Three (Article 5 #3)(105)

“Since the attacks, former president Matthew Stark and members of his administration have released a statement calling for current political leaders to relinquish their power so that it may be rightfully returned to the citizens. He demands that officials explain their stance on the Expungement Initiative, a government protocol intended to reduce noncompliance by the execution of innocent civilians imprisoned for Article violations. President Scarboro has yet to comment on these accusations, or the recent claims that the late Chief of Reformation, Chancellor Reinhardt, offered bribe money to the insurgents during the War in exchange for acts of terrorism. Stark asks that citizens demonstrate tolerance and patience during this precarious time until peace can be established. With more on these stories as details emerge, this is Faye Browne.”

I pictured the narrow woman with short, curly hair and wondered where she’d landed. I hoped she didn’t plan on using her real name in public. That kind of thing could get you killed.

I snuck back into the room, pulling the chair close to the side of Chase’s bed. Gently, I threaded his fingers through mine. Too cold. Normally he was like a furnace, but since we’d arrived he’d been unable to warm up. I pulled the blanket higher over his bandages, careful not to put too much pressure on his chest, and kissed his shoulder.

Tucker was chewing his thumbnail and staring at his boots.

“I never gave my C.O. those posts,” he said quietly. “I gave them Knoxville and Chicago. I told them where to find the sniper, then told all of you she was dead. I even gave them the safe house when we were in Greeneville. But after the bombs in those tunnels, I stopped. They thought I was dead anyway.”

He scratched his short hair down over his forehead, and I thought of how distraught he’d been after we’d survived the bombs in Chicago. He’d probably never thought the MM would take the place down with him still in it.

“I thought I had to. I thought, I don’t know, I was doing the right thing.”

I snorted at this.

“The right thing,” I said, listening to the beep of Chase’s pulse on the monitor. “What’s that again?”

Raised voices in the hall drew our attention, but lowered a few seconds later.

“What happens for you now?” I asked Tucker.

He dropped his hands over his knees. “Not sure.”

I regarded him carefully. He wasn’t the same guy I’d first met at my house during my mother’s arrest, what felt like years ago. He didn’t even look the same. His green eyes weren’t as sharp as they had been, and he slouched as though he could barely hold up his shoulders. He was beaten, lost, and on his own. But despite that, he felt real, more real than I’d ever seen him.

I didn’t know what that made us, but that didn’t scare me anymore.

“Welcome to the other side,” I said.

He looked up at me, over Chase’s still body, mouth twisting in a small smile. Before I could think about it, I smiled back.

The plastic pillowcase cover beneath Chase’s head made a crinkling sound. He drew in a long, deep breath, blinking, and then turned his face to me. I waited out each torturous second as the confusion passed. There was much to tell him—about Jesse, about what I’d just heard coming from the radio—but we would talk about that later. For the first time in a long time, later felt like a real thing.

His hand, still in mine, rose to my cheek, an IV tube trailing after it.

“Welcome back,” I said. “We’re in a clinic. I’ll get the doctor.”

Tucker jumped up. “I’ll go.” He rubbed his hands on his sides as if not sure what to do with them, and then turned and left the room. His gun was left on the orange chair.

“I guess we made it.” Chase’s voice cracked, and he licked his chapped lips. “All of us.”

Hearing him speak made my heart clench, and a small yes was all I could manage.

His hand lowered down my neck, to the place on my collar where the shirt couldn’t cover the corner of white that stuck out from the V-neck. The heat of his palm pressed through the bandages, and I held it there, close to my heart.

“How’d you get your scars?” he asked.

The tears rose within me like a soft rain—quiet at first, dampening my face, making tracks down my chin to finally fall on my borrowed shirt. And then they came heavier, drenching my insides, muddying every memory into one painful pool and then finally washing me clean.

He pulled me closer and I curled up beside him on the bed, careful to stay clear of his wounds. He stroked my hair and kissed my brow, and I promised myself that nothing could ever come between us again.

A second later I heard the shot.

I bolted from the bed, instinctively dropping low. Behind me, Chase was trying to push himself up. The monitor beeped faster, catching up to my own jagged pulse. As a commotion in the hall raised, I snatched Tucker’s gun and flattened myself against the wall just within the door. Ears ringing, I glanced around the corner.

At first it looked as though Tucker was leaning against the wall, head drooped forward as if he was still nodding off, and for a split second I wondered if I’d made up the sound. But then Tucker’s hands, folded high on his chest, opened, and I saw then the dark red stains on his palms.

I ran toward him, following his shocked gaze down the hall to where Wallace stood, a team of men and women crowded behind him. They stared at him, as if waiting for orders.