Kamon slid into his seat on the train and kicked back for the long nine-hour ride to Nong Khai, one of the northern-most provinces in Thailand. It hugged the Mekong River, bordering Laos. When he finished up his business with his family, he fully intended on crossing the Friendship Bridge to see Malia at the casino in Vientiane.

A smile curled over his lips at the thought of her. The warm scent of amber and musk from her perfume still permeated his shoulder where she fell asleep on him. He’d known her for just a few short hours, yet a part of him missed their conversation and the spark that sizzled between them.

A vibration tingled his leg and he pulled his buzzing phone from his pocket. “Hey, Jinx, what’s up?”

“Just checking in on you, man. Haven’t heard from you in a couple days, since the funeral. You make it to Thailand okay?” Jinx asked.

“Yeah. Landed a few hours ago. Grabbed some food and now I’m on the train to Nong Khai. My dad’s home village is just outside the city. I should be there by morning.”

“Cool. We just got back to base from the training op in ‘No Fuck, Vagina’ yesterday. Braxton’s back from leave. Dude looks pumped and more badass than ever. I think he got himself a woman or something. He’s like a new man. Still hairy as hell though,” Jinx said.

Kamon laughed. It had been a long time since he’d heard the nickname for the base in Norfolk, Virginia. “Yeah, dude’s like a fucking Yeti.”

Voices muffled over Jinx’s in the background. “Hey, is that Shadow? Let me talk to him.”

“Hound wants to give you his love,” Jinx said.

“Asshole,” Hound said as Jinx chuckled in the background.

“Miss you, too, shithead,” Kamon replied with another laugh.

“Funny. Hey,” Hound said, his voice softening to a whisper. “Jayla’s in Thailand on an op. If you run into her, let me know how she is, okay?”

“Thailand’s a big place, dude. The chances of running into her are pretty slim. But, yeah, if I see her, I’ll check in with you.”

“Thanks, man. I just worry about her since I can’t be there.” Hound’s heavy heart burdened his words. Kamon felt for him. If his girlfriend were a CIA spy, he’d probably do the same thing. It had to be hard to stay focused on your own mission when you’re heart is on another. He didn’t know how those two managed to maintain a relationship, but somehow they made it work. Jayla was a spitfire and could handle herself fine. But that never stopped Hound from worrying about her.

“That Shadow on the phone?” another voice yelled in background that sounded a lot like his team lead, Steel. “Tell that mother-fucker I need my sharp-shooter back ASAP.”

Another laugh erupted from his throat. “Tell Steel I’ll be back annoying his ass before he knows it.”

“Will do. Sorry about your mom, man. You take care of yourself and we’ll see you soon, okay?” Hound said.

“I’ll do my best. Thanks.”

“Hey,” Jinx whispered, taking back the phone. “I whipped up a little protection spell for you. I know you told me not to, but I just had a really bad vibe about you being in Thailand. So you can kick my ass later, but I had to do it.”

“How can you put a spell on me when I’m thousands of miles away?” Kamon didn’t understand all that Wicca juju stuff Jinx was into. He kept it to himself mostly, but since he and Jinx were roommates, he was the only one who knew. While not a practitioner, a form of magick and mysticism did run on both sides of Kamon’s family … the Hawaiians with their legends and polytheism and the Thai shamanism.

“We live together and you have long hair. It’s not that hard to find a piece of you laying around,” Jinx replied.

“Point taken.” Kamon sighed, but relented. “Well, thanks. I appreciate your bubble of safety, but all I’m doing is spreading my mom’s ashes by my dad. Maybe I’ll run into some long lost family. That should be the most dangerous part of my trip. Though, I may go up to Laos and look for the girl I sat next to on the plane.”

“Oh? You found a girl? That would put you in jail here in the states. I don’t know what the laws are in Thailand.” Jinx laughed.

“Whatever, fuckface. Woman. She’s all woman. She’s working for some casino just over the border. We kind of had a … connection. I don’t know what you call it, like a spark or something. We clicked, and I’m pretty sure she felt it, too. It sucks she’s all the way in Laos and I have to go back to the states, but maybe we can do a long distance thing. I mean, I’m already gone so much anyway, it might be fun to come back and visit when I can, ya know?”

“Uh huh,” another voice said, that clearly wasn’t Jinx’s. “Did she give you an air-start in the head? You better not come back here with crotch crickets!”

“Screw you, Digger! She didn’t give me a blow-job. Get the fuck off the phone, asshole,” Kamon said, gritting his teeth. He liked Digger, but he was a golden playboy. One of those guys with a girl in every port and probably father to unknown number of bastard children around the world. He was a good-looking guy, and the women never resisted. His idea of a long relationship was spending the whole night with a woman. Digger was the last person he needed to get any kind of relationship advice from.

“Listen, big boy, if you finally found a woman you clicked with, don’t treat her like a meal you order up at McDonald’s. Make a statement. Grab it and hold onto it. Life’s too short and those chances are few and far between. If you don’t click, nothing wrong with moving on to the next one. But when you find that connection, don’t waste it.”

Kamon pursed his lips. It surprised him to hear such advice. Maybe the fact that Digger was the way he was came as a result that he had yet to find his connection with a woman. At twenty-nine, this was the first time Kamon had really felt something in his gut the moment he laid eyes on a woman. Something about Malia seeped inside him and latched on to his heart before he ever said hello. Digger was right, that didn’t come along very often and maybe there was something to be garnered from his words.

“Thanks, man. I’ll think about it.”

“Who’s the fucking phantom shitter?” Steel’s voice blared through the phone in the background. “You have about ten seconds to unfuck yourself!”

“Balls. I gotta go. Take lots of pictures. Bring me home something pretty.” Digger’s voice faded, soon replaced by Jinx’s.

“Asshole. Anyway, I’ll let you go. Steel’s about to hand down a bag of dicks because some asshole thought it would be funny to shit in the shower. Check in when you can, bro. Talk to you soon,” Jinx said.

“Catch you later,” Kamon replied and clicked his phone off. A smile clung to his lips. He missed his SEAL brothers, the closest thing to family he had left in his life. He never had that connection of brotherhood like he would have if he’d have had siblings or even a bond with a father, since he only ever saw his but maybe a couple times in a year. His team filled that hole in his life and he clung to it.

A group of guys in their late twenties made their way through the train. Kamon wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but they scanned the area with intent, often whispering among themselves as they walked up and down the train car before going into the next. Kamon glanced over his shoulder as the group halted outside the women’s only car next door. The guard posted outside turned them around and forced them back into Kamon’s car where they made their way back toward the door at the far end of the car.

Kamon closed his eyes and let his thoughts drift back to Malia when a voice lifted him from his fantasies. The man spoke Thai and Kamon didn’t catch a single word. He just nodded and smiled as the man set a glass on the table in front of him. As he bowed, a medallion hung from his neck on a thin black chord, almost exactly like the one Kamon wore. He stood upright and moved on to the next table before Kamon could get a better look at it to see if it indeed matched the one his father had given him years ago. Probably a coincidence. Not that Kamon could have asked the guy for a closer look, he didn’t speak Thai, let alone understand it.

Here Kamon thought it might have been something special from his dad. Now he thought it was probably something he got in a gift shop somewhere when he was traveling for work. Nothing special, and a hundred or thousand other people had one just like it.

He pressed his eyes closed again and let the gentle sway of the train as it pulled out of the station lull him to sleep.

* * *

Kamon startled awake at the loud chortling of a group of men. Rubbing his eyes, he looked at his watch and realized he’d been asleep for three hours and it was near midnight. He peeked over the chair in front of him to find the same group of guys he saw earlier, only this time they were ransacking people’s bags. Bodies slumped in their chairs throughout the car, limbs hanging limp over the armrests. Whether they were dead or sleeping, he had no clue. But from the way the thugs were robbing them blind, rifling through their personal belongings and ripping wallets off their bodies, he had to assume drugged or dead, because they weren’t waking up.

The men made their way to the back near Kamon, and he slumped in his chair to play dead. The door to the women’s only car whooshed open next to him and bile singed Kamon’s throat at the thought of what could happen next. He lay perfectly still, slowing his breathing enough that he could be mistaken for dead or drugged.

Two of the men laughed between themselves. He assumed the other three went into the other car. One of the men reached into Kamon’s pocket, probably mistaking his phone for his wallet. Kamon grabbed the man’s wrist and twisted it, yanking him closer as he hauled back his other hand, landing a punch to his nose, breaking it. Shrieks of pain erupted from the man, blood spewing down his face like a faucet. Kamon slammed his boot into the guy’s stomach, launching him into an empty row of seats across from him. The other man raised his arm to take a shot at Kamon as he leaped out of his seat, but he deflected, catching it with one hand. With the other, he drove the bottom of his palm into the attacker’s Adam’s apple, choking him. Kamon released the guy’s arm and punched him in the gut, leaving him gasping for air in the aisle.

Kamon slung his pack on his back and stepped over the bodies in the aisle, making his way to the women’s train where the other three men went. The guard on duty slumped against the door of the train car and Kamon crouched to check his pulse. Still alive, but weak. Stepping over the limp man, he made his way through the car and most of the doors seemed unchecked.

A scream rattled above the noise of the train tracks and Kamon dashed toward the sound. Busting through a door partially cracked open, he caught one of the attackers holding a woman by the throat as he unzipped his pants with the other. Kamon stomped his boot into the backside of the guy’s knee, dropping him to the floor. The girl, free from his grasp, crawled off the bed and ran out of the room, barefoot and in her pajamas. A hand gripped Kamon’s ankle, but he twisted and kicked the toe of his boot into the guy’s jugular, knocking him out.

Sobs wailed from the doorway as the girl crossed her arms over herself, trembling. Kamon approached her with his hands up, trying not to scare the poor woman anymore than she already was. “I’m not going to hurt you. Are you okay?”

She nodded.

“You speak English?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Can you contact the authorities and tell them the train has been hijacked?” Kamon looked down the hall. “I need to find the other two guys before they hurt anyone else.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, brushing away tears.

The woman ran into her room, grabbed a phone from her purse. Kamon dashed down the hall, looking for any sign of the other two attackers. At the end of the car, the two appeared, one of them with a woman draped over his shoulder.

“Hey, asshole,” Kamon yelled out.

The two turned, the one carrying the woman shouted something in Thai before running off, and the other pulled out a gun and fired off three rounds. Kamon dropped on his stomach and pulled a knife from his boot. In one swift movement, he pushed himself from the floor and launched the knife through the air, lodging it in the guy’s shoulder, forcing him to drop the gun. Kamon’s aim earned him the nickname Shadow, because he never missed a mark. He could hit a target without them ever seeing it coming, landing him the sniper position on his SEAL team.

Three more guys barreled their way through the women’s car. Kamon turned back to the guy holding the woman. She raised her zip-tied hands above her head before slamming them between the guy’s shoulder blades, forcing him to let go of her. Kamon barely blinked as she kicked her legs over her head and flipped in the air, landing on her feet like a damn cat as the assailant dropped to his knees from her punch.

The woman snapped her head up as she crouched on the floor, long black hair shrouding most of her face. She locked eyes with Kamon. His heart stopped and air wedged in the back of his throat.

“Malia?” he choked out.

“Kamon?” she squeaked out.

Kamon dashed to Malia’s side, retrieving his knife from the shoulder of the guy he’d taken down earlier. “Let me get you out of those ties.”

“I got it.” Malia twisted her wrists and raised her hands above her head, yanking them back down in front of her as she pulled her arms apart, snapping the ties.

Kamon blinked as he reached for her hands and sliced the remaining part of the plastic from her wrists. Who was this girl?

The rest of the gang of attackers rushed into the car as the guy Malia took down yelled something in Thai through clenched teeth, trying to readjust his back. Two guys gripped Kamon by the arms and the third drove several punches into his chest, each one knocking a little more breath from his lungs. He tensed, relying on his military training to get through each punch as the guy tired himself out.

In the distraction, the man on the floor knocked Malia’s legs out from under her and she collapsed with a thud, hitting her head on the wall behind her, knocking her out.

“Malia!” Kamon cried out without thinking, just as a punch landed against his stomach, leaving him unprepared for the hit. Air rushed up his throat from the blow, choking him as he gasped.

With labored breaths, Kamon sunk in the two men’s arms, and one of them tugged at the medallion around his neck. “Ram,” the bigger of the two yelled out, holding the cord.

The man who’d attacked Malia earlier walked over and held the medallion in his hand and glared at Kamon, speaking something in Thai he couldn’t understand. It must have been some kind of question, as when Kamon didn’t respond the man smacked his jaw with the back of his hand. Pain radiated through his face followed by a harsh sting along his lip, leaving behind a trail of blood where Ram’s studded ring tore at Kamon’s skin.

Ram motioned to the men, saying something else in Thai as he made his way back to Malia and scooped her from the floor. The two on either side of Kamon tightened their grip and dragged his body along the floor of the train car behind the man carrying Malia.

Kamon heaved his body against the pull of the guys on either side of him, but another slice of pain ricocheted through his torso, limiting his movement. They must have broken a rib on the last blow to his chest, the one he’d not been prepared for as he cried out Malia’s name.

Ram opened the door at the end of the train car and motioned for the others to follow. He jumped off the side of the car and disappeared. Adrenaline rushed Kamon’s heart. Did he just jump off the train … with Malia?

The men brought Kamon to the edge of the car. One of them pressed a boot to his back and shoved him off the train. Kamon hurled through the air and landed with a thud into the bed of a large fruit truck. The two men jumped off behind him and landed on their feet next to his head. One of them launched a kick to his face as he muttered something in Thai before the blackness sucked Kamon in.