Three (Article 5 #3)(60)

“A settlement?” I asked. “Another safe house?” Rumors Jesse had heard had taken us to Endurance. He’d managed to gather a lot of information over the years.

Jesse scratched his dirty nails over his chin.

“What?” asked Chase suspiciously.

“I was there for a while before going to the coast,” said Jesse. “Didn’t end too well.”

I narrowed my gaze. “It didn’t end too well for them or it didn’t end too well for you?”

He smirked. “Let’s say neither party benefitted from my presence.”

Chase rubbed his jaw. “He got kicked out is what he means.” He didn’t seem too surprised.

“A disagreement,” said Jesse. “Long time ago. I doubt they even remember me after all these years.”

Somehow I wasn’t entirely convinced that was true.

“Marco and Polo haven’t mentioned it,” I said. “Maybe it’s been found out.”

Jesse shook his head. “The carriers don’t typically go there.” At my look he added, “They’re a little antisocial.”

I didn’t like it, but wasn’t seeing a lot of other options. We couldn’t leave these people here, and if we were going to go to the existing posts to spread the word about the Statutes, we would need to be light on our feet.

“You remember the way?” Chase asked.

Jesse nodded reluctantly.

“Excuse me.”

I turned to find a girl with a messy blond braid, dressed in the borrowed clothing provided from Greeneville’s stash. Her face betrayed her youth; she was my height but couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen. At the sudden attention her round cheeks darkened and she looked to her hands, where she clutched a piece of paper.

“You’re Ember, right?”

I nodded. There was no use hiding it now. Behind me, I heard Chase and Jesse step away, giving us a little privacy.

“Is everything okay?” I asked, immediately regretting the question. Of course things weren’t okay; that was why she was here. In confirmation of my thoughts her hazel eyes welled with tears.

I placed a hand on her forearm, unsure what else to do.

“My dad sent me here,” she said. “He had to take another ride to the safe house, our ride was too full. Now they’re saying it’s gone. Is it gone?”

I exhaled. “Yes.” There was no point in lying; she would hear it sooner or later.

A sudden bravery took her, and she wiped away her tears with the back of one hand. “I thought so.” She seemed to remember the paper she was holding then and shoved it into my grasp. “I’m Kaylee. We talked about you where I’m from.”

I looked at her, confused. “Where is that?”

“Outside Nashville. We said if we ever got busted, we’d escape reform school, too.”

I shifted. “Who’s we?”

“Just some of the girls at school,” she said, as if it wasn’t strange for people I’d never met to be discussing my life. “I know I don’t look it, but I’m pretty good in a fight. My dad taught me how to shoot.”

“Hope he taught you how to run, too,” I said before I caught myself.

Her hands balled into fists. “He did. But sometimes you can’t get away.” The hard sound of her voice brought a wave of pity through me. “He’s got an Article 5, too. My mom split when I was a kid.”

You still are a kid, I wanted to say.

“Kaylee,” called one of the women from the group. She held a bottle of water in each hand and tried to hide her worried look.

The girl slumped, like a child who’d been reprimanded.

“I can fight, that’s all I wanted to say,” said Kaylee before walking away toward the woman.

I unfolded the paper in my hand, seeing the neatly printed words of the Statute circular. I knew what it was supposed to say, but still my heart began to pound. It looked like any other that I’d seen—the format was the same, nothing looked out of sorts. But as I read more carefully, the change became glaringly obvious. Articles 1 through 4 had not been tampered with, but after Article 5 the following message was printed: You’ve wondered what happens to the noncompliant—to every neighbor or family member the FBR has taken. Truth: they are being tortured, brainwashed, and murdered by the soldiers that are supposed to keep you safe.

a) When ARTICLE 5 was revised, Ember Miller was removed from her home and school. She was placed in rehabilitation where she was beaten and tortured for her mother’s noncompliance.

a) (revised) Ember’s mother was arrested by FBR soldiers and murdered for her “crimes” as part of the government’s new Expungement Initiative to cleanse the country of immoral behavior.

b) Every day families are ripped apart by the FBR. Yours will be next unless you help stop it.

c) The time for hiding is over. Protect your family and your freedom. Join Ember when the first base falls and FIGHT.

“Oh,” I said aloud.

A darkness made my insides grow slick, like the wings of the birds we’d found on the beach, drenched in oil. It spoke of validation and vengeance, and then with Sean’s words: This never stops. It will be chaos all over again.

There was no turning back now. I’d known that before, but holding the Statutes in my hands, hearing that my name was being spread around the country in a blatant cry of treason, gave me the sudden sensation of drowning. Three, the Statutes, what it would mean when people read them beat at me, wave after wave, until my hands were shaking and I could barely breathe.