Sunfail Read Free Page A

news, the better the sex, like some sort of inverse-proportional relationship forged in the crucible of war.
    They’d served together.
    For a while that had been the thing that bound them, even after they’d left the battlefields of Afghanistan behind them it was there, ever-present.
    They’d seen things, done things others couldn’t understand.
    They were the same, or so he’d thought.
    They’d get through anything because they were fighters. Forget all that opposites-attract bullshit, there was nothing more powerful than fucking the female version of yourself. That kind of coming together was primal.
    But sooner or later it would have blown them apart if she hadn’t disappeared in the middle of the night. He’d been twenty-eight when she walked out the door. He’d never heard from her again, and never expected to.
    Something is about to happen?
    Don’t look for me?
    I’m not who you think I am?
    Fuck it.
    He tossed the phone onto the bed and turned to his dresser, ignoring the half-closed drawers for the clean clothes piled haphazardly on top of it. He picked out a pair of heavy jeans, a white T-shirt, and a dark sweatshirt. Five minutes later, leather jacket in hand, he was out the door, phone shoved into his pocket, wondering if the sex would be worth all the shit inviting Sophie Keane back into his life would bring.
    It wasn’t a question he’d ever thought he’d be asking himself, but then, these were the end of days, weren’t they? Surely Sophie riding back into town upon her pale horse had to be one of the signs of the apocalypse.
    A worn-down little Asian woman scrubbed at the steps of the tenement stoop opposite him. She looked up, stared daggers at him. He smiled at her craggy face. She grunted something and went back to scrubbing. The street smelled like stale cabbage and vinegar from the takeout place on the corner. Some things in Dogland, at least, didn’t change.
    * * *
    An hour later, Jake glanced up from the junction box he was working on. There weren’t a lot of jobs for people like him when they came out of the service. An ex had hooked him up with the gig at the MTA after he’d lost six months acclimating to life without people trying to kill him. He’d gotten a certain amount of skill with electrics, so it made sense. It wasn’t hard work. Plus, it was that or private security, and standing around protecting some asshole banker from picking up his bonus wasn’t exactly the kind of thing he wanted on his résumé.
    The background chatter suddenly rose to a near-deafening explosion of white noise. Jake looked up and down the tunnel for the source. Seeing nothing but the looping coils of electrical cables overhead and the rails on the ground disappearing into the darkness, he gave the box one last scan before slapping the lid closed. He flipped the heavy locking mechanism along its side. He hated it down here. The darkness was oppressive. “Good to go on box one thirty-seven,” he reported into the mic clipped to the front of his orange safety jacket. A second later a squawk and a scratchy, Affirmative, board showing green, came through to confirm the job was done.
    Jake checked to make sure nothing was rumbling down the tracks before he moved quickly along the narrow center lane toward the platform. Gravel crunched beneath his feet, amplified by the tunnel’s weird acoustics. There was something infinitely creepy about the subway tunnels, and not just the stories of the mole people who lived down here. It stemmed from the power pulsing through the third rail.
    Jake emerged from the tunnel, reaching the platform edge well before the headlights announced the next train. He cut across the tracks and hauled himself up and onto the platform.
    It might have been a decade since the last training ground drill or obstacle course, but he’d kept himself fit. Maybe not combat-ready, but he was in good shape. And the job was physical, lots of lifting and carrying and endless hiking through the