Article 5 (Article 5 #1)(73)

An instant later Chase straightened and reached for my hand again, pulling me beside him.

“Stay close,” he said.

I jumped when I heard the scuffle behind us, and turned back, expecting to have to defend myself. My mouth dropped open. The pack of wolves had indeed descended, but they weren’t coming after us, they were closing in upon the man. The starving, homeless man. My anxiety rebounded, ten times more intensely than before, when I realized they intended to rob him. The palms of my hands dewed with sweat, but Chase’s grip held fast.

A man and a woman with sunken cheeks stole the man’s change cup and his cardboard sign. Another took his shoes. Another his soiled sweatshirt. When it was jerked off his body, folded Statute circulars fluttered into the air. He’d been lining his clothing with paper to keep warm.

The crumpled victim’s bare, ashen chest was revealed. His sticklike limbs were bent at awkward, contorted angles, but he remained as supple as a rag doll. Someone had probably knocked him unconscious, or he had been simply too weak to fight back.

“We have to help!” My voice was high with distress. This crime was intolerable. How would the man survive without the warmth of his clothing?

“There’s nothing we can do. If we stay, we’ll be next.” He urged me forward.

“Chase!” I yelped. I dug my heels in but could not pull him to a stop.

“It’s too late,” he said in a hard voice. At once, I knew what he meant.

The man was dead.

How long had he sat there, with no one checking on him, no one noticing how many days had passed since his last meal? A day? Two? A week? How cold and foreign this city seemed, that even death could pass unnoticed.

And where were the soldiers now? Weren’t they meant to stop this?

The answer was all too clear. No. The MM would do nothing. They wanted the poor and unfortunate to kill themselves off. Less work for them that way.

An image of Katelyn Meadows filled my mind. What had the guards at the reformatory done to her body? Had she been taken back to her parents? Were her parents even still alive? I suddenly felt old, far beyond my years.

Chase pulled me through the skirmish. I felt as if I were floating. Like my feet barely touched the ground. I wanted to go to sleep and wake up in my bedroom at home, with my mother singing in the other room. I wanted to go over to Beth’s house to do homework and talk about anything and everything and nothing important. I wanted things that were impossible.

Someone shoved into us, knocked undoubtedly by someone else. Chase’s hand was ripped from mine and I was tossed to the side. I didn’t fall. There were too many people buffering my stumble.

But Chase was gone. Swallowed by the crowd.

My ears rang. The blood pumped through my veins.

“Ch— Jacob!” I screamed, hoping he would respond to his middle name. People were shouting, shoving, pushing now. Were they still moving toward the dead man? Or something else? Chase did not respond.

“Jacob!” It was like shouting under water. No one heard me. A hard slap to my back had me jolting forward, toward the concrete, but I bounced off a body in my path. Someone grasped my arm hard and nearly jerked it out of the socket trying to hold himself up. A sea of chaos took me, flinging my upper half one way while my legs went the other, and then the crunch, the sick, soft feel of flesh and bones beneath my boots.

“Food!” I heard someone yell. “Over there!”

They couldn’t be talking about the soup kitchen: That was at the other end of the square. And the dead man only had so much to steal. It had to be the truck we’d passed earlier. What I couldn’t imagine was how these people expected to break through the barrier of armed soldiers.

Just as I regained my footing, a hand latched hard around my elbow.

“Oh, thank God!” I cried, and turned to see the back of a man with clean-cut brown hair and a navy blue collar. He was dragging me out of the riot.

Not Chase. A soldier.

“No! Wait, please!” I tried, planting my feet and jerking back. “There’s been a mistake.”

“Keep moving, Miller,” I heard him call over his shoulder.

Dread punched through me. This soldier knew who I was. They’d found me. Chase had to run. He was in more danger than I was if he was caught. He could still get to my mother.

It took all my power not to shout Chase’s name at the top of my lungs. But I knew that if I did, and if he came, he was as good as dead.

“I’m not … I don’t know who Miller is!” I said, pulling back with both hands now. No one noticed me. There was too much commotion. Too much chaos.

“Help!” I yelled finally. “Help!”

But even if they heard, they didn’t react. I clutched a man’s coat as the soldier yanked me toward a black alleyway. He shrugged me off. I grabbed a woman’s hair. She punched my shoulder, and my fist returned with loose strands.

The world became suddenly silent. It was as though we’d stepped through some invisible force field. The roar of the crowd remained in the square, but the alley was absolutely still, apart from a few rats scurrying behind an overflowing Dumpster. I saw one or two people glance after us as I was dragged inside, but though their eyes widened, they looked away in fright.

I was alone with the soldier.





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