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PROLOGUE

T he first time she tried to run, I let her. Sat back, arms crossed, and watched her make her play, all frantic energy and poor judgment. She didn’t get far, of course—people like her never do. They think freedom is a switch you flip, a door you can just walk through. But it’s not. Freedom is earned, stolen, fought for. And she never had the stomach for that kind of fight.

By the second time, though, I wasn’t laughing anymore. Tracking her down, undoing the mess she left in her wake—it wasn’t amusing. It was exhausting. Keeping her close had turned into a full-time job with more overtime than I ever signed up for. And yet, I couldn’t quit. That’s the thing about people who make you feel alive: they have a way of tying themselves to you, no matter how much you might wish otherwise.

So here we are. On this train, on this track, barreling toward the end of a story that’s already been written. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably put together the basics by now. The wreckage, the bodies, the echoes of something that couldn’t quite stay hidden. But don’t make the mistake of thinking you know what happened here—not yet .

The truth is, you can’t tell a story like this from one angle. You can’t understand until you’ve seen it from all sides, until you’ve looked through my eyes. What you have here is a story about inevitability. About control, about holding on, and about what it costs to keep someone who doesn’t want to be kept.

This train, this beautiful piece of engineering, is the perfect metaphor. Right now, we’re slicing through the Rockies at seventy miles an hour, the diesel engine roaring ahead, the vibrations humming up through the soles of my boots. The snow is coming down hard outside, piling up on either side of the tracks, but in here, it’s warm. Quiet, even. Just the two of us, heading toward the one stop this train will ever make.

She hasn’t figured it out yet. Not fully. She’s a few rows ahead of me, her forehead pressed to the window, staring out at the endless white, punctuated with towering pines, the mountains standing watch on either side. She probably thinks she’s on some kind of scenic escape, some detour to nowhere while she plots her next move. But she’s wrong.

There’s no conductor to check her ticket this time. No whistle to signal the next station. Just the relentless pull of the engine, the inevitability of steel on steel, carrying us to the end of the line.

Speaking of the conductor—he didn’t take kindly to my plans. We had a bit of a disagreement, you might say. He’s up front now, slumped over the controls, his role officially played out. The passengers weren’t thrilled, either, but they’re gone now. I pulled the brake at a crossing and made sure each one of them got off safely. Some screamed, some cried, some tried to fight back. But in the end, they all left.

I told them they’d thank me later. That a night in the snow was better than what was waiting for them on this train. They didn’t believe me, but that’s fine. It wasn’t their story to finish.

Now, it’s just us. Just me and her, alone in this metal beast, gliding through the wilderness toward something she can’t yet see. The cabin smells of recycled air, old upholstery, and the faint metallic tang of blood—not much, just enough to notice if you’re paying attention.

She always had a good poker face, but even she’s struggling to hold it together now. I can see the way her fingers twitch against the armrest, the way her gaze darts to the emergency exit every few minutes. She’s calculating, weighing her options, wondering if she could make it if she jumped.

She couldn’t. Not at this speed, not in this weather. I made sure of that.

She thinks I’m doing this to punish her, to prove some kind of twisted point. She couldn’t be more wrong. Everything I’ve done, every move I’ve made, has been for her. To keep her. To save her. From what, she never cared to understand.

The truth is, she’s been running since the day I met her. Not just from me—from herself, from her past, from the parts of her she doesn’t want to face. I’ve spent years trying to show her that running doesn’t fix anything. It just brings you back to the same place, over and over, until you finally stop.

And that’s what this is about. Stopping. Not just the train, but everything. The chase, the fight, the endless cycle. She’ll thank me one day, I think. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually.

For now, the engine carries us forward, steady and unyielding. The tracks stretch out ahead, a perfect line into the abyss. We’re moving faster now, the mountains closing in, the snow blurring into a white haze.

She hasn’t said a word in hours, and I haven’t pushed her. There’s no need. Words won’t change what’s coming.

This is it. The final act. The end of the line. And you know what?

I’ve never felt more alive.