her, the GINM agents, as though they cared because really, they just cared about themselves. They'd probably known, the whole time, that Abba would destroy America. That's why they protected Aimee. But it still made no sense to me, why her own parents would ruin her life like they had. They couldn't have loved her as much as I did. If they had, they wouldn't have abandoned her in the first place. So why would they blow up an entire state to be with her? There had to be more to it.

I sat on Aimee's bed. As I approached it, my eyes fixed themselves on the broken glass on the edges of the window frame. And then I looked at her, scanned her body for scars and cuts. I counted six: one on her neck, two on each shoulder and another at her cast, as if it were hiding. Aimee neared me slowly and joined me on the bed.

"You don't trust her," she said.

"It's obvious, huh?" I asked, rhetorically.

She sighed, "I don't know why, but I believe that she's on our side. I believe she'll help us."

I believe she'll help us. She said that with such naturalness that I almost trusted the words. But some people lie and are only loyal until the moment they don't need you anymore, like you're a puppet they use to get what they desire. I would not let that happen to Aimee. I wouldn't let her be Celeste's puppet, or anyone else's.

"You can't trust her so easily," I somewhat warned her.

"Why not?"

My voice rose slightly, "She kidnapped you."

"So did you and Buckley," she insisted.

"But not for AIM... and not for money," I concluded, as kindly as I could.

She didn't reply, but I couldn't expect her to. Her breaths became gradual as she progressively looked to her hands. I shamefully bowed my head, feeling as though the words I'd spoken had hurt her in some way. I would have grasped her good hand to issue her some sort of comfort, but as much as I wanted to, my own hand wouldn't listen to my brain's command.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

She glimpsed up at me abruptly, with her eyelashes glinting in the sunlight, "I-" she paused and sniffled, "I have something to show you."

She unzipped her blouse pocket and obtained her phone. Her thumb slid across the screen momentarily, and then she scooted toward me and showed me an image of Abba's map.

"How'd you get this?" I asked, unexpectedly calm.

"I took it, after Abba dismissed you from the penthouse."

I smiled a little; proud of her, but not surprised by her intelligence. That image gave us an edge.

"Does she know?" I queried, still grinning.

Aimee grinned slowly and increasingly as she shook her head, "No, but I don't understand it yet."

"Let me see," I held out my hand for her phone.

She handed it over, told me that the map needed decoding. My eyes raced along that map as though I were an animal hunting in a field. I traced the edges of the map with my finger. Multiple thin, golden lines stretched to North and South America, each to some major city. I showed Aimee the screen again, the lines on which I'd traced.

"Twelve lines, twelve sets of twelve numbers," my eyes widened in confusion.

"Well, we now know that Abba has a numerical obsession," she replied. "Hold on a second... Nineteen ninety-five, zero nine, eighteen, and 14:51" she mumbled to herself, counting on her fingers.

Those numbers were gibberish to me, but I didn't ask any questions. Thought was written on her face. She hopped off the bed, hurried to her homework desk and grabbed a small piece of paper from it. She returned to the bed and retrieved her phone, and then she compared the crumpled paper to the map. She, too, hunted in that field. And she found her prey.

"It's my birthdate," she concluded, horrified. "Abba used my birthdate and time of birth – don't ask me how I know my time of birth. But not all of America follows the same time so... bombs... she's gonna use bombs!"

I registered what she was saying, but I was flummoxed by one thing: "Wait, how do you know this? How did you get this?"

"Some guy in a hoodie followed me the other day when I was jogging and he gave this to me," she showed me the piece of paper. "I don't know who he was, but he wanted to help."

I glanced at her, "Someone followed you?" I queried, concerned.

"That doesn't matter... just look at this," she instructed.

I closely examined the map, compared the numbers. They matched, she was right. From that moment, I knew for sure that Abba was obsessed, but not with numbers, with Aimee. And I wondered if she knew that obsession was not the same as love.