The Thrust (23 page)

“Do it, Dobson,” Clarissa said. “Uncuff him, and push the boy over to us.” When he didn’t move, frozen in place, Clarissa cried out in anguish. “Goddamn it, Dobson! Do something right, for once! His death will be on your hands if you don’t!”

Dobson nodded and raised his hands, walking steadily across the room to Lanche and Evan.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Dobson whispered, taking Evan’s cuffed wrists.

“Me too,” Lanche said, and he removed the gun from Evan’s head and shot Dobson in the face.

Clarissa screamed in surprise, and Evan fell to the ground. The shot had been so loud, her ears rang. She could only imagine what it had been like for Evan, just inches away from the gun.

Dobson fell, dead, his face obliterated.

Chaos erupted. More shots rang out.

“Run, Evan,” Jenna screamed, and he scrambled to find his footing, his hands still cuffed behind his back.

But he fell again, knocking his cheek against the table. Lanche grabbed for him wildly. Evan pulled away, scooting across the floor, away from him.

One of the soldiers shot Scar, first in the chest, then in the head. He slumped in his chair, the bandage on his head turning red with fresh blood.

He was dead.

Evan gasped. For some reason, the boy reached out and touched Scar’s shoulder. As if to prove to himself that yes, Scar was gone. Forever.

Only Colonel Lanche remained.

And this time, his gun was pointed . . . at Clarissa.

TRENT

Trent surveyed the
scene before him. Five of the targets dead. Everyone on the Letliv side aimed at Colonel Lanche, but Lanche had his gun trained on Clarissa.

There was no way in hell Trent was going to let that bastard take Clarissa from him. Not after all this.

“Drop it, Lanche,” Trent said. “You’re surrounded.”

“If I die, she dies,” Lanche replied. “So go fuck yourself.” He turned to the soldiers who had once been under his command. “You’ve been brainwashed by this terrorist. If you do this, you’ll be on the run for the rest of your lives. Or . . .” Lanche looked at them solemnly. “Or, you could be heroes. Saviors of Grand Central. Stand up against these terrorists and do the right thing.”

Jenna’s hand was trembling with . . . what? Anger, perhaps. Or fear. Or both. Her blonde hair had come loose from its ponytail, the strands falling across her face.

“You’re a sick fucking man, Colonel Lanche,” Jenna whispered. “And I won’t let you take another life. Not ever again. I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time.”

Lanche laughed. “What a fitting end, gunned down by my very own murdering whore.”

With that, she pulled the trigger.

Colonel Lanche’s mouth dropped open, a strange grimace of pain and surprise, as the bullet caught him in the shoulder. He squeezed off a shot,

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 about 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.”