Free The Thrust by Shoshanna Evers

everything.
    “Tell me, son, why you went with them,” Lanche asked. “Because I’m still not sure why I should trust you when you say you’re not their friend. After all this time.”
    Evan looked at his hands, still shackled in front of him. “I thought about what you said. That they were terrorists. I don’t want to be part of a terrorist group,” he said convincingly. It was the truth, except for the fact that he thought Lanche’s soldiers were the real terrorists.
    “What made you travel with them?”
    Evan remembered back to when he’d been alone, hiding out in his parents’ house after he’d fled the FEMA camp in Greenwich, Connecticut. He hadn’t wanted to be drafted when he turned eighteen, so he escaped. And he hadn’t seen his family since.
    He’d been terrified when he heard the loud voices of a group of people breaking into his house, but there was no time to hide. So he’d picked up a baseball bat and gotten into the corner of the room upstairs he was in, trying to shield as much of his body as he could with walls . . . so they couldn’t sneak up on him.
    “Clarissa found me,” he told Lanche softly. “She screamed for help, but when Jenna, Barker, and Roy came running with their rifles up, she told them to put them away, because . . . because I was just a boy.”
    “But you think you’re a man now, don’t you,” Lanche laughed. “Ready to join my soldiers, is that right?”
    “Yes, sir. I don’t belong on the Tracks with the women. I’m healthy now, with the vitamins. I can help you keep this place safe, if you’ll let me.”
    “Don’t think my men would want a little fairy like you sleeping in their quarters,” Lanche said.
    Evan bit the inside of his cheek to keep from screaming at him. “I’m straight, sir.”
    Lanche laughed uproariously, as if the whole situation was hilarious. “All right. That must be why you wanted me to call off Scar, huh?”
    Suddenly Evan was struck by fear. “You said if I told you everything, Scar would never touch me again. Ever. I thought you were a man of your word, Colonel.”
    Lanche shrugged. “I am, I am. I gave you and Annie those vitamins, didn’t I? And haven’t I treated you well?”
    Evan nodded, his face burning. It was as if Lanche could smell a lie on him. Since all the details Evan gave him now were true, Lanche had been surprisingly friendly.
    “So why’d you go with them?” Lanche asked.
    “I was alone,” Evan said. “I knew I couldn’t hide out in my parents’ house forever. They had guns, and there was safety in numbers. Barker wanted to bring me back to the camp, to my folks. Told me if I went with them I’d never see them again. But I wanted to leave anyway.”
    “Were they nice to you?”
    Evan nodded again. He’d been mesmerized by Clarissa’s beauty, and awed by Jenna’s sexiness. Barker seemed so cool, like a real man who knew how to get shit done. Roy had been a good guy, an older dude, but that first night they’d all slept in his house, he knew Clarissa had snuck off to sleep with him.
    They were like a circle of friendship, and safety. And they were on his side—against the corrupt government forces that had taken over since the Pulse.
    How could he not follow them?
    “Did you sleep with one of the whores? Jenna, or Clarissa?” Lanche asked.
    “No, of course not,” Evan said. “Barker and Jenna were together, anyway. And Clarissa was with Roy, I think.”
    “Really. The man who got shot. Huh.” Lanche stroked his jaw, as if thinking about that. “I’ve fucked them both,” Lanche said nonchalantly. “They stand out, with that hair of theirs.”
    Evan choked back a gasp at Lanche’s easy admission. What a fucking psycho.
    “I want to be off the Tracks,” Evan said. “I want to wear a uniform so your men know not to . . . not to mess with me. Okay?”
    “I don’t trust you just yet,” Lanche said. “But you can move off the Tracks. Find a place on the main terminal with the