Breaking Point (Article 5 #2)(55)

“Unless you get caught before then, in which case we’re reporting it stolen early,” added Marco. “You’re all right, Jennings, but a lot of people count on us working this angle.”

“Thanks,” said Chase.

“Don’t thank us yet,” said Marco reluctantly.

The adrenaline was already kicking through my veins. The only vehicles that couldn’t be caught breaking curfew were the ones enforcing it. FBR cruisers. Like the one we were about to steal.

Still reeling from our whirlwind plan, I turned to Billy. “You’ll come with us, right?”

He pulled a string from the frayed hem of his shirt, frowning.

Chase put his hand on my arm, as if suspecting I might try to drag him with us.

“What’s it going to be, Billy? It’s your call,” he said.

I held my breath. Please come with us. I felt a gnawing inside of me, like I had in the days after they’d arrested my mother. I didn’t want to let Billy out of my sight.

Billy swallowed audibly, shoving his mop of dark hair out of his eyes. He transferred his weight from foot to foot. Chase was right, it was important that Billy make this choice for himself. He hadn’t gotten a say before.

“I’m waiting for the carrier,” he said at last. “Wallace is going to meet me at the safe house.”

Silence seeped across the room. No one knew how to say the words Billy would never believe, not unless he saw it for himself.

Wallace is dead.

“If Tucker brings back soldiers…” I couldn’t finish.

“We’ll take care of it,” said Polo. Beside him, Marco nodded.

Something pinched deep inside of me. If we didn’t deliver Billy all the way to South Carolina, we’d let Wallace down, but short of forcing him into the cruiser, there was nothing we could do. Decisions had to be made, and quickly. I grabbed him then, squeezing him tightly, despite his awkward, adolescent stance, and kissed him on the cheek.

“Take care of yourself, Billy. I hope I’ll see you again soon.”

He blinked rapidly and muttered a good-bye under his breath.

In less than ten minutes we were ready. Outside the loading dock was a single gas pump, meant for the delivery trucks on their distribution routes, and Marco filled three red plastic canisters with fuel so that we wouldn’t have to stop in public. The cruiser was parked in a single parking spot beside the building’s generator, just beside the high chain-link fence that surrounded the plant. When he placed the sloshing drums in the trunk I had the fleeting fear that hauling around that much gasoline was dangerous, but figured combustion was the least of our concerns.

With Chase and Sean in borrowed uniforms, and me in the Sisters of Salvation skirt and blouse that Cara had abandoned, we rolled down the ramp onto the highway and gunned it home.

*

WE watched the images on the television, horrified. The ground was crowded with hunks of concrete and fallen streetlamps. The dust was powdered chalk, thick as fog. People, coated in white, ran from it, screaming, coughing, like it was a living creature chasing after them, not another building crashing to the ground. Our living room crackled with static.

The camera shook. The guy taping the scene was running. And then the screen went black and returned to the newsroom.

Chicago had been bombed. Like Baltimore and San Francisco. Washington and New York. But so much closer.

“Baby, come here.” Mom reached out her hand and I slid beneath her arm, feeling how she was damp and trembling. I pinched my eyes closed. Outside, kids were playing. A car drove down the street. How could people be so unafraid?

Chase, I thought. Just his name, over and over. I didn’t know where his uncle lived. I prayed it wasn’t in the heart of the city.

“Ember, if something like this happens, you come straight home, okay?” Her voice cracked. I wrapped my arms around her waist to make her stronger. “I’ll meet you here, and we’ll figure out what to do.”

*

I HAD a hard time sitting back in the leather seat. Between the lingering fear of driving after curfew in a borrowed cruiser, the daunting computer panel beside the steering wheel, and the glass partition behind my back, I had a hard time calming down.

My mind wasn’t helping. The thoughts slapped one atop the next. Flashes of my mom, her hair in clips, wearing clothes from my closet. The similarities in our faces. What did she look like now? Only a couple months had passed, but I knew I looked different. Hardened. Wary. Was she the same? If she’d survived the gunshot, how badly was she injured? Was she getting enough medical treatment? Or was she being forced, like the woman with her son in the square, to scare others into compliance?

Stop, I thought. Stop. She’s dead. Stop fantasizing she’s not. Stop hoping.

My heels hammered the vacuumed rubber floor mats. Cara’s wool skirt made my legs itch.

I turned back to check on Sean. We’d opened the vent in the partition between the seats, but couldn’t hear each other without yelling. He looked out the window, content in the silence. It had been a long time since I’d seen that small, peaceful smile. That was Becca’s smile.

“Talk about something,” Chase said, startling me. His eyes stayed glued to the road.

“What about?” I asked.

“Anything. Your voice … helps.” His thumbs drummed on the steering wheel.