Three (Article 5 #3)(86)

I pressed the gas and the engine revved, dust spraying out behind the car. I dropped the gun and white-knuckled the wheel. Normally this was the part where we were supposed to go forward. Gently, I tapped the gas again, to the same effect.

“Come on,” I coaxed the car, bouncing in the seat.

Sean jerked open my door. He reached down to the floor, grabbed my ankle, and shoved my foot on the pedal to the right.

“Brake,” he said. He pointed to the other. “Gas.” Then he leaned across my body, grabbed the shifter emerging from the wheel and adjusted it down a notch. A light on the console beside the speedometer switched from P to D.

I couldn’t believe I hadn’t remembered that part.

“Drive,” he said. He stepped back and shut the door.

I pressed down hard on the gas. Something slammed behind me—probably the back gate closing. The last view I had in the mirror as I tore down the street was Sean surrounded by the boys, watching me go.

*

I JERKED to a stop in the middle of an empty road. The freeway onramp was to my right, but there was another road that wound around the left. North was the direction I needed to go to get to Charlotte, but I didn’t have time to backtrack if I was wrong.

Eighteen hours. I had less than a day to find where the MM had taken Chase and to figure out a way to get him out. Dark thoughts shimmered on the edge of my focus. A voice that said he was already dead, that he’d died in pain, alone, while I’d been miles away, unconscious. And that if he was dead, every soldier that died when the bases fell would not be enough to fill the hole left inside of me.

I pulled out the map from the sun visor and spread it across my lap, but my hands were shaking so hard I ripped it down the center.

“No!” My throat was tied in knots.

I wouldn’t cry. I would not.

A knock at the passenger window made me scream. I leaped out of the seat and scrambled for the gun, but instead knocked it to the floor.

Jesse stood outside, arms crossed over his chest, mouth pulled into a thin, tight line.

“What’s the plan, neighbor?”

I couldn’t believe it. A stowaway.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, venom on my tongue.

Slowly, he lifted his hands, and then opened the passenger door and sat down. He stared straight ahead through the window.

“My nephew—he told me to look out for you if something happened to him.”

I closed my eyes.

“I guess I don’t have to tell you I owe him one.”

I flexed my legs. “I guess not.”

“And if he got caught, I had to stop you from going after him.”

I imagined Chase asking Jesse to make this promise and my heart cracked open.

“You can’t stop me,” I said. “I’m going to find him.”

“I know.” He smiled, and his eyes were glistening. “I had to try.”

A silent moment passed.

“You’re sort of like her, you know,” he said. “My sister. She was hard-headed, too. You should have seen our dad when she told him who she was marrying.” He whistled, shaking his head.

I’d never given much thought to Chase’s mixed heritage. His parents were always so warm and nonjudgmental, and I resented that they would have to fight that battle. Either way, talking about Chase’s mother made me uncomfortable, like Jesse and I had too much in common.

We sat in silence for a moment.

“Chase taught me how to shoot,” I said. “Not to drive.”

He laughed, and slapped a hand on his chest.

“Where we headed?”

“Charlotte,” I told him. “Unless you have a better idea.”

“You want to join Three outside the base, or just drive in through the front gates?”

I turned away, staring out the window. “I need to get into the prison.” There wasn’t time to gather with the other fighters, and anyway, they wouldn’t let me get close to the base before it blew. “Once Chase got himself arrested to find me in the Knoxville holding cells.”

“Well, that was stupid,” he said.

My hands began to shake again. I needed to get in and out of the base before midnight. I wished Billy was here—he would have at least been able to hack into the mainframe and tell me for sure if Charlotte had taken a new prisoner.

But Billy had jumped aboard an MM delivery truck, bound for Charlotte.

“Greeneville,” I said, the idea lighting inside of me. “Marco and Polo have an FBR delivery truck.”

A slow, dangerous smile spread over Jesse’s face. He got out of the front seat and stepped outside. I scooted over as he rounded the front of the car, folding the map as he opened the door and climbed into the front seat.

Jesse was a lot faster driver than I was.

*

THE thick clouds patched together as we neared the line where the Red Zone gave way to occupied area. In the early afternoon Jesse left the highway, because the MM had set up checkpoints at all major crossings to block civilians from heading into the restricted areas. Because of this, we ended up in a small suburban community, weaving through abandoned cars and debris blown by the weather, at a pace slow enough to make my skin crawl.

I kept my eyes pinned on the road highlighted in the headlights. A rickety wooden bridge was coming up, and beyond it the trees grew thick, a wall of green and gray shale.