Breaking Point (Article 5 #2)(96)

“Hello!” I shouted again, this time running around the nurse’s station. I slid on the slick linoleum floor, grasping the circular desk for balance and sending papers flying through the air.

We saw each other at the same time. He didn’t hesitate. He ran toward me from the far side of the hallway. As he drew near I could see the fear creasing his forehead. We collided; he grabbed my hand and whipped me after him.

Our way was blocked.

We stopped short, and I slid again, righting myself just before I fell. A soldier stood before the door ten feet away, his face drawn with anxiety and fear, his gun raised at Chase’s chest. I didn’t have to glance at his gold name badge to know it read HARPER.

In a flash, Chase had drawn his weapon and jerked me behind him.

Nothing happened. No one fired.

I felt every part of me extending like roots down my legs, through my heels, and into the slick linoleum. I couldn’t move. I was frozen. Stuck. It was like a nightmare, when the monster is chasing you down, and you are helpless to defend yourself.

“I know who you are!” Harper yelled over the noise. “Jennings and Miller. We followed your case in basic training. Put down your weapon and come with me.”

He was new on the job; I’d figured that downstairs. If he’d followed our story in training, he must have just been sent to work in the past few weeks.

More blaring siren. More church music. I willed my body to move, to do anything, but it was like I was shoving through wet concrete.

“We’re leaving,” Chase responded. “You can let us leave. You can let us walk through the door. No one has to know.”

Chase lowered the gun a fraction of an inch. Every beat of my heart felt like an explosion in my chest.

No, Chase, I thought. Don’t trust him. But gone was the soldier who’d rescued me from the reformatory, the cold, fragmented soul who knew death too intimately. Back was Chase—my Chase—who believed in change.

The soldier’s hand was visibly shaking. Beads of sweat blossomed on his hairline and dripped down his jaw. I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he attempted to swallow. His fear was all around us, choking us, more potent than my fear, which only demanded survival. His fear weighed options. Weighed the consequences of Chase’s proposal.

If the MM knew he’d let us escape, they would kill him.

“Lower your weapon!” Harper repeated again, his voice breaking.

I thought of Billy, and how his voice broke because he was only fourteen. This soldier was only a few years older. He could be the same age as me. We could have sat next to each other in high school. We could have taken the same tests, and stood in line to punch our meal passes in the cafeteria. We could have been friends in a different life.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Chase said.

“Do it or I’ll shoot you!” he shouted.

A frightened cry snuck out between my lips. The soldier’s weapon jerked toward me, and I saw, straight on down the barrel of his gun, how the whites of his eyes surrounded his brown irises.

My still body grew hard and fragile like glass. If he fired, I would shatter.

“Look at me,” Chase said firmly. “Don’t look at her. Look at me.”

I begged my body to move. I tried to breathe, but I couldn’t.

The soldier aimed back at Chase’s chest.

“I’m taking you in,” he said. “I’m giving you five seconds to lower your weapon.”

“They taught me that one, too,” Chase said. “Back in Negotiations. I trained here, too, did you know that?”

“Four seconds,” said the soldier. His hands were still shaking.

The breath shuddered out of my body. My heels moved at last. My fists gripped. The freeze had passed.

“Come with us!” I heard myself say.

His gaze jerked my way, but Chase blocked his path.

“Three.”

“She’s right,” Chase said, the urgency now clear in his voice. “Come with us. We can protect you.”

“Lower it! Two seconds!”

“Please!” I begged.

“You don’t want to shoot me,” Chase said rapidly. “I don’t want to shoot you either. I promise, we can help you. We can protect your family.”

The soldier twitched. Chase lowered his weapon slowly, aiming it at Harper’s knees.

“We can keep your family safe,” continued Chase. “I know what it’s like. They hurt someone I cared about, too. They threatened to hurt her more if I didn’t follow orders, but I got out and you can do the same.”

“You don’t know that!” Harper choked on the words. The tears blurred my vision.

“I got her away from them,” Chase said. He removed one hand from the firearm, and held it up for Harper to see.

The soldier’s gun dropped an inch. Then another. A wave of dizziness came on, and I felt my knees begin to buckle.

“Come with us.” Chase took a tentative step forward.

“I can’t…” the soldier was crying now, that heaving, snot-filled crying that wracked spasms through his body. I couldn’t hear him over the sirens, but I saw it, and that was enough.

“You can,” said Chase. “Let’s go.”

One more step forward.

The soldier’s chin shot up, and he burned Chase with an agonized, distrustful stare.