Three (Article 5 #3)(94)

The rage within me swelled, but a deeper fear, too. Before me was a person capable of enormous destruction.

I followed him, and unable to help myself, reached for the gun in his holster. Before I took another breath I was pressed against the wall, his body flush against mine, his forearm against my throat.

“What are you, stupid?” he said. “You want him to make me kill you, too?”

Fear shimmered through me, lighting my skin with goose bumps. The Chief of Reformation controlled Tucker, that much was obvious. The cuts on my shoulder were only the beginning.

“Why are you letting me go?”

“I don’t know,” he said through his teeth. He shoved me against the wall again. “Why do you care?” His voice broke.

“Tucker,” I rasped, unsure what to make of the battle raging inside of him.

He pushed me harder against the wall, until my spine cracked and I scratched at his hands.

“You think we’re so different?” he asked. “You think your cause is so much better than mine?”

I stood on my tiptoes, trying not to panic as the edges of my vision went blurry.

“The FBR saved my family,” he said. “It saved my life.”

“It killed my mother,” I said, kicking his shin uselessly. “You killed her.”

“I followed orders,” he said.

“Stop,” I managed.

“I followed orders!” he said again, as if I didn’t understand. As if he didn’t understand.

“You helped us rescue Rebecca.” I didn’t know why I was disagreeing. I had my window to escape; I should have been long gone. Soon the bombs would hit—I didn’t even know how much time we had left.

“Shut up,” Tucker said.

“Whose side are you on?” I stared at him, watching a vein rise in his forehead. A sound of misery came from his throat.

“Why couldn’t he just listen, like everyone else? Why did he have to ruin everything?”

The buzzing in my ears paused as his grip loosened.

“Who? Who ruined everything?”

“He was my friend,” he said, letting me down abruptly.

“Chase,” I realized. I tried to picture them in training together. Partners, before Tucker had betrayed him.

“They would have killed him because of you.” He jabbed a thumb into his chest. “I tried to help him. I only turned in those letters he was writing you because he wasn’t listening. Those fights our officers put him through were going to kill him. And then when they took your mom, I was the one who did what had to be done. What he couldn’t do.”

Tucker’s words came fast, like a faucet he was unable to turn off, and I fought the urge to cover my ears and drown them out. The misery rolled off him, thickening the air in the room.

“He would have done it for me if our places were switched.”

“No, Tucker,” I whispered. “He wouldn’t have.”

Tucker stared at me, green eyes filled with self-loathing. “No,” he said, with a short, pitiful laugh. “Of course not.”

As if he’d forgotten, he checked his watch and threw back the door.

The hallway was empty. He broke into a run, and I followed close on his heels. At the end of the corridor was a security room surrounded by thick glass, and within a young soldier was typing rapidly behind a large black monitor.

It was a trap. I slammed to a halt, already backpedaling, but the soldier looked up and met my eyes. With his hair cropped short, I almost didn’t recognize him.

“Billy,” I whispered. “How…”

A buzzer sounded, and the door beside the station popped open. Tucker ushered me through.

“He was in the mess hall when I got back from the Red Zone,” explained Tucker, unable to meet my eyes. “He said he snuck in with an extra security detail for the chief’s party.”

I touched Billy’s arm, just to make sure he was real. He must have thought Tucker was attached to the resistance, not one of the real soldiers. I didn’t tell him differently. If he had known Tucker had been the one to start the fire in Knoxville, I doubted he’d be helping now.

“Tucker marched right in here and told the two guys working they’d been reassigned and I was taking over.” Billy smirked. “Can’t believe they went for it.”

“Focus,” said Tucker.

Billy turned back to the monitor and began typing furiously on the keyboard.

“You really don’t know when to quit, do you?” Tucker said. “There’s a radio report playing on a back channel we picked up last night. Some woman named Faye talking about reading the Statutes and fighting the FBR. She says she’s seen you herself.”

“Faye Brown,” I said. Felicity Bridewell was actually reporting on something worthwhile. Something that put her life at risk. Something about me, just like before, when we’d been on the run.

Of course that something was probably going to mean my painful death, but still. The bitterness I’d felt for her warped into appreciation.

“Yeah, well, everyone’s probably heard it by now,” said Tucker.

“The cameras in the cell are back on,” said Billy. “Hallway cameras back on … now.” As I watched, the screen before him flickered, then stabilized. A gray, grainy feed came through, and I shivered, thinking of the images of Chase and I that had been taken in the hospital in Chicago.