The Thrust Read online

  Clarissa looked at the empty plate, at the shelter he was offering her. “You’re helping me. What price will I have to pay?”

  “Shit.” Trent shook his head. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  I’ll believe it when I see it.

  Clarissa stood and stretched. “Thank you for dinner. Where should I sleep?”

  Trent stood too. God, every time he stood near her, her body reacted. Her pulse quickened, her whole body rushing with adrenaline. It wasn’t a particularly bad feeling, just . . . a little scary. He was so much bigger than her.

  She’d sleep with her gun by her side as usual tonight. Couldn’t hurt.

  “You’ll sleep in my room,” Trent said, “and I’ll sleep on the couch.”

  “I’ll take the couch, it’s fine,” she said.

  “A girl like you, you deserve a bed,” he said simply.

  “A girl like me,” she repeated.

  “I’m being nice, okay? Just . . . please, just agree for once. Take what I’m offering.”

  “Okay. Thank you, I mean.” Clarissa swallowed hard. “Sorry.”

  Trent nodded. “You don’t have to be sorry. I get it. I’m a threat until proven otherwise.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. He looked . . . hurt. Like he was taking it personally. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

  Trent put his hands in the air, holding them up as if to show her he meant no harm. “You’re safe here. And the bedroom door . . . it locks from the inside, okay? So you can sleep tonight. And not worry.”

  The living room suddenly felt too small for the two of them. He was close, not touching her, no—but the testosterone poured off of him in waves. She could feel it in the air.

  Clarissa went into the bedroom and locked the door.

  * * *

  Trent cleared the dishes and sat back on the couch. It made sense that she’d be wary of him. The fact that he was undeniably attracted to her probably didn’t help.

  As much as he tried not to look at Clarissa, whenever she was near him . . . he couldn’t help it. She was so beautiful, with that long red hair, and a fragile appearance that covered the strong woman he knew she was underneath it all.

  She couldn’t have survived this long without being strong.

  But what about Annie? Even though she was a grown woman now, in his mind his sister was still about, oh, twelve years old, maybe. And annoying the hell out of him by trying to tag along with him and his friends. Trent shook his head.

  What was happening to Annie now? Without Clarissa around to protect her, would she be safe?

  Tomorrow, they’d start getting their battle plan together. Because the sooner they could move in on Grand Central, the better.

  * * *

  Clarissa woke only once in the middle of the night—she sat up in the strange bed, her face flushed, her body feeling tingly and . . .

  What a dream she’d woken from. God . . . it had seemed so real. Felt real, too. Flashes of the dream caught on the edge of her fuzzy memory. Trent, his shirt off, revealing his broad, muscular chest, lying beside her, stroking her, touching her . . .

  Clarissa shook her head, trying to clear her mind. The pillow was cool against her heated flesh. Still, she couldn’t help but think how the man she’d just fantasized about was right outside that bedroom door.

  It felt good, in the dream. Really good. Unlike anything she’d experienced on the Tracks or even after, with Roy. It didn’t make sense for her to fantasize about Trent like that, though. Yes, he was handsome. Gorgeous. But she’d been through too much to let herself get attached to a man.

  So why am I here, sleeping in his house?

  Well.

  Clarissa shut her eyes, determined to fall back asleep. She was only staying with Trent because she loved Annie like family, so it made sense for her to want to stay with Annie’s brother.

  Yeah, that was true. But it didn’t change the fact that Clarissa had just fantasized about Trent’s hands caressing her naked skin.

  She couldn’t fall back asleep without some relief. Her clit felt swollen and needy. The house was silent, the door was locked. Her hand found its way and she shut her eyes, gliding her fingers fast over her bud.

  Trent, Trent . . .

  She came hard, but didn’t make a sound.

  Grand Central Terminal

  COLONEL LANCHE

  Colonel Lanche zipped his pants and let the whore from the Tracks leave his office. She scurried out without looking back.

  Guess it wasn’t as good for her as it was for him.

  “Sir,” Dobson, one of his men, called from the doorway. “Permission to enter, sir?”

  “Come in,” Lanche said, waving his hand. “Any news on the boy?”

  Evan, the eighteen-year-old runt they’d taken from the domestic terrorist group led by Private Barker and Barker’s whores, hadn’t proven to be cooperative. The kid was tougher than he looked. That wasn’t saying much, since the boy looked like a girl.

  “No, sir—but there’s a . . . there’s an ambassador from the United Nations here to see you.”

  Lanche’s stomach dropped inside him, and he gripped his desk. “What the fuck? Where?”

  “They’ve got a truck, sir. A working truck, and this guy in a blue hat said he needed to speak to the man in charge.”

  Holy fucking hell. So it was true. They were taking over.

  “A blue hat,” Lanche repeated in disbelief. “Like a pale blue beret? With the UN emblem on it?”

  The soldier nodded uncomfortably, shifting his weight.

  “Not on my watch,” Lanche growled.

  “He won’t go away, sir.”

  “I can’t have him coming into the camp, it’s too dangerous. I’ll go out and meet them.”

  “Sir.” Dobson took a deep breath, as if he were afraid to argue with him. “We can’t protect you if you’re out there with all their men.”

  “How many men?”

  “Four I could count, unless they’ve got some hidden in the truck. They say they’ve brought supplies.”

  “All right. Bring him and all of his people to me. Search that truck, make sure no one’s hiding.”

  Dobson nodded and left.

  Lanche smoothed his hair and looked around his office—a room that had once been a storefront on a hallway off the main terminal. The broken glass where his first escapee, Emily Rosen, had thrown herself through, was covered over with plywood.

  The blood spot on his carpet where she’d murdered the soldier guarding her had not been so easy to cover up.

  Dobson came back with the four UN men, backed up by his soldier Scar. Scar was a good right-hand man in a crisis. Roughed that Evan kid up without thinking twice about it, just because Lanche told him to. He needed more men like Scar.

  The men from the United Nations were in military uniforms, with baby blue scarves tucked neatly into the collars. A matching blue patch with that obnoxious world-with-olive-branches logo marked their right shoulders. And they each wore a jauntily placed pale blue beret. At least the berets looked less aggressive than those blue helmets they’d been known to wear. The one in front offered his hand when they walked in.

  Lanche stood, not offering a hand in return. Not to these invading motherfuckers.

  “How can I help you?” Lanche asked. Might as well get off on the right foot. See what they wanted.

  “Very gracious of you, Colonel,” the ambassador said, with a slight foreign accent Lanche couldn’t quite place. “But we are here to help you, to offer our assistance in your time of national crisis.”

  Yeah, right. Where were they a year ago, when the power first went out, before everyone started dying?

  “Thank you. How many men do you have here, Ambassador?”

  “We are four, on a mission to provide aid from the UN,” the man replied, and the other men nodded. “We’ve been brought in to help keep the peace. Our mission here today, however, is to deliver supplies . . . antibiotics, flashlights with batte
ries, and vitamins for nutrition.”

  “All that, huh? And a working truck.” The truck was a goldmine. After the Pulse, most cars had simply stopped working, their electronics fried. Only the very old trucks still worked, and Lanche had already commandeered every one he could find.

  “Unfortunately, we will need to take the truck back with us so that we might bring aid to other FEMA camps.”

  “Are they expecting you?”

  The ambassador paused, as if unsure of the meaning behind the question. “We had no way to inform you of our arrival. Please forgive the unexpected intrusion, I know you are a busy man.”

  Lanche turned to Scar and Dobson. “Did you remove their weapons?”

  “Yes, sir, per policy,” Scar said, and looked at Lanche with a glint in his eye. That soldier thought the way he did. Good. He’d need backup.

  “We’ll take the supplies,” Lanche said. “Can we expect more?”

  “Not at this time, Colonel,” the ambassador said. “We have a base of operations—”

  “Where?” Lanche interuppted. “The UN building here in Manhattan is empty.”

  The UN man smiled thinly. “That is, as you say, classified. Besides, the UN building is not on New York soil. Through a treaty agreement with the US government, technically the building and land are extraterritorial.”

  “Fuck this.” Lanche unholstered his sidearm and shot the ambassador in the head, between the eyes.

  Dobson jumped back in surprise. “Shit!”

  “Shut the fuck up and kill the others,” Lanche barked.

  But Dobson was frozen. Scar hefted his rifle and shot the other three men. It happened so quickly.

  “Good work, Scar,” Lanche said. He’d never bothered to learn his soldier’s real name, since his nickname fit him and his ruined face so very well. “We’ll sleep safer tonight without globalist invaders in our camp.”

  “Holy shit,” Dobson whispered. “They were from the UN! They were helping us.”

  “Are you that stupid?” Lanche barked. “They would kill us all. Now get rid of these bodies and get some of our guys out there to unload the truck. We need those supplies.”

  Scar grinned. “I knew you wouldn’t let those blue-hat fucks take over your camp.”

  “Of course not. I have a responsibility to keep everyone here safe. That’s what we did here, Scar. Eliminated a threat.”

  “Do you trust the safety of the medicine and vitamins, sir?” Scar asked thoughtfully. “It could be a trap. It’s not like foreigners have never tried to kill American soldiers before.”

  “One way to find out. We’ve got a whole bunch of guinea pigs.” Lanche laughed. He felt high on adrenaline after killing men. It was almost better than sex.

  “Bring me Annie,” Lanche ordered. “And that little bitch Evan.”

  * * *

  Evan sat back on the hard orange seats in the subway car he was bunking in with Annie. He was the only male on the Tracks. Other than him, it was all the young, single women.

  It was a punishment, of sorts, he imagined. Evan wondered if Colonel Lanche thought some of the soldiers who took liberties with the women on the Tracks would mess with him, too.

  So far, no one had. No one but Scar, and that was all talk. So far.

  Terrifying talk. Threats meant to break him down, to make him compliant. That first night Scar had threatened to pay him a visit, Evan had stayed up all night—first, ready for a fight. Then, resigned to getting raped. He lost a piece of his soul that night, shaking in his chains, naked and bruised from the previous day’s beating. Waiting for that visit.

  All that fear, it was for nothing. Just another way to break him down. Because morning came uneventfully, and with it, another round of interrogations.

  The worst had been when they’d hurt Annie, right in front of him. That made him talk, how could it not? But he’d done his best to not spill everything he knew about Barker, Jenna, and Clarissa. About Roy. About their guns, their ammo, their mission. Their whereabouts.

  He’d hold out as long as he could.

  When night fell, soldiers came down to the Tracks, meeting with the women, offering them food, stale cigarettes, and homemade gin. The women took what they had to offer and paid the price, because if they didn’t . . . well, there weren’t really any other options.

  With her broken leg, Annie was an easy target. But she was so miserable, so combative, that most of the soldiers didn’t bother with her. Not when they had women in other subway cars parading around naked, embracing the chance to fuck for an extra ration.

  Evan couldn’t blame them. Life wasn’t easy on the Tracks. But if he were a soldier, he’d have been one like Barker. One of the good ones.

  God, it seemed so long ago he was in high school, getting ready to graduate. Worrying about finals and the prom. None of that mattered now. None of it existed, now.

  And he’d never see his parents or brother again. Not since he escaped the FEMA camp in Greenwich to avoid the draft. It was so fucked up.

  “Get up, bitches.”

  The deep voice took him by surprise. Not tonight. Don’t let tonight be the night.

  It was Scar.

  Annie whimpered and Evan moved instinctively in front of her, as if to protect her. Not that he could. The man was easily twice his size and armed to the teeth.

  “The Colonel wants you both.”

  “I’ve told him everything I know,” Evan said.

  “Then maybe I should just kill you, if that’s the case,” Scar said.

  “Wait—take me, I’ll talk to him,” Evan said. “But Annie’s leg is broken, just let her stay here, okay? Please don’t bring her into this.”

  “Oh, you fucked her!” Scar laughed. “Nice. And here I thought you were a little fairy boy.”

  Evan gritted his teeth. He hadn’t touched Annie. She’d taken care of him that night when the soldiers had beaten him so badly he could barely move. And she was a woman, anyway. Midtwenties, probably. What would she want with a kid like him?

  “Let’s go, pretty boy.” Scar walked right past him, roughly pushing him aside, and grabbed Annie by the waist.

  She shrieked when he tossed her over his shoulder, fireman-style.

  “Leave her alone!” Evan yelled.

  “No interrogation tonight, boy,” Scar said, walking out of the subway car with Annie. Evan scurried after, not willing to leave her alone in that monster’s hands. “The Colonel is going to help you.”

  Evan didn’t like the sound of that.

  By the time they got to Operations Control Center, or the OCC, as they called it, Annie had stopped fighting, lying limply in Scar’s arms.

  He set her down in a chair, not bothering to watch out for her broken leg.

  I would kill him if I could, Evan thought. A big change from the boy who’d dodged a draft because he refused to hold a gun. But some men deserved killing.

  “Where’s Colonel Lanche?” Evan asked.

  “Taking care of some business in his office.” Scar laughed at that, although Evan couldn’t understand the joke.

  “Are you okay?” Evan asked Annie.

  She nodded silently.

  “Hello, son,” Colonel Lanche said amiably when he walked in.

  A fresh spot of blood darkened his collar. What the fuck was going on?

  “Guess what Daddy’s got for his two favorite kids.” Lanche pulled a large, industrial-looking bottle out from behind his back, as if it were Christmas morning and he was surprising them with something wonderful.

  “You’re not my father,” Evan grumbled under his breath.

  But he wouldn’t push it too far. He hadn’t forgotten the humiliation Lanche had put him through by making him call him Daddy just to get a drink of water after they’d interrogated him for hours. Apparently, Lanche hadn’t forgotten either.

  “These are vitamins. A surprise shipment of supplies came in. Limited supplies. I’m saving the vitamins for the pregnant women and for Annie, to help mend her leg,�
�� Lanche announced. “Can’t heal a bone without any calcium, now can we?”

  Annie looked at Evan, concern lining her pretty face.

  “Are those . . . are those really vitamins?” Evan asked.

  “Yup.”

  “Why me?” Annie asked. “Why are you trying to help me?”

  “Oh, Annie, Annie,” Colonel Lanche said, putting his arm around her thin shoulders as if they were family. “I have to take care of my people. Here. Take one.”

  Lanche held a large, red pill out to her, and handed her a metal cup filled with treated water.

  Annie took the pill in her hand and looked at Evan with questioning eyes.

  “Let me take one,” Evan said.

  If it were poison, then Annie would know not to take it. Because he wouldn’t put it past the Colonel to poison Annie to death in front of him just to get him to talk.

  “Well, your growth does seem to be . . . stunted,” Lanche laughed. “You could probably use vitamins as well. Have you even gone through puberty yet?”

  Evan didn’t answer, just scowled. Of course he’d gone through puberty. It wasn’t his fault he wasn’t all big and muscular like the soldiers. He’d been on starvation rations for a year now.

  Evan plucked the red pill out of Annie’s hand, took the water, and swallowed the pill.

  The Colonel and Scar watched him with curiosity.

  “How do you feel?” Lanche asked.

  “Fine. It’s a vitamin, right? How am I supposed to feel?” Evan realized Lanche probably didn’t even know himself if the pills were safe.

  “Guess those UN guys really did us a solid,” Scar mused.

  UN guys?

  Fear washed over him. Had the United Nations gotten to New York? Would there be a war?

  But Lanche gave Scar a look, and Scar shut up.

  “Here you go, sweetheart,” Lanche said. “Take the bottle, and take one a day. You’ll be better in no time.”

  “Did you . . . did you get any pain pills from the UN?” Annie asked quietly.

  She didn’t talk often about the pain, but Evan knew her leg hurt her all the time. That dick soldier who’d knocked her onto the Tracks had broken the long bone in her thigh, and it hadn’t set right. Still hadn’t healed at all, well over a month later.