Breaking Point (Article 5 #2)(42)

They lowered his limp body to the ground, and I had the sudden revolting memory of the base, transporting the dead prisoners in laundry carts to the crematorium. I hadn’t known those people, but Lincoln was not a stranger. I knew what his laugh sounded like. I knew how tall he was when I stood next to him. That was when I realized—really realized—he was dead.

Tucker and Chase each took an end of the wooden bench. They carried it around the stairway exit, toward the side of the roof that interfaced the office building. I helped Sean up, and we ran to follow. There was a shattered window down a few feet across the gap. I watched as they leveled the bench between the roof’s ledge and the windowsill, making a slide into the darkened room below. The curtain of jagged glass above made for an ominous entrance.

When I glanced back four more of the men were gone, maybe back through the smoke-filled stairway. Wallace was shouting, gesturing in wild motions with his arms, and forcing Billy to his knees before the ledge. When Billy tried to get up, Wallace pushed him down.

He’d lost his mind. Billy was like a son to him, and here he was, preparing to sacrifice them both for a fight we’d never win.

Billy was coming with us, and Wallace and the others too, if I could make them.

But as I approached, it hit him, an invisible bullet, slicing through the smoke. It ripped through Wallace’s shoulder and threw him to the ground, flat on his back.

I ducked low, hearing Chase bellow my name. I kept going.

“Wallace!” I pulled him up, and then Billy was there, and Wallace, groaning, was seated, blood flowing freely from the blackened shirt just below his collarbone. “We have to go,” I said desperately. “Come on! Now!”

“Wait, wait a second,” Billy was saying. “Wallace?”

Wallace was shaking his head, regripping the pistol that he’d dropped.

“Billy is going to die,” I said flatly. “You are going to kill him.”

He met my eyes, and I saw the infection, the fever of insanity circling the whites around his irises. I summoned all my strength to burn clarity through my gaze, and after a moment, he blinked.

“Get to the safe house,” he said, voice scratchy. “We’ll meet you there. All units are pulled in. You have to get on the road now.”

My thoughts turned to Cara, waiting at the checkpoint. How much time had passed?

“Take Billy,” Wallace said quietly.

My stomach dropped.

“No!” shouted Billy, grasping his shirt like a child. “You’ll burn—”

“Take him!” shouted Wallace, and in a burst of strength stood and shoved Billy at me. Chase was suddenly by my side. He grabbed a struggling Billy around the shoulders, locking his arms down.

“Wallace!” Billy was crying. Wallace shoved his handgun into Billy’s pocket.

“Exhale when you pull the trigger, just like we talked about.” His voice cracked, though not from the fire. “You saved my life, kid. Remember that.”

And with that Wallace collapsed to his knees. He crawled to the crate and grabbed another gun, loading it with shaking hands.

“Go.” It was Riggins who broke the trance, pushing me away. “You have to get out of here.” He blocked my view of Wallace and smirked. “The sniper. I should have seen it earlier. I wouldn’t have given you such a hard time.”

I couldn’t make sense of what he meant, or why he was now pushing me away from the ledge. He knelt beside Wallace and the only two other remaining resistance members at the Wayland Inn. And then we were running, back toward the bench and the neighboring building, a blazing inferno just beneath our feet.





CHAPTER


10





TUCKER was the first to try the slide. The bench wobbled beneath his weight, but Chase held it steady. After leaping over the threshold, he grinned wildly back at us and then disappeared, only to return a moment later to clear the overhead glass from the window with a scrap of plywood.

I held Sean’s arms to steady him, noting how half of his shirt had been singed off his back. It was hard to tell the damage to his skin through the soot. Tucker grabbed him from the other side and helped him down.

If you hurt him, I’m going to kill you, I thought.

Billy put up a good fight, but tired quickly. As soon as he was subdued, Chase pushed him over the ledge of the roof onto the bowed wood of the bench. We had to keep moving. Short quaking bursts had begun to rock the building, threatening a cave-in.

Tucker reached out from the window, grasped Billy’s forearms, and jerked him inside.

“You’re up,” said Chase, meeting my eyes briefly before lifting me up onto the bench. He stared across the way at Tucker and swore under his breath.

I looked down and gasped when the thick white smoke clouding around my ankles began to pull at me, screwing up my balance. The board groaned as I adjusted my position and tried not to fall.

“Look at Tucker,” Chase said. I did, and with Chase holding one hand, I skated down until Tucker was holding the other.

He pulled me inside the building, where my knees wobbled and the natural darkness shocked my eyes. Billy was kneeling over Sean, who’d sunk down against the wall. The room was empty but for the shards of glass on the floor that gleamed black in reflection of the smoke outside.

I spun around just as Chase came in behind me.