“It gets old, you know,” he confessed, and when I glanced over I saw that his cheeks had grown ruddy. “Freezing and being hungry all the time. Lots of guys joined when the recruiter came through. I wasn’t the only one.” He kicked a can across the walkway.
There was more to this story, more hidden behind his creased brows, but now wasn’t the time to ask. My hair was now dripping from the rain, and I swiped it out of my face.
“How much farther?” I heard Chase ask.
Even Cara had started to jog. The urgency hummed through us. It wouldn’t be long before the soldiers infiltrated this place.
We turned right. Three blocks down we reached a slightly larger shack, made of loosely bound, serrated sheets of yellow plastic and broken wooden pallets. It was bigger than its neighbors, about eight feet by eight feet.
Sean pulled aside the door flap and ducked within. When he unfolded from the shelter a few seconds later, his expression was far graver than before. He nodded once.
Silently, Cara and I moved inside, eyes watering from the smoke that emanated from a small fire in the corner. The plastic wall behind it was the density of molding Swiss cheese, blackened by smudges from where the flames had burned through. An old woman in rags with frizzy silver hair squatted beside the fire, roasting what looked like a charred rat on a skewer. I swallowed hard.
“Don’t know nothin’ about what’s going on out there,” she said gruffly, setting the rat directly on the dirty asphalt ground. She clutched her lower back as she rose, then shuffled back a step. “Oh, it’s you.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. She didn’t recognize me, she recognized Cara. I nearly opened my mouth to tell her my name, but with a new possible sniper attack, that seemed like a bad idea.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” Cara said. “Soldiers are coming. Better drop anything that’s going to get you locked up.”
The woman’s leathery face drew tight. “That’d be you, Sarah girl.”
She stepped over the rat to the opposite corner, where I’d previously only seen a stack of dirty laundry. Now it was a clear there was a person beneath it.
“Up you go. Get up now.” She swatted the girl’s bare leg, which emerged from beneath the covers. “Soldiers had a field day with this one,” she said quietly to us.
Sarah groaned.
“I know, dear,” answered the woman, sympathy cutting through her rough exterior. I bent to help her hoist the body from the floor. When I came close to Sarah’s face I gasped and nearly dropped her.
One cheek and brown eye remained perfectly intact— I could see the way her full lips could easily be dazzling—but her other cheek was black and yellow and swollen an inch off the bone. Just below her jaw line was a fist-wide arc of stitches, and her left eye was completely swollen shut. Even her brow was distorted by bruising and a missing hunk of skin. I was glad I was standing on the side that was wounded. I wouldn’t have wanted her to see my reaction.
Sarah was pregnant. The FBR had beaten a pregnant girl half to death.
“There we go,” the woman said when Sarah stood. I kept a steadying hand beneath her elbow and glanced down, shocked by her outfit: a low-cut, cream-colored dress that blossomed around her hips and the swollen bump below her ribs. Blood stained the front of her chest and left russet streaks down to the seam. Her shoes looked like dancing slippers.
Cara seemed to notice the absurdity of her appearance as well and scowled.
“Great,” she breathed. “Can you run?”
The girl nodded timidly. There was something about her demeanor that seemed entirely too innocent for the violence surrounding her. How old was she? Sixteen? That would have put her a year under me.
The wind rattled the roof, lifting it completely off its base for a few seconds of howling, then the rain began to pelt the metal, making my ears ring.
“Here’s how it’s going to be,” Cara told her. “We’re going to bring you to someone who’ll take you somewhere safe. You’re going to keep your mouth sealed tight until you get there. All the way until you get there.”
“Yeth, ma’am.” Sarah dug her heel into the ground, and a new wave of pity rose within me. “William didn’ mean to do it, you know,” she said. “He loved me. He picked me. At the thocials.”
“That’s enough,” snapped Cara. She stuck her head outside and motioned for Sean.
“The socials?” I asked, confused.
“FBR pays top dollar for primo entertainment,” said the woman under her breath. “I’ll bet Officer William didn’t think she’d get knocked up.”
All new FBR recruits signed a contract dedicating themselves to Reformation when they entered the service. They weren’t allowed to date. I knew this intimately; it was one of the violations they’d used to try to break Chase during our year apart. But I hadn’t thought that they’d find other ways to keep their soldiers happy.
I forced myself not to wonder if Chase had gone to socials; we had bigger things to worry about. But the thought of him lonely, needing someone to talk to, crawled under my skin. It was then that I realized the woman was staring at me.
I was grateful when Sean entered the compartment. He winced when he saw Sarah’s face.
The woman kneeled in the corner, poking around a junk pile near the clothes. When she stood, she was holding something small and silver in her hand, something I mistook as the contraband Cara had warned her to dump until she placed it between her thumb and forefinger and held it up to the firelight.
A thin chain hung from a medallion of some sort. On it, an angel wielded a knife overhead. If I squinted I could make out something beneath it, too: a demon with horns and wings. It didn’t look like something that came out of the Church of America, and since I hadn’t been raised with a religion prior to the War, I didn’t know what the token was supposed to mean.
“I know who you are,” the woman said with a tight smile. “And I’m glad. I’m glad it’s you. It’s good to see a woman fighting back.”
I froze. I knew I should say something confirming, that the time had come, but I couldn’t. My mouth had gone bone dry. Sean glanced between us, unsure, as I was, of what to say given the new circumstances.
“There’s rumors you’re hunting the soldiers that gave you that Article Five, is that true?” she asked. Sarah flinched beside her.
Whatever relief I’d felt faded.
“I … I didn’t shoot anyone.” Even if I should have. My jaw snapped shut as Cara’s fist closed around my forearm. I could feel her fingernails digging into my flesh.
“Right. Of course.” A wicked gleam lit the woman’s eye. Though part of me wanted to make her understand I was innocent, the rest of me saw the bigger picture. This was why Wallace had sent me out: to stir things up. Few things got as much attention as claiming you were the sniper.
I shoved the necklace she’d given me into my skirt pocket and mumbled, “Thank you.”
“You’re in my prayers,” she said. “But be careful. Not everyone will feel the same. The world’s gone hard these past years.”
I thought of the boy who had pretended to shoot Chase outside. When I was little we played cops and robbers. Now they played snipers and soldiers. Everything was changing.
Chase stuck his head through the door. “We’ve got to move.”
Sean took Sarah’s wrists gently and fastened them together with a neon green zip tie—a necessary protocol to deflect any suspicion. As far as everyone outside was concerned, we were here to make an arrest. Still, my wrists tingled, remembering the discomfort of restraints, and Sean scowled as he grasped her bare upper arm. I knew he was thinking, as I was, of what had happened these past weeks to Rebecca.
“Let’s go,” I said as soon as he was done.
We exited the shelter, Cara and I walking on either side of our prisoner. Sarah hung her head and refused to glance up at the murmuring crowd. I didn’t look up either, though I was now more concerned about the sniper than everyone else.
The wind was whipping now, and a plastic sheet that had served as someone’s roof came slicing through the air. I hopped nimbly out of the way, but not before Chase had reached out to steady me.
“We’ve got to hurry!” I shouted. The sky was growing black. A strong enough storm could level this place, and then there’d be nowhere to hide from the MM. I wished I could unfasten Sarah’s restraints, or at least shelter her beaten face from the weather, but I couldn’t, not while other people were watching. A new thrash of wind knocked us both back a step.
We pushed on toward the back exit of Tent City, away from the Square. Behind us came the crackling of the bullhorn; the soldiers were sending a team to search the alley. It was too much to hope that the guards at the back gate had been called to the disturbance; as soon as the way cleared we saw the flashing blue lights. The exit, a chain-link fence broken in the middle by two vertical poles, was blocked by an FBR cruiser.
Two soldiers sat in the front seats.
“Keep moving!” Cara shouted. I hadn’t realized I’d frozen.
The rain had thickened into sheets, and people were retreating to their shelters or cramming up beside the solid walls of the neighboring buildings to avoid the worst of it. By the time we reached the fence, it had already begun to hail. The pellets made a tinny crackling sound as they bounced off the cruiser’s roof, like a popcorn machine full of bullets. Just above the back tire was that dreaded insignia. The flag and the cross, and the mocking cursive message: One Whole Country, One Whole Family.
The tinted window rolled down, and a uniformed soldier with a dark complexion waved us over.
“Pick this one up in the Square?” he asked, and grimaced as the moisture that had gathered on top of the car doused his shoulder. He jutted a dimpled chin toward Sarah.
I swallowed, but my heart had lodged in my throat and would not go down. The Sisters were one thing; a secondary threat at best. They couldn’t harm us themselves. But soldiers were an entirely different matter. I raised a hand to shelter my face from the rain, praying they would not recognize us.
“Sisters found her at the soup kitchen,” said Sean in a voice loud enough to cut through the hail. “The tower still down?”
The soldier raised the small black radio and made a show of pressing a button on the side with his thumb. “Complete silence. Unbelievable timing, isn’t it?”
Chase subtly repositioned himself between me and the car, blocking my view.
Every sane thought in my head told me to bolt, to grab him and run, just like we’d done time and time again, but I couldn’t. The soldiers didn’t recognize me, at least so far. Taking off now would be fatal, not just for us, but for Sean and Cara, too. We had no choice but to play this out.
“Why are you bringing in the whore?” the soldier pressed. “She the sniper?” His partner laughed.
Sean floundered. I glanced to Cara, who was flexing her hands against the sides of her skirt. Obviously she wanted to say something but couldn’t. A real Sister wouldn’t undermine a soldier’s authority.
“Says she might have a lead,” said Chase. He, too, guarded his eyes from the rain with his hand.
“We’ve got to get her back to base,” said Sean. “Command’s going to want to hear this.”
The driver said nothing for several long seconds.
“We’d give you a ride, but someone needs to watch the gate,” he finally answered.
“We’re fine,” said Sean. “Our car’s just around the corner.”
We were just about to pass when he called out to Sean one final time.
“Watch your back,” he said, rolling up the window as he spoke. “One of those maggots in the Square reported he saw a uniform on the roof after the sniper attacked in the Square. Thinks it was FBR.”
A spy within the MM. I almost liked the idea until I realized that every resistance fighter in a blue uniform was now in double the danger.
“Really,” Sean said flatly.
Without another word we passed and made our way to the sidewalk, keeping a brisk pace for five blocks until it was clear the streets were empty. Then we ran for five more. At the sound of a siren somewhere nearby, we took refuge beneath the awning of an old abandoned clothing shop. Sean kicked the boarded-up door, but it didn’t budge. Chase called him back, and with one hard kick he split the wood just above the handle. On the second try the door swung inward, and we all piled through.
CHAPTER
6
WE held still in the dark, barely breathing. When the siren faded into the distance, we relaxed a little, enough to catch our breath. Sarah was whimpering, and jerked her bound hands away from Sean’s grasp. He looked to me to smooth things over.
“No one here’s going to hurt you,” I said. She kept her hands over her distended belly like a shield and continued to cry, anxious gaze traveling from one of us to the next. Cara sighed dramatically; something about this girl obviously rubbed her the wrong way. I remembered that the soldier had called Sarah a whore without a second glance and wondered if she was really a prostitute.
“It’s okay,” I soothed. “We made it.” But though my voice was calm, my blood was buzzing like I’d just been struck by lightning. Over her shoulder, I caught Chase’s gaze just before he slammed the weather outside; in his eyes simmered a mixture of astonishment and unease, the wordless language we’d both learned to rely upon.
“We made it,” I said again. But we were far from safe.
A knock came at the door, and Chase peeked through the crack, one hand on the gun hanging from his belt. My breath caught as he stepped aside to let a shorter man in a cap and ragged clothing in.
“Did you think they got you?” Riggins smirked at me, wringing out his hat. The water streamed from the ends of his shirtsleeves. A tense breath squeezed from my throat.
“I saw you across the street,” said Sean. I wasn’t so sure that was true, but didn’t say anything. I certainly hadn’t remembered Riggins was on our tail. It wouldn’t have made me feel safer, given our history.
“I knew the shooter was still here,” Riggins said.
“Oh yeah, how’s that?” Cara asked.
He placed his first finger in the center of his forehead. “Call it my sixth sense.” He turned to me when Cara rolled her eyes. “For a greenhorn, you’re not easy to follow. Kept Jennings in my sight the whole time, but I blinked and you were gone.” It was a reprimand, but I didn’t care.
“They got separated,” Cara interjected.
Riggins’s brows quirked. “Right before the sniper hit. That’s unfortunate.”
“What’s your problem?” I was so tired of his accusations.
“Not the time,” called Sean.
“Two minutes,” said Chase firmly. “Then we’re out.” He disappeared in the shadows to search the back.
I looked around for the first time as Cara quickly repeated what the soldiers had told us about the sniper. The room was almost completely empty and held the sharp twinge of black mold. The metal racks that had once held displays of colorful, folded clothes were all absent. The dressing rooms in the back were empty but for the glimmering cobwebs that stretched from wall to wall. Though the room held evidence of past break-ins, no one had been behind these locked doors for a year, maybe longer.
“I bet it’s true,” I heard Riggins say. “Enlistment is a perfect cover, think about it. You could tear the infrastructure down from the inside, and no one would ever know.” I was sure he’d raised his voice on the last bit so I could hear.
The wind brought a new wave of hail slapping against the front of the building. As I made my way back I was surprised to see that Riggins and Sean had switched clothing. Already damaged from the Square, the uniform jacket was a snug fit over Riggins’ thicker torso, but though the existing stitches strained they would hold as long as he didn’t move too much. Sean placed the wet cap atop his head.
“Riggins is taking my place,” Sean said, in answer to my baffled expression. “The new recruit’s supposed
to be waiting at the Red Cross Camp. I’ve still got to bring him in.”
“Sean, maybe you shouldn’t…” I couldn’t help thinking Rebecca would want me to stop him somehow. “We can all go later. Together.”
He sent me a tight smile. “It’s better I go now. Before the radios are back up and the city’s swarming with units on foot looking for the sniper.” He made a point, but that didn’t mean I liked it.
“Time’s up,” Chase called from the back of the room. “The alleys are clear.”
I looked at Sean, wishing I could say something more to convince him to stay. Odd how much had changed between us in such a short time. Once I’d thought him just another vacant, shallow soldier, but so much more existed just beneath the surface. He was a good friend, and I worried for him.
“Be careful, okay?” I said. “The radios are still out.”
“Sure, Mom,” he said. I narrowed my eyes, but pulled him close and wrapped my arms around his shoulders all the same.
“Keep your eyes open,” he said quietly before he drew away.
We made our way to the back exit, Sarah hanging close to my side. I patted her shoulder. The unbeaten corner of her mouth lifted a little.
“It’s not far,” I said. But though I’d seen the checkpoint on a map, I had no idea how long it would take to actually get there.
Chase kicked out the back door just as he had the front, with a grunt and a powerful thrust that sent the wood crackling and the remaining glass shattering across the black pavement. The pressure from the storm had increased. I used the handkerchief to latch my short, black hair down, and grabbed a ripped poster outlining the Moral Statutes off the ground to hold over Sarah’s head.
Then we ran.
We raced through the narrow alleys, silent but for the patter of hail. Riggins took the lead, gun drawn but down at his side. I glanced back every few steps to make sure Chase was still behind me. My heart was pounding. No more soldiers, I prayed.
We crossed one last major intersection, beneath a dead traffic light, but found it deserted. The main roads had been cleared of abandoned cars when the area became a Yellow Zone, but cruisers still patrolled this area so we had to be watchful. I held my breath until we reached the back lot of a closed drugstore.
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