Breaking Point (Article 5 #2)(45)

I couldn’t swallow.

“Keep the light on,” I told Chase when he lowered the flashlight. I wanted to keep Tucker in my sight.

The truck stopped and we held our breath. I pictured Sean in the front seat, and wished I could see what he was seeing. I hoped he was okay.

Just a traffic light. We moved on, gripping the edges of the crates to steady ourselves against the sway. Billy deliberately placed the gun between us; a sign of trust I did not take lightly.

“What’s in these boxes anyway?” he said.

He crouched, picking at the nails embedded into his makeshift seat. Tucker beat him to it; a loud crack resounded as he ripped the top off the crate beside him with his un-casted arm.

“Now this is more like it.” I watched warily as he removed a glass bottle filled with brown liquid. Dust from the packing straw floated through the air like snow.

“Whiskey,” said Chase, removing the lid off another box. Horizons manufactured alcohol? Since it was contraband to civilians, this must have been for one of the MM parties Sarah had talked about. I felt the sudden urge to break every bottle.

Chase palmed the glass neck like a baton. The makeshift weapons were stacked at our feet in preparation. Something was better than nothing.

“Wallace brought back some of this once,” said Billy, laughing suddenly. “We got trashed. It was awesome.”

I returned to the crate beside him, thinking of how much he reminded me of a high school boy just then. Of a life that seemed so far gone I could barely discern the details of it. How long had it been since I had seen Beth or Ryan? Only a couple months, but it felt like years.

“How’d you meet that guy anyway?” Tucker asked.

I winced; his question was like salt in a fresh wound, and I resented him for speaking to Billy at all, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t curious, too. Billy began peeling the label off a bottle.

“It was when he was still a soldier,” he said. “My mom, she … turned me in as a runaway for some cash.” His shoulder jerked awkwardly, and all of his attention focused on peeling splinters from the lid of the crate.

Tucker snorted. “I guess we know where you rank.”

Billy laughed forcefully and said, “She took me out for a cheeseburger first.” As if this somehow made it okay.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a cheeseburger. Rations vouchers weren’t redeemable at restaurants.

“We were eating when this soldier showed up. A fat guy. I knew what she’d been up to then, so I ran—straight into his partner, who’d been looking for him down around the corner. He was quick for an old guy. Tripped me with his nightstick and smashed the burgers all up. I was so pissed I told him he could go screw himself.”

“Must have been some burger,” said Chase.

“What’d he say?” I prompted.

“He … he told me to play nice.”

A collective silence fell over us. Play nice or we don’t play at all was Wallace’s number one rule. Behind my closed lids I could see the roof of the Wayland Inn crashing down.

“And I said that you don’t get to play nice when you don’t got any food. And then he asked how old I was and I said sixteen, even though I was really just eleven, and where my dad was and I told him that he died in the War. That’s when his partner caught up to us, and before he said a word I hear this bang! And the fat guy dropped dead. Right there. Right in front of me.”

All the air seemed to suck out of the compartment through the vents. I willed myself not to think of the carrier on Rudy Lane, murdered before us. I willed myself not to think of my mother. Chase had become motionless, and so, surprisingly, had Tucker.

“Wallace killed his partner?” clarified Tucker. “That’s cold.”

“He had it coming,” said Billy. “That’s what Wallace said.”

I looked across at Tucker, staring at Chase, who was staring back. I shifted. “Wallace and Riggins and … the rest of ’em, they’re probably already on their way to the safe house. Wallace always said that was the plan.” Billy’s voice cracked.

The heaviness in the compartment increased. I rubbed my chest with the heel of my hand but the tightness would not loosen.

Lincoln was dead. I could see him perfectly. Tall and wiry. Black freckles. I wondered how Houston was taking it; I’d never seen them apart. I wondered if Houston was even alive.

Wallace. Riggins. The brothers. All the guys who risked their lives and came home to play poker. Burned to ashes. Burned in a motel-sized crematorium.

“People do stupid things when they’re desperate,” I told Billy quietly. He was hunched over, digging into the crate between his calves.

“She wasn’t stupid,” he said. “You don’t know anything about her.”

Billy had never talked to me like that before.

“I didn’t mean…”

“She always got what she wanted. Always.”

I swallowed, the revolt churning inside of me. Clearly this wasn’t the first time Billy’s mom had “turned him in.” Wallace was more than family to Billy. Wallace had saved his life. Or maybe they had both saved each other.

“I just wish my cat didn’t have to die, you know?” he said, by way of an apology.

The truck turned, and we all held on until it was righted. The pace picked up. The whir of the tires on the road made it hard to concentrate on anything but the danger outside.