“I’m so sorry,” the young mother said. “Hope’s going through the terrible two’s.” Caroline, seeing the problem, got out of her seat and stepped between the two men and the small family.
“I think those men are just too darn big, don’t you, Hope?” Caroline asked.
The small child took a moment to assess Caroline, and finally she nodded her head, her brown curls bobbing around her face.
Caroline turned to the mother.
“My name is Caroline. These two men are Griff and Wolf and they’re here to help. Would it be okay if they stored some of your things in the overhead bin?”
The young woman looked hesitantly at Griff and Wolf and then back at Caroline and nodded. “My name is Susan.” She held out her hand as best she could with Hope in her arms.
Caroline shook it, and deftly took her diaper bag and backpack.
“Jeremy, come back here!” Susan yelled at a boy no more than four years old who darted past the three adults.
Griff watched as Miranda easily caught the young boy and swooped him up into a high hug.
“Whatchya doing? Wanna come look out the window with me, Jeremy?”
“Yeah! Can I, Mom? Can I?” Miranda walked over with her little charge.
“Hi, I’m Miranda Slade,” she said holding Jeremy.
The young mother smiled around the other three adults in the aisle of the train. “Hi, I’m Susan. Thanks for catching my little monster.”
“Not a problem, I like a good game of catch. Can he come sit with me while you get settled with your daughter?”
“I’d appreciate it.”
“As a matter of fact, Jeremy can sit with me as long as he’d like, it’s not a problem.”
“I don’t want to be an inconvenience.” Susan shifted Hope in her arms. The little girl looked at everyone with suspicious eyes. Griff finally caught her eye and waved. She stared at him with a frown, then suddenly, like the sun showing after a thunderstorm, she smiled. “Hi!”
All of the adults laughed and said ‘Hello’ to Hope.
“It’s no problem if Jeremy sits with me, Susan,” Miranda said.
“I wanna sit with Mira, Mom,” Jeremy piped up.
“How’d you know my nickname?” Miranda asked the little boy who was in her arms. “You’re pretty smart.”
He giggled as she gently poked his tummy. She turned and started walking back to her seat.
The train started again. “Susan, would you like a cup of coffee? I’m going to send the men for refreshments,” Caroline said.
“You are?” Wolf said with amusement as he stroked his hand down his wife’s hair.
“Yep. Miranda would you like juice or coffee?” Caroline called out to her.
“I’d kill for a cup of coffee. Jeremy would you like apple or orange juice?” Miranda asked the boy.
“Apple. Where are they going? Mommy can I go with them?” He wiggled to be let out of Miranda’s arms. She let him down.
“You can’t go with them. You have to stay on this car with us.” Griff watched as the boy started to tear up.
“Susan, how about we show him how the automatic door works between the railroad cars, and then have him go sit with Miranda? He could even press the button to open the door.”
“Can I Mom? Can I?” The boy bounced on his feet.
She shot Griff a grateful smile. “Sure, they’ll show you, but then you go right back to Miranda,” she admonished.
“Okay, Mommy.” He grabbed Griff’s hand and started tugging him towards the back of the car. He and Wolf grinned at one another at the child’s enthusiasm.
“Hold on, partner. We need to ask your mom what she would like to drink,” Griff told the boy. Griff watched as Susan fumbled for her purse. “No, I’ve got you covered. What would you like?”
She gave him a grateful smile. “Milk for Hope, and I’d like orange juice.”
Griff nodded.
“I know what you want,” Wolf said to Caroline.
“How do you like your coffee?” Griff asked Miranda.
“Pitch black.”
“Are you sure you weren’t in the Navy?”
She laughed.
He liked that she didn’t try to offer any money. Jeremy tugged on his hand again, and he and Wolf followed the little guy.
As they got to the back of the railroad car, there was a spot where they could go down the stairs. “Do we go down there?” Jeremy asked.
“Nope, that’s where you go when you want to get onto the train,” Wolf said. He pointed to the door at the end of the car. “Press this button. You have to press really hard.” The little boy used both hands and eventually it opened the door to the small passageway between the two railcars. “You did it, Jeremy!” Wolf crouched down and held out his palm. “High five.”
“Now what?” Jeremy asked after slapping Wolf’s huge hand with his little one.
“Now Griff and I are going to go through the next door, to the other car, and go down the stairs to the café and get the drinks. We’ll be right back.”
“Can I go with you? Please?” the little boy wheedled.
“Nope, you have to be a good boy and go back to Miranda like you promised you would.” Wolf stood up, and pointed back to where the women were standing. Jeremy reluctantly started walking back.
“Cute kid.” Griff said.
“He’s a handful,” Wolf agreed as they walked through the passageway to the next car. It was quieter than the one they were staying in. They made their way downstairs, and found four commuters in line ahead of them. Griff gathered the drinks for the kids, then poured two coffees into paper cups.
“Let me pay for Susan’s stuff,” Wolf said.
“No, I’ve got it.” Griff already had is wallet out.
Wolf nodded, then he picked up some Cheerios and bananas for the kids. It was obvious he was a soft touch. Griff understood.
Griff waited as Wolf doctored his wife’s coffee.
“So you met Miranda on the train?” Wolf asked.
“Yep, we’ve been commuting together every Monday for the last nine weeks. I finally asked her to go out with me this morning.”
“You’re moving kind of slow,” Wolf said as he poured the creamer into one of the coffees.
“Family stuff. My dad’s been going through chemo.” Griff shifted the sack with the juices. “How about you? Why are you and Caroline on the train?”
“We did the bed and breakfast thing up in San Juan Capistrano.”
Looking out the window over the ocean, Griff suddenly had a vision of Miranda laying in a four poster bed. She’d look beautiful with her black hair fanned out over a pillow.
“Are you with me Porter?” Wolf asked with a shit-eating grin.
“Sorry, my brain just got side-tracked for a-”
He heard a tremendous roar of thunder.
The train took a huge lurch.
As if in slow motion, Griff saw the coffee begin to rise into the air as his body was propelled up off the floor and he was thrown up and backwards, like he was in a tidal wave.
The lights went out, but the sun was still shining through cracked and broken windows.
He heard the shriek of metal.
His head and back were slammed into steel.
Everything went dark.
Chapter Two
Miranda woke up to darkness. Something was wriggling underneath her belly, and something hard and heavy was pressing against her leg, and it hurt. She hurt. A lot. She heard metallic groaning, and tasted copper. Her mouth was full of blood. She opened it, and let it drip out. That couldn’t be good.
“Mommy! I want my Mommy!” The wriggling turned to kicking.
Train. She was on the train. It had crashed. The wriggling was the little boy who had been sitting on her lap.
Miranda heard groaning. “Mommy! Where’s my Mommy?” She tried to answer. The kicking was hurting her stomach. She could move her arms. Why was it so dark? She spit out the blood in her mouth.
&
nbsp; “Jeremy,” she croaked out the boy’s name.
“Mommy!” came the frantic cry.
“Honey. We’ll find your Mommy.” Miranda thought about moving off the boy, but she didn’t want him to scramble away from her. Why was it so dark? It had been morning. Had she been unconscious until it was night? No, that didn’t make sense, rescue workers would have gotten to her by now. She turned her head, and saw that the seat was over her head. Both of her arms were free, but her right leg was stuck.
“Jeremy, do you hurt?”
“I want my Mommy.”
“Jeremy, do you hurt?” she asked in a firm voice to get his attention.
“My arm hurts.”
That was good if just his arm hurt. The boy started to cry. Shit, she shouldn’t have asked. Now he was focusing on what was hurting. Miranda started to listen, and she could hear other people crying.
“Derek, wake up! Wake up!” The woman was shrieking. She kept repeating the same words over and over again, until finally she subsided into sobs. It drove home the fact to Miranda that she was lucky to be alive.
She needed to figure out what was on her leg, and get it off her. It wasn’t the seat, it was something else. The seat was what had saved her and Jeremy. She felt around and finally touched the leather of her briefcase. She shoved her hand in and found her cell phone. She powered it on, and dialed nine-one-one.
“What’s the nature of your emergency?”
“I’m on the Amtrak train heading to San Diego. We’ve crashed outside of Del Mar.”
“We know, first responders are on their way. What is your name?”
“Miranda Slade.”
“Can you tell me where you are? What your situation is?”
“Mommy! I want my mommy.” Jeremy grabbed at her phone and knocked it out of her hands. Shit.
Miranda picked it up. “Ma’am. Miranda, can you describe what is going on?”
“Look, just get help. I’m going to use the light of the phone to figure out how to get unstuck. I’ll call back when I can.” Miranda pressed “End.”
She used the flashlight feature to see Jeremy. His face was streaked with tears. He was blinking and she perused his body. He didn’t seem to be bleeding, thank God. Miranda was pretty sure she had some loose teeth, and her jaw hurt like a son of a bitch. She shone the light on her leg. It looked like part of a luggage rack was wedged on top of her leg. She tried to lift it, but the seat was on top of it.
“Miranda?” she heard a weak cry.
“Caroline?”
Nothing.
“Caroline?”
“Mommy. Mommy, where are you!” Jeremy was screaming now. Miranda had to get her leg free so that she could go and look for the two women and the toddler. If Jeremy wriggled free he would go wandering, she just knew it.
“We’ll find your Mommy, I promise Jeremy.” How was she going to get free?
“Does anybody need help?” A man’s voice called out.
For a moment she hoped it was Griff, but it wasn’t.
“Me! Help me,” another man cried out.
She heard glass breaking.
“Holy Fuck! We’re going to fall onto the beach.” A different man’s voice said.
Miranda vaguely remembered that she had been staring at a beautiful view of the ocean, and that they had been near a good-sized drop-off. Please say they weren’t near that spot.
Steel groaned.
“Don’t move!” the same man’s voice yelled out.
Screams shattered the darkness.
She had to get her leg unstuck. She tried pulling, but the pain was excruciating when she did that. She needed leverage to lift the damn thing. Think Slade. Think. She pulled her computer case over to her. She turned it, so that the wheels were facing her, and started to shove it under the rack. She pushed with all of her strength and finally the damn thing began to lift. She started to pull her leg out. Fuck, it still hurt, but she was finally able to pull it out from underneath the luggage rack.
As her leg came free, so did Jeremy.
“Wait!” she cried. He was up like a shot. She reached out, but didn’t catch him.
“Come back!” Miranda, used her arms to drag herself out from under the seat. At long last she was back out into the very dim light of the train car. With her phone light, she couldn’t believe the devastation that surrounded her.
The train was on its side. Seats were torn from their moorings, and scattered against the shattered windows on the floor. No wait, that was the side of the train. She shook her head, trying to orient herself. The side of the train was now the floor, she was standing on glass. She needed her shoes, and she needed them fast. She trained her light around, and saw one pump and then the other. She slipped them on.
“Lady?” She saw a man sitting holding his arm, that obviously had a compound fracture. He was bleeding heavily from his scalp.
“I have to find the little boy. Did you see him?” He tipped his head, indicating he went behind her. “Thank you.”
Miranda still wasn’t sure which way Susan and Caroline had been sitting.
“Caroline? Susan? Jeremy?” she shouted.
No answer.
She’d try for a mom voice.
“Jeremy! Young Man! Where are you? Jeremy, answer me right this minute!”
“I’m here.” Miranda slumped in relief. She saw the green shirt, and he was waving. She climbed over two seats. He was looking down. Oh God, it was a dead body. She picked him up.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s sleeping honey.”
Please God, let his mom and sister be all right. “Susan!” she yelled out. “Caroline!”
“Over here.” She heard a weak voice. It was Caroline’s.
It was in front of her. She could have sworn they would have been behind her. God, her sense of direction was all off.
She took a step in the direction of the voice, and the train lurched and she slipped and fell. She hit her hip, and she gasped as pain reverberated up her leg. She managed to hold onto Jeremy, so that he didn’t hit the floor of the train. She heard more screams.
“We’re going to die!” It was a woman’s voice. Did she hear a siren?
Instead of darkness from the window below her, she could see a sliver of light. Oh God, sea grass was peeking through, and if she squinted she could see sand hundreds of feet below. The train car was literally perched on the edge of the cliff. Maybe they would die as it plummeted down the side of the cliff.
“Jeremy? Hope?” Susan’s voice was close.
“Mommy!”
The little boy wriggled, squirmed and kicked. “Hold on, little man. Let me take you to your mother. It’s not safe for you to be walking around.” Miranda struggled to stand up, but she finally managed to get to her feet. Dammit, she was missing a shoe again. She felt around with her toe, dealing with the squirming boy.
“Hold still, Jeremy. Please, I need you to hold onto me, and we’ll find your Mommy. Be good, and wrap your legs around me.” When he settled, she finally found her shoe and slipped into it. Why had she worn heels? Glass crunched under her feet as she moved.
“Susan? Call out, we’re coming.”
“Do you have Jeremy and Hope?”
Miranda’s heart broke at the thought of the little girl being away from her mother.
“I have Jeremy. Maybe Hope is with Caroline. Keep talking to me.”
“I’m here.” Miranda had to maneuver past sheet metal and insulation. She looked up, and saw that some of the siding had come off the wall of the train along with the luggage racks. The steel had sharp edges, and she had to be careful as she went around it to get to Susan.
As she stepped over somebody’s suitcase her leg gave out, and she went down to one knee.
“Mira?”
“It’s okay, Jeremy. We’re almost to your mom.”
Miranda reached out to grab ahold of one of the seats to help herself up as her leg didn’t want to move. “Come on, Miranda. We d
on’t have time for this shit,” she growled under her breath.
Jeremy cupped her cheeks and looked her in the eye, “You said a bad word.”
“I’m sorry,” she grit her teeth and stood up.
Just a couple of more steps. She found Susan. She looked like hell. Her once- blonde hair was matted with blood. Her leg was at an odd angle.
“Jeremy!”
“Mommy!” The woman had her arms outstretched for her son, but Miranda didn’t hand him over.
“You’re hurt. How is your head?” Tear-stained eyes looked up at her.
“I don’t know. I keep going in and out of consciousness. But I think it could be the pain from the leg.”
“Jeremy. I’m going to let you down. But you have to be extra gentle with your Mommy. She is hurting. You can’t jostle her.” He gave her a confused look. “You can’t play rough with her.”
“She’s hurted?”
“Her leg and head is hurted. You have to be gentle and take good care of her. Can you do that?” She set the little boy down. He tiptoed over to his mother.
“Mommy. Are you hurted?”
“Not now that you’re here. Come sit beside me.” Susan had her backpack next to her, and had taken out a sweatshirt that she put down for Jeremy to sit on.
“Where’s your daughter?”
“I don’t know. When I woke up she was gone. I couldn’t go look for her. There haven’t been people to help.”
She gave a head tilt to the crumpled seat to her left. For the first time Miranda noted that a baby blanket was covering something. Now that she looked she realized Susan must have covered a body.
“It hurts to yell, but when I heard you call out for me, I called back. Thank God you had Jeremy. Can you find Hope?”
“Yes, I’ll find Hope.” And she would also look for Caroline.
Chapter Three
“Wolf. Can you hear me?” Griff shook the big man. Except for the cut on his arm, he looked okay.
Wolf Steel’s eyes popped open. “We crashed?”
“Affirmative.” Griff breathed easier to see that his fellow SEAL was going to be working with him.
Special Forces: Operation Alpha: Protecting Hope (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Midnight Delta Book 7) Page 2