Breaking Point (Article 5 #2)(31)

That felt truer than anything could at the moment. I felt my mother’s ghost constantly. I felt it now, in the space between Chase and me.

He reached for my hand, holding it between both of his.

“Ember, I think if there is someplace like that—someplace good—I think that’s where your mom would be.”

It was instantaneous. The pain, the fear, the loneliness, all balled together inside of my gut and soured. My eyes burned, but not with tears. I wanted to cry. I’d wanted to cry for days, especially when this happened, but I hadn’t since our escape from the base. My tears had been choked off, and all that remained was anger.

Nothing felt right. My thoughts didn’t feel right. My skin didn’t feel right. Even Chase sitting beside me made me claustrophobic. I wanted to run away. Disappear. Forget myself.

I couldn’t stop the questions: Did you do enough? Could you have stopped him from killing her? Why couldn’t I stop this? Why couldn’t I see this coming?

I didn’t want to grieve my mother. I didn’t want to wonder if she’d been hauled to the crematorium outside the base like any other bin of trash. I didn’t want to remember that she loved pancakes and hot chocolate and contraband books. I didn’t want to remember her at all, because I didn’t want her to be dead.

It wasn’t fair. My mother had been murdered simply because I’d been born.

At that moment I could see exactly why someone would snipe off soldiers.

I shook Chase’s hand away. He looked intolerably sad, and that infuriated me, too. What was wrong with me? I was taking it out on him, even when I didn’t want to. She was gone and he couldn’t change that. Nothing could change that.

I shoved off the tailgate and paced around the garage.

“Maybe if you talked to me,” he suggested tentatively.

“I’m talking! We’re talking! It doesn’t fix anything!”

He was standing now, too, hands hanging limply at his sides. He moved closer.

“I don’t know if it works exactly like that.”

“What are you, my damn therapist?” I fumed, fists balled at my sides.

“No!” His hand raked through his hair, but it was so short, his hand slid back to the collar of the holey, borrowed golf shirt. “No, I’m just your…” he shrugged. “Neighbor,” he muttered, his face darkening. His eyes fixed on a particular spot of oil on the floor.

“My neighbor?” I said, and the laughter that bubbled out of my throat sounded so evil I turned away so I couldn’t see my own cruelty reflected in his face. Not his best friend. Not his girlfriend. Just the neighbor. My mind flashed to Sarah, and her once-pretty dress, and suddenly I was sick with wonder of how Chase had spent his nights in the MM.

The silence grew thin and was punctuated by another clap of thunder.

There was something in the way he looked at me then, as if he’d asked a question and were waiting for an answer. As if he were willing me to answer, but how could I? I didn’t know what we were, even if what I felt was strong enough to die for.

“We’re loading the truck,” announced Riggins from the stairs. I jumped at the sound of his voice and noticed that Cara was with him. I wondered how long they’d been standing there.

Chase pulled back, averting his gaze.

“Right,” he said.

An hour later, Cara and Tubman, in the MM uniform, took the stolen government truck filled with refugees east under the guise of delivering rations to a soup kitchen in Maryville. I prayed the guards on the freeway would see the MM vehicle, see Tubman and Cara in uniform, and usher them through without question. With or without the instatement of Article 9, they were as good as dead if caught.





CHAPTER


7





AFTER the carrier’s transport had gone, I’d crawled back into the cab of the yellow Horizons truck to wait out the night. Chase had watched me cautiously, but we hadn’t spoken anymore. There were bigger things to worry about; like how we would get back to the Wayland Inn, or whether Sean had made it safely across town and found the recruit. Still, I hated the distance between us. It left me unsettled, unbalanced. Like the good parts of myself were fading.

I wished I could talk to Beth. I missed her, and I missed home, at least the way home used to be. That all seemed a long time ago now, like something out of a different life. Still, thoughts of my redheaded friend brought a smile to my lips. The MM could ruin lots of things, but not my memories of her. As long as she kept her head down, she’d be safe. Her family was compliant, after all.

By dawn, the weather’s tantrum was over and had left the garage eerily silent. The cool air made me shiver, and when I drew my knees to my chest, the St. Michael pendant slid to the floor mat.

I went to retrieve it, hand searching blindly beneath the seat, and came up with more than just the necklace. A cartridge shell. I rolled it over my palm, curious as to why a food delivery crew would have need for this kind of ammunition. I hadn’t heard there had been any weapons fired when the resistance had hijacked the truck.

Something wasn’t quite right with this bullet. It was pointed at the end, copper, not silver, and almost three inches long. The cartridges that filled the 9mm were no more than an inch, and rounded on top. I was no weapons expert, but I’d inventoried our supplies at the Wayland Inn, and it didn’t take much experience to figure out that this was for a much larger gun than the typical resistance-issued pistol.