O-rail

Callum

The three of them packed up their belongings and some food for the road, then walked to the O-rail station.

Cal had Rumi’s bag slung over his shoulder and his own across his back.

Jameson took the lead, with Rumi in the middle and Cal bringing up the rear.

It had nothing to do with wanting to watch the sway of her hips as she walked.

Absolutely not.

Jameson had picked up the skill to apply cosmetics from his whoring about, and in a short time had managed to hide the tattoos on Rumi’s face, teaching her how to do so as well.

He’d also brought gloves for her to wear, as most ladies did.

Jameson had put his foot down where Cal could not and insisted on helping Rumi with her dress.

Honestly, Callum had quite enjoyed the ramshackle way she put the outfit together, but she would have stuck out like a sore thumb.

But with her hair tucked into her bonnet, hiding both the color and her pointed ears, she passed as human.

Cal’s hair had grown a bit, and dark stubble coated his jaw.

Jameson assured him that, out of uniform, he easily passed as someone else.

Armed with their simple disguises and forged paperwork, they followed the masses into the O-rail station and up to the little kiosk at the front to pay for their tickets.

Cal tucked the guilt into the back of his mind, trying not to acknowledge that he had failed in his task to clear their names and had also failed to keep her safe.

Her wounds healed remarkably fast, but he couldn’t shake the shame that fastened around his throat like a hangman’s noose.

As much as he hated to admit it, and as much as he disliked that Jameson had not listened to him, Cal was glad for it.

Jameson had always been the one with a plan B or some creative solution to whatever problem they faced.

It was truly great to be together again.

He didn’t want to know what Jameson’d had to do to secure the forgeries; he didn’t ask.

Tickets in hand, they headed toward the rails.

He imagined that for Rumi, it appeared much like a small cliffside with metal rods jutting from the earth in parallel lines, carving a path through the desert as far as the eye could see.

Strange how even such magnificent inventions simply become commonplace.

Her eyes were wide, taking it all in, and it made him smile to picture things from her point of view.

The doors opened and a man screamed some gibberish about times and the names of various places, and then Cal guided them forward into the belly of the beast.

They traveled through a couple of the boxy carriages and found an empty pair of adjacent bench seats that faced one another.

Rumi and Cal sat on one side while Jameson flopped on the other, stretching out to kick his feet up and pulling out a book.

Another whistle from the rail, and a grinding rumble announced its leave from the station, the rocking of the cars coaxing the travelers into sleep.

Rumi didn’t sleep.

Instead, she stared out the large windows, the reflections shining in her dark eyes as they bounced over the red-hued landscape.

Cal chose not to bother her, letting her observe the foreign land they’d just trekked across in peace.

Not that it was peaceful for him.

No.

His mind kept playing their earlier conversation over and over, spinning through his thoughts until he wasn’t sure which way was up.

She’d asked him to stay.

Did she realize what she had said? The implications? Surely she must have, otherwise, she was a fool.

Maybe he was the fool.

The more he thought, the more tense he became, his shoulders winding tight and his teeth grinding each other into dust.

He was definitely the fool.

Just as he was of a mind to broach the subject once more, to ask for clarification, Jameson—damn him—interrupted.

Again.

Callum felt the irrational urge to punch him in the face.

“Wanna go to the food car, Rumi?”

Jameson asked.

He’d taken off his hat and held it at his chest, the picture of gentlemanly behavior.

Did she prefer that? Jameson was honey-sweet with the ladies—exceedingly charming.

And did she prefer his tomfoolery and light-hearted nature to Callum’s rigidity and sometimes gruff demeanor? Was she taken in by his charms as so many women often were? Cal did not question her attraction to him, but he wondered if he could hold the interest of a woman like Rumi.

Was he even good for her?

Her two coal eyes turned toward him.

Tendrils of inky hair had come loose from her bonnet and hung around her face in a most enticing way.

“Food?”

she asked, perking up.

When Jameson confirmed, she nodded eagerly, standing, and was halfway to the door before her gaze landed on Cal.

He swore it was a physical thing.

He felt it like a caress over his skin.

“Do you want anything?”

“Nah, you need it more than me, Twiggy,”

he said with a smirk and leaned back against the seat.

There was a whisper of something akin to hurt in her eyes, but it was gone so quickly he wasn’t sure it had been there at all.

When they were gone, he turned his attention to the landscape she’d been observing so keenly.

He wondered, and not for the first time, what she thought when she looked out on such a barren land.

Did she see the beauty in it?

He pulled his sketchbook and charcoal from his bag and spent the time putting his thoughts, his worries, fears, and hopes on the page.

The comforting and familiar scratching sound filled the small space and he almost felt at ease.

***

Jameson and Rumi returned some time later, their arms laden with pastries from the dining car.

“We brought you some of everything,”

she announced with a broad smile.

Cal could count on one hand the number of times she had smiled at him like that and it made his heart fluttery.

She set the plates on the small table that folded from the side panel.

Precariously stacked, teetering mounds of decadent custard-filled eclairs and cake “fancies”

topped with thick layers of frosting wobbled as she set them down.

Then she returned to her seat beside him.

Jameson laughed and swiped a pastry before resuming his perch on the bench across from Cal.

“What she means to say is she acted like a tiny child, her eyes aglow, pointing at each item and asking to try it,”

he said with a grumble.

“‘Spensive woman.”

The sparkle in his eyes belied the grump, though.

Rumi had won over his friend too, it seemed.

“You did not seem to mind,”

she said, raising her eyebrow to indicate the delicacy in his hand, the white sugar powder dusting his lapels.

“Nah, but when the clerk comes knockin’ asking where all the pastries went, I’m blamin’ you.”

They all dissolved into bright, friendly laughter, and for the first time in weeks, Cal could breathe easier.

“Which is your favorite?”

she asked Cal, her mouth full of muffin.

One by one, she sampled donuts, muffins, pastry paws with almond claws, and golden fruit halves with baked cheesecake filling the hollows, each pastry disappearing behind her sugar-powdered lips.

How he wanted to lick the goodness right off of them.

His eyes dropped from her mouth to his lap, where he snatched up his napkin to pat it to his own lips, as if he sensed the delicate sweetness lingering on hers.

“The sugar-dusted cakey donuts,”

he said, more bashfully than he would have preferred.

“I wore them on my thumbs, taking bites from the frosted one, then the sugar one…”

His voice trailed off as he visited the memory.

“I was about five.”

“I think I would eat nothing else if I had known these existed,”

she announced.

The pile of sweets disappeared quickly between the three of them, and by the end, they all sat back with their sticky hands resting on their bellies.

Outside, the sun had disappeared from the overcast sky, the horizon fading into skeletal silhouettes.

Man had claimed this land, turning the sweeping pastures into cobbled streets with garish storefronts, still damp from an earlier rainfall.

Green glowing luminars appeared, small floating circles of light.

The windows began to cloud at the corners, as condensation rolled like tears down the window panes.

Rumi didn’t speak to him, and for a while, he thought perhaps she was upset with him, but when he looked, she was only watching out the window.

Her eyes were vacant, plagued by her own thoughts as she watched a new kind of world come into view.

A world that brought her one step closer to the fate that awaited them.

Her.

It awaited her.

He was not a part of her world.

He never should have been.

A soft touch on his hand made him jolt.

He looked up to find her eyes, wide with concern, locked on his face.

They slid briefly toward Jameson, whose hat rested over his eyes, his chest rising and falling evenly.

“Are you all right?”

she whispered.

For a moment, he considered telling her the truth.

Admitting that he wanted to go with her.

That he wanted to chase her through the trees and dance in the rain.

That he wanted to make the marital lies on the forged pages a reality.

That he could think of nothing else he wanted more. Instead, his lips tightened into a straight smile and he nodded.

She didn’t seem convinced, but neither did she push it.

Instead, she just leaned back, into him, her head resting against his shoulder.

For a moment, all was right in the world.

This puzzle piece fit perfectly.

His arm shifted and he hugged it around her, holding her to him, desperate to cling to what could never be.