The Thrust Page 18

  no no no don’t kill Clarissa!

  Trent threw himself at Lanche but sprawled across the table that blocked him

  don’t you fucking kill Clarissa!

  and Samuel pushed Clarissa down to the floor, out of the path of the bullet.

  Emily fired this time, at Lanche’s heart. It was a kill shot.

  Colonel Lanche went down. Dead.

  Trent rushed over to Clarissa, but she looked up at him in panic.

  “Help Samuel!” she gasped.

  Samuel knelt on the floor of the OCC, his head down, his breath coming in hard, fast pants.

  “Sam, are you okay?” Trent asked. “Are you hit?”

  Samuel half-sat, half-fell to the ground, holding his stomach. Dark red blood seeped through the front of his shirt at an alarmingly fast rate.

  Emily ran over to him and pressed her hands against the wound, trying to stanch the flow of blood. “Oh God, Samuel,” she moaned.

  “It’s okay,” Samuel said. He looked up at her and smiled. “You’re really pretty, Em. Mason is a lucky man.” He coughed, wincing as the movement jerked his body. Blood flecked the spittle that came out.

  “Your rib is shattered,” Emily said, running her bloody hands over his body, checking everything. “Might have pierced your lung. Just hang on, Samuel, we’ll get through this.”

  Trent had almost forgotten Clarissa’s friend Emily was a nurse.

  “Is he . . . He’s gonna be okay, right?” Trent asked.

  Emily looked at him with fear in her eyes. Her expression answered the question.

  No. No, he was not going to be okay.

  A deathly pallor took over Samuel’s face, the color drained from his lips. “You’re gonna make great parents,” he whispered. “You and Mason, you make a gr—” A coughing fit stopped him, his body shaking.

  “Please, Samuel,” Emily cried. “Just hang on, hang on.”

  “I’m better off with my wife,” he said. “She’s waiting for—”

  That was it. He didn’t even get to finish his sentence. His eyes remained open, staring off at something, somewhere.

  Samuel was dead.

  Emily dropped her head to his chest and wailed. With a look of fierce determination, she began compressing his chest, pushing and pushing, trying to make his heart start again.

  But even she must have seen it was a lost cause. Finally she stopped, after what seemed like forever.

  “Fuck,” Emily whispered, so quietly Trent could barely hear her. “He’s gone.”

  Mason came to her side and put his arm around her. “It was his time.”

  “Fuck that!” Emily spat. “It was not! That bastard killed him. And he would have killed Clarissa, too.” She fell against Mason and cried, deep, howling sobs.

  “Colonel Lanche is dead now,” Clarissa said. “And Samuel saved my life.”

  Trent wrapped his arms around Clarissa, hugging her close. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” he said.

  Clarissa nodded against his chest. “I’m glad you’re okay too.”

  He wanted to stay like that forever. Keep her close, where he could see her and feel her and know she would always be safe.

  But they still had the rest of the soldiers at Grand Central to deal with.

  “The six men we intended to take out are eliminated,” Trent said. “We need to go into the main terminal and tell everyone what happened.”

  Barker frowned. “We need to convince the other soldiers to join us.”

  “I think they will,” Lawrence said, wiping his face with his undershirt. “There’s nothing here worth saving. Nothing worth dying for.”

  Trent turned to Clarissa. “I want you to take Emily and Jenna outside, with the women from the Tracks. Tell them what happened. Tell them they’re free.”

  “I want to come with you.”

  “Please, Clarissa,” he begged. “I need to know you’re safe. I need to know. And those women—they need you too.”

  Clarissa nodded, and stood on her tiptoes, pressing her lips to his. Then she went up to Evan and hugged him. “We missed you, kid.”

  Evan smiled weakly. “I thought you guys would never get here.”

  Clarissa laughed, a soft, light sound. “Looks like we came right in the nick of time. I know Annie wants to see you.”

  Evan looked at Trent, as if trying to decide where his place was.

  Trent picked the keys out of Dobson’s hands and uncuffed the boy. “Go find my sister, Evan. Keep her safe until we get out there, okay?”

  Evan nodded. “Okay.”

  Jenna put her arm around Emily and followed Clarissa and Evan out, past the carnage in the hallway.

  He didn’t want Clarissa to leave his side, but if things turned bad in the main terminal . . .

  If he died today, he’d die happy if he knew that she and his sister were safe.

  No. Don’t think like that.

  He was alive, and until God decided otherwise, he was going to stay alive.

  For Clarissa.

  For the future, whatever it may hold.

  Outside the camp at Grand Central

  CLARISSA

  Clarissa couldn’t stop shaking. Adrenaline and fear flowed through her body as she exited onto the sidewalk, out of Grand Central. Emily, Jenna, and Evan followed.

  The sun had set and the moon and the stars glowed magnificently above them.

  Annie ran up to Evan and threw her arms around him. “Where’s my brother?” she asked. “Where’s Trent?”

  “He’s okay,” Clarissa said. “But they still have to talk to the rest of the soldiers. We’re here to talk to you.”

  There were so many women, so many. They huddled together, holding one another as if for support. Clarissa realized that for many of these women, this was their first time outside, in the fresh air, since they had arrived at Grand Central.

  Clarissa cleared her throat. What could she say to make it all right? What could she say, to make them feel safe?

  “You’ve been through a lot,” she started. “We all have. I’m going to tell you right now that Colonel Lanche and some of his men are dead.”

  There was a frightened cry in the crowd. No applause, no cheers. Just terror.

  “Without the Colonel’s tyrannical leadership, you could choose to continue living at Grand Central, if you want. I know it’s become a prison. No one allowed in, no one allowed out. The Colonel used to warn us about gangs of criminals roving the streets, but that’s not the case. He never allowed us out because he was afraid we would become those roving gangs.”

  Clarissa paused. “He told us that we were doing better than anyplace else. That everyone else had died. That is only partly true.”

  She smiled sadly. “Most people, from what we can tell, have died since the Pulse. At first, as you may recall, it was from the looting and civil unrest. Then the lack of medical care, and the lack of clean water. There wasn’t enough food. People starved. There wasn’t heat—people froze to death.”

  With a shaky breath she continued. They needed to hear this.

  “But there are communities that are thriving. There are places in America starting over. Growing their own food. Bartering for supplies. Fishing on the coast and hunting in the woods. You can do this. You don’t need the government or the military to take care of you. You’ll do a better job on your own.”

  One woman looked up at her. “Before the Pulse, I got food from the store. In the winter, the heat came on in our apartment building. I was . . . I was a dentist.” She scoffed. “What do I know about hunting or fishing? Where am I supposed to stay?”

  “If you want to stay in Grand Central, there’s no one stopping you,” Clarissa said. “There’s no one stopping you, any of you—from doing what you must do to survive. There’s no one left in Manhattan but us. If you chose to live in one of the buildings, one with a fireplace for heat and cooking, you could. Others might want to go to the coast, or upstate where there’s more land.”

  “What abou
t the soldiers?” another woman asked.

  Emily looked at Clarissa, and Clarissa nodded, gesturing for her to answer.

  “A lot of those soldiers took advantage of us,” Emily said, her hands, still covered in Samuel’s blood, at her sides. “Some were downright horrible men. I don’t know what will happen to them. But I do know that there are a lot of good men here too. Some of them have already joined us when we fought the Colonel.”

  Emily raised her voice, to make sure she was heard. “Many of those men didn’t want to be soldiers any more than we wanted to live on the Tracks. Private Barker was one of them. When he escaped with Jenna, he changed his entire worldview. All you need to do is see how much better life can be. And then . . . and then you’ll know. So will the soldiers.”

  “What do we do now?” a woman asked.

  Jenna sighed. “We wait for sunrise.”

  Clarissa looked up at the moon, wishing she could speed up time so the sun would come out, and with it a brand new day. A new beginning.

  But Trent was still inside with Mason and Barker. The battle was not yet won.

  Grand Central, the Main Terminal

  TRENT

  Trent walked into the main terminal with Mason, Barker, and the soldiers who had joined them. There was no time to mourn Samuel’s death. That would come later.

  He wasn’t sure what he’d find when he entered the huge hall, with the cathedral ceiling so high above them it felt like God himself was watching from the painted starry sky.

  Would there be dead, wounded? Would there be screaming?

  No . . .

  A standoff. That is what Trent and his men stumbled upon as they came into the terminal after their battle with Colonel Lanche.

  Thousands of soldiers packed close to each other in formation, each holding a rifle. The men and women from Letliv stood on one side, the soldiers from the camp on the other.

  Silence.

  No one moved, no one breathed. One wrong move and it could be the next shot heard ’round the world.

  Or there could continue to be just this . . . silence.

  The huge clock at the former information booth in the middle of the terminal stood still too, stopped hands forever marking the moment the power went back out and the lights never came back on.

  The soldiers gripped their rifles, their eyes focused on the ragtag group of Letliv freedom fighters.

  Trent imagined they had all stood, frozen in place, as the shots rang out in the OCC just moments before. As their leader was assassinated. The tension in the air was palpable—thick and heavy. It permeated through his clothes, covering him in sour sweat.

  Thank God Clarissa is outside.

  But he couldn’t think about her now. About how he had come so close to losing her . . .

  Focus.

  Trent leaned into Lawrence’s ear. “Are these all your men?”

  Lawrence scanned the scene and shook his head. “I can’t be sure, but . . . I don’t think so.”

  How soon before whoever was left burst in, guns blazing, and the shooting started? Would he have time to convince them to lay down their arms first?

  “Friends,” Trent shouted.

  Faces turned to him, on both sides.

  “My name is Trent Taylor. I come from the free village of Letliv, Connecticut. We are not under government, FEMA, military, or UN rule. We take care of ourselves, and each other.”

  He paused to let it sink in, to let the soldiers remember the pamphlets. To remember the promise of liberty.

  “We are at a critical moment in time. What happens now—today—could end up in the history books as a defining moment when Americans fought for liberty. Colonel Lanche is dead. So are his commanding men.”

  No one spoke. Not even a murmur of shock.

  “No one else has to die today. We have not come here to take over. We have not come here to kill you.”

  Trent gestured around the terminal. “With your cooperation, with your help, we will not merely survive today, but thrive tomorrow.”

  And then, to his surprise . . . the men cheered.

  It was a raucous sound, as if a year of martial law and confinement suddenly loosened in their guts and bubbled out their throats. Cheering, fists pumping the air in exhilaration.

  “Soldiers—take off your uniform shirts. Keep your guns—that is your right as an American—but take a stand. Show us whether you wish to cling to the old way of doing things . . . or if you are ready to move forward into a peaceful future.”

  One soldier set his rifle on the floor and unbuttoned his shirt halfway before tossing it to the floor. He didn’t say a word, but his intentions were clear. He was now with Letliv.

  “Yes!” Trent shouted, wanting his voice to be heard by everyone. “Without Lanche and his men, you are free. Free to move on, wherever you wish. Free to stay in Manhattan, if that suits you. But the time of living in this death camp under tyranny is over.”

  One by one, slowly at first, the soldiers removed their shirts. Some wore plain T-shirts underneath, some undershirts, and some wore nothing at all. The men were a diverse group, just like New York City had once been. But on the matter of liberty, they were now of one mind. Trent watched in amazement as the main terminal at Grand Central turned into a sea of hopeful faces, ready for freedom.

  Trent grinned. He raised his fist and whooped with joy.

  Then—

  A hand clasped over his mouth from behind.

  what the—

  Trent swung wildly, landing a kick on something soft.

  What the fuck is happening?

  “Hold your fire,” a loud voice yelled—the man holding him hostage. “This is a terrorist, you idiots! Colonel Lanche said you’d be brainwashed by him and he was right.”

  The soldier slammed Trent to the ground, and shots rang out.

  Oh, fuck—

  From his vantage point on the floor, Trent could see a large group of soldiers who seemed to have come out of nowhere—from the bowels of Grand Central. All wore their uniforms, and they were shooting at any man not wearing one.

  Trent hefted his rifle and shot one in the chest, watched him fall.

  Chaos erupted around him as the shooting went on and on.

  The men who had joined their fight for freedom battled Lanche’s soldiers with ferocity. It seemed like it would never end.

  Mason and Barker were out there somewhere, fighting too.

  Stay strong, my friends.

  The odds were on their side. Only a relatively small faction of Colonel Lanche’s soldiers fought for their fallen leader’s memory.

  The rest were on Letliv’s side.

  Pain shattered through Trent, and darkness overwhelmed him.

  I’ve been shot. God, don’t let me die now—

  He passed out.

  And the battle raged on.

  Outside Grand Central Terminal

  CLARISSA

  CLARISSA huddled with Emily and Jenna as the sounds of gunfire finally, finally, died down.

  “It’s stopping,” Annie whispered. Her face was pressed against Evan’s chest. He seemed older now, less like an adolescent. His time in Grand Central had aged him, just as it had done to her and so many others.

  “Wait,” Clarissa said, when Emily started to go back inside. “Make sure it’s over.”

  “I’m not waiting anymore,” Emily said. “Mason might need me.”

  “He needs you safe,” Clarissa argued, but she followed. Trent might need her. Jenna was close behind. And then, to her surprise—Clarissa saw that all of the women from the Tracks were following them back into the main terminal.

  They had to know what happened. All that gunfire—what did it mean?

  Who had won?

  The very real possibility that Colonel Lanche’s soldiers had overtaken the small Letliv army scared the fuck out of her.

  Don’t let Trent be dead, please God don’t let him be dead.

  They entered the battlefield that had formerly been the g
rand main terminal. Bodies were strewn everywhere.

  Lots of men were dead. Shot.

  Many weren’t wearing their uniform shirts—oh God, they died on Letliv’s side. They had fought for freedom, and paid the ultimate sacrifice.

  “Look,” Jenna whispered.

  Clarissa followed her gaze. Soldiers—dead soldiers—in full uniform. The men who had fought to maintain the camp the way the Colonel would have wanted them to. Not everyone wanted to be free.

  Some men were walking around, helping the survivors. There were plenty of those, too. Thank God. Thank God!

  “Trent?” Clarissa called tentatively. No answer. “TRENT!”

  If he died, God, if he died, what would she do? How could she go on?

  Jenna took her arm. “Come on, let’s look for them.”

  They moved among the sea of men—most, she saw had no uniform shirt on. Clarissa dropped to her knees as one man reached out to her.

  “The fighting’s over,” she said. “Come on, sit up.” She helped him sit up, and the man looked around, dazed.

  “I’m okay,” the man said. With a grunt of effort, he rose and limped off to help more men.

  Everywhere she looked, she saw men. Many were uninjured, thank God. Shocked, yes. But not hurt. They started piling the dead in two rows—one for the men who fought for Letliv, the other for the late Colonel Lanche.

  “I see Barker!” Jenna exclaimed. Her face lit up with joy. Barker was uninjured. She ran to him, and they embraced.

  Clarissa smiled for her friend. Good. They’d lost a lot of men—maybe even hundreds—but there were still a lot of good men left who had proven their desire to live free.

  “Trent?” Clarissa called again. With each face she passed, each man she helped, each body she stepped over—she thought she’d find him. And she didn’t. Where was Trent?

  I need you, Trent. Where are you?

  The women rushed around the room, tearing their clothes to make bandages, and Emily directed them on how to apply pressure. How to make the men more comfortable. And how to get the ones who were okay feeling well enough to get up.

  “The walking wounded should go to the big clock,” Emily shouted. “I’ll see them after I triage.”