“What do you mean Megan?” Izzy was sitting up straight on her bunk.  She knew this trip was going to easy, she knew something had to happen. 

“I was walking with Max; he was talking about how the cars couple together.  It was really boring but I faked it anyway.”  She smiled at Izzy before continuing.   “He was rambling on and I was taking the opportunity to look around. “

“Get to what you saw,” Izzy practically shouted.  Megan looked at her hurt.  “I’m sorry, can you please continue.” 

“Anyway,” Megan now turned towards Brian to continue with what she saw.  “There were three guys in suits talking to the conductor, at least I thought he was the conductor, maybe he was the engineer.” 

“Could they have been business men like the two we saw on the platform?” Brian asked.

“They could, but I could see the muscle definition under the suit on one guy.  He definitely did not look like a typical businessman.” 

“Why would business men be on this train wearing their suits?  It’s not a commuter train,” Izzy said as she climbed back down holding her bag.   “We need to find a way off this train.”

Brian and Megan agreed, each grabbing their own bags.  They all did one last look through the room to make sure they had not left anything behind before they opened the door to their sleeper car and made their way out.    The train had reached a full stop as they made their way through the car towards the back of the train.  Izzy glanced outside and noticed they weren’t at a station and they weren’t the only ones confused as to why the train would be stopping in the middle of nowhere. 

“Looks like Texas,” Megan mumbled at the back of the group.   Brian was leading the group keeping his eyes down, his hat pulled down.   They had entered a passenger car and people were standing in their seats.  Izzy heard Brian’s soft southern drawl saying ‘excuse me’ several times as they moved through the car.  

“How do you know what Texas looks like?” Izzy asked her friend.   She couldn’t remember her friend ever having been to Texas before or even talking about Texas before. 

“I have family here.”  Megan answered.  “We visited a few times when I was young; I didn’t care for it much. Not much to talk about.”

Izzy was going to ask Megan if she was still close to her Texan family, they might have need of a place to crash, when she found herself running into Brian’s backside.  “What…” She started to ask Brian but when she looked up she noticed that there were two men in suits walking towards them.  They were definitely not men who sat behind a computer in an office all day.  Izzy quickly moved Brian behind her and gave him her bag.  She planted her feet and prepared herself.

The men simply stopped walking and stood towards the back of the car, blocking the exit.  They didn’t advance further and they didn’t attack.  Several of the other passengers were looking at the three people in the aisle and the two men at the back.   Izzy hoped that they could manage to get off this train without having to fight their way off.  These people could get caught in the middle and injured; she didn’t need any more reason for people to look for her. Wanted for the death of a pop star was enough already.  

“Turn,” she barked the order. She kept her eyes on the men as she walked backwards towards the other end of the car.   They stood at the back of the car keeping their eyes on the three.  Izzy noticed none of the other passengers were even attempting to move from their seats, it was as if they knew that something was going to happen.  Many of them were standing against the windows, watching. 

Izzy collided with Brian again and turned her head to see why they had stopped.  Three more men in suits were walking towards them from the other direction.

“Shit,” Izzy muttered as they stood in the middle of the car, five men blocking them from leaving.  None of the men approached, they just stood there. 

“Why are they just standing there?” Megan asked.  The fear in her voice was apparent.

“Towards the back,” Izzy whispered and they started to move back towards the two men again.  The three men continued to stand, watching. 

Izzy got closer to the men, they still did not move.  “Excuse us,” Izzy said.  Maybe they were all being overcautious and these men weren’t there for them.

One man looked down her, “humph,” escaped from his mouth.  The other man reached down to take hold of Izzy; she took this as her sign to attack.  Using her elbow she jammed it into the gut of man who was reaching for her and at the same time she kicked her foot out towards the knee of the other man.  The man she elbowed hardly seemed phased by her hit and he had both his hands wrapped around her arms.  He held them tightly behind her back as the other man recovered from the knee hit.   The second man grinned as he slapped Izzy across the face. 

With her arms pinned Izzy couldn’t think of what to do next.  She tried to kick out at the other man, to use her weight to flip the one holding her over, but with the limited room of the train she was having a difficult time moving.   The second man prepared himself to hit Izzy, this time with his fist when a bag hit the side of his face stunning him.  Izzy felt another bag brush her shoulder as it fell from hitting the man holding her.   His grip loosened in the shock.

Izzy stepped backwards slamming her heel into the man’s toes as she wrenched her arms free.  Holding one hand over her first she slammed her elbow into his gut again, this time the second arm provided enough force that the man bent over in pain. Izzy quickly slammed her arm upwards into the man’s nose, her second hand, now a fist, slamming into his nose seconds later.  She could feel it break as she whipped her hands behind the man’s head and pulled his face down on her knee. 

The first man dropped, covering his face with his hands.  Izzy spun around and attempted to jab her elbow into the second man’s gut but she stopped as she realized Brian was punching him.  It appeared that Brian had gotten some good hits in; the second man’s face had blood dripping from the side of his mouth and what looked to be a bruise already appearing on his cheek.  Izzy wasn’t sure how Brian was getting the hits in with only using one arm. 

Izzy pulled the other man away from Brian and punched him in the throat.  He started to gasp for air and she pulled his head down to meet her knee.  Blood covered the knee of her pants from both men.  She glanced up and noticed the other three approaching.    The two they just fought were still down.

“Let’s move,” she barked out to Brian and Megan.  She grabbed her bag off the floor and headed off the train.  She was already standing on the platform when she noticed that Brian and Megan were no longer with her.   She noticed Brian was fighting off the three other men; the two bloody men were standing and heading off the train behind her.  They motioned towards the other men and two more started to head off the train with them, leaving one man fighting Brian. 

Four men exited the train and started to advance on her.  As much as she hated to leave Brian and Megan on the train, if she could lead the four men away and take care of them away from the watching eyes of the passengers, the better.  She ran, kicking dirt as she moved.  She almost tripped on a patch of grass but managed to catch herself. 

She turned and noticed the men were not following her.  They were standing near the train.   They were splitting them up. 

“No,” She muttered as she started to run back towards the train.  She would fight them all off if she had to, she was not going to find herself separated from Brian again.  As she got closer, a fifth figure emerged from the train.  Izzy thought that the final man had joined the others, but this suit was too thin to be one of the bulky men that had been on the train. 

When the person stepped off the train, her hair flew in the slight breeze as she started to run towards Izzy.  Izzy bent down right before the woman reached her and managed to charge the woman knocking her to the side.   

The woman smirked at Izzy and reached behind her, pulling out a wood baton, it looked similar to a police nightstick.  She flew towards Izzy swinging the baton at her.  It was all Izzy could do to back up from the woman, sidestepping each attempt the woman made to hit her.  

“Start fighting back,” the woman yelled at her as she swung again. 

Izzy barely moved away from the baton as it came crashing down.   When the woman reached up again Izzy stopped the attempted blow with her hand.  She pushed the woman’s arm away hopping she could disarm the woman.   The other woman pulled back on the baton and Izzy fell forward.  She felt the impact of the baton on her back as the woman slammed the butt of it into her spine.  Izzy sprawled towards the ground. 

Quickly she rolled to the side and missed another attack by the woman.  Izzy kicked both her legs out and stood up facing the woman.   She had dropped her bag a few yards away as she had made a run for the train, if she could get back there she might be able to get to the knife that was tucked away inside. 

Izzy rushed towards the woman and ducked when she swung the baton at her.  She ran at full speed to the bag and managed to snag it off the ground and turn to face her attacker before the woman could swing the baton at her again. 

Izzy held up the bag to block the baton being swung down towards her head again. She used her strength and the bag to push the woman back.  Finding the zipper she pulled at it managed to get it open but not get the knife out before the baton connected with her arm.  She held back her cry of pain as she dropped the bag and grabbed the woman’s arm.  She tried to wrest the baton away from her but the other woman pulled away quickly. 

The sun glinted down on something distracting Izzy for a second; the knife had fallen out of the bag.  The other woman noticed it to and they both lunged for the knife at the same time.  The other woman go to it first but Izzy wasn’t far behind, she shoved her foot down on the woman’s elbow as she picked up the knife.  The other woman’s arm broke under the pressure.  Izzy wrenched the knife from under the woman and plunged in into her back as she was still bent over holding her broken arm. 

The whistle on the train sounded and Izzy whipped her head around to see the train start to chug along the tracks.  She started to run towards the train, the four men had disappeared. She hadn’t seen where they went; did they get back on the train?  She hoped not, for Brian and Megan’s sake.   They must not have gotten on the same car as them though as she saw them standing at the door to the car motioning for her to come on. As she neared she could hear them calling to her. 

She pushed with whatever energy she had left and ran towards the train. The car with Brian and Megan was too far ahead of her now.  Still running, she tried to reach out towards the last car to grab onto the handrail so she could pull herself aboard.  The toll of the fights and the train speeding up too quickly caused Izzy to fall back.  She leaned over huffing in exhaustion. She looked up to see Brian leaning out the doorway, it looked like he was about to jump off the train.  Before he could a pair of hands pulled him back inside.  

In a matter of minutes the train was gone and she was standing near empty tracks.  She looked back to where she fought the woman, she was gone.   She’d seen no cars, so where did she go.  Keeping her eyes vigilant for this mystery woman, Izzy started to follow the tracks hoping she would reach a town sooner or later.