Article 5 (Article 5 #1)(45)

“You have my money. Probably only half of what you need, too. Why don’t you go back and ask your friend to spot you the rest?”

“I get it, okay!”

I hated him then. For everything he knew. Everything I didn’t.

“You don’t get it!” he said with sudden ferocity. I jumped at the volume of his voice but was surprisingly unafraid. “Other places, they aren’t like home! There’s no safe side of town out here. There are no doors that lock after curfew. Jesus, they told us girls like you were dangerous, but I didn’t believe it until now.” He looked very close to pulling his hair out. If he didn’t soon, I thought I might do it for him.

I could picture him sitting in a classroom while an MM officer wrote terrible things about “girls like me”—girls with scarlet fives pinned to their shirts—up on a board. The thought of him believing it was infuriating.

“I’m dangerous? Me? You almost killed that guy! You would have if I didn’t stop you!” It flew out of me, the disappointment, the confusion. Like waves pummeling a concrete dam. I didn’t even care in that moment if he had been injured.

I saw the change come over him slowly. The rise in his shoulders. A slight bulge in the veins of his neck. The narrowing of his black eyes, more like a wolf than ever. He moved toward me, large and ominous, blocking the light. I took a step back, bumping into the truck, forced to acknowledge the sudden panic in my chest.

“They were going to hurt you.” His voice was low and uncontrolled.

“So that makes it okay?” I countered. No, I didn’t want to be hurt—I certainly didn’t want to die—but that didn’t excuse murdering someone, however foul, based on speculation!

A crack of thunder shattered my concentration, and my eyes shot back into the cornfield. Was the woman coming? Or was she still on the floor, weeping for Alice? Only a few minutes had passed, but it seemed like much longer.

“Yes, that makes it okay,” he said between his teeth, eyes flashing with the lightning. “And don’t pretend you wouldn’t have done the same thing.”

“I would never!”

“Never? Not even if they’d threatened your mom?”

His words pierced clear through me. If I had been Chase, and my mother had been me, nothing in the world could have peeled me off of Rick.

I realized then with terrible clarity that maybe Chase and I weren’t so different after all. Everyone knew that a dog backed into a corner bites. I’d just never actually considered that the dog could be me.

At the same time, Chase had just used the love I felt for my mother to justify his actions. Like the two were somehow on the same level. It was a cheap shot, even for him.

He’d watched the transition of my thoughts in silence but could hold back no longer.

“If you think you’re safer on your own, stay here. Otherwise, get in the truck.”

His knuckles whitened as he gripped the door, but he did not advance any closer. He was not going to force me inside. He was giving me a choice.

I had to go with him. Despite how much I hated it, he was right. I needed to get to the carrier, so I needed him.

He slammed the door after me and rounded the hood, but he paused outside with his hand on the driver’s side handle before he joined me in the cab. Maybe he was making the same decision I had: to risk his life to stay with me or to go his own way.

We didn’t speak immediately. A puddle of rainwater soaked the seat and pooled on the rubber floor mats. My feet sloshed in wet shoes. My fingers had gone numb with the cold. Chase’s hands disappeared beneath the dash, bringing the engine to life. A moment later we were jostling along the path back to the main road, wrapped in prickling, uncomfortable silence.

The clock on the radio said 10:28 A.M.

“Oh no,” I whispered miserably. I’d wasted so much time! We would have been nearing the checkpoint by now if I hadn’t run away. Soon the MM would be gunning for us, and who knew how late the carrier would wait.

Chase knew all this, too. I’d put us in grave danger, and he would not pretend I hadn’t.

We passed a truck flipped on its side with a shredded tarp tied around the top wheel well. It had probably been a lean-to at one time. The material now floated in the static breeze like a flag of surrender. I looked away, fighting back the hopelessness.

I slumped in the seat, stripping off my jacket and wiping my puke-covered hands on the rainwater that had gathered in the hood. There seemed no better place to put it than the floor, as it was still soaked. Without the barrier, the cold air of the cab needled through my sweater. I had dry clothes in Chase’s bag, but I wasn’t about to ask him to stop so I could change. We had to make up for lost time.

“You need to know something,” Chase said abruptly, startling me as I swished water from one of the bottles around in my mouth.

When I glanced over I found him sitting perfectly straight, his eyes boring holes through the windshield.

“I’ll get you to the safe house, and then I’ll be gone. I won’t bother you again. But while we’re together, you don’t have to be afraid of me. I won’t hurt you. I promise I will never hurt you.”

It wasn’t just his proclamation that surprised me but his proposal. I’d seen what soldiers could do—what they’d done to my mom, and Rosa, and Rebecca. So maybe Chase wasn’t like that—he had taken me from rehab, and despite my discomfort, defended me with his life—but that didn’t erase the cold, hard look on his face when he’d taken away my mother. There were plenty of ways to hurt someone without using your fists.