Three (Article 5 #3)(12)

“Your pal stashed this here, too,” Jack told Billy, who’d returned with another box. “He’s inside waiting for you.”

Billy glanced through the door, red in the face. Chase gave the Chicago leader a hard look as Rat chuckled.

“Leave him alone,” Chase warned. His focus turned back to the gun. “Ember’s right, someone’s been here. Whoever left the gun did it recently.”

“Why do you say that?” Sean asked.

“The slide’s clean, no catch,” he answered. “Unless someone just wiped it down, there’s no way the dust and humidity wouldn’t have clogged the mechanism.”

Jack’s brows lifted. He tapped the side of his temple with the barrel of the gun.

Time stopped.

“Always thinking, aren’t you?” He snapped his fingers at Billy, and then shoved the gun in his direction. “No hard feelings, right Fats?” He’d called Billy this since they’d met.

Hesitantly, as if waiting for a joke, Billy took the gun, then fitted it into the back of his waistband, the way Chase did.

Jack laughed, and said, “Who’s the big man now, huh?” My teeth ground together.

“Think it was them?” asked Sean. “Three?”

I stepped back to the doorway, giving Jack a wide berth. My blood began to hum as I traced the “3” with my fingertips. A Horizons truck of supplies. A gun, hidden in a house marked by the same sign of the resistance. These things had been left for someone.

I remembered what Sean had told me weeks ago in Knoxville—that the carriers received messages from Three at the safe house to take to the other branches. Rumor was that their base was in the same location, but no one seemed to know for sure. Maybe it was a coincidence, but what if Three had used this house as a checkpoint of sorts? A place to stash their supplies? Someone had clearly been here recently, which meant that someone from Three might still be alive, and if so, we needed to find them. If the resistance branches could unify we could strike back at the MM, and we needed Three’s intelligence to do so.

Rat and Jack were mumbling something to each other warily.

“What?” I asked. “If they survived, they can help us.”

“Like they helped us in Chicago?” spat Jack. “We had Three contacts scattered around the city. In uniform, even. And where were they when the tunnels fell, huh?”

My shoulders rose defensively. Sure, Three was illusive, but I’d never heard anyone in the resistance openly talk bad about them.

“We’re all on the same side,” I said.

“Don’t kid yourself, sweetheart,” said Jack. “Three’s on their own side.”

Thunder cracked, and white lightning split the sky. The rain slashed against the roof. In the distance, thunder rumbled, on and on, like it would never stop.

Maybe Jack was right. Even if Three had survived, hope that they would help was probably just a dream. We couldn’t even find the tracks that had left the safe house ruins, much less the rebel kings.

When the final two guys on our team had returned from checking the other houses, I told them all about Tucker’s call. That seemed to ease some of the tension. Because Tucker had already spoken to me, they decided I should be the one to continue to answer, that way in case anyone was listening they wouldn’t know how many were in our group. Despite Chase’s silent reservations, I wrapped the radio back up in plastic and hoisted it over my shoulder.

We moved on after that. I followed Billy, who made his way down the center street, a dinner plate held over his head like a halo, blocking the rain. The handle of the gun rested against his lower back, molded beneath his wet T-shirt.

We spread out for the remainder of the afternoon, spearing through the woods, tromping through the sand. The sky drew back to a thin layer of white, and my clothes grew tough and chafed my skin. Blisters crowned my feet, but we didn’t rest. Slowing would have turned the questions from a whisper to a shout: Where were we going? Who would we find? Chase felt it, too. He didn’t have to say anything; I could see it in the way his fists clenched, the way his gaze rested on nothing, always moving.

As we entered an old state park, the beach gave way to swamps and marshland. Twisted trees blocked our path, their white roots like long, spindly fingers diving below the murky water. We carved a single-file line down a trail forged long ago and abandoned before the War, slapping at the mosquitos that buzzed in our ears as our heavy footsteps crashed through the brush.

Our party thinned. Rebecca and Sean had fallen behind again, and to keep them connected to the others, Chase and I slowed our pace, isolated in the middle of the train. We weren’t about to leave our friends defenseless, but we couldn’t lose track of the others, either.

When it seemed the path had been completely lost, we rested beside a stream to wait for Sean and Rebecca. The light was dimmer beneath the trees, and a curtain of vines and foliage created an isolated cove. We sat on moss-covered rocks and split a can of oily tuna and powdered mashed potatoes, silent, but for our thoughts. I nearly cried with relief when I took off my shoes to shake out the sand and dipped them in the cool, clear water.

After a while Chase rose and waded in. Facing away, he squatted low to dip his hands in the stream. He took a drink. Then pulled his shirt off over his head.

My cheeks warmed. I thought I should avert my eyes but I couldn’t look away; he knew I was here, but still it felt like I was intruding on something private. There was something different about him—in the bow of his head and the way his arm fell slack—that made my heart ache.