Lightning Strikes (The Almeida Brothers Trilogy #3) by Trevion Burns Page B

back home. New York City was falling apart, and it was slowly taking the rest of the country with it.
    Relieved when he finally made it to a teller, Jack spoke into the intercom that was bolted to the glass.  “Good morning, I’d like a train ticket to anywhere that isn’t here, please.  This is my voucher.”  Jack pushed his voucher through the small window at the bottom of the glass and held a hand up when the teller went to speak.  “And please allow me to preface… if you give me bad news of any sort, I’m very likely to spontaneously combust.”
    At those words, the middle-aged Amtrak teller, with a sizable bald spot running straight down the middle of his graying head, pressed his lips together and began tapping away on his computer.
    Jack watched him do this with wide eyes, only nodding his head when the silence went on for longer than a minute.  “Good…” he said, pleased with the silence.
    When the teller spoke, his high voice boomed through the speaker louder than Jack had anticipated, making him rear back.  “Sir, it looks like the only train that isn’t booked solid is the train to Utah.”
    “I will accept that train ticket, thank you.”
    “But your voucher is from the flight that crashed yesterday.  So your real destination is New York City, correct?”
    “Incorrect.  My real destination is anywhere but here.”
    Sensing his tone, the teller tapped away with a shake of his head.  “Seems counterproductive to move backward is all…”
    “Manhattan is still underwater, so moving backward is my only option right now.”  Jack clenched his teeth. Why was he explaining himself?
    The teller sighed, still not done expressing his displeasure with Jack’s life choices.  “Printers are moving kind of slow this morning.  One more minute and it should print.”
    Jack tapped his fingers on the counter as he tried to wait patiently for that minute to pass.  Just as his ticket began to print, disaster struck.
    “I changed my mind.”
    At the sound of her voice ringing in next to him, Jack pressed his lips together and begged for peace.  Without moving his body away from the teller window, he turned his head and met her eyes.
    He breathed in deeply.
    Her curls were even bigger first thing in the morning.  Now fully dry, they sprang up from her head and toward the sky like a billowy crown before leading a million spirally paths down to her defined collarbones.
    Nina held up the iPhone he’d left behind in the hotel room, the iPhone he’d hoped to never see again while taking a huge chunk of her curls and pushing them to the other side of her head.
    Jack watched them move with the ease of bone straight hair, but with a unique life that was simply hers, so unapologetic in its spirally singularity it left him transfixed.
    “I changed my mind,” she said, again, waiting for his eyes to meet hers once more.  “Unlock the phone.”
    Leaning against the counter on both elbows, Jack pressed his forehead into the glass for a long moment before turning his head and meeting her eyes, again.  “For what?”
    “I need to make a call.”
    “To whom?  New York City is an aquatic wasteland.  You will not get an answer.”
    “An aquatic wasteland ?”  She smirked.  “You unimaginable lawyer.  You really can’t help yourself, can you?”  When he didn’t respond, her smile fell, and she shifted, throwing her leg out while jutting out her hip.  “Look.  The man I need to speak to is so cold blooded; I have no doubt he has gills and can breathe underwater.  He’ll pick up.”
    Jack’s eyes narrowed.
    “I won’t go through your three hundred missed calls if that’s what you’re worried about,” she said.  “And, yes, your missed calls have skyrocketed to three hundred overnight, just in case you were curious.”
    “I wasn’t.”  He took the phone and unlocked it before handing it back to her.  “The code is 7171.  Keep the phone.  Goodbye.”
    “I can’t believe you