TRAIN [FIRST DRAFT]

Chapter 3: Unbreakable

She kept running. Abba's voice was only a distant echo to her ears: "I will send guards if you try anything crazy, Aimee!"

Crazy? What could possibly be crazier than this, AIM, you and Benjamin, all of this? Aimee thought.

She approached many rooms, opened every door, but no room was empty enough. She reached a staircase. It was nothing fancy; metal steps and metal railing enclosed by grey painted walls. She trotted halfway down the first flight only to lean over the railing and see an on-going spiral of stairs further. She plonked onto her butt and cupped her face in her hands for another slow cry.

Minutes later, she finally heard the footsteps she had been expecting. But when she looked up, the dozen guards that she had already painted mentally became one doleful woman who sat down next to her.

"Aimee, I know I screwed up," she said in the most heartfelt way that she could have, "but I did not abandon you. I have been watching you, ever since your sixth birthday. I remember that pink dress – the poufy one that you refused to wear, until Molly told you that if you wore it, she would not bother you for the rest of the day," she paused, laughed a little. "She raised you so well. Even though you put up an emotional wall, I could tell that you were happy living with her and Clifford. But I missed you so much."

Her arms wrapped around Aimee's upper body, and her fingers hooked together at her left shoulder. And when Aimee hugged her in return, they both began to cry.

Is this real? Aimee thought, Could she actually care this much?

"I wanted nothing more than to follow you to America and take you back, but I could not. Not with those two in the picture. I need you here, to myself. It is the only way."

The moment I put her in a positive light... Aimee pushed away and hoisted herself up to stand. "What is that supposed to mean? What are you talking about?" she queried, hardly taking break to breathe.

Abba's lips separated, but instead of an answer, they heard a bang. Their heads spun to Aimee's right, wherefrom the sound had emitted. No one had screamed at all - maybe it was a bad guy thing. Abba rose to her feet and ran with Aimee to the focus of the sound.

There was dust and glass and parts of the wall flying through the air. Aimee shielded her face when she got too close to the particles and Abba had already begun to cough.

"Benjamin?!" she huffed his name.

He limped out from the dust and towards her with a gun in his grasp. With both hands, he proffered it to his wife. That gun was the first thing Aimee saw once she removed her hand from her face; the next was a body in the clearing debris. She heard her name, saw strawberry blonde hair materialising, and then she saw Abba raising her gun and gripping it in both hands.

"No!!!"

She ran, and without giving it a second thought, tossed her own body between a spinning bullet and Gavin's chest. She flew twirling from the impact before hitting the ground. Before Abba had even realised what she had done.

"Aimee!" Gavin and Benjamin cried. For moments, Gavin felt paralysed.

Abba dropped to her knees as though her bones had become jelly, and her brain the custard. Benjamin knelt down and hugged her, his arms encasing her torso from behind. Gavin was stuck, just ogling Aimee's body. Walking up to it seemed like the hardest thing for him to do. If she was dead, he could not bear to see it, and how would he tell her loved ones back home? How would he be able to tell Stefan?

He knelt down at her side, and the tears he did not know he could shed fell onto her arm. Her elbow was bloody, resting on the bullet wound in her side, and her eyes were closed – Gavin leaned over her to make sure. He was certain that she was dead. He sat on his heels, gently placed his hand on her side, and bowed his head. Then she coughed. She coughed!

"Aimee?" he smiled hopefully and straightened up.

"Gavin move!" she said numbly in a gasp for air.

At first she could not remember jumping before him, but the event slowly precipitated. She saw his face and smiled widely, so happy that he was all right that her injury went completely ignored as sat up energetically to squeeze him in her arms. His arms slowly crossed on her back before his left hand attended her side, her wound.

"Are you okay?" he asked lightly, surprised.

"Sore and a little dizzy, but yeah," she whispered to him.

His head rested on her shoulder as his tears dried out. He closed his eyes momentarily, and then he remembered why he was there; to get Aimee home. He looked up passed her shoulder, to Abba and Benjamin.

"We need to leave," he murmured into Aimee's ear, and then helped her to her feet.

"No!" howled Abba. She glared up at him, half angry, half sad, and not a single bit guilty – that ship had long since sunk. "You are not leaving, you will not take her away from me again!" she propped herself up off the floor, her jelly legs had solidified.

Aimee turned around, her eyes bounced between Abba and Gavin's conversation.

"You almost killed her!" he yelled back. "You're crazy if you think I'd leave her with you!"

"No, I almost killed you!" she started laughing hysterically. "And I-I-I am not crazy."

"Very convincing. Okay, Aimee let's go."

"I know what can make you stay," said Abba. Aimee and Gavin halted mid one-eighty. "I know what can make you stay... our plan. Benjamin and I will destroy all of you Americans. All of you," her voice became high-pitched and her husband soon stood beside her.

"What are you talking about?" posed Gavin.

"They start from one point of America, end at the next. Soon, the whole of America will cease to exist. Domino Doomsday, I cannot wait," her eyes stared into the distance. "I will have her! You and all your GINM friends will see that it is for the best!"

Her words scanned into their brains, associated with the freaky look on her face. And questions such as 'what will start, where and why'? Gavin shook her out of his head and slowly held Aimee's hand.

"Trust me?" he asked, before turning around, pulling her along, running to where the window used to be.

"Gavin, what are you doing?!" queried Aimee, but he only continued to pull her along, "Gavin! Gavin! Gavin!" and they jumped.

It looked like suicide, mental insanity, but it was not. Gavin's helicopter hovered above them and he reached for its seemingly invisible ladder. He held onto it tightly, and onto Aimee's hand even tighter. He hoisted her up with his upper body strength and wrapped her in his arm as he cautiously climbed the short ladder with his one free hand. Once inside, he delicately laid her onto the floor, leaving her briefly to key in a command for his Autopilot, taking them home. As the bird began to move, he strode back to the open door and brought up the ladder, tensing when he noticed the Whitakers waiting on the ledge where the window used to be. Abba's eyes were ablaze with rage, but she stood patiently, expectantly, with her husband at her side. And her voice sang in Gavin's head: I will have her.