Article 5 (Article 5 #1)(77)

He was right. Chase was uncharacteristically silent. He was rarely loquacious, but neither was he usually so deadpan. Something was weighing heavily on him. I could feel it.

“I suppose you’re here for work,” Wallace said. I felt Chase stiffen beside me, and wondered what he was thinking. It would make sense for him to want to join the resistance. That way he could strike back at the MM for everything they’d taken away.

I felt the same pull inside my own self but stuffed it down. I couldn’t allow myself to project past finding my mother. One step at a time.

“We’re looking for Mr. Tubman,” I said, when Chase hadn’t answered. His silence was starting to make me uncomfortable. It appeared he was more tempted by the resistance than I had thought. If he joined here and now, he might not even come with me for the rest of the journey. I shifted my weight from foot to foot, faced with the sudden reality of his upcoming good-bye.

“A safe house.” Wallace clicked his tongue inside his cheek. “Waste of your talents.” He was talking to both of us, not just Chase, when he said this. I didn’t know what talents of mine he could possibly mean, but then I realized that the radio reports had probably insinuated that I was far craftier than I was. That I had escaped reform school and the MM. That we’d accosted thieves in Hagerstown and stolen vehicles. All of this was true of course, but much less impressive in reality than it was when relayed secondhand.

“It’s no waste,” said Chase firmly. It made me feel a little more confident that we were still making the right choice.

We were about to say more when there was a commotion outside and three more men charged through the door. Two must have been brothers. One was in his late twenties, the other older. They had dark hair and dark eyes, but the younger had recently broken his nose, and the other now had a bruise below his right eye. The third was a wiry redhead, about Chase’s age. Dry blood had crusted over his cheek. I didn’t recognize them from the square, but I knew it must be the other soldiers Sean had been with, because they all held the same trash bags filled with their uniforms.

There was an eruption of voices and movement. Everyone was trying to speak at once.

“Get them out of here, Banks. Then come back for debriefing,” ordered Wallace. “Tomorrow, take them to Tubman yourself.”

I wanted to stay but was glad Wallace had approved our departure.

Sean led us down the hallway in the opposite direction from the stairs. A few heads popped out of the doors, interested in what had transpired in the square. I realized with some amazement that the entire floor must have been filled with resistance fighters.

The single room we entered was more tightly confined than Wallace’s had been. A moth-eaten velvet chair crowded the corner, bumping into a bare queen-sized mattress. On a small nightstand were boxes of cereal and Horizons bottled water.

“Is this someone’s room?” I asked, staring longingly at the food. I hadn’t eaten since a rest stop mid-morning in eastern Kentucky, and I was famished.

“It was,” he said grimly. My spirits crashed as I realized the previous occupant was either captured or dead. “Talk, Miller. Quick.”

I promptly told him everything I knew, beginning with the night I’d blackmailed them and ending with my abduction from the shack. I didn’t dare look at Chase. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t done bad things, but the secret of how I’d hurt these people had festered inside of me, and I was more ashamed than ever.

Chase prowled like a trapped animal while I talked, opening a window, which revealed the wrought-iron fire escape just outside. This seemed to settle him, but he remained quiet. The weight of his judgment hung over me. Maybe I deserved it.

“Was she hurt?” Sean looked far away. Broken.

“I don’t know.” I closed my eyes. I remembered the crack of the baton on her little body. Yes, she had been hurt. But the frantic gleam in his eyes stopped me from telling the truth. It seemed cruel to tell him when there was nothing he could do about it.

“And you never told Brock about me and Becca.” He still sounded a little leery.

“No. Rebecca was…” I paused. “Rebecca was my friend. Maybe not at first. And she probably doesn’t think so now. But I’ll always remember her. I know it doesn’t matter what I say, but I wish things had been different.”

Sean was quiet for a moment.

“How did you know she was here?” Chase asked Sean finally. I wondered if it was curiosity or some other purpose that had caused him to break his silence.

In a rush, Sean told us how he’d been discharged from the base in Cincinnati, where he’d been sent after the incident at reform school, and met Billy and Riggins, who had been in town collecting stray soldiers for the resistance. Billy’s other talents included breaking into MM cruisers and accessing prisoner lists via their scanning device. That was how Sean had found out about Rebecca’s transfer.

I remembered the scanner the highway patrol had used when he’d pulled us over. A miniature computer. Billy was quite clever, it seemed.

Since there was no way to break into the base without getting killed himself, Sean had settled on working for the resistance until Billy could get him more information about Rebecca.

Before Sean could say more, Wallace summoned him from down the hall.

“I’ll take you to the carrier tomorrow,” he said.