Soon, the others have dosed off. Sleeping like the dead. The smell of dirt fields outside seems to draw smiles over sleeping faces. The smiles disappear as two men shake them awake. Shadowed faces. One is younger, one older. No expressions. Traveling with them are two girls. Mascara running like painted eyes, unhappy joker faces, mimes performing outdoors in a big city. But these girls are more than unhappy joker faces.

“Abducted,” Cinnamon whispers to Anne.

Before anyone knows what is happening, Trot rushes one of the men. He is a big slab of a man, like a Texas steer. He gives Trot a pounding. Brandishes a knife. Stabs him in the gut. Anne screams, “No!” Scrabbles in her backpack.

The pistol. Where is the fucking pistol?

The outside world rushes by. Eyes wild, Canary pulls the twins tight to her chest to shield their faces from what is happening. Trot lies on the hardwood floor, arms pressed to his gut. Doubled over on his side. Blood spilling and dampening everything. Himself leaking away.

The two abducted girls scream and cry. The men are beasts. Savages. Predatory and uncaring. Looking closer, she watches them morphing; their faces are now those of Anne’s sisters from Tennessee. And they’re crying, asking Anne, “Why did you leave us?”

The men come at Cinnamon, only to morph as well. Their features lose their shadows. One of them is Anne’s father. The other is not a man; it’s her brother. He is laughing. Anne keeps digging frantically in her pack. Her father and brother tower over Anne and Cinnamon now. There are no words. The entire car is a ball of violent energy. Cinnamon screams, “Smugglers! You’re fucking smugglers, sex traffickers!”

“No!” Anne screams. “It’s my family.”

Her father slaps Cinnamon. Then he slaps Anne. She still digs. Looks up at her sisters. Abducted. How they look. Drugged. Half out of their minds but aware they’ve been kidnapped. Anne feels the cold steel. Pulls it from her pack. And her father smiles. “There’s my fucking gun,” he says.

Her brother says, “Her thieving ass stole it. Just like she stole your money.”

Suddenly, the scene starts to come apart. The train derails. Cars are coming off the track in an impossibly loud eruption of noise. Metal crashing, twisting, and exploding. Anne feels a rush of air in her lungs. Her eyes fly open. And she sits up, panting. Everyone is asleep. Everyone except Cinnamon.

“Whoa. You okay?”

“Men,” she says. Looking around. “Girls. They abducted two girls. My sisters. My dad and my brother.”

“Honey, you were dreaming.”

Getting her bearings straight. Her breathing slows back to normal. “It felt so real.”

“Dreams do that sometimes,” Anne tells her. “But mostly, they’re trying to tell us something about what we fear.”

“My family.”

“What about them?”