Traffic (Complete two-hundred pages) (Moving to Kindle Vella in 30 Days! )

21

PENELOPE

SHE LAUGHED.

"Edmund Dantes was wrongly accused of his crime and sent to a terrible jail for 8 years." She still had her back to Jack. But she turned the book to the aisle so he saw its open pages. It was a thick, nearly 1,000 page epic. "But you see, when he escaped, he came out smarter, and returned home richer than before. And he delivered good fortune to his friends, but brought down his enemies with vengeance. Or justice. Whichever way you see it." She laughed. And turned her face finally. Her big brown eyes locked on him as though to hunt him like a wolf after a lamb. His body fused with the chair, and his lungs opened wide. Penelope.

"You're dead," Jack said. Not exactly the brightest conversation starter.

Her charming smile exceeded his hesitation. "Do I look dead to you?"

Before answering he felt a pain in his chest. And he grasped it. He stared wonderfully at her gorgeous round eyes, wet with youth. He shook his head. "Oh, how I wish you weren't."

She smiled at him. A smile so imperfect, that it was. She shrugged innocently, unknowing. "Maybe I'm not. Do you know where I am?"

Tears were swimming at the brims of his eyelids. He nodded. "Yes. You're in Mexico City."

She smiled as though that was their answer to solving everything. "Then come find me." The train pulled them closer south but the darks from the windows around the cart showed nothing. It wasn't even nighttime.

But a curious brow unfurled over her gaze and she looked slightly away from Jack. Pondering. "But Jack," she said, lowering her face, remembering something sad. A betrayal. "Why did you leave me there in Mexico City? Why didn't you wait for me? Look for me?"

His eyes burned with regret. His jaw dropped but nothing came out. He could merely shake his head.

I don't know, he thought. Why didn't I? What was I thinking?

"Were you afraid?" she said. Her eyes reviewed him like a stranger.

"Maybe." He said. His limbs felt weak.

"Afraid you'd get caught?" she pressed. She knew this question would dig into his stomach like a dull dagger. And she twisted it. "Afraid they'd find you out for who you truly are?" So successful, she was, that a tear pelted south his chin, and dropped.

"But we're the only ones who know who you truly are, Jack. Me and you. It's time to set things right."

Jack leaned forward in his seat but she stood up and threw the book across the aisle. She pushed him over to the window seat and the last light dimmed in a reddish glow. Her smile vanished as she crept along the leather seats to crane her neck over his lips. She whispered in his ear, "Find me Jack."

"What?" he said. His ears started ringing. And the red light grew more intense and his vision was giving way all at once.

"Find me," she said, stronger and more urgent than before.

"Penelope," said Jack. His hands convulsing as he grasped his wounded leg in pain.

She bit his ear, and he fell deep into darkness before the ringing stopped. Silence.

"Find me, Jack. Before they kill me."