The Effacing (Book 1.5): Valley's End by T. Anwar Clark Page A

it?” Neshia asked, only to break the concentrated silence, looking on from the passenger side.
      “I couldn’t see the road.” she blandly answered. “How’s the baby?” 
       Neshia attempted to grin, rubbed her hand gently in a circular motion around her slightly protruding stomach, and responded, “Fine,” then smiled. “Thank you, Rebekah.”
      They were on a two-way street, less than a half mile to Valley’s End, a section within the city distinguished for its many illicit contributions to raising the murder rate without one suspect apprehension. The streets renamed Valley’s End, The End , stemming from the many unsolved murders that abruptly stopped, only to be substituted by criminal mischief and major narcotic trafficking. Not the residents, the trouble makers were the hoodlums that came through to make a quick buck. They made the place what it was. The residents weren’t so much of the problem. Most of the project’s occupants were good hardworking people that wanted better, trying hard not to lose it while the city did nothing to alleviate the problems that betook the area by storm… before the storm.
      Rebekah took her eyes off the road to peek at Neshia for a millisecond, turned back to the street. “For what… asking? Don’t sweat it.”
      “For back at the apartment,” Neshia forced her adjusted pupils from Rebekah’s fluid-dried hair back to the side-view. “You’re the real deal. How did you learn to do all that?”
      “It’s a long story… but ends with a lot of work.”             
      “I know that much,” she looked back to her.
      Rebekah’s eyes stayed glued to the road. “Sports… gymnastics… calisthenics... self-defense… it’s just… I don’t like to talk about it, less use it. That was the first time.”
      Neshia looked across the sun-faded dashboard, where Rebekah’s recently used .40 caliber XDM pistol found its much needed resting place – a twin to the one Rebekah had kept in her lower-back double holster. She gazed out the window of the beat-up white pick-up truck, sighing at the approaching presence of thrashed vehicles, burning homes and debris filled lawns and sidewalks. “You saved our lives,” she said. “You saved my baby’s life.” solemnly reminding her.
    “How are your mother and brother holding up?”
      Neshia looked through the side view mirror to see her younger brother, Chase, in the truck bed, arm wrapped around their mother, Brea. Brea instantly caught Neshia’s eyes, rimmed , I love you . Neshia smiled back and turned to Rebekah with the same pleasantry.
       “Couldn’t be better…”
      Rebekah’s stern eyes of a determined survivor on a mission remained focused on the bereavement-plagued concrete road ahead of her. Her weighty foot weakened off the gas. “Oh shit,” she gasped, not losing what was left of her sanity at what lie further up the street. She stopped the truck. “Stay cool,” she informed Neshia.
      Neshia’s nervous eyes enlarged. She looked back into the side-view mirror, peered through the back cabin window at the rest of their passengers and convoy. A blue, four door taxi cab with six untrained but grunged-out armed men – none of which Neshia or Rebekah knew – tailed by a fully occupied blue pick-up truck; the rest of the surviving women and children. It was driven by Ann. Her passenger was her cousin, Maria, and the stiff-in-the-middle, a teenage, newly recruited hood that went by the street name, Baker. Both vehicles stopped in unison.
      “Wait here.” Rebekah advised Neshia. “And stay focused. I’ll be right back.”
      Neshia held onto her stomach. “Rebekah!” she gasped, shaken, extending her right hand.
      “Nothing’s going to happen to you… or any of us.” she reassured, accepting Neshia’s small, red fingernail polish-faded hand.
      “ Right back?”
      “You see that?” Rebekah nodded, moved her eyes to the dashboard. “He means a lot