Breaking Point (Article 5 #2)(11)

I’m sorry, he’d said. Just as he’d said the night he’d told me he couldn’t save my mother. I remembered how broken he’d been then, and as I lay awake, I couldn’t help wondering if he wasn’t still. If either of us would ever really mend.





CHAPTER


3





THE next morning Wallace reported that the MM had set the draft in the Square for that afternoon.

The euphoria of the previous night was absent now; what remained was a hushed anticipation. Some still wanted to take the soldiers by force, but Wallace insisted we not act without Three’s orders. Instead, he composed a team—Houston, Lincoln, Cara, and three others—to dissuade the crowd. Scattered voices to object to the MM’s control and abuse of power and direct the flow of conversation. Subtle enough not to get Wallace in trouble with Three, but a definite show of resistance, nonetheless.

In holey shirts and ragged jeans, they departed down the long corridor to the stairs. I watched them disappear beneath the red exit sign, unable to shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen. To make matters worse, Riggins was staying back, staffing the radios with Wallace. I’d heard from Billy that our paranoid hallmate was looking for me again, which was ridiculous with everything else going on. I avoided him all the same.

With everyone loitering outside the door, the fourth floor became cramped and tense. The waiting was too much, and before Riggins could start something I escaped to the roof for some fresh air.

I wasn’t the only one with that idea. I found Chase sitting alone behind the fire escape on a bench that sank in the center from too much wood rot. When he saw me he rose, thoughts hidden behind a carefully practiced mask. I hated that he could do that; he could save it for the others if he wanted, but not for me. My gaze lowered to the tattered thermal stretched tightly across his chest, and I smoothed down my own shirt in response.

“I thought you were sleeping,” I said. “You don’t have an assignment right now, right?”

He shook his head.

Tentatively, I moved past him and sat on the bench. After a few seconds he sat beside me, a few inches away. We stared at the base, pristine white buildings cutting through the midmorning haze twenty miles over the rooftops, and let the minutes tick by.

“Did I do something wrong?” I asked bluntly, and watched his guard drop.

“You? No.” He shook his head. “No. Last night … I didn’t mean…” He scratched a hand through his black hair, then laughed awkwardly. “I shouldn’t have left.”

“Why did you then?” I asked.

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. The heels of his boots made an audible tapping against the cement.

Fresh air was overrated. I rose to go back downstairs, but he grabbed my hand.

“You’re grieving,” he blurted. “I didn’t want you to think, I don’t know, I was taking advantage of you.” The words were obviously tied up inside of him, and he sighed, frustrated.

“I think I was the one taking advantage of you.” I returned to my seat and looked down, but looked down a little ashamed. I hadn’t thought he might feel that way.

He snorted. “In that case, please. Go right ahead.”

We both laughed a little at that, but I remembered the way he’d held on to me, just as raw and afraid as I was. I wasn’t the only one grieving, and I wasn’t the only one who felt the weight of my mother’s death between us.

With the air less tense, I wanted to ask him about the building next door and tell him more about the Horizons truck, and the supplies we’d confiscated. Once, talking to him had been as easy as breathing, but things had gotten complicated.

I stood up. “Teach me to fight,” I said.

After a moment, he followed, head tilted in curiosity.

“What are you talking about?”

I raised my fists. “To fight,” I said, throwing a fake punch. “You know. Fight.”

He laughed, and something inside me fluttered.

“You don’t need to know how to fight.”

I lowered my hands, placed them on my hips. “You’re kidding, right?” We were under constant threat of attack, even here, surrounded by resistance.

“You don’t need to fight like that,” he clarified, and laughed again. “Unless you’re planning on taking up boxing.”

I tried not to smile, but it was hard when he was so clearly amused.

“How, then?”

“Well.” He took a step closer and my heart stuttered. His hands shot out and gripped my wrists. Not tight enough to hurt, but enough so that I couldn’t automatically jerk away. “What’s your plan?” His smile had melted.

I struggled for a few moments—trying to bring my fists together, to pull out of his clutches, to turn my body away—but he was too powerful. I conceded with a huff of breath.

“Most people coming for you will be bigger and stronger,” he said, moving even closer so that I had to look up to see his face. His chest bumped against mine and I swallowed, feeling every place we connected. “But you’re quick. You’re not going to beat them in a slugfest, but you can get away if someone grabs you.”

“How?”

“Where do you break a chain?” he responded. “Look at me,” he said when I glanced down at our hands.