Three (Article 5 #3)(90)

I froze, straining my neck to see the face of the soldier who’d taken me down. The perfectly pressed navy uniform seemed out of place. The gold name badge on his chest reflected the overhead light. Lips pressed into a thin line, he leaned over me, and I didn’t see the person who’d helped Sean out of the fire or run beside me as the tunnels in Chicago collapsed. Not the broken, beaten prisoner tied to a chair outside the mini-mart. I saw the polished, green-eyed soldier who’d come to my house to arrest me. The soldier who’d confessed to killing my mother.

I saw Tucker Morris.

I hadn’t realized I’d truly believed he was good until the moment I discovered he was not.

Then there was nothing but darkness as something rough slid over my face and tied snugly around my throat. My hands were bound behind me. I twisted, and my cheek hit the floor hard. I was shoved onto my stomach. My legs were yanked behind me and bound together at the ankles. I could barely hear over the noise of the machines and the blood rushing in my ears.

*

THE cloth bag over my head was thick and hot; with each inhalation the coarse fibers suctioned to my mouth and nose, bringing on wave after wave of panic. I couldn’t see, I could barely hear. Without my senses I was disoriented. My body didn’t know which way to bend and turn to get away, or when my attackers would strike next. Long minutes passed, and soon I was lifted and slung over someone’s shoulder.

“Throw her in the back with the other two,” I heard Tucker say. The air was forced from my lungs as I was flung to a cool, metal floor. The growl of an engine told me I was in the back of a truck, and a few sharp turns later I was rolling across the compartment, unable to stop myself.

Something hard came to rest on my back, pinning me in place. I arched against it.

“Hey,” someone whispered. “Hey, Ember, you okay?”

I didn’t answer.

“Polo?” asked the same voice. Marco. His voice was distorted, as if he couldn’t breathe through his nose. “Polo, wake up, pal.”

Polo didn’t answer, either.

*

TIME seemed to stretch on infinitely. Minutes lost their meaning. Hours passed. I didn’t know how long Chase had left. I didn’t know how long I had, either.

I was shoved onto a hard chair with a straight back. I wriggled my toes, flexed my calves and thighs, trying to work the blood back into them. My hands, still latched behind me, were asleep, and the space from my wrists to my shoulders prickled with the sharpness of a thousand needles. I tried to slow my breath, to be ready, but my muscles were stiff from the long trip tied up in the back of a truck.

Footsteps drew closer, and I braced myself for what might come. A shot of strychnine, as the soldiers received in the holding cells in Knoxville. A bullet, like that which had taken my mother’s life. The kind of beating that had broken Rebecca’s spine.

The fear dissipated, and in its place came a cool, morbid calm.

Fingers loosened the tie around my neck and ripped away the bag over my face. Instantly I was blinded by the white light. I blinked rapidly, the tears streaming down my cheeks. The air was warm and smelled like a toilet had overflowed but finally I could breathe.

“Look at this, Captain Morris,” came a strange, thin voice. “She cries.” Someone touched my face gently and I jerked away, baring my teeth. “Seems as though she bites as well,” he added.

Gradually the room came into focus. Gray stone walls, a dirty floor with a drain beneath my feet. Bright overhead lights, circular in shape, hanging from metal cords. A camera above the door, accusing me with its single eye. The man before me was barely broader through the torso than I was, and his sunken, sallow cheeks brought on the impression that he was starving. He looked about the same age as DeWitt.

“The infamous Ember Miller,” he said, smoothing back a tuft of peppered hair. There were gold stars on the shoulder of his uniform—a sign of rank. He was someone of importance. “I have to admit, I wasn’t even sure you really existed. Such a young girl, and so pretty, too. How you’ve managed to survive this long I’ll never know. It’s remarkable, really. Don’t you think, Captain?”

Out from behind me limped Tucker Morris, shoulders pulled back, chin lifted. Involuntarily, my arms and legs jerked against their restraints. Had they been free, I would have gone for his throat.

He’d lured us to the safe house, tricked me into setting him free. I was glad Jesse had shot him. How I’d ever believed he was good seemed impossible now.

All I knew was this: if any harm had come to Chase, Tucker would pay for it.

I glanced around the room, finding another guard standing near the door. New Guy. His nose was busted—a colorful burst of red and purple—and when I stared at it he looked away.

“Such trouble you’ve stirred,” mused the man. “Did you really think we wouldn’t find out what you were up to?”

He caressed my cheek again, closer this time, so that I could see the wrinkles that pulled at the corners of his black eyes. His hand dipped lower, down my neck, pausing to feel the pulse accelerating through my artery. I looked away, focused on Tucker. Focused on the red hot hatred burning through me.

“It’s a good thing we stopped that little piece of anti-American propaganda before it got too far. Wouldn’t want people getting the wrong information.” He took a deep breath. “Where did you take those Article violators the traitors at the printing press were hiding in their basement, I wonder. North?” His fingertips rose up my jaw. “South?” They lowered slowly.