Breaking Point (Article 5 #2)(74)

CHAPTER


16





“YEAH right!” shouted someone. “I’m the sniper, too, Mags!”

People laughed. The woman—Mags, I assumed—smirked.

“And why should we believe you?” challenged Mags. All voices silenced when she spoke. “How do we know you’re not lying?”

“Check the mainframe,” I said. “Pull up my photo. I’ll verify anything you want.” My body felt rigid, strung too tight. There were murmurs from the crowd.

“Mm…” Mags gave me an evaluating look. “You do look like the picture. Not so soft though.”

“Give her a gun.” I braced at Tucker’s voice. “See what she can do if you don’t believe her.”

We both knew the only thing I could do with a rifle was prove myself a liar.

“Let’s not,” muttered Jack. Mags laughed.

“They stopped running that report,” a guy near Mags said speculatively. “They must’ve verified that that Greeneville girl was Miller.”

“It wasn’t,” Tucker said, staring at me with the clear message not to screw this up. “I don’t know who that was. Just a code one victim. But that’s good news, isn’t it, Ember? I guess you’re off the hook.”

The fact that he could even pretend to be indifferent made me sick.

I was frozen, unable to jump for joy that my name was cleared because it had meant Cara’s demise. But if he was right, how was it possible? Cara and I looked similar from afar, but the MM couldn’t possibly think she was me after a good look at her poor, lifeless face.

Still, if these people here had heard that the sniper—Ember Miller—was killed, then I had a few moments reprieve. Moments to get Rebecca. To deliver her to the safe house. If we survived the day.

“They’re lying!” shouted someone. “They’re just trying to skip a beating!”

“Ask him,” I said, pointing to Sean. He shot a worried glance in Chase’s direction. “He was my guard at reform school. There’s got to be some records in the mainframe that prove that.”

My heart thundered in my chest as we waited. Waited. Mags walked a slow circle around me.

Chicago is going to turn me in. They’re going to shoot me right here.

But no one looked angry. It slowly occurred to me that these people weren’t mad at me at all. Like the woman in the square who’d given me the medallion, they’d been supporting me. They’d been cheering for me.

Or rather, for who they thought I was.

“How’d you do it?” someone called out. “How’d you get so close to all those uniforms?”

I closed my eyes, just for a moment, and summoned Cara’s cool exterior.

“Do I look like a threat to you?” I smiled sweetly.

“What kind of gun? Was it an M40?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, fixing my hair. “It was a big one.”

Someone laughed. It was contagious, and soon the others were nodding and smiling as though they’d never intended to harm us. I could hardly believe it. Was it really so easy to evade the truth? To be someone else?

“I like it,” said a guy wearing a cockeyed knit cap. “A patriot if you ask me.”

The adrenaline was humming through me. I had no idea what would come next, but at least I’d stopped them from killing us.

As the copper cartridge was passed around the whispering crowd, Chase and I locked eyes. His betrayed nothing, though I knew he feared what I had done, and what would happen when Chicago realized my lie. Would it just be a fight then? Or would Chicago skip the beating and eliminate the problem?

“Who do you work for?” Mags asked. “Let’s just say you are the sniper. No one could have gotten half those hits without some protection.”

I stiffened. Tried to swallow, but couldn’t.

“Everyone reports to someone,” she said, testing me.

I closed my eyes, and tried to remember what Sean had told me at the Wayland Inn, how Marco and Polo had only added to the mystery.

“Everyone reports to Three,” I answered, immediately regretting my words. How far did Three’s power extend? How much trouble would I stir for dropping their name?

Before me, Mags had stopped her pace. Her brows had lifted. I prayed that she didn’t ask anything more direct.

“Indeed,” she said. “I’ve heard rumors that something big’s about to go down. Is that why you’re here?”

I wanted to ask what she’d heard—was Three planning some kind of revolution?—but I couldn’t break from the story now.

“Our friend was sent to rehab,” I said. “We need to find her.”

Everyone had gone very quiet. They were watching Mags, who wore authority just as she wore those battle-beaten boots.

“Rehab … you mean the circus?”

I glanced at Tucker, who appeared just as clueless as the rest of us. This was not a term soldiers used.

“Find her and what?” Mags added. “Extract her? Waste of time.”

A vein on Sean’s forehead bulged. “Hold on—”

“It’s our time to waste, ma’am,” Chase interjected. He moved beside me. “But we’d waste less of it with your help.”