Breaking Point (Article 5 #2)(61)

A second later she pulled back, and I caught a glimpse of a short guy in his late twenties with a goatee and circular glasses. Before I could ask who he was, or what Beth was even doing here, she released me, and pounced on Chase, claws out like a redheaded wildcat.

“Beth!” I grabbed her around the waist and heaved her off of him. He stumbled back into the kitchen, arms raised in surrender, and stalled against the stove. It clanged loudly, the metal scratching metal. He stilled it with lightning fast reflexes.

“What are you doing here?” she sneered at him. Beth always had a mean temper, even when we were kids.

“We heard my mom was here,” I said. I didn’t let go of her skinny waist.

“You have some nerve coming back here after what you did to them!”

“He’s okay,” I told her. “He helped me escape from rehab! He’s not a soldier.”

“He sure looks like one.”

“He’s not.”

“He can’t talk for himself?”

“Beth, please.”

“I’m not a soldier,” said Chase in a low voice. Beth had her own flashlight and shined it accusingly on his face.

“Then where’d you get that uniform, huh? And why were you with the soldiers when they took my best friend?” I could practically see the steam coming off of her.

“Keep it down!” said the guy behind Beth.

“Beth, stop it,” I said, instantly exhausted. Where were the kitchen chairs? I had to sit down. Where was the table for that matter?

“She waited forever for you, you know that?” Beth rolled on, a year of pent-up best-friend aggression letting loose. “When you left it killed her. I’ve never seen her that sad in my whole life.”

A wave of guilt crashed over me, followed closely by embarrassment. I didn’t want her making Chase feel bad with that stuff. He already felt bad enough.

“I mean seriously, what kind of boyfriend doesn’t even write a letter to say he’s okay?”

“Not a very good one,” said Chase.

“And then you come back and arrest them?”

I backed into the wall.

“Beth, please.”

“Well, he should know,” she said haughtily.

“Where are the chairs?” I asked.

She shined the flashlight in my face. “Oh God, you look like you’re going to throw up. You’re not going to throw up, are you? Stephen, get a trash can!”

“There aren’t any,” said the guy behind her.

“Ah, hell. The MM took all your stuff, Ember. They cleaned you out. I got a couple things before they finished, but all the furniture and everything, it’s all gone.”

I slid down the wall to the floor. In a second, Chase was at my side, helping to settle me on the dusty linoleum. The moment I was down, he released me and backed away. I didn’t want him to go. I needed him close. Beth eyed him reproachfully and knelt at my side.

“You’re not going to puke?”

I had yesterday, outside the Wayland Inn during the fire. No one had balked at me then, like Beth was doing now.

I shook my head.

“Beth, what are you doing?” I asked.

“What do you mean—”

“This,” I said, throwing my arms out to the side. “My house. My mom’s name. In the middle of the night!”

“Quiet!” said Stephen again.

Beth took a quick breath. “Okay. It’s kind of complicated, so just hang tight. There’s this thing called a safe house,” she said the term slowly, as if I’d never heard of it. “And people who are in trouble go there, but they have to wait at more remote places, checkpoints, for—”

“I know what a checkpoint is!” I shouted.

“Alert the neighborhood.” Stephen’s footsteps clacked against the floor as he marched into the next room. I tracked him with my eyes, wondered where this stranger thought he was going in my house.

“You do?” Beth tucked her hair behind her ears. “Did they teach you that in Sister school?” She pointed at my blouse.

“I’m not a Sister,” I said, face falling into my hands. “It’s a disguise, just like Chase’s uniform.”

She chewed her lip. “Maybe I need a disguise.”

I groaned. “This isn’t a joke!”

“Of course it’s not.” She looked wounded. “I help people here. I helped Mrs. Crowley across the street. The MM was coming after her, and I told her to hide here, and since then four more people have hidden here, too. People we know, Ember. And now they never have to get arrested.” She sniffled a little and wiped her eyes.

I felt like I’d been punched in the gut.

She’d grown quiet, waiting for me to answer. I said the only thing I could think to say.

“Mom’s gone, Beth.”

I closed my eyes, not caring that we were in my house anymore, or that there were patrol cars outside, or that Beth’s yelling had probably alerted half the city to my presence. I was so tired of it, all of it. The running and the sneaking around and the cruel games that the world played.

“That’s what Harmony’s brother said. I…” She sniffled. “I was really hoping it wasn’t true.” Her eyes shifted to Chase. “Did he know?”