Three (Article 5 #3)(40)

“No,” I murmured. Part of me had accepted it would come to this, but had been denying it all the same. Hearing it out loud made it so much worse.

Jack rose, red in the face, and shoved away through the crowd. One of the other survivors followed him. I wanted to as well, but my boots were stuck in place.

I pictured the musclehead carrier with the missing tooth. I remembered how he’d fought us just to see which side we were on, and driven us and the other survivors from Chicago’s tunnel explosion to the coast. My name’s Truck, came a weak voice in the back of my mind, because I drive the truck.

I looked at Chase, horrified. A muscle in his jaw ticked.

The Chief of Reformation’s voice came on again.

“Despite our efforts to rehabilitate, these terrorists are determined to bring our country to ruin. They admit to being directly responsible for the deaths of good, honest people in Tennessee, in Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, and Virginia. Though they don’t call themselves insurgents, make no mistake that they are terrorists, and before they can do the same damage as that of their predecessors, they will be stopped, expunged, as a demonstration of the power of Reformation. The safety of our people is too important to take any chances.”

He was speaking to us. To Three. I could almost feel the MM’s cold watch slide over Endurance.

The female reporter returned to the broadcast.

“Citizens are, as always, encouraged to contact the FBR with information on any suspicious activity, and reminded that assisting the noncompliant is in direct violation of the Moral Statutes. With more to come on this story, I’m Felicity Bridewell.”

The line went dead.

I remembered where I’d heard her voice then: in a farmhouse in Virginia, where a couple had tried to turn us in as fugitives after she’d reported our flight. We’d barely escaped.

Nice to hear she was still the MM’s mouthpiece.

“Maybe Reinhardt’s bluffing,” said Sean, but we all knew he wasn’t. Truck was gone, and we didn’t know who would be next.

“The chief’s a dead man,” said one of the fighters behind us.

“How many times you going to say that?” asked another. “Not like we haven’t been trying.”

At the Wayland Inn we’d heard a radio report that someone had nearly succeeded in assassinating the Chief of Reformation. We’d suspected Three’s involvement, little that we knew about them. We’d been right.

“Shut it off.”

We turned, finding Dr. DeWitt, chin lifted, gaze cold. Those around him cleared a space, as if at any moment he might erupt, like he presumably had when he’d killed those soldiers before going on the run.

“You shut it off.” Billy swung the radio at the doctor, but Chase, between them, snagged it from the air. He pressed the top button, and the red light above the speaker went dark.

Truck was gone, not killed in an attack, but murdered by the FBR as a message to the resistance. Tucker could be next. A strange sense of numbness filled me as I considered the possibility of my mother’s killer dying in the same manner that she had.

“Are you aware there are children around?” DeWitt said evenly.

Billy scoffed and tossed back his hair. “I’d heard worse by the time I was their age.”

“Then it was a shame there was no one there to protect you,” DeWitt said.

Billy stuffed his hands in his pockets, glancing away. There had been someone who’d looked out for Billy—Wallace. And now he was gone.

“What about the other thirteen?” said Chase, but we both knew that number meant nothing. The MM executed who they wanted, when they wanted. This was just the first time they chose to acknowledge it.

“We’re dealing with it,” said DeWitt.

“Doesn’t look like it,” muttered Billy. “If I hadn’t lifted this radio none of us would even know this was happening.”

To my left, Sarah hugged a bowl of soup tightly to her chest. We’d been pretending everything was fine while Felicity Bridewell had been broadcasting Truck’s death across the country.

“Billy could find them,” said Sean. “Get him on the mainframe. He can find anyone.”

Billy puffed up.

“They can’t access the mainframe here,” I said, remembering what the woman in the north wing had said. We were out of range. All we could infiltrate were the radio signals. Since the safe house’s destruction, we didn’t even have the reports of the surviving carriers.

When DeWitt glanced at me, I remembered that no one from our party knew that Chase and I had been to the radio room and added, “I mean, that’s what I heard from someone.”

Billy turned on me. “So we’re just going to sit here and do nothing?”

I lifted my hands in surrender, trying to tell him I was on the same side.

Truck was dead. The fact hit me again like a ton of bricks.

“You want to do something?” DeWitt’s voice grew soft. “Come with me.”

For a second I thought I saw a flicker of fear flash in Billy’s eyes. I almost stopped him as he stalked past me to Three’s leader.

“The rest of you, back to your posts,” said DeWitt. He snatched the radio from Chase’s hand and removed the batteries. “And the next man I catch stealing from our supply closet wins a permanent placement on latrine duty.”