Ninty Eight passengers. That's how many people the small mainline train could take. It was cold that Wednesday when those ninety-eight strangers pinched their tickets and boarded the train. Southbound for twenty-six miles, a mere thirty-five-minute journey - no more no less. That was the plan. Eliza, however, was not an accustomed regular to the train. She had taken the above-ground steamers before but this would be new. As an entirely different style of travel. This train traveled a mile a...

Boarding was always a mad house. People scrambling around under cheap fluorescent lights. Gate agents turned into cattle herders in a matter of minutes. Not to mention the silent passive-aggressive line-cutting disagreements and the woman hollering at the counter because she had to check a bag. You can always count on a row of standby passengers watching from a safe distance.

Henry had taken his place at the back of the line. He figured he had his best chances there of not getting into any...

“Close it, we’re leaving,” Noa scolded Astra, and everyone else shifted uncomfortably.

“Come on, don’t you wanna look?” Drea teased, pulling away from Noa a bit dramatically, Flinging herself back on the dumpster. “Could get you billions-”

“If the whole city is looking for it it's not gonna be in the dumpster,” Cassian tried but she was already leaning in, rooting around the contents of the dumpster.

Then, out of nowhere, she was yanking her hand out; cursing aloud and...

“What’s that supposed to mean -”

“Well hello, boys.”

Elric shot his gaze straight toward the sound of that voice. It can't be, he thought. Baffled at the sight of her. Sure enough, Leaning on the opposite wall, grinning ear to ear. She had the posture of a carved statue, the gaze of a lion. Elric could swear she could command the skies and read minds. Any sort of witchcraft. Those stiff elegant eyes could hide anything. And no matter how many times he warned Philip he just did not...

The file was on my desk before I had taken my second sip of coffee. The mug touched down just as the officer slipped away, almost as fast as he came. He shut the door. Suddenly I was alone again in the small consulting office of the New York Police Department, about to read a file for a case I did not have the time to take on. Any moment now the chief would probably walk in. Give me the same speech they always did when it came to Private Investigators like me. For some strange reason though,...

The desert surrounding the Nile is no place for the lighthearted. Let alone the majestic Valley of the Kings. Neither are what they seem on the surface. They are not just raw and ugly mined deserts with no life. No greenery or even variety in the landscape. No. Their beauty lies below. Beneath the rolling sands of time. The treasures of both historical significance and golden sarcophagi could be sold for more than imaginable. Loads of tourists trek through nearly every day - but see only the...

Ally could still remember the day her friend bought that car. She remembered him driving it over for the first time - and she remembered her reaction. Seeing as how she didn't have a license, she kind of relied on him and that little car… but that didn't change the fact she thought it was the worst car she had ever seen. She told him it was a waste of his money but it didn't matter. Jake was in love with it. The 1998 Toyota Corolla. With more personality than a living thing and the...

Kalyi Tan Ze sat alone on the forest floor, leaning casually on her usual tree, eating the pork curry wraps her mother had packed her earlier that day. She had slipped quietly out of the schoolyard and vanished in the nearby woods, savoring the blanket of quiet eerily surrounding her. Accompanied by towering Western Hemlocks and Birch trees she felt a warm peace. The bubbling creek nearby let her mind drift, rolling like the current. Isolated bird calls sounded every other second, their...

The house was a shade of blue that should be reserved only for the bottoms of pools or the sides of fishing boats. It covered the whole house, roof to foundation, save the bright electric yellow shutters around every window. It was a shotgun style home in the deep deep marshes of the Florida everglades. A home not meant for the faint of heart.

Great grandmother Aida lived in this house. No one knew exactly how old she was. Or where exactly her accent was from. No one knew her past and no one...

Stealing space food was an activity that, years ago, Ren never would have imagined participating in every Saturday morning. At least, he assumed it was Saturday. He accidentally overslept on launch day and miscounted. It was either Saturday or Wednesday but there was no way to tell. He devoted all of his time and energy to staying hidden, an art that was proving easier and easier as the days went on. As things became routine. Nothing out of the ordinary happened - and he would know everyone...