The Thrust by Shoshanna Evers Page B

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