AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m not sure,” he replies, failing to pick up on my sarcasm.
“You know what? We can talk about this later. Right now, I’m more interested in getting us stopped and refueled without dying.”
He nods, falling back into his stoic seriousness. “You’re right. Let’s focus on the task at hand.”
I check the gauge cluster as we approach the drop zone, praying that the fuel Nikolai has dropped will be enough for the rest of the journey. This train is eating up more fuel than it should, and that concerns me. It could be the weight of the unexpected cargo, but there’s also the possibility of a leak.
I grit my teeth, considering whether I should bring it up to Jasha. He’s going to be freezing his ass off outside without a jacket for at least thirty minutes as he refuels the train, and checking the tank will delay us even more.
But losing fuel and failing to reach Texas would be a death sentence.
I sigh, making some adjustments to our speed as we prepare for the stop. I’ve done this a thousand times, but the controls feel foreign to me on this frigid winter morning. It’s like they’ve realized I’m leaving them soon, and they’ve already moved on.
Once I’ve put the brakes on, I turn to Jasha and give him a thin smile of remorse. “I think we have a problem.”
20
Jasha
Lola didn’t want to come out with me, but I need her to help me locate the possible leak. She’s the expert on trains, not me, and I don’t have time to learn.
“Holy shit, it’s cold,” she says rubbing her small hands together the moment we step out into the frozen morning snow. A thin layer of ice sits atop the snow, shattering with each step we take toward the fuel tank.
Even though the fuel tank is a short walk away from the door, I’m glad I was able to borrow a jacket from one of my guards. I have exceptionally wide shoulders, so it fits quite snug, but I didn’t want to steal Lola’s. I’m sure she appreciates how long it is, especially since all she’s wearing to cover her legs is a skirt.
The air is so crisp that it hurts my nose to inhale, but once I catch the scent of diesel fuel floating through the air, I take a deep breath to locate it. It could be coming from the giant grey and white camouflage container sitting three yards away from me in the snow…
Or it could be coming from the train itself.
“Is that smell normal?” I ask, leaning toward the train and taking another sniff.
Lola leans in with me, wrinkling her nose at the pungent aroma. “Definitely not.”
“And it’s not the fuel container,” I say, gesturing toward the camouflage crate and phrasing my statement more like a question.
“It could be,” Lola says, her eyes narrowing. “Let’s check it. Looking for a leak in the train’s gas tank is going to be a lot more difficult, especially in this snow.”
I take one last deep inhale before turning away from the train. If it’s leaking, we’re in huge trouble, but I don’t want to waste time on it unless I can rule out the smell coming from the fuel drop. A few thousand pounds of diesel fuel has to give off some kind of smell.
With the frozen hairs in my nostrils singed by the acrid scent, I trudge down to the fuel container and risk another deep inhale.
It has a smell, but nothing like the one coming from the train.
Fuck.
I look over my shoulder at Lola and grimace. “The smell is coming from the train. Any chance you know where to look for a leak?”
“I’m just the engineer,” she replies. “We have other people who come in and fix up the trains.”
My chest tightens. “We don’t have the luxury of waiting around for other people to come fix the train. A leak could ruin this whole operation and make everyone on board this train sitting ducks.”
She looks back at the train, shaking her head. “We don’t even have anything to patch the train with.”
I grit my teeth, tempted to yell at her to blow off some of the steam that’s building up inside of me, but I know it wouldn’t help. I have a habit of pushing people away when I start caring about them, and I need to learn to control myself. Lola isn’t just some woman. She’s the mother of my child and my future wife.
I suck in a cold breath and let it out slowly. “Okay, let’s get this tank filled up, and we’ll see how quick we’re leaking fuel once we start back up again.”
“Are you sure?” she asks, her forehead creased with worry.
