Article 5 (Article 5 #1)(29)

I reminded myself that it shouldn’t matter that the truck was hot-wired. Or that it was stolen. As long as it got to Virginia fast.

*



I COULDN’T stop looking at him. A month he’d been home from Chicago, and sometimes I still couldn’t believe he was really here.

“What?” he asked, a smile in his tone. He didn’t have to look over to know I’d been staring. We sat on his back steps, facing the jungle of grass and weeds that had become his back yard.

“Nothing,” I said. “I’m just glad you’re back. Really glad.”

“Really, really glad? Wow, Em.” He rocked back, laughing, when I shoved him.

“Don’t push it.”

He laughed again, and then became quiet. Pensive. “I’m glad I’m back, too. There was a while I wasn’t sure it would happen.”

“When Chicago was hit, you mean.” My voice sounded small under the big, open sky.

“Yeah.” Chase frowned, leaning back against the top step. I didn’t want to pressure him; I knew some people didn’t like to talk about the War. I was just about to change the subject when he continued.

“You know my chemistry teacher tried to tell us the air sirens were just drills? He was still trying to get us to pass in our lab sheets when the quakes started. By the time we all got outside, the smoke was so thick you couldn’t see the school’s parking lot.” He paused, shook his head. “Anyway, they bussed us all to this old arena on the west side and gave us two minutes each to use the phones and call home, and my uncle told me to meet him at this restaurant in Elgin. So I took off. Hitched there. It was a good thing too: The bombing didn’t stop for three days.”

“Wait, you hitchhiked there? What were you, fifteen?”

“Sixteen.” He shrugged as though this detail was unimportant. “When we met in Elgin, we found out Chicago had been attacked on the southeastern side, all the way up I-90 from Gary. What was left of it was just … chaos. We were being displaced to some town in the middle of Indiana, but we only made it as far as South Bend before the busses got called somewhere else. We stayed there for a while; my uncle found some work doing day labor, but they wouldn’t hire me because I was too young.

“And then he told me he was sorry, but he couldn’t look out for me anymore. He gave me his bike and told me to keep in touch.”

My eyes were wide.

“He couldn’t … what? You must hate him!”

Chase shrugged. “One less person to worry about, one less mouth to feed.” At my horrified expression he sat up. “Look, when Baltimore and DC fell, and all those people started packing inland into Chicago, he knew, just knew it was going to get bad. So he taught me to scrap. He and my mom had grown up poor, and he was, well, resourceful.” A guilty laugh had him turning his head the opposite direction, making me wonder just what that meant.

“I’d have been scared to death,” I said.

He took off his hat and tapped it against his knee.

“Losing your family … it puts fear in a different perspective,” he said. “Besides, I got by all right. I stayed on the fringe around Chicago,hopped around tent cities and Red Cross camps. Worked for some people who didn’t ask questions. Avoided caseworkers and foster care. And thought about you.”

“Me?” I huffed, completely unsettled. In awe at how vanilla my life seemed. In awe of what he’d endured. He turned then, meeting my eyes for the first time. When he spoke, his voice was gentle, and unashamed.

“You. The only thing in my life that doesn’t change. When everything went to hell, you were all I had.” It took me a full beat to realize he was serious. When I did, I had to remind myself to keep breathing.

*



I SHIFTED in my seat. My life did not seem so vanilla anymore. I knew what he meant about losing family now, and in another day, every soldier in the country would have our photos.

Had we been able to take the highways, we would have crossed the border into Virginia before sunset, when everyone had to be off the roads for curfew. As it was, Chase had stuck to back country roads, which led us east rather than south, cautiously avoiding any potential contact with an MM patrol.

By late afternoon, the sun was heating up through the windshield. Chase removed the navy MM jacket and slung it over the seatback between us. He wore only a thin T-shirt, and beneath it I could see the sculpted muscles in his arms and shoulders. My gaze lingered a little too long, and I rubbed my stomach unconsciously.

“We’ll stop soon for supplies,” he said, thinking I was hungry.

I didn’t like this; we needed to get every mile in that we could before curfew. But as I glanced over Chase’s forearm I saw that the gas gauge was nearly empty. It would take us a lot longer to get to Virginia if we had to walk.

We passed two closed gas stations before we found one that actually claimed to be in business, at least on weekdays. It was a small place called Swifty’s, with only two pumps and a note taped over the price board that said PAY INSIDE, CASH ONLY. We were the only ones in the parking lot.

“Wait here,” Chase instructed. I had just been getting out of the truck but paused.

“I’m sorry, you must have forgotten. I’m not actually your prisoner.”

His jaw twitched. “You’re right. You’re a wanted runaway. You can be their prisoner.”