Breaking Point (Article 5 #2)(87)

“You think we did this?” Sean asked.

“Odd timing,” the boy slurred. “Sniper shows up and they bomb the tunnels all to Hell.”

“We didn’t have to roll that pipe off your leg, you know!” I wanted to confess everything then, to tell them I wasn’t the sniper, Cara was, and now that she was dead, there was no sniper. But those people in the tunnels had listened to me because they thought I was important, and maybe that had saved their lives. I couldn’t take it back.

On some level I understood that Chicago needed someone to blame. But we were the last to leave the tunnels. We had sweat and bled beside them. Didn’t that mean anything?

Chase seethed beside me. The indecipherable muttering from the survivors rose in volume.

Truck, who had gone outside to check the vehicle, returned and cut the tension with his trademark missing-tooth grin.

“Sit tight, ladies,” he said. “Checkpoint express is pulling out of station. I’ll be back as soon as I can to get the rest of you.”

A communal groan. At least half would be left behind, some badly injured.

“I’m not going.”

All eyes turned toward Tucker, mine included.

“I won’t be further trouble,” he continued. “If they meant to smoke out the sniper like that kid says, we’ll be putting the convoy in further danger. I’ll stay back. Draw them away from the transports.”

What a hero, I thought.

“We’ll all stay,” said Chase, a wary eye on his ex-partner. “We came here for someone. We’re not leaving without her.”

My heart pounded in my chest. Beside me, Sean exhaled.

*

THE first batch left for the Indiana checkpoint, and though I’d made my decision to stay, I couldn’t bring myself to watch them leave. For the first time since I’d learned the truth about my mother, I wanted to go to the coast. I wanted peace.

In Truck’s absence, a grim anticipation settled over us. It thickened, until someone finally joked about how a guy named Stripes had cried like a baby when the bombs went off.

“You think that’s bad,” a bald man with a goatee responded, “you should have seen Boston sprint for the exit. You’d have thought his boots were on fire.”

Some nervous chuckles.

They called one another girls’ names. Sally. Mary. They laughed about who pissed their pants and who broke down. It was sexist and crass, but I didn’t even care. You said what you could to pull yourself out.

I thought of how Jack had laughed in the tunnels after the blast, and wondered if he’d had it right. When things got really bad, the horror came full circle, and even violence got to be funny again. It didn’t have to make sense.

We inventoried the supplies, ate salvaged rations of crackers and canned mix-meat, and waited for cover of darkness to sneak to Rebecca’s rehab. In our quest to stay, we’d been granted a break from the accusations and were donated fatigues, rations, and two handguns. The boy from the supply room, still lightly dusted and streaked with sweat, approached me shyly and handed me a Sister uniform he’d salvaged from the supply room.

“Thought you might need this again,” he said, face filled with hope.

I paid him a guilty thank-you, knowing it was far too late to say anything to the contrary.

*

THERE were two water drums from the delivery truck that were brought inside the hideout to make more room, and since the water was too dirty to drink, we used it to clean the grime and blood from our bodies.

As I waited in line, Chase’s presence pulled at me, drawing my attention to where he and Sean had removed themselves from the others. Against the wall, behind a ripped curtain of gray insulation hanging from the ceiling, they conspired. Though I couldn’t hear what they were saying, Sean’s movements were animated, as if he were trying to make a point, and curiosity had me leaving my place in line to see what had set Chase’s shoulders in a defensive hunch and his thumb tapping against his thigh. Before I reached them, Chase broke the conversation and stalked away.

“What was that about?” Sean’s head jerked up as I spoke. He glanced after Chase, then, in a low voice, explained how we were to break into the facility.

When he was done, my head was throbbing even harder than before.

No one removed a patient from the premises without the presence of a Sister, so Tucker and Sean would claim that they were assisting me with transporting Rebecca to a Sisters of Salvation home, where she could dedicate her life to service. Tucker knew the soldier managing the facility and felt confident he’d let us through. Just as long as he hadn’t heard about the dishonorable discharge.

Chase was not going to be coming in with us.

“It took twenty seconds for an AWOL to make him,” Sean tried to reason. “Don’t you think there are soldiers at the base who still remember him?”

So now Chase was the liability, and the rescue plan depended on me.

He was going to love that.

Without a word, I sought refuge in the women’s bathroom. The minutes lost their meaning as I stood before a sink, knees locked, eyes unseeing. A blank expression fixed itself onto my face, and it was no lie. I felt nothing. Not rage. Not despair. Nothing. I’d placed a bucket of water in the bowl, and absently washed my hands, my arms, my hair, now crunchy with dried blood, and watched as droplets of red and black splashed the old, forgotten porcelain.