Breaking Point

by Kristen Simmons

  Past the barred back door, surrounded by overgrown hedges, was the vehicle entrance of East End Auto. Three metal garage doors were corroded by orange rust, and on the customer entrance beside it was an OUT OF BUSINESS sign in bold, red letters. Just below it, a message was hand-painted on a rectangular scrap of tin: One Whole Country, One Whole Family. The FBR motto, minus the flag and cross emblem.

  Chase and I had seen this on the side of the checkpoint on Rudy Lane. We’d seen it again tagged on a grounded eighteen-wheeler when we’d found out about the Knoxville carrier. It was everywhere there was resistance, inconspicuous to those expecting to see MM propaganda, but obvious to anyone searching for those six words alone.

  Cara stepped to the front, turned her back on the garage, and kicked it with her heel three times in quick succession, three times slowly, and three times quickly again. I could barely hear the clang over the whipping wind.

  I gave Chase a puzzled look as he moved beside me. His jet-black hair was dripping tiny streams down his jaw, which he wiped on his shoulder irritably.

  “SOS,” he answered. “Morse code.”

  Nothing happened.

  I ran my hand over Sarah’s arms, trying to keep her warm, but the cool air had prickled her skin with goose flesh. Behind blue lips her teeth chattered.

  Riggins grabbed the Statute poster I’d taken from the store to shield Sarah. The paper was already translucent and turning to mush.

  “Hey!” I said, pulling Sarah as close to the building as possible to shield her from the weather. It wasn’t yet safe to remove the cuffs; someone could spot us. Chase was eyeing the alleyway we’d come from apprehensively.

  “Article Nine,” read Riggins, and I stiffened. Last I checked there were only eight. This new addition had been added recently.

  He laughed caustically. “Citizens knowingly or unknowingly assisting those in violation of the Moral Statutes are hereby denied trial and shall be punished to the full extent of the law. Now isn’t that ironic?”

  My stomach dropped. Sarah made a small gasp, and I refocused my attention on her so she wouldn’t feel as afraid as I did.

  I told myself Article 9 didn’t matter. They had already posted my name on the five most wanted. It was just another Scarlet Letter. Just like Article 5. But though it shamed me, it helped to think that everyone else in this room would be in just as much trouble as me if we were caught.

  “Hurry up, Tubman!” Cara yelled. She kicked the garage again.

  Before she’d finished, the door rose, just to hip height, and she disappeared beneath it. Riggins followed, as did Sarah. Chase and I gave each other one last glance before the plunge.

  As soon as we were out of the storm, a skinny man with dark brown skin in a Hawaiian shirt slammed the metal door down and chained it to a metal hook in the floor. He had a crooked nose and a jagged taupe scar that ran from the corner of his right eye down to his mouth. When he smiled, crooked white teeth broadening his face and flattening his nose, my shoulders dropped an inch, but I didn’t breathe until he’d set down his pistol on a metal cart of mechanic’s tools.

  There were two cars in the garage. To my right was a dark blue FBR delivery truck. I imagined this was what the carrier used to deliver fugitives to the safe zone. Beside it, in the center of the garage, was a Horizons shortbed distribution truck with a perky yellow sunrise emblazed across the metal siding—the same one the team had hijacked two days ago.

  “So this is where you stashed it,” Riggins said to Cara, who grinned.

  It was hard to believe that I used to worry about the morality of Chase hotwiring cars when here I was standing with a bunch of felons beside two stolen FBR vehicles. I removed the handkerchief on my head and shook the hail out of my hair, knowing I looked much like a dog coming in from a snowstorm. Chase had already removed Sarah’s zip ties.

  “Hope you didn’t pull a muscle sprinting to the door,” Cara said, reminding me of the other man’s presence. She punched his arm and he staggered, feigning injury.

  “This is Tubman,” Cara said to us. “Carrier extraordinaire.”

  He stuck out his hand, and I reached to shake it. A shiver of fear worked through me as his amber eyes lit with recognition.

  “Your mug shot doesn’t do you justice,” he said, and raised my knuckles for a lingering kiss.

  Chase cleared his throat. The room felt very warm all of the sudden.

  “Big guy,” Tubman observed, moving to Chase. “I know you. No, not quite.” He continued to scrutinize Chase’s features. “You got people on the coast?”

  “My uncle,” Chase said in awe, and any resentment I harbored for his mom’s brother was overridden by sheer shock that he had survived.

  Chase’s uncle had taken him in when his parents and sister had died in a car accident, then abandoned him during the War when he’d no longer been able to provide. They’d reconvened only once since their separation; just after Chase had been drafted. It was during that chance meeting that Chase had learned of the safe house.

  “He’s about my size,” Chase continued. “Has a tattoo of a snake on his neck and long hair, at least the last time I saw him. His name—”

  “Wouldn’t know it,” Tubman interrupted. “You’re right. I’ve seen him. Can’t forget a brand like that.” He placed a thumb on the left side of his neck thoughtfully.

  I felt a staggering clutch in my belly. Chase’s uncle could have been my mother, waiting at the safe house for word from us. Instead we were escorting someone else to the checkpoint, where they would await transport, and we were staying here.

  Until we get Rebecca, I told myself. Then we would go, too.

  “So he made it,” Chase said with a relieved smile. I hadn’t seen him that happy in some time.

  Tubman laughed dryly. “Oh, he made it all right. Not by me though. Another carrier, maybe Baton Rouge or…”

  “Or Harrisonburg,” Riggins said in a low voice, causing my stomach to sink.

  Riggins knew that Chase and I had been in that checkpoint on Rudy Lane the night the carrier had been murdered by MM soldiers. We’d told Wallace as much when we’d joined, and if any proof was needed, my size seven footprints had been found on the scene.

  I wanted to close my eyes, to erase the last few minutes, but I didn’t. I kept them wide open, otherwise I’d be back in that house, I’d see the carrier’s legs spread across the floor, hear his rasping voice as he told us the location of the next checkpoint.

  Tubman’s eyes had pinched around the edges. “Yeah. Or that.”

  So he’d heard. It wasn’t hard to see how it affected him, and no wonder, given their shared profession.

  A crack of thunder hit so hard that I cringed.

  “Can you take him a message?” Chase asked.

  “Save it,” said Tubman. “I ain’t goin’ back for a while. Hear that, Ladybird?” he called over his shoulder to Cara.

  His words tripped the conversation, and everyone paused, waiting for an explanation. My gaze fixed on the scar on his face, and I wondered if it was the Harrisonburg carrier or the posting of Article 9 that had gotten to him. Maybe both.

  “What’s that mean?” Cara appeared, scowling, from around the cab of the Horizons truck.

  The thunder cracked again; the hail and rain beat so hard against the garage doors that we could barely hear one another. I glanced at Sarah, noting the way she was drawing closer to me, away from the other men. We needed to get her out of here as soon as possible.

  Tubman grabbed the battery-powered lantern, sitting beside his weapon on the tool cart, and motioned toward the left side of the garage, where the floor opened up to reveal a red metal staircase. Downstairs was a darkened concrete room—the “grease pit”—where at one time working mechanics did oil changes. Most of the tools were cleared out now though, and in their places were boxes of nonperishable food, a few black plastic trash bags likely filled with clothes, a fold-out table and chairs, and several cots. On one wall I caught a glimpse of a stack
of blue cards I knew to be U-14 forms, the documentation one needed to cross into a Red Zone.

  People congregated warily against the back wall in the shadows; a man, and beside him a woman, holding a baby in her arms, and five or so guys—probably draftees, looking for sanctuary at the safe house. They watched us cagily, sticking close together for support.

  “At ease, puppies,” Tubman told them. He pointed at Chase and Riggins. “They’re fakes.”

  A violent shiver shook through me, despite my attempts to stay collected. I was freezing.

  “You talk,” said Cara. “I’m raiding your stash.” She revealed a box of crackers from a bag on the floor and tossed it to the man with the family, then rifled through a bag of stolen clothes.

  Tubman sat on a metal fold-out chair and leaned back on two legs. “Highways are closed, have been since the sniper hit the draft. Or don’t you remember?” He laughed like this was somehow funny.

  We looked to one another—Tubman had yet to hear about the newest attack at the Square.

  “They’re not closed to Sisters,” Cara said, fanning her skirt out in a curtsy. “And they’re not closed to soldiers. And our best chance of moving is now, before the radios go back up and broadcast the newest sniper hit. Riggins, strip.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Riggins eagerly.

  “And give Tubman the uniform,” she finished. “We’ll take the blue truck.”

  Tubman threw his hands up. “Wait, hold on, the newest sniper what?”

  “A soldier, maybe more than one, was shot in the Square today,” I found myself explaining. I thought of the woman in Tent City, how she’d thought I’d killed those soldiers, and cringed. “We don’t know it was the sniper yet,” I added.

  “Oh, right,” Tubman scoffed. “Who else could it be?”

  “A copycat,” said Riggins, and I braced for the challenge, but it never came. “A rogue civilian. She’s right. We don’t know anything yet.”

  I didn’t know why he was suddenly agreeing with me. It didn’t suit him.

  “Anyway, how are we supposed to tell Wallace we’re taking his truck if the radios are out?” Riggins asked.

  “Wallace and I have a little deal worked out,” Cara said suggestively, making him howl. She turned back to the carrier. “Come on, Tubman, please? Pretty please? Don’t make me ask three times.” She batted her eyelashes. Her playfulness dug under my skin.

  Tubman laughed dryly, then stopped short and blinked, as if he’d just remembered something. “Yeah, all right,” he said. “We’ll go through Virginia. Say we’re delivering supplies to one of those boarding homes for Sisters and keep our fingers crossed they don’t search the trunk. If we go while the radios are down, they can’t call their friends. We could be back home by tomorrow night.”

  “What about curfew?” I said.

  “Curfew doesn’t apply to soldiers,” said Cara without looking up.

  “These are people’s lives!” I snapped. “The carrier in Harrisonburg died because he wasn’t careful!”

  I remembered how it felt, slipping on the blood that coated the kitchen floor. My face buried in Chase’s arm as he hid my eyes. I remembered the copper smell that permeated the air. I could smell it still.

  Cara stopped rummaging through a donation bag and tilted her head curiously toward me.

  The four feet of Tubman’s chair came to rest on the floor. “He died because he got caught,” he said.

  The grease pit seemed to grow smaller, and my chest tighter. The infant was crying—a soft, low cry, that didn’t at all sound healthy. I wished the mother would make it stop, and that Sarah would stop staring at me with her swollen, frightened eyes.

  I glared at Cara. She may have Tubman, Riggins, and everyone else at the Wayland Inn charmed, but not me. Her recklessness was putting us all in danger and if she wasn’t careful, someone was going to get killed.

  Chase approached and stood beside me, waiting for me to speak first. I rubbed my thumb over my scrunched-up brows, and finally blurted, “We should stop them. The highways aren’t safe.”

  “Nowhere is safe,” he said. “At least this way gives them hope.”

  Clearly Chase thought this was valuable, but I wasn’t so sure. Hope made you infinitely more devastated in the face of disappointment.

  * * *

  CLOTHING from the donation bags was distributed. I was given a sweatshirt and some old-fashioned cargo pants that were large enough to fit Chase. After our escape I’d had to start fresh with whatever was lying around.

  Because my head was now pounding with too many memories and unanswered questions, I grabbed my things, told the others I’d take first watch while travel arrangements were made, and headed back upstairs into the garage. Chase watched me go in silence.

  The noise from the storm helped to distract me some. I hid behind the MM truck, setting a flashlight upright on the bumper, and began to peel off the navy skirt and blouse. The angry weather had soaked me straight down to the marrow.

  But I was still alive.

  We’d accomplished our mission, despite derailments. No one had tried to kill me; no civilian but the woman in Tent City even recognized my face, and she had treated me like some sort of hero. Like someone who could lead an uprising. My mother would have loved that.

  Hopefully the woman had started spreading the word throughout the Square that she’d seen me. Seen the sniper. How many others would believe her? It occurred to me that maybe the real sniper would be angry that I’d stolen his glory; maybe he liked the attention. I wasn’t sure though; if I were the sniper, I’d want all the help I could get. Maybe he’d even hear how I helped Sarah, and the people downstairs, and want to work together or something.

  Which of course I’d politely decline, because he was obviously off his rocker.

  “Oh. Hey. Sorry.”

  I jumped straight back into the humiliation of reality, acutely aware of my ratty bra and cotton underwear. Some watch I had been keeping. I hadn’t even heard Chase climb the stairs until he was standing in the shadows, eight feet away.

  If I’d been cold before, I wasn’t anymore; my skin was practically glowing with heat. I tried to pretend I didn’t care, that now that we’d finally slowed down I wasn’t remembering how he hadn’t wanted us to come on this mission, or how we’d been separated in the Square, but pretending made my movements so jerky that I ended up tying both sides of the fly into a knot rather than zipping up the baggy cargo pants.

  “It’s just me.” Chase had quietly faced the opposite direction while I finished.

  “You just scared me,” I said. That was truthful at least.

  He began checking the exits; the doors, the garage window, mostly blocked by a black trash bag but for a peephole in the corner.

  “I said I’d take the first watch,” I said, more harshly than I intended. He clawed at his scalp with one impatient hand and scowled.

  “Wait,” I said as he headed back toward the stairs. “Stay?”

  He turned slowly, a small smile taking the edge off my nerves.

  A necklace fell out of my folded skirt pocket and bounced off the oil-stained concrete floor as I hoisted myself into the open bed of the Horizons truck. He picked it up on his way back before sitting beside me. Our legs were close enough to touch, but didn’t.

  “Where’d you get this?” he asked, using the flashlight to discern the details.

  “It was a gift from the lady hiding Sarah.” I forced a yawn; my jaw had grown tight.

  “You should hang on to it.” He handed it over, his fingers lingering in my palm a few seconds longer than necessary. His skin was always so warm, like he had an internal furnace, and his touch made the hard angles of the world soften, like a shadow at dusk.

  “I don’t even know what it is,” I said, withdrawing my hand.

  “It’s Saint Michael. The Archangel. He led the good angels in the fight against evil.”

  I didn’t remember hearing about Saint Michael at the mandatory Church of Amer
ica services. Chase must have learned this before the War.

  Thunder struck again, and I ducked reactively. I felt the rough edges of the contraband silver pendant, watching the light play across the tiny winged figure and the chain shift over my skin. As the seconds passed it grew heavy, but I couldn’t seem to put it away.

  “Do you believe in heaven?” I asked.

  I didn’t know if I did. I’d accepted it before as a reality; just as blindly as I’d believed in Santa Claus as a child. But since my mother had died, a festering desire to know the unknowable had gnawed at me. I wanted so desperately to believe in something concrete. I wanted to know that somewhere there was peace.

  Chase leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his face hidden in the shadows.

  “You mean, is it just for the reformed?” The last word was bitter and drawn out.

  I cringed, imagining the angels at the pearly gates checking our compliance status before letting us through. Redemption can only be found through Reformation. Redemption can be earned through rehabilitation. That’s what the Church of America ministers liked to preach. The FBR, the president, they all gave the same message: you aren’t good enough the way you are.

  Every Sunday, as we walked home from service, my mother would make a point to tell me the opposite.

  My chest tightened.

  “For anyone,” I asked again. And when he hesitated, I said, “Well, do you?”

  He picked at a frayed spot on his jeans.

  “I believe bad things happen to good people. And good things happen to bad people.”

  He was evading. “That wasn’t what I asked.”

  “I know,” he said finally. His shoulder jerked up, reminding me of the boy he’d once been before the world had hardened him. “I used to believe if you were good, good things would happen to you. I don’t know what I believe anymore.”

  “So that’s it?” I said. “You die and that’s the end. There’s nothing else?” The panic swelled inside of me. I could barely keep my voice from breaking.