The Thrust (11 page)

“You’re still beautiful,” he whispered in her ear.

“Thank you,” she said. “It’s your turn under the knife, mister.”

Trent rubbed his hands together and sat down in front of Emily. “Let’s do it.”

That evening, Clarissa
couldn’t help but stare at the stranger looking back at her in the mirror in Trent’s bedroom.

Am I still in there?

Yes. She was. She didn’t look like herself, as Trent had said. Her face seemed to disappear behind the shaggy brown hair. No longer was she the redhead she’d always identified as.

She didn’t feel beautiful—she felt hidden. She wouldn’t stand out in a crowd, certainly.

Trent had told her to make use of some of his wife’s clothing so she could look as different as possible. Now she was dressed in jeans that were too big on her, and a heavy dark gray hooded sweatshirt.

Is this what his wife used to wear on cold mornings, perhaps? Or was the oversized, comfy sweatshirt a sentimental token she’d saved, but never worn?

God, Clarissa looked different. Unrecognizable.

That’s good. It’s a good thing.
It’s what she wanted, right?

The door creaked open and she gasped in surprise, ashamed for some reason at being caught staring at herself in the mirror like a vain girl.

“Just me,” Trent said. “Can I come in?”

She laughed. “It’s your room, Trent. You have more of a right to be here than I do.”

He was looking at her in a way she hadn’t seen before. Did she really appear so ugly now?

“I keep feeling like I’m looking at someone else,” he muttered.

“It’s still me,” she said.

She tried to put a brave smile on, to show him that it didn’t matter if she didn’t look like herself. It was only temporary. The dye would wash out, and her hair would grow.

“Come here,” Trent whispered.

Clarissa slipped off her shoes and walked over to him, coming to rest between his legs.

He pressed his newly-shaved head against her breasts, hugging her to him.

“This used to be my sweatshirt,” Trent said. “I left it at Karen’s dorm the first time I spent the night, and she kept it ever since.”

“Do you want me to take it off?”

Trent shook his head. He pulled her down onto his lap, cuddling her gently, as if she were frail and might break easily.

He looked like . . . a soldier. And if she never saw another soldier again it would be too soon.

It’s still Trent.
Just like she was still Clarissa.

“Tomorrow’s a big day,” she said, trying not to focus on his new look. “Are you scared?”

“Not for me. But . . . I’m terrified of losing you. Promise me you’ll stay by my side.”

“I will.” She was terrified too. It helped knowing he understood the danger they were putting themselves in. He had no misconceptions.

His mouth sought hers with an urgency that surprised her, and she kissed him back just as hard. She needed to feel everything tonight.

Because what if it was their last night?

No. Don’t think that way.

Trent rolled her over onto her back, pulling her jeans down and her sweatshirt up, revealing the pale globes of her breasts.

Her nipples tightened in the cool night air, and she moaned as he sucked each one into his mouth hungrily.

Usually he took her in the missionary position, but tonight was different.
He
was different. With his shaved head, he too seemed like another man all together.

Trent pushed her onto her stomach and straddled her from behind.

She moaned in fear, but what was she afraid of? Not Trent. He might have a soldier’s haircut, but he was not one of them. He was a good man.

“It’s okay,” he whispered, his muscular chest pressed to her back. His breath was warm in her ear. As if he knew her innermost thoughts, he said, “It’s me, it’s Trent.”

His cock was hard, pressing against her thigh insistently.

She pushed her bottom up, granting him access to her pussy, wanting to feel him inside her, filling her.

“Oh God,” he groaned, sinking into her with one heavy thrust. She cried out from the sensation, and he reached around, capturing her clit with his fingers.

The rhythm built within her. She rocked her hips, meeting him thrust for thrust, and he rubbed her bud hard, fast, until she exploded, her body shaking as spasm after spasm shook through her.

Trent slammed into her once more. “Karen!” he cried out.

Karen.

He was calling out his dead wife’s name when he climaxed.

Clarissa felt his semen spill into her, felt his body, heavy, panting above her. He collapsed on top of her, burying his face in her hair.

“You called me Karen,” she whispered.

Trent rolled next to her and pushed her bangs out of her eyes. “I’m sorry. It slipped out.”

“Were you thinking of her all the times we’ve made love?” Clarissa asked. She didn’t want to know, but she had to ask.

Was everything she was starting to feel for Trent completely one-sided?

Was she only ever going to be a not-good-enough replacement for his late wife?

“I need to show you something,” Trent said. He stood, pulling his jeans up. He’d never taken them completely off.

She too was still dressed, she realized. It had all happened so fast, so intensely, that her jeans were simply around her thighs.

Karen’s jeans. Karen’s sweatshirt.

Clarissa felt sick to her stomach. What had she done?

Trent pulled a framed photo out of the top shelf in his closet, where he kept one of his handguns.

“I put this away after she died because it hurt too much to see her face every day,” Trent said. His voice was thick with emotion.

Clarissa took the picture from his hands.

Karen was very pretty. Her shoulder-length brown hair framed her face, her bangs nearly hiding her eyes.

A very similar haircut to what Clarissa had now.

“I didn’t know,” Clarissa said. “I wasn’t trying to look like her, I swear.”

“I know,” Trent said. “But when I saw you there, in our bedroom, wearing Karen’s clothes, her hair . . .” He drifted off, staring at the floor as if he was ashamed of himself.

“It’s okay,” Clarissa said.

“I just wanted to feel her one more time,” he whispered. “I shouldn’t have used you like that.”

“It’s okay,” she repeated. “We’ve all lost something. Someone.”

He put the photo back in the closet, closing the door.

“Maybe you should change clothes,” Trent said. “Until tomorrow.”

Clarissa nodded. She waited until he left the room to cry.

Traveling down Interstate 95 to Manhattan

CLARISSA

They had a
truck. Thank God, they had a working truck. The man from Letliv who donated the vehicle to their cause—a priceless possession in these times—was a saint as far as Clarissa was concerned.

“A little over a hundred miles left,” Trent said the following morning. “But we shouldn’t drive into the city. We’ll attract too much attention.”

“I know,” Clarissa said softly. “We can hide the truck and walk when we get to the Bronx, maybe.”

She could barely stand to look at him now. With his shaved head, the army-issued uniform, and the M16 slung over his shoulder, Trent looked just like one of Colonel Lanche’s men. He had transformed into her worst nightmare.

As for her, she wore Karen’s drab clothes and hoodie, hoping to avoid recognition. If she was identified, she’d be executed. Without a doubt.

Trent had half of the pamphlets on him, and she had the other half. In case something happened to one of them

Please God don’t let anything happen

then the other would still be able to spread the word.

“What if we can’t get in from Forty-Seventh Street?” she asked.

He stared straight ahead, his eyes on the many stalled cars on the highway that he had to maneuver around. “Then we wait for change of shift at one of the side entrances, like Barker said.”

“Last time we tried that, we missed it. It happens so fast. There’s only a short window of time, and if we miss it, we have to wait four hours.”

“Then we wait.”

A long-dead body lay on the side of the road, nearly skeletal now that the rats and birds had picked it clean.

Clarissa looked away and forced herself to breathe. What happened to Roy’s body? They’d had to leave it on the road after the gunfight with Lanche and his men. No burial. No going back.

God—what if that
was
Roy’s body?

The thought brought bile up in her throat. No. No, it couldn’t be. It was just a stranger.

“When we get in, we need to start spreading the pamphlets all over the Tracks,” she said. Better to focus on what lay ahead, and not on the past.

“And I need to find Annie. We need to get her out.”

She nodded, even though he wasn’t looking at her. She wanted to get Annie out too, and Evan. But she wanted everyone out. They couldn’t stay long. Their mission was to distribute the pamphlets so the women would be prepared to leave in the near future, not right at that moment.

If they spent too long there, searching for Annie and Evan, they might never get out at all. But there was no sense in trying to explain it to Trent again.

He knew the consequences of what would happen if they failed. And he still wouldn’t ever give up on the chance to get his sister out.

She loved that he was so fiercely loyal. So protective.

He must have been an incredible husband.

Would he ever be able to move forward? To leave his past behind him, and love someone new?

Someone like . . . her?

Stop. Stop thinking like that.
It didn’t matter. Just because he slept with her, gave her shelter, didn’t mean he was looking for a new wife.

If anything, after losing Karen he probably was even more wary of falling in love again. Because he knew, like she did, how much it hurt to lose someone you loved.

Her fingers went to her throat, seeking out the locket that wasn’t there. The only picture of her daughter.

After she’d given her baby up for adoption when she was a teenager, she felt like a piece of her had been torn away. Like something was constantly missing from her life. Her friends told her not to worry, that she’d have another baby when she was ready for one. When she was older, when she was married.

But another child would never replace the daughter she’d given up.

Just like sleeping with Clarissa would never replace Karen, for Trent.

“I’m going to pull over soon and hide the truck,” Trent said. “We’ll have to walk from here.”

“We can walk down the FDR drive,” she suggested. “Should only be about ten miles.”

He laughed. “Only.”

“Here’s what I learned from all our walking to get to Letliv: figure three miles an hour if we walk at a decent pace, so a little over three hours to get there. It’s not so bad.”

“Okay, if you say so.”

She grinned. “You’re in good shape, don’t worry.”

He pulled the truck off the road and they drove at a snail’s pace into an abandoned car wash.

“This should be a good place to hide out,” he said.

They gathered up their gear. Packs with food for a week, and water. Guns.

“Where will we stash our stuff when we get there?” she asked. “We can’t be seen in Grand Central with guns.”

“I’m not going in unarmed,” Trent said. “I’m supposed to be a soldier, right? So I’ll have the M16. We’ll hide the packs and your gun somewhere safe.”

She wished she could pretend to be a soldier, too. Being without a gun made her so vulnerable . . . just like she was when she was actually living there.

“I’ll protect you,” Trent said.

But Trent didn’t know what they were going into. He wouldn’t know how hard it would be to protect her—not until they were in the middle of it all.

Grand Central Terminal

EVAN

Evan felt strange
in the soldier’s uniform. It hadn’t taken too long before he’d been able to convince Lanche to let him join the soldier’s ranks. Evan knew how to kiss asses and do things he didn’t want to do, just because he was told to do them. That’s what high school had been like, really.

But he was scared to sleep in the bunks with the other soldiers. None of them seemed to know about how Scar had messed with him, or even where Evan had come from. Perhaps they assumed that he was someone’s son, a kid who’d been living with the families and then gotten moved up to soldier status when he’d turned eighteen.

That’s what he hoped, anyway.

He rubbed his freshly-shaved head. The rifle slung across his chest bothered him, considering Evan had always considered himself a pacifist. He’d risked his life to dodge the draft at the other FEMA camp, for God’s sake. Yet here he was, wearing a uniform and holding a gun he’d literally begged to get his hands on. Pacifism had pretty much gone out the window. There was no peace when he was being terrorized.

I could shoot them now
, he thought, watching the men as they slept. He recognized some of them from the Tracks, men who visited the women there. Messed with them the way Scar messed with him. But he wouldn’t shoot them. Of course he wouldn’t.

The Colonel, on the other hand . . . if he could shoot the Colonel . . .

No. Someone else would just take his place. Scar, probably—Lanche’s right-hand man. Evan shuddered at the thought. Besides that, the Colonel was always armed himself, and almost always had guards right near him.

Evan set his rifle down next to him, like the other soldiers did, and closed his eyes. He was determined to get some sleep. Tomorrow would be a long day. How would he know which men were good, and could be trusted? The bad ones would be easier to find. They were the ones who were mean to the citizens, constantly on a power trip. The ones who would ignore a cry for help if they felt like it.

God, help me
, Evan prayed. He wasn’t used to praying, and he wasn’t sure if he was doing it right. Did he have to kneel by the side of the bunk?