And then Chase’s hands were on my face, my hair, my shoulders and legs.
He swore sharply, snatching away the hot St. Michael medallion from my skin. It stuck, but when I tried to cry out, I coughed again. Exhaustion made my vision waver. My eyes streamed with tears.
“What were you thinking?” he shouted furiously. The world behind him spun. I felt another urge to be sick. “You could have been killed! You never listen!”
“So what!” I was drained and scared and burning everywhere. I didn’t care what happened to me.
“So what?” he repeated, as if I’d struck him. He looked like he didn’t recognize me.
“Take it easy,” said someone behind me. Tucker.
Chase rounded on him fast, and instantly the teams shifted. Not the resistance against the MM. Not Chase against me. But us against my mother’s killer.
He hit Tucker square in the jaw before he ever saw it coming. Tucker flew back, spitting blood on the deck. The exertion toppled Chase, too, and he fell forward.
“You two are still trying to kill each other?”
I looked up. A lanky man with long, peppered hair was pulling Tucker off the ground.
“Wallace!” croaked Billy.
Wallace’s face was smudged with smoke and sweat. He crouched beside Billy, first slapping him on the back and then pulling him into a tight embrace. “You’re all right,” he said several times. “Just a little smoke is all.”
Chase swore, and I followed his eye line to a crowd of our people—Houston and the brothers and Riggins included—all gathered around the bench where I’d sat with Chase yesterday.
All gathered around a body, lying still upon it.
Lincoln.
“Gone,” I heard Wallace say grimly. “Gone when the boys found him.”
Choking. Coughing. My beaten heart twisting. Think about it later. We had to get out of here.
I knelt, glancing over the edge. The riot below had grown, and the soldiers were trying to contain it. The line closest to the building was waiting for us.
“We’re done,” said Riggins, hands on his glistening head. “We’re done.”
“You did this! They came here for you!” Houston approached behind him, eyes red, but not from the fire.
I couldn’t answer, lost to another coughing fit. Me? If Wallace had only listened! But then again, Tucker wouldn’t be beside us if he’d turned us in.
“We’re not done,” said Wallace. There was a crazy light in his eyes when he stood from Billy’s side. He removed a gun from his waistband—the black pistol he carried—and chambered a round. It was then that I noticed the crate he’d left when he’d found Billy. It was filled with ammunition and firearms.
My burning eyes widened.
“Think!” said Chase. “Fire escapes are blocked. Boiler exit is blocked. Front and rear doors are out.”
“No!” Wallace shouted. The others had left Lincoln now, and were gathered in a tight half circle around those of us still on the ground. Eight from the resistance had made it to the roof before us, Wallace included.
“We’ve lost!” shouted Chase.
“We’ve lost when I say we’ve lost!” Knoxville’s leader roared back. “We have rules, Jennings! We don’t abandon our brothers! We don’t abandon our home! This is our chance to take a stand—”
“We can’t fight if we don’t live!” Chase yelled.
“This is the fight,” Wallace said with finality. “This is the only fight that matters. The one we fight today.”
Then he grabbed a pistol out of the crate and shoved it into Billy’s trembling hands. Still weak, the boy wavered when he stood. He stared at the gun in his hands and said, “Wallace?”
A whir and a crack as a bullet flew by. They’d seen us on the roof and were attacking.
No. We couldn’t die here.
“Line up,” Wallace told us.
“Wallace, please,” I begged him. Chase was dragging me away from the ledge, teeth bared.
“Line up!” Wallace demanded. The other guys faltered, ducking low beneath the ledge for protection. Fearful glances were passed among them. A temporary break in the smoke brought a hailstone of more bullets. Riggins, swearing profusely, grabbed a gun and kneeled behind the barrier, aiming down toward the line of soldiers. Two others followed. Houston’s hands were cupped over his ears, but though his lips moved he made no sound.
“Crazy bastards,” muttered Tucker.
A jet of flames burst from the stairway and then was sucked back inside. The roof beneath our feet trembled with the strength of an earthquake. Had I a voice, I might have screamed.
A weak voice came from behind me. “Through the other building.” I turned, surprised to find Sean sitting upright.
Yes. The office building adjacent to the Wayland Inn was abandoned. The space between them was narrow, maybe three feet. We might be able to jump in through a parallel window.
An instant later Chase and Tucker were running toward the bench where poor Lincoln lay.
They lowered his limp body to the ground, and I had the sudden revolting memory of the base, transporting the dead prisoners in laundry carts to the crematorium. I hadn’t known those people, but Lincoln was not a stranger. I knew what his laugh sounded like. I knew how tall he was when I stood next to him. That was when I realized—really realized—he was dead.
Tucker and Chase each took an end of the wooden bench. They carried it around the stairway exit, toward the side of the roof that interfaced the office building. I helped Sean up, and we ran to follow. There was a shattered window down a few feet across the gap. I watched as they leveled the bench between the roof’s ledge and the windowsill, making a slide into the darkened room below. The curtain of jagged glass above made for an ominous entrance.
When I glanced back four more of the men were gone, maybe back through the smoke-filled stairway. Wallace was shouting, gesturing in wild motions with his arms, and forcing Billy to his knees before the ledge. When Billy tried to get up, Wallace pushed him down.
He’d lost his mind. Billy was like a son to him, and here he was, preparing to sacrifice them both for a fight we’d never win.
Billy was coming with us, and Wallace and the others too, if I could make them.
But as I approached, it hit him, an invisible bullet, slicing through the smoke. It ripped through Wallace’s shoulder and threw him to the ground, flat on his back.
I ducked low, hearing Chase bellow my name. I kept going.
“Wallace!” I pulled him up, and then Billy was there, and Wallace, groaning, was seated, blood flowing freely from the blackened shirt just below his collarbone. “We have to go,” I said desperately. “Come on! Now!”
“Wait, wait a second,” Billy was saying. “Wallace?”
Wallace was shaking his head, regripping the pistol that he’d dropped.
“Billy is going to die,” I said flatly. “You are going to kill him.”
He met my eyes, and I saw the infection, the fever of insanity circling the whites around his irises. I summoned all my strength to burn clarity through my gaze, and after a moment, he blinked.
“Get to the safe house,” he said, voice scratchy. “We’ll meet you there. All units are pulled in. You have to get on the road now.”
My thoughts turned to Cara, waiting at the checkpoint. How much time had passed?
“Take Billy,” Wallace said quietly.
My stomach dropped.
“No!” shouted Billy, grasping his shirt like a child. “You’ll burn—”
“Take him!” shouted Wallace, and in a burst of strength stood and shoved Billy at me. Chase was suddenly by my side. He grabbed a struggling Billy around the shoulders, locking his arms down.
“Wallace!” Billy was crying. Wallace shoved his handgun into Billy’s pocket.
“Exhale when you pull the trigger, just like we talked about.” His voice cracked, though not from the fire. “You saved my life, kid. Remember that.”
And with
that Wallace collapsed to his knees. He crawled to the crate and grabbed another gun, loading it with shaking hands.
“Go.” It was Riggins who broke the trance, pushing me away. “You have to get out of here.” He blocked my view of Wallace and smirked. “The sniper. I should have seen it earlier. I wouldn’t have given you such a hard time.”
I couldn’t make sense of what he meant, or why he was now pushing me away from the ledge. He knelt beside Wallace and the only two other remaining resistance members at the Wayland Inn. And then we were running, back toward the bench and the neighboring building, a blazing inferno just beneath our feet.
CHAPTER
10
TUCKER was the first to try the slide. The bench wobbled beneath his weight, but Chase held it steady. After leaping over the threshold, he grinned wildly back at us and then disappeared, only to return a moment later to clear the overhead glass from the window with a scrap of plywood.
I held Sean’s arms to steady him, noting how half of his shirt had been singed off his back. It was hard to tell the damage to his skin through the soot. Tucker grabbed him from the other side and helped him down.
If you hurt him, I’m going to kill you, I thought.
Billy put up a good fight, but tired quickly. As soon as he was subdued, Chase pushed him over the ledge of the roof onto the bowed wood of the bench. We had to keep moving. Short quaking bursts had begun to rock the building, threatening a cave-in.
Tucker reached out from the window, grasped Billy’s forearms, and jerked him inside.
“You’re up,” said Chase, meeting my eyes briefly before lifting me up onto the bench. He stared across the way at Tucker and swore under his breath.
I looked down and gasped when the thick white smoke clouding around my ankles began to pull at me, screwing up my balance. The board groaned as I adjusted my position and tried not to fall.
“Look at Tucker,” Chase said. I did, and with Chase holding one hand, I skated down until Tucker was holding the other.
He pulled me inside the building, where my knees wobbled and the natural darkness shocked my eyes. Billy was kneeling over Sean, who’d sunk down against the wall. The room was empty but for the shards of glass on the floor that gleamed black in reflection of the smoke outside.
I spun around just as Chase came in behind me.
We were bright red and streaked with soot—awfully suspicious to those who waited down on the street.
“Clean off,” I said. We flipped our clothing inside out. I wiped my face on my forearms, but it just seemed to smear the black.
“That’s it, move out,” commanded Chase. Sean was sturdier on his feet now, but not by much.
Chase knew the way from having searched this building a few days ago. We followed him to the dark stairway and began our descent. My muscles gripped with every step, and my throat burned with thirst. I longed to rinse the fire from my eyes, but there was no time.
I watched Billy, worried he might try to bolt. My burned hands knotted in his charred shirtsleeve, but he shook me off and pushed forward to the front.
Finally, we reached the exit.
With my heart jammed up my windpipe, I stepped out onto the narrow, one-way street, desolate with all the action occurring next door. Over my shoulder the civilians were rioting, still attacking the soldiers with their fists and their curses. They’d succeeded in breaking the front lines, as so many soldiers were now dedicated to shooting upward through the smoke toward the roof. It was impossible to tell in all the chaos if our people had hit anyone.
My mind turned to Riggins and his last words, urging me to go. The sniper. I should have seen it earlier. The pieces fell into place now that I’d had a moment to breathe, and with them came a prickling dread. He’d changed around me, maybe sacrificed himself for me, because he—like the woman in Tent City—thought I was someone I wasn’t.
I glanced back for Chase, and instead saw Tucker. My thoughts shifted. Hardened. I remembered why I hated him, why I could never trust him. But somehow something had changed between us. He’d waited for Sean. He’d pushed me over the burning stairs and possibly saved my life.
Screams stole my focus. The roof of the Wayland Inn was collapsing. The fire had taken over, clawing angrily at the blackened sky.
“Wallace!” Billy shouted.
Chase hauled him to the opposite side of the road, where we could no longer see our fallen headquarters. When we were out of sight from the Wayland Inn, we ran.
“The Red Cross Camp,” I heard Sean say to Chase as we caught our breath in an alley.
“Aren’t there any more of you?” Tucker asked through labored breaths. “Another base or something?”
“The garage,” I said. East End Auto. I didn’t like Tucker asking that question, and I didn’t like leading him to where the carrier met refugees, but we were out of options. “Cara’s waiting there.”
I hoped she was still waiting there. I didn’t know how much time had passed. More than an hour, at least.
We took side streets, staying away from the Red Cross Camp and the Square. With all patrol cars pulled into the fire, the back roads were clear. The breath seared my sore lungs, but there was no time to rest.
Finally we reached the garage, and without delay, Chase pounded the code—SOS—into the flimsy metal.
Sweat streamed into my eyes. One minute passed. Then another.
She was gone. We’d waited too long.
Frustration consumed me. I was just about to kick the door when the bolt inside released, and the metal rose to hip height. Cara and I came face-to-face as I swooped under the threshold.
Her face lifted in surprise when she registered the group.
“You’re all that’s left?” she said, glancing between us. Her eyes hardened when no one responded.
“Tell me you have keys to that truck.” Chase pointed to the yellow Horizons distribution vehicle. The garage didn’t smell damp as it had during the storm. Now it was dry, and cold, like the inside of a tomb.
Cara lifted a key ring from the pocket of her Sisters of Salvation skirt and held them up for us to see. I nearly cried with relief.
“When’s Tubman get back?” Sean’s voice was a tempered groan.
“We need to get to the safe house,” Chase explained. “All units have pulled into the city to look for resistance. The roads should be clear, at least until we pass city limits.”
“I don’t know when Tubman’s getting back,” she said, her voice smaller than I’d expected.
“Weren’t you with him?” I nearly shouted.
“We got separated,” she said smartly. I wanted to shake her. She turned back to the others. “I know a place, though. A checkpoint in Greeneville. We can hide there if we can get out of the city.”
“And past the highway patrol.” Tucker siphoned in an impatient breath. I watched his face change from speculation to acceptance, and wondered what his angle was.
Cara rolled on. “Tubman makes a stop there. We meet up with him, we get our ride to the safe house.”
The blood was still pumping through me. It was as good a plan as we were going to get.
“Find me a delivery uniform,” Sean said. “I’ll drive. Cara can sit up front and give me directions. We’ll tell them we’re going to a soup kitchen.” I winced as he pulled the remnants of his T-shirt over his head. He blinked for several seconds, placing a hand on the bumper for support as Cara disappeared down the stairs.
Chase jerked the back of the truck open; it clacked against its rickety metal runners.
“I’ll drive,” he said. “You can barely sit up.”
“No.” Billy was shaking his head. “We can’t leave Wallace here. We can’t. He’ll come, just wait a minute.” His track was stuck on repeat.
Chase tried to force him into the compartment, but Billy lashed out and shoved him back hard. The move was so forecasted, I was sure even I could have evaded it, but Chase didn’t. Maybe he wanted Billy to hit him, I don’t know.
Finally, he lifted his head, and without another word climbed into the truck. His eyes stayed pinned on the garage door, as though Wallace might appear at any second.
When I turned back around, Chase and Tucker had squared off, staring at each other, an unspoken, lethal hatred balancing on the edge of control. The red on Tucker’s face had faded everywhere but the side of his jaw where Chase had punched him.
I’d been caught up in the momentum of our flight, but reality finally tackled me. Tucker was with us now. Without thinking, we’d even arranged his transportation out of the city.
I stepped beside Chase, and when Tucker glanced down at me, he faltered, as though I was somehow betraying him.
“Did you start the fire?” I heard myself ask.
He didn’t answer. Maybe he thought his obvious resentment was enough.
“He was with me all morning,” Sean wheezed.
“We’ve got to move!” Cara slapped the side of the truck.
For one beat no one said a word, and in that silence Tucker turned and began walking toward the exit. There was no gun in his waistband.
“Morris, wait,” called Sean. He shook his head at Chase. “Come on, man. I don’t know what he did to you two, but it’s over. It’s not like you haven’t screwed up before.”
Chase grunted. Tucker stopped.
Since Sean had heard my side of what had happened with Rebecca, he hadn’t once made me feel guilty, but I felt it now. It stabbed into my gut as I remembered exactly what the soldier’s baton had sounded like falling over her small body. Still, I speculated that Sean would not be so forgiving if confronted with his mother’s killer.
My heart beat out every second. Time was wasting.
“Promise you won’t hurt anyone while you’re with us,” I said.
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