Aftershocks by Natalie J. Damschroder Page A

moment Freddie had grabbed Zoe from the grocery store parking lot, she and Pat had acted like she was their daughter. At first they’d hit her when she didn’t do something they wanted, and she figured out pretty quickly that to humor them, to pretend to go along, would keep her safe until she could escape. But then they’d added more and more members to their gang. They’d moved from ramshackle cabin to abandoned house to tent city in the woods, keeping her disoriented and off balance, so that she didn’t know where to run if she did manage to get away. And they’d kept a guard on her at all times, usually a big guy or someone really scary, who acted like he’d go off any minute and start killing everyone.
    Remembering how many nights she’d lain helpless, inert, terrified, still angered her. Her last therapist had told her she was reviewing that time with the perspective of an adult, and she had to forgive herself for not doing what she couldn’t have done. Zoe understood that, even agreed with it, but she couldn’t banish the ugly glide of disgust and resentment that she’d never managed to find the right combination of opportunity and courage.
    Not until that night. After they got the totems, they’d all been jubilant and relaxed. The person with the key was meeting them in a rail yard that evening, and then they’d have everything they’d been working toward for a year.
    “I hoped they’d leave me at the cabin, but they dragged me to the rail yard and left me and the totems in a little room in the old station building, with one of their biggest, meanest guys outside the door. But they got sloppy and didn’t notice there was another door behind a row of file cabinets. It took a while, but I managed to shift them just enough to get through to the door and get out. I took the bag of totems with me.”
    “What was outside that door?”
    She closed her eyes, calling up the squealing brakes, the chugs and clatters of moving steel. All she could see was the strip of gravel in front of her, the dark cavern behind a half-open door, her one chance to get rid of the hateful things.
    “A freight train. It was moving slowly, but I have no idea in which direction. I threw the totems into an open car.”
    Her moistened palms slipped across the top of the table. The wooden chair was solid under her legs. But her breathing was harsh and shallow, and her heart pounded in her ears, blocking out any possible sounds of pursuit. She couldn’t see anything but the giant metal canyon she ran in. “The door was open on another train going in the opposite direction, so I got on it.”
    A warm hand settled on top of hers, doing more to ground her in two seconds than everything else she’d tried. Slowly, the rail yard faded and the orange glow of the lowering sun filled the shack. She eased her breathing and forced her shoulders to ease down. Grant was watching it happen, his gaze steady with patience.
    “Sorry,” she murmured. “Hard to go back there and not get stuck.”
    He nodded and withdrew his hand. “Unfortunately, what you did is going to make them damned near impossible to track down. Even if we can determine the train they were on, they could have wound up anywhere along the line.”
    “I know.” She slumped, bowing under the weight of possibilities. It could take years to explore them all. And she had less than two weeks.
    “Have you done any research on them?”
    Another unwelcome wave of heat washed over her. This one was shame. “No, I haven’t. I mean, I have what Henricksen found, but it’s vague and mostly comes from the interviews they did back then. I didn’t even think about—” She pressed her lips together, refusing to overapologize. “I haven’t had time.”
    Grant nodded. “We could track down Pat and Freddie’s gang members, the ones who aren’t still working for them. Find out what they know and remember.”
    “Yeah,” she said slowly, “but I don’t know who they are or if