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

hadn’t yet left her lips, grew hooded.
    Nina gasped when he leaned in close, parting his plush lips and letting his eyes flutter closed.  She pushed out of his hold, with a little more force than necessary, just as the train cleared the turn and began to speed up.
    Jack’s eyes popped open at her retreat, just in time to find her scooting backward, away from him, her eyes wide with alarm.
    He leaned forward when she kept scooting away, hoping she could see how close she was to the edge.  “Be careful!”
    But it was too late.  If he thought he’d scared her a moment before, it was only because he’d yet to see the horror flashing across her eyes when she reached a hand behind her and realized it had nowhere to go.
    “Shit!” Jack screamed, lunging for her when she tumbled over the edge of the train, flying onto his belly in his haste to catch her before she fell.
    He did catch her, getting her around the wrist just as her body disappeared over the edge, but with nowhere to plant his feet, he couldn’t use his weight to his advantage, and she wasn’t exactly svelte, so her weight overwhelmed him and pulled him over the edge, too.
    This is it, Jack thought, as they went careening into the dirt and tall grass below, this is how I’m going to die.
    It wasn’t how he’d imagined it happening, being pulled off the roof of a moving train by a woman who he’d, quite appropriately, named after a natural disaster.  As they went screaming to the ground, he was thankful that, at the very least, his sudden death would not be by his own hand.
     
    ***
     
    Nina hit the ground first, the hard impact stealing a horrified scream from her lungs just as Jack landed next to her.  The toe of his dress shoe connected with her eye as he crash-landed a few feet away from her.  Her head flew to the side at the impact, and the pain was so sudden and severe she couldn’t even scream.  She covered her eye with her hand and rolled onto her side, her mouth hanging open in shock.
    Unaware that he’d just kicked her square in the face, Jack moaned as he rolled back and forth next to her, clutching the small of his back.
    For a moment, there was silence.  Shock.  Disbelief.  When they finally rolled toward each other, and their gazes met, realization hit, and their eyes widened.
    “Stop!” they screamed, stumbling to their feet in unison before turning toward the train, which was rapidly moving away from them, horn tooting in the afternoon air.
    “Fuck!” Nina was the first to break into a run. Her head fell as she gave every inch of energy she had to the act of moving her legs, which still trembled from the fall.  She hadn’t realized how fast that train had actually been moving until she found herself chasing after it; arm outstretched, and fingers clawed.  “Wait!” she cried, voice hoarse from exertion.  It wasn’t until she saw Jack’s long legs jetting passed her, flexed arms pumping, that she realized the hoarse gasps were actually coming from him.  It hadn’t taken long for him to outrun her.
    “Stop!” he begged, waving a frantic hand in the air, his own fingers outstretched as he moved.
    Nina was the first to give up, sure if she ran for another second her lungs would crawl up out of her throat and kill her instantly.  She bent over, clutching her knees before exploding into a fit of coughs, positive that, if her lungs didn’t leave her body, another of her vital organs seemed well on their way.  “Holy balls,” she wheezed, the wind blowing her curls into her eyes when she looked up.  In the distance, Jack had thrown in the towel too, one hand in his hair and the other braced at the small of his back, watching as the moving train disappeared over a hill.
    Nina shook her head.  How could something that appeared to be moving so slowly, be going so damn fast?
    Her eyes ran down the back of Jack’s body.  It heaved with his own fervent effort to catch his breath. Nina couldn’t help it as her gaze