Once Upon a Blue Moon

Train to freedom?

Vivian's P. O. V.

"I can't ....breathe.....Leo....." I'm gasping as Leona pulled me through the woods. With the baby bound with one hand, his weight pulling at my body, I struggle to keep up the pace

I knew and understood that we needed to get out of here. I understood what could happen to us if Shane's men were already right behind us now. What would happen to Leona. She was just a maid after all.

Shane would kill her without a second thought. For me, he might punish, extending my death day as I'm his Luna.

Leona stops quickly and turns to see me, fear in her eyes as she gazes at me.

My legs are shaking as I fall to the ground. We've been on the run for most likely an hour without stop, I'm bound to feel this way.

Leona kneels in front of me, her hand going over to brush my sweat smeared hair from my forehead.

"We need to keep going, Vivian," her eyes are wide and fearful "Alpha Shane's men are already finding us."

"I know....." I say out of breath "I'm sorry...."

"Here, I'll take him." She says as she carries Asher from my arms.

Asher. It has been the only name in my head long before I gave birth to him. It was the name of my brother who had died many years back and since Alpha Shane never showed any interest, I knew I'd be left to pick a name for him myself.

Asher was seven years old when he got mixed with some bad men in the woods on his play out and got shot with an arrow.

We never knew who did it, my mother only found him and brought him back to the house. I'd never been so hurt before.

So I thought passing his name on toy son would give me some form of solace.

Asher stirs in his sleep and makes a cooing sound on reaching Leona's arm. I don't think I'm properly healed down there after having Asher but I would not stop now, not after having Leona risk her life to help me escape.

"Come on, we're almost there," Leona says as she puts her free hand out for me "there's a road up ahead. We get there and we can get a car to take us far away from here."

I nod and take her hand. She helps me up before we continued walking with a fast pace this time instead of running.

After walking for another long while, like Leona had said, there's a long endless road by the end of the thick woods.

The road is quiet but I could hear the sound of a train somewhere. This wasn't a train road, it's a car road.

"Have you been to this side before?" I ask Leona who seemed confused by the sounds coming from the distance too.

"I've followed this road as a child when I first arrived at the pack," she replies before looking into the distance "I don't remember much but I think there's a train track somewhere around. Maybe that would be the best place to go father than board a car."

"But if we have to wait for the next train wouldn't that lower our chances of leaving without getting caught? For all we know Shane's men could already be on our backs already." I ask her.

I have only been on a train with my father once when I was seven. He had taken me a long on my plee to one of his business meetings outside the pack, not for his boring meetings but just to be able to see the other side of the pack.

I remember us waiting for a few minutes before the next train came. And I remembered we needed to have a pass so we can come off the train when we reached our destination. I don't remember how my father got one but for now, the most important thing was getting on that train and disappearing from here as quickly as possible, tickets will be tended to afterwards.

"We'll have to take our chances," Leona says as she adjust Asher's weight between her arms and chest. "Hopefully we're lucky enough to arrive on time for the next train."

I nod, trying to be just as hopeful too. Holding hands, we cross to the other side. We walk for a considerable amount of time before bursting out at a train station. This hadn't been the station where my father and I boarded years ago. If it was, then I didn't remember it.

As we approached the waiting area, I noticed there's just seven passengers waiting before the train track, which told me the train was probably approaching already.

"See? What'd I tell you?" Leona says excitedly.

Giving her a small smile, I reach for Asher "let me take him."

Seconds later, I heard the blaring sound of the train as it approached us.

I don't know why my heart started to beat. Whether it's the fact that I'm leaving everything that I knew behind me forever or because of this paralyzing fear that I could turn any minute now and find Alpha Shane standing right behind me, just moments before he grabs me by my hair and drag me back to the pack.

The fear is overwhelming and hard to ignore, so I slowly turn my head to see behind me.

My heart is in my hands as I make the turn, my veins pulsating painfully underneath my skin.

I felt myself calming down slowly when I turned to see an emptiness behind me.

But I can't help shake off this wired feeling around me suddenly. Why was this place so deserted and quiet?

I know it's still late in the night which is why this place is so dark but......

Where are all these people even going at this hour? Does that explain why there's so few people here waiting for the next train?

I look forward just in time for the train to stop in front of me. And as the doors automatically slid apart, I knew this was it.

We get onto the train to see that there's more people seated inside, all silently minding their business and non even paying an attention to me.

I guess we blended in naturally.

"Let's sit over there." Leona says after spotting an empty compartment. I sit by the edge so I'm able to see the rest of the train, just to be on alert.

The door starts to slide close after everyone got on board but someone puts a hand in between the doors from outside.

My heart drops to the pit of my stomach at the sight of the leather hand.

I thought to myself, this must be it. Alpha Shane's men tracked us down at last with our scents and now, it's over for the all of us.

As the doors slowly slid apart and I trained my eyes on them to see who walks in, I thought I would piss myself.

Not until a woman steps in, a broad smile on her face. She is tall and slim, almost looking to have a pysiche like mine. She has long slim fingers that has black leather gloves covering them, a wide Victorian hat seated on her head, with a black bow casually hung at the side for beautification. She's wearing a long pleated milk colored skirt that reaches the floor, only being lifted by the help of the high boots she appears to be wearing. Her top is a black high collar shirt with cup sleeves and extending transparent lacy fabric reaching her forearm.

On one of her hands is a long, black umbrella.

"Ohhh dear, I must've kept everyone waiting!" She says with a high pitched voice as she made her way further into the cart.

The hat on her head is concealing the better part of her face, her sweet smile on display as she approached my compartment.

I can only imagine how happy she must be, with the way she carried herself, the way she lifts her head up to be able to see me properly from underneath her hat.

"May I sit with you please?" She says as she stops right in front of me "every other carriage is filled up you see..."

"Oh, not a problem." I say quickly, attempting to pull myself out of my thoughts of her and quickly shifted inside and towards the window.

"Thank you." She says politely before sitting down next to me. She holds out her black umbrella and puts it on the opposite seat next to Leona, who tries to give her a small welcoming smile.

"What a beautiful baby you have there." She says as her eyes trained down on Asher who is still sleeping.

Pulling the clothes over his face, I beam a smile at her "thank you."

"What's his name? If you don't mind," she chuckles "pardon me, I'm just a sucker for the little ones."

I watch her for a quick second and tried to see through her. It seemed impossible. I tried to perceive her scent. She didn't smell like a werewolf. Was she human then? There was just something rather concerning about her. Was it the way her eyes looks? I cannot see her eyes properly yet.

"It's Asher," I reply her anyway "and it's not a problem."

"Lovely name," she says "where are you headed?"

I don't know what to say so I just look back at Leona who looked pale from her question.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I don't mean to pray, " she says quickly after noticing our silent glance exchange "I myself I'm heading to Brookeway, North."

"We're headed there too," Leona quickly intervenes before I could think of what to say.

"Really? That's nice," she says with a certain keen interest. It hit me that she was probably just excited to be having someone going to the same place as her.

"How far is it?" I ask her.

"Plenty of hours," she says tiredly, finally taking off her hat to unveil her face.

Her face was small and beautiful, her nose slip and pointed. Her lips are almost a full heart shape, her eyes big and glassy green. Her whitish blond hair is smooth and pulled back on top of her head in a messy bon, two strands of hair cascading down her chest.

She looked very young, like she was in her very early twenties. And beautiful too.

"You're going into the city for the first time? That's a pity. Brookeway is buzzling with life. And it's very beautiful too. You'll love it there. Are you meeting someone there? Perhaps I can be of some help?"

I felt paranoid for some reasons. Maybe because I'm thinking that she's being too friendly? And asking too much questions?

"Do you live there?" I ask her

"Not permanent, but yeah, I do." She replies with a glint in her eyes as they watched me.

"I'm Henrietta by the way." She says as she puts her hand out for me to take.

I watch her curiously before reluctantly taking her hand. Everything about the connection felt completely strange. And wrong.

Who was this woman and why was I meeting her here today?

"Vivian," I tell her "I'm Vivian."

She smiles before turning to Leona, a brow raised questioningly at her.

"Leona," she says "the name is Leona."