Breaking Point

by Kristen Simmons

  I prepared myself for recognition, panicked that the unveiling would not occur on our terms.

  “You got any food, Sister? It’s been two days.…”

  He didn’t know who I was. I found myself both relieved and disappointed.

  When my escort backtracked, the man slumped and scurried back into the anonymity of the makeshift shelters. I wiped my sweating palms on my pleated navy skirt, then squeezed a single finger along the tight collar of my button-up blouse.

  “Not yet,” Chase said under his breath. He tilted his head toward a unit of soldiers standing outside a cleared area contained by yellow caution tape. The cement within that circle was stained red and black. The table where the soldiers had signed people up for the draft was broken in the center, and painted a sticky burgundy that attracted particles of dust and leaves. The MM had left it there in defiance of what had happened, as if daring a civilian to celebrate the death of a soldier.

  Behind it, against the side of a building were three single lines grouped together, painted in the same neon green as the Save Us Sniper sign.

  A bell resounded from the back of the Square, startling me. Though most people had given up on breakfast, it seemed there were to be some rations after all. With renewed energy, the starving sprang from the bricks, and stampeded toward the soup kitchen lines.

  I ducked out of the way of a sprinting family, and aimed for a silver bus in the opposite direction, where volunteers could donate blood in exchange for rations vouchers. It was parked sideways between two buildings, marking the entrance of Tent City, just as Sean had said. A CLOSED sign hung low enough to have been spat upon multiple times.

  We followed the length of the bus to a large Dumpster, overflowing with the last bits of trash that people couldn’t use for shelter or warmth: broken glass, damp paper, and food too long gone to provide any nutrition. It smelled rank, like mold and vomit. My nose scrunched up involuntarily.

  Hidden in a nook between the bus, the building, and the trash was the rendezvous point, and a quick scan told me that we were the first to arrive.

  “Sean should be here by now.” My heels tapped impatiently. Chase’s gaze darkened, and I followed it to the bus window where five printouts had been posted.

  John Naser, aka John Wright. Robert Firth. Dr. Aiden Dewitt. Patel Cho.

  Ember Miller. And there below my picture, in bold letters: ARTICLE 5.

  A tightness stole my breath, like a fist squeezing my lungs. It was one thing to know this picture existed. It was another to see it for myself. Part of me wanted to tear it down, to burn it, but I couldn’t, because that was the whole reason we were here.

  Movement at the end of the bus snapped me back into the present. Chase and I spun toward the sound, expecting the rest of the team.

  “S-sister?” a small female voice squeaked.

  It was a small, lumpy woman, no more than twenty, with a face as pale and cratered as the surface of the moon. Her eyes were round, and her hands latched in place over her mouth. My insides knotted when I recognized her navy uniform matched my own.

  We’d wanted a couple people to see us, but not those employed by the MM.

  Chase’s hand rested on his gun. He glanced behind her for soldiers. The Sister’s gaze lifted from me, to him, and back to me. She knows our faces, I thought, but then remembered that she’d called me Sister. She hadn’t studied our mug shots. I nearly laughed as I realized what she must be thinking: a FBR soldier and a Sister of Salvation, sneaking off to a deserted area. Not. Good.

  There was no time to strategize. We had to act before she did. Sean was minutes behind us, and if this Sister called her friends, we’d have only moments before the soldiers arrived.

  With only a fleeting look at Chase, I rushed toward her, taking care to let my shaggy black hair fall over the side of my face.

  “Are you g-going to the soup kitchen?” she stammered.

  “Yes,” I said, trying to sound relieved. “I was just on my way.” I thought if I told her to meet me there my intentions to ditch her might be too obvious.

  “Are you all right?” she whispered, grasping my elbow. Sean was right—the Sisters here were different than at the reformatory. They were afraid.

  “I am now, thanks to you!” I fisted my left hand so she couldn’t see the thin gold band on my ring finger. There was a lesser chance of getting cited for an inappropriate relationship if people thought Chase and I were married, but Sisters were only Sisters because they weren’t fortunate—or compliant—enough to be wives. How could I have missed this detail? Covertly, I switched the ring to my right hand.

  I could lose her in the Square, I thought. Distract her in the crowd. Though I’d been around Sisters at reform school, I’d never worked as one, and didn’t know the ropes. If she tried to do a secret handshake or something, I’d be busted.

  “Where’d he go?” she asked, frightened. “He was so big!”

  I looked behind us, feeling my stomach lurch when I didn’t see him either. Where had he gone?

  When we reached the brick paddock, we ran into three of her friends, already doubling back for their lost companion. The masses congregated at the far end, where the Sisters had been heading to assist with breakfast.

  “Peace be with you,” a wide-eyed blonde said to me. The apples of her cheeks were pink from the wind.

  I smiled demurely, feeling my hairline dew with perspiration.

  “And also with you,” came the canned response from my captor. Immediately, I parroted the phrase.

  The crowds were still too sparse here for me to disappear, but if we got too much closer to the pack, Chase was not going to be able to find me. I was already kicking myself for separating. We would each be more vulnerable left out in the open alone.

  We can rendezvous at the Wayland Inn, I reminded myself. I hoped we’d get there. Soldiers crawled all over the place. Wallace had said there’d be more here since the attack the other day, but that didn’t calm my nerves. I was glad now for the cover these Sisters provided.

  The smell of unwashed human bodies thickened as we drew toward the rations lines, overriding the burned oatmeal in the air. People watched us hungrily, and in self-defense I hung my head and kept close to the other girls.

  The next time I looked up was to catch myself before running into a soldier.

  My heart tripped hard in my chest. A squeak came out of my throat as he bumped my shoulder. I stumbled to the side.

  “Watch it,” he said. He didn’t even glance my way. An unexpected rage slashed through me. I didn’t want another soldier pushing me around as long as I lived.

  Seconds later a woman screamed, her voice feral and high, clawing at the base of my brain. The soldier, still beside me, jerked his head up like a fox, sniffing the air, and then he unhooked the gun from his belt and raised it toward the sky.

  “He’s been shot!” I heard a man in the direction of the soup kitchen shout. But the soldier at my side had not yet fired. He was talking about someone else.

  More voices joined his.

  “Sniper!” they cried. “Sniper!”

  CHAPTER

  5

  I JOLTED back, slamming into someone behind me, then was shoved back into the Sister who’d dragged me out here. Her broad cheeks had turned a dark shade of pink.

  “Oh no,” she was repeating. “Oh no oh no oh no.”

  I heard the shot this time, a loud crack that resounded through the air and ricocheted off the buildings. The soldier that I’d nearly run into was nowhere to be seen.

  Code seven, Chase had said when the sniper had struck before. A civilian attack on a soldier. During a code seven all FBR units had been permitted to return fire.

  “Get down!” I shouted, remembering what Houston and Lincoln had said about the civilians being forced to lay on the bricks. If they rioted now, the MM would kill them.

  Two men near me ducked, only to be trampled by the crowd. A crack of bone, a blunted cry. Horror turned my stomach. The Sisters bo
lted, scurrying away like mice. I kept low, scanning furiously for Chase, searching for his hard features, his copper skin, his serious eyes, but every face was a blur.

  Another shot, this time followed by a chorus of shrieks. Ahead, near what had been the front of the lines, came a loud clang, and through a sudden window between bodies I saw that the giant black cauldron of oatmeal had been knocked to the ground. Half a dozen men and women fell to their knees, scooping the dirty mush into their mouths and their cupped shirts.

  Someone called for a Sister—for me—but I was already taken by the stampede, and had to hold onto the back of a woman’s jacket just to stay upright. We were going backward, toward the entrance to the Square. The bricks had become slick with the light rain, and I slipped. A hand gripped my forearm, wrenching me sideways, where I banged into someone and nearly fell again.

  The navy jacket nearly burst the panic swelling inside of me, but when Chase turned around, I almost sobbed with relief. He blocked the others with his body, holding me tight against his chest as he carved a path toward the alley where we were supposed to meet the others. I could feel each time someone rammed into him, see the flash of his teeth as he grunted against the pain.

  Minutes passed before the way cleared. I looked up to see more soldiers racing past us toward the Square. Chase pushed me back like he meant to go after them, but at the last minute dragged me behind the Dumpster. Another clatter of footsteps had us flattening against the rusted metal.

  “What part of stay together didn’t you understand?” His tone may have been sharp enough to wound, but it was fear that came off of him in waves, not anger, and that was worse. It made everything seem even more dangerous. Less than thirty minutes had passed since the Sister had caught us here, but it felt like a lot longer now. “Never mind,” he muttered. “You all right?”

  I nodded. His lip was bleeding, and I removed the handkerchief from around my neck and dabbed it with a trembling hand. I couldn’t bring myself to meet his eyes.

  “What happened?”

  “Another sniper hit,” he said. “I think. I saw a soldier go down.”

  The sniper was still here. Never before had he stayed in the same place after an attack. I couldn’t contemplate what this meant, all I knew was that Chase was in a uniform—a target for this attack—but just as much in danger from the real soldiers without it.

  We needed to get out of here fast.

  I cringed when more shots came from the Square. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. All in quick succession. More screaming followed, sharp and bright with terror. Chase grabbed my hand, still holding the handkerchief, and pulled me down to a crouch.

  We waited, listening to the tapping of the rain against the Dumpster, and the shouts from the Square. After a little while the chaos stopped, and a man’s voice crackled over a bullhorn.

  “Face down on the bricks,” he ordered. “Move and you’ll be shot.”

  I shuddered to think how many had already been shot. Had any of our people been among them? Had Sean?

  An eerie silence came over us, punctuated by the sound of a baby’s fearful cries. At the sound of footsteps Chase stood, and motioned for me to be silent. He leaned out from behind our shelter, then gave a short whistle. A moment later Sean appeared. His chestnut hair was disheveled, and his uniform jacket had been ripped at the shoulder. The top two buttons were missing.

  I jumped up and wrapped him in a hard hug, then pushed him back into the wall.

  “What took you so long?” I said.

  He choked out something indecipherable and jabbed a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the Square, as if this were the stupidest question he’d ever heard.

  He turned to Chase. “Is your radio working?”

  Chase had left it turned off in his belt for fear anyone might hear it and find us, but now he flipped it on and lifted it to his ear, keeping the volume low. Nothing but static—on every channel. The MM wasn’t broadcasting what had happened in the Square, which meant we couldn’t connect to one another, or to Wallace back at the Wayland Inn, either. There went our chance for backup.

  The patter of footsteps outside had him quickly switching it back off. We froze, waiting for whoever it was to pass, but the footsteps came closer. Chase reached slowly for his gun and nodded to Sean.

  “There room for one more at this party?”

  Cara appeared between the Dumpster and the wall, her once long locks cut to chin-length and redyed black, like mine. Exactly like mine, I realized. Another layer of protection so that people might even mistake us for each other. Her Sister ensemble fit more snugly across the hips and the chest to accommodate for her curves, but apart from that we were practically twins.

  My blood was still thrumming as Chase’s hand dropped from his holster.

  “You could have just said no,” she said, feigning annoyance.

  “Get down here!” Sean motioned for her to come closer, which she did with a smile that made me wary.

  “Oh,” she whispered. “It’s a secret party. You should have said so.”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. “What happened to Houston and Lincoln?”

  “We got separated,” she said, the seriousness finally catching up to her. “What happened to you two? I saw you get ambushed by the Sisters.”

  So she had been watching us. I glanced at Chase. “We got separated.”

  “Radios are out,” Chase interrupted.

  “It’s the storm,” said Cara. “There were severe weather reports on the back channels earlier.”

  “We’ll hold until this clears up,” said Chase, nodding toward the Square. “Then move out at nightfall.”

  The disappointment weighed down on me; I did want to go back, but we hadn’t accomplished anything yet. No one had recognized us. We hadn’t even picked up the package.

  Cara shook her head. “My guess is we’ve got fifteen, twenty minutes before those soldiers back there start combing every block in a ten-mile radius looking for the shooter. We need to move.”

  “She’s right,” said Sean. He didn’t look happy about it. “With the radios out they can’t call for backup. This is the best chance we have to get out.”

  I took a deep breath. Chase’s expression turned hard and unreadable. He finally nodded.

  “We’ll go through Tent City,” said Cara. “Might as well pick up our package since we’re here.”

  “Forget the package,” said Chase.

  “No,” I said, ignoring his scowl. “We’re here. We came here for a reason. Like Cara said, soldiers are going to be coming this way soon.” This person, whoever it was, needed our help now.

  I stood.

  “Well, boys,” Cara said. “Safeties off. And remember, we’re all wearing blue today, so watch where you’re shooting.”

  * * *

  AS soon as we left the shelter of our enclosure, the evidence of just how severe the weather would be became apparent. The air smelled electric, and the wind and rain were gusting. They drowned out the sounds from behind us, in the Square, where the civilians were still being searched for weapons.

  Just past the donation bus, the alleyway revealed a bottleneck of makeshift shelters, corked at the closest end by a table where, Sean informed us, two armed soldiers usually sat. For now, the way was clear, and we moved fast, heads down, looking back as often as we could spare a glance.

  As we passed through the barrier, the air whooshed out of my lungs. It seemed a great accomplishment that we were still alive.

  Tent City was meant to be a temporary housing settlement, set up during the War when people had evacuated from the major cities on the Eastern Seaboard. In the beginning, the Red Cross had provided supplies, but over time, as it became obvious that the occupants had nowhere else to go, they began building shelter with whatever they could find. Tent City became as much a fixture in the city as the Wayland Inn. I could see that now, as the street opened up into what Cara termed blocks. The stalls contained within each were no more than si
x feet wide, and made of anything people could get their hands on. Car doors. Trash can lids. Piled stones. Cracked windowpanes and scavenged pieces of plexiglass. All latched together by spare twine or even leather belts.

  People peeked out of their flimsy thresholds, having no doubt heard the ruckus from the Square. They regarded us with suspicious glares, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. I hadn’t considered that we wouldn’t be well received—we were here to help—but now of course it made sense. We looked like government employees; clearly they wouldn’t trust us. We rushed down the main drag, feet shuffling through the cyclones of trash that swirled around our ankles. The guys took the lead, weapons in hand, directed by Cara’s subtle instructions. We were given a wide berth. Even though the entire Tent City could easily overwhelm two soldiers, they were afraid. Should the MM have reason, this whole colony could be gunned down in an hour, tops.

  It worried me that given the sniper attack, it still might be.

  I looked up, scanning the rooftops on either side of the road for movement.

  Four blocks down, a boy, no more than ten, with a dirty face and a greasy mess of strawberry hair popped out in front of my path, and I jumped back in surprise. One bony shoulder stuck out from his collar, and his hands were gripped before him like he was pointing a gun, aimed directly at Chase. Chase blocked me automatically, and Sean slid in at my side.

  “David!” a woman hissed, ushering him away. “Sorry to bother you, sir,” she added desperately over her shoulder.

  “Move along,” said Chase. I knew he had to play the role, but my teeth still ground together at the lack of compassion in his tone.

  “No place like home,” Sean muttered.

  “You lived here?” I said, keeping my gaze ever moving.

  “St. Louis.”

  When Sean had told Wallace he didn’t want to go to Tent City, I’d thought it was because the place made him nervous. I should have guessed his reasons were not so simple.