Article 5 (Article 5 #1)(33)

“I have to show you something,” he said, as if to reciprocate for the food I’d made. He went outside, sending a blast of cold air into the cabin of the truck, and reluctantly, I followed with the flashlight.

My breath caught when I saw the silver barrel of the gun emerge from his waistband.

It was too dark, and the woods smelled too heavily of dead leaves and earth. A sick sense of dread emptied my mind of the present and took control of my senses. I could still hear that fateful metal click, hear Randolph’s voice, pitched with excitement, accusing me of running.

“Hey,” Chase said quietly, startling me when he was closer than I expected. I shoved away from him, gulping a mouthful of frigid air.

“I’ve already seen it,” I told him. My heart was beating like I’d just run a mile, but I stood tall, hoping he hadn’t noticed my lapse.

Get it together, I told myself. Chase wasn’t a soldier anymore. I wasn’t at the reformatory. I shouldn’t have to remind myself of that.

His brows drew together as if in pain. For an instant I could have sworn he’d read my mind, but then his expression hardened once again.

“Do you have any idea how to handle a gun?” His voice was low. I knew he was thinking of what had transpired earlier with the highway patrol.

I cast him an acerbic look. “Do you really have to ask me that question?”

He gripped the barrel, offered the weapon to me.

“I … I don’t like guns,” I said.

“You and me both.”

That was surprising. As a soldier, he would have been used to carrying a firearm. When he didn’t give up, I plucked the handle out of his hand as if it were a dead rat and, surprised at its weight, nearly dropped it.

“Watch where you’re pointing that,” he snapped.

I winced and aimed the barrel toward the ground.

“It’s heavy.”

“It’s a Browning Hi-Power nine millimeter. A pistol.”

He swallowed, wiped his palms on his pants. Then he gently placed his hands around mine, forcing me to grip the handle but taking care not to press on my injured knuckles. My skin seared with heat where we connected, betraying the will of my mind, which wanted very much to despise him. It was less confusing after everything he’d done.

“Look. This on the side is called the safety. When it’s on you won’t be able to pull the trigger. All right so far?”

“Uh-huh.”

He guided my hands, showed me how to empty a clip.

“The magazine holds the thirteen rounds. It’s a semiautomatic, which means that it’s self-loading, but only after you cock back the slide. That chambers the first round. After that, all you need to do is pull the trigger.”

“How convenient.”

“That’s the idea. Now, we’re not really going to do this, but here’s what happens if you get in trouble: Safety off. Pull back the slide. Point and aim. Squeeze the trigger. Use both hands. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Say it.”

“Safety off. Pull back the slide. Point and aim. Squeeze the trigger.” A forbidden sense of power seemed to vibrate through my hands as I said the words.

He took back the gun, and my ability to breathe returned. But then he pulled out a knife.

For the next ten minutes I hunched over my knees while Chase sawed off my hair by the fistful. Though I knew we had to do as much as we could to avoid recognition, I couldn’t stop the gnawing concern that my mother, Beth, my friends, might soon find me unrecognizable. That all the old pieces of me—the pieces I knew—were being cut away just like my hair, leaving something distorted and raw in their stead. But that was stupid of course; I was still me. It was everything else that had changed.

We returned to the truck, where we sat on opposite ends of the seat and stared straight ahead in stubborn, tense silence. As the minutes passed I became acutely aware of his breathing—even, rhythmic—and soon found that my own had matched his tempo. How he could soothe me in a time like this, without even trying, how we connected on this most basic frequency made my heart ache for something impossible. Made me angle my body away so he wouldn’t see how much it hurt just to be near him again.

I missed him more now than I had when he’d been gone.

Only when the night grew so dark that I could no longer define his shape beside me did I allow myself to peek his way.

“Would you have left the MM if she hadn’t asked you?”

My voice sounded small, barely louder than a breath.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly.

I drifted to sleep, knees bound tightly to my chest, secretly wishing that his answer had been more certain. At least then I would have known how one of us felt.

*



“GOOD morning.”

He rested his elbows on the windowsill. The same old cap was fitted over his hair; the bill was arched in a permanent half-moon. Tired as I was, when I saw that smile I knew I wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep.

I shoved the window the rest of the way up, kneeling on my rumpled comforter in my nightshirt. The sky was as black as it had been when I’d gone to bed last night.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” I nodded toward his bedroom, directly across the space between our houses. He looked back at it, then shrugged.