Three (Article 5 #3)(36)

“Where’d you get those numbers then?”

“They’re the last reports to come in from the safe house,” she said.

“The carriers delivered messages from the posts to Three there,” I said to myself. Sean had told me this once.

She nodded. “Hard to believe all these regions report to one base. Guess that’s what happens when a war wipes out two-thirds of the country. Leaves everyone else a little thin.”

Contemplating why Three was monitoring the soldiers present in each region filled me with a dark doubt. They couldn’t possibly attack a base. There were only two hundred, maybe two hundred and fifty people in the army we’d seen this morning. Even if they recruited the help of the existing resistance posts, they wouldn’t have the numbers to stand a chance. In Knoxville we’d had less than thirty people total. To attack the base would have been suicide.

A strong urge to find Chase shook through me. I was getting a very bad feeling about the purpose of Three’s “security” team.

“I don’t know how we’re supposed to pull this off when we don’t even have current numbers,” she muttered.

“Pull what off?”

She lowered her hands slowly. “Who are you again?” She reached suddenly for my shirt sleeve and gave it a tug. The collar untied, and my shoulder was exposed. I yanked it back up, retying the straps.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

Her brows lifted, and her mouth pursed. She flipped over the paper she’d been recording the census counts on, and I was surprised to see the bold, familiar type of a Statute circular staring back at me. There were at least a dozen sheets spread across the table.

“My mistake,” she said.

It didn’t seem like a mistake, but she clearly wasn’t saying any more about it.

“That’s the best use of the Statutes I’ve seen yet,” I said cautiously. I’d seen them everywhere—stuck to the front doors of houses, old telephone poles, windows. Anywhere anyone might see them. But never used as scratch paper. The very idea seemed so defiant it brought a smile to my lips.

“We hijacked some trucks on their way from the printing plant awhile back.” She jutted a thumb out the door without looking up. “They’re down the hall.”

Two soldiers, two halves of the same person really, came to mind. Marco and Polo, the night crew at the printing plant in Greeneville, where we’d taken refuge on our flight from Knoxville. I could still hear the deafening drone of the printing machines in the back room.

I wondered if those two had anything to do with some trucks being hijacked.

She held her hand over the stack of papers, clearly waiting for me to leave so she could continue.

I removed myself from the room and wandered down the hall until I found an open door. Inside the closet was a rack of office supplies, and boxes stacked upon boxes of Statute circulars.

I pulled one off the top open box, reading down the list I’d memorized long ago, feeling a familiar pang in my heart when I reached Article 5.

Children are considered valid citizens when conceived by a married man and wife. All other children are to be removed from the home and subjected to rehabilitative procedures.

“Looking for something?”

I spun to see the guard who’d been following us—the one who looked like Rat but older—standing in the doorway, and cringed, both inside and out. “Don’t you have anything better to do than follow me around?”

The corner of his mouth quirked. “It appears not.”

Resistance posts were being destroyed, our people—Tucker included—were possibly missing, and yet I was his assignment.

“I need to see my friends.” I hoped this made it clear that I would be heading down through the tree line to find Chase.

“I’ll take you.” He turned, and I jogged after him to catch up, wondering how that had been so easy.

We passed the heavily guarded weapons depository and exited the north wing by way of an open foyer, but where I thought we would exit through the cafeteria the guard kept walking. He cut straight through to the south wing of the lodge, past the infant room with its colorful tattered squares of old carpet and handmade wooden toys. Inside I caught a glimpse of Sarah changing a diaper. Good practice for the months to come, although her hair was pulled loose on one side, and she didn’t look particularly happy. I waved, and she called out a brief distracted hello.

“Where are we going?” I asked. Not out of the building to where the soldiers had emerged this morning, I was certain of that much.

“To see your people,” he said.

We came to the end of the hallway, where two rooms split off in a T. From one side came the sharp smell of sage and other herbs I didn’t recognize. From the other, a girl’s high giggle.

I stuck my head in the doorway, surprised at the clean floor and sterile countertops. Clay jars filled the shelves, labeled with unfamiliar words like BETONY, AVENS, MILKWEED, and VALERIAN. A dozen cots were placed at even intervals, and on one of them sat Rebecca. Opposite her, on a round stool, DeWitt chuckled, a tool in his hand that looked like a petite hammer.

A strange mix of comfort and suspicion had me hurrying to Rebecca’s side.

“Ember!” Rebecca beamed. I’d forgotten how beautiful she was when she smiled.

“What’s going on?” My gaze raced over her, finding the sores on her arms bandaged with pale yellow cloth. A gray mud oozed down into the crook of her elbow. Her pants were pulled up above the knee; there were so many bruises you’d think her natural skin color was purple. I winced.