Breaking Point

by Kristen Simmons

  It went against everything that felt right in my body, like swimming straight into a current. But Cara was right, we had to go. And as much as I hated it, Sean was right, too—we’d all done things, myself included, for which we could be judged.

  “Ember,” Chase said under his breath.

  “I don’t trust you,” I continued as Tucker turned. “I won’t ever trust you. I don’t know what you were doing in that building, or why you helped Sean and me. But if you promise not to screw this up, I’ll believe you.”

  “And if you do screw this up, I’ll kill you,” added Chase quietly.

  Tucker approached. Nodded once soberly.

  “I guess that’s fair,” he said. “Fine. I promise.”

  “Sean, you’re driving,” said Chase bluntly, never taking his eyes off Tucker. Sean nodded, stepping into the beige, button-up uniform.

  Without further pause we loaded into the back. Cara tossed up a flashlight, a bottle of water, and a first-aid kit, and slammed the sliding door down. It occurred to me that we’d lost the backpack somewhere. Our only possessions, my letters to Chase included, had likely burned to ashes. All evidence of the past was gone.

  It was nearly dark; the only light cut in from a high line of vents along the roof. An icy panic gripped my chest as my eyes adjusted. I was five feet away from Tucker Morris, and I could barely see to defend myself.

  He gave his word.

  He’s a liar.

  I heard the metallic slide of Sean locking the gate in place. There was nothing to do now but wait and be ready.

  The engine started, and a moment later the truck lurched forward.

  I perched, ready, between Chase and Billy on one of the wooden crates that lined the metal compartment’s interior. Tucker sat directly across from us. The tension was as palpable as the smoke inside the Wayland Inn.

  Wedging the flashlight between his cheek and his shoulder, Chase inspected the throbbing blisters that ran from my thumb across the fleshy part of my palm. He opened the tin first-aid kit and began cleaning the burn with an antibacterial swab that might as well have been steel wool. Not once did he meet my gaze. He hadn’t since he’d yelled at me on the roof.

  With my opposite hand I took a small sip of water from our only bottle and passed it to Billy. Sharing had been understood in the resistance, and traditions had to be maintained. As far as we knew, we were all that was left.

  “Who has a firearm?” Chase asked. His voice was still raw from the smoke.

  Billy glanced around the cabin before timidly revealing the 9mm Wallace had given him. “I guess that leaves me, huh?”

  “Have you ever fired that piece, kid?” asked Tucker.

  “I’m fourteen,” said Billy. Wallace called him kid. Not Tucker.

  “I didn’t mean any disrespect.”

  “I bet you didn’t,” I muttered. In a clinical, detached way, Chase wrapped my hand with a small roll of gauze and told me to keep it elevated.

  “I’m just saying he should give it to one of us who has a little more…” Tucker paused, shifting his gaze toward the metal ceiling. “… experience,” he finished, almost inaudibly.

  I couldn’t swallow.

  “Keep the light on,” I told Chase when he lowered the flashlight. I wanted to keep Tucker in my sight.

  The truck stopped and we held our breath. I pictured Sean in the front seat, and wished I could see what he was seeing. I hoped he was okay.

  Just a traffic light. We moved on, gripping the edges of the crates to steady ourselves against the sway. Billy deliberately placed the gun between us; a sign of trust I did not take lightly.

  “What’s in these boxes anyway?” he said.

  He crouched, picking at the nails embedded into his makeshift seat. Tucker beat him to it; a loud crack resounded as he ripped the top off the crate beside him with his un-casted arm.

  “Now this is more like it.” I watched warily as he removed a glass bottle filled with brown liquid. Dust from the packing straw floated through the air like snow.

  “Whiskey,” said Chase, removing the lid off another box. Horizons manufactured alcohol? Since it was contraband to civilians, this must have been for one of the MM parties Sarah had talked about. I felt the sudden urge to break every bottle.

  Chase palmed the glass neck like a baton. The makeshift weapons were stacked at our feet in preparation. Something was better than nothing.

  “Wallace brought back some of this once,” said Billy, laughing suddenly. “We got trashed. It was awesome.”

  I returned to the crate beside him, thinking of how much he reminded me of a high school boy just then. Of a life that seemed so far gone I could barely discern the details of it. How long had it been since I had seen Beth or Ryan? Only a couple months, but it felt like years.

  “How’d you meet that guy anyway?” Tucker asked.

  I winced; his question was like salt in a fresh wound, and I resented him for speaking to Billy at all, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t curious, too. Billy began peeling the label off a bottle.

  “It was when he was still a soldier,” he said. “My mom, she … turned me in as a runaway for some cash.” His shoulder jerked awkwardly, and all of his attention focused on peeling splinters from the lid of the crate.

  Tucker snorted. “I guess we know where you rank.”

  Billy laughed forcefully and said, “She took me out for a cheeseburger first.” As if this somehow made it okay.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a cheeseburger. Rations vouchers weren’t redeemable at restaurants.

  “We were eating when this soldier showed up. A fat guy. I knew what she’d been up to then, so I ran—straight into his partner, who’d been looking for him down around the corner. He was quick for an old guy. Tripped me with his nightstick and smashed the burgers all up. I was so pissed I told him he could go screw himself.”

  “Must have been some burger,” said Chase.

  “What’d he say?” I prompted.

  “He … he told me to play nice.”

  A collective silence fell over us. Play nice or we don’t play at all was Wallace’s number one rule. Behind my closed lids I could see the roof of the Wayland Inn crashing down.

  “And I said that you don’t get to play nice when you don’t got any food. And then he asked how old I was and I said sixteen, even though I was really just eleven, and where my dad was and I told him that he died in the War. That’s when his partner caught up to us, and before he said a word I hear this bang! And the fat guy dropped dead. Right there. Right in front of me.”

  All the air seemed to suck out of the compartment through the vents. I willed myself not to think of the carrier on Rudy Lane, murdered before us. I willed myself not to think of my mother. Chase had become motionless, and so, surprisingly, had Tucker.

  “Wallace killed his partner?” clarified Tucker. “That’s cold.”

  “He had it coming,” said Billy. “That’s what Wallace said.”

  I looked across at Tucker, staring at Chase, who was staring back. I shifted. “Wallace and Riggins and … the rest of ’em, they’re probably already on their way to the safe house. Wallace always said that was the plan.” Billy’s voice cracked.

  The heaviness in the compartment increased. I rubbed my chest with the heel of my hand but the tightness would not loosen.

  Lincoln was dead. I could see him perfectly. Tall and wiry. Black freckles. I wondered how Houston was taking it; I’d never seen them apart. I wondered if Houston was even alive.

  Wallace. Riggins. The brothers. All the guys who risked their lives and came home to play poker. Burned to ashes. Burned in a motel-sized crematorium.

  “People do stupid things when they’re desperate,” I told Billy quietly. He was hunched over, digging into the crate between his calves.

  “She wasn’t stupid,” he said. “You don’t know anything about her.”

  Billy had never talked to me like that before.

  “I didn’t m
ean…”

  “She always got what she wanted. Always.”

  I swallowed, the revolt churning inside of me. Clearly this wasn’t the first time Billy’s mom had “turned him in.” Wallace was more than family to Billy. Wallace had saved his life. Or maybe they had both saved each other.

  “I just wish my cat didn’t have to die, you know?” he said, by way of an apology.

  The truck turned, and we all held on until it was righted. The pace picked up. The whir of the tires on the road made it hard to concentrate on anything but the danger outside.

  “We’re getting on the highway,” said Chase.

  When Billy’s head fell, I placed my arm over his shoulders. Tentatively, like I’d once seen Wallace do. Billy didn’t make a sound. I think I was the only one who knew he was crying.

  * * *

  THE minutes passed, each lacing my muscles more tightly together. It was exhausting to be so on-edge, so powerless.

  In the dim glow of the flashlight I could see the shadowed outlines of my companions. Billy, curled into a ball on the floor, fast asleep. Chase, hunched over his knees. Tucker, shifting positions every few minutes, unable to sit still. Which was more dangerous? The killer inside this box, or outside?

  A half hour passed and my neck began to cramp. I rolled my head on my shoulders. We ran out of water, and the friction inside my throat felt like sandpaper.

  An hour. No one wanted to jinx us, but collectively we’d begun thinking we might be in the clear after all.

  As my breathing grew less shallow, I became excruciatingly aware of the sharp scents of sweat and blood and heavy smoke that filled the truck. With such little ventilation, the stifling air made me nauseous. I leaned against the cool metal walls, letting the reverberations from the road rattle my bones.

  A plan began to take shape. Tubman would meet us at the checkpoint, but we weren’t going to the safe house. Rebecca was still somewhere in Chicago and I couldn’t rest until she was found. I wasn’t sure how Chase was going to take the news, but he wouldn’t be able to change my mind. He, of all people, knew the importance of keeping promises. He’d promised my mother he’d find me, after all.

  I stared at Tucker, wondering what he would do. He’d fooled the others; he wasn’t the dream recruit Wallace and Sean had talked about. I couldn’t imagine him fighting against the precious organization he’d been so proud to be a part of. No, he was only out for himself, to progress in rank, to shoot down anyone who got in his way, and it seemed a terrible mistake to give him the location of the safe house.

  And yet I kept seeing him on the third floor of the Wayland Inn, surrounded by smoke, desperately attempting to rescue an unconscious Sean. As much as I tried, I could not think of a reason why he would start a fire and then stay in the building, why he would risk his own life to make others believe he was good. It left only the possibility that he was absolutely insane—which I hadn’t yet ruled out—or that he had changed.

  The box containing us seemed to tighten.

  He shifted positions, and in the low light I caught the reflection of metal. I straightened and grabbed the flashlight to shine in his direction. In his hand was a small red pocketknife; he’d already succeeded in sawing his cast halfway off.

  My stomach turned. Freed from that cast, he’d have full use of both hands and would be even more dangerous.

  “Shouldn’t you leave that on?” I asked flatly. “See a doctor or something.”

  “She’s right,” said Chase. “You only need one arm to stab me in the back.”

  Tucker shook his head. I thought I could hear him chuckling.

  “It’s sweet you two are worried.” He didn’t even look up.

  “Oh, I’m worried,” I said between my teeth.

  The tires continued their consistent rotation on the highway.

  “Don’t be,” said Tucker. “I’ve got nowhere else to go.” He cast a languid but deliberate look my way. For an instant I saw my own hatred mirrored back at me. I saw how Tucker blamed me for ruining his career and his life. And then the look was gone. The cast came off with a tear, and he groaned in relief, scratching one forearm, then the other.

  “You, on the other hand, are off to Chicago, I hear,” he said.

  “Maybe I am,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

  I could feel Chase’s eyes boring a hole through me, but didn’t dare look away from Tucker. He leaned back against the ribbed metal siding, as though it were as comfortable as a couch.

  “Your pal Sean told me. You’re lucky to have such good friends. Especially considering that reward on your life.”

  Riggins flashed again in my mind and brought with him a twinge of guilt. He hadn’t protected me because we were friends, but because he thought I was the sniper.

  I hadn’t noticed that I’d moved to the edge of my seat until Chase placed his left hand on my knee, and when he felt the energy making my leg tremble, he spread his fingers and pressed down, holding me in place.

  “She’s luckier than you’ll be,” said Chase.

  Tucker’s teeth flashed in a quick smile. “Come on,” he said. “I think you can cut me a break. After everything we’ve shared.”

  My eyes widened as Tucker’s gaze lowered over me. The memory of kissing him in the Knoxville detention cells, trading my integrity for information, was sticky and sour in the back of my mouth. “God, I wish Jennings could have seen that,” he’d said. “We wouldn’t even have to kill him. He’d off himself.”

  Chase’s hand gripped my leg so hard I nearly winced.

  “You’ve shared nothing,” I said, fury making my voice shake.

  And then I turned to Chase and kissed him.

  His mouth wasn’t soft, as it usually was, or even heated and demanding, like the night we’d clung to each other. His lips parted in surprise, but he barely responded, not even to touch me.

  I grasped his face in my hands and kissed him again, keeping my eyes tightly closed, all but bruising our lips. I couldn’t stand his confusion, or the grim realization that followed as he tightened his jaw. All I wanted was for Tucker to know that Chase was mine, and that nothing, not even my mother’s killer, could tear us apart.

  His hands cupped mine. Slowly, he pulled back. A sideways glance revealed that Tucker wasn’t even looking; he was back to digging through the whiskey crates.

  My whole body heated in a sick, ugly way, and the space between Chase and me suddenly seemed too close. I looked down before he could say anything. I wished I could disappear.

  Tucker had kissed me to hurt Chase, and now I’d done the same to hurt Tucker. I’d wanted us to have nothing in common, and yet, here we were.

  “Em…” But before Chase could finish the truck shifted gears. I braced myself on my crated seat.

  “Are we there?” Billy rolled to his knees, the motion having woken him. His cough was like the crackling of dry leaves—we hadn’t had water in a long time.

  “The coast is four hundred miles away,” said Chase. “We’ve got a few more hours at least.” He clicked off the flashlight, bathing the compartment in darkness.

  “We’re stopping,” I said. I could feel the steady pull of the breaks. A cold line of sweat dribbled between my shoulder blades.

  “Someone’s following us.” Billy’s voice was ripe with fear.

  “Might just be giving us a break,” said Tucker, but he didn’t sound hopeful.

  “Ember, take Billy to the back,” murmured Chase.

  My place was beside him, but if I didn’t hide, neither would Billy. I reached for his hand and pulled him up. As the truck ground down to a lower gear, I sank low behind a row of boxes, skin prickling with a familiar sensation that I hadn’t felt since the holding cells. The detached insight that I might very soon be dead.

  Before Billy knelt beside me, I heard Chase tell him something. Their voices mixed with the hum of the motor and I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but soon Billy nodded and handed Chase his gun.

  “
Don’t be scared,” Billy said tremulously when he melted into the shadows beside me. “I’m gonna protect you.”

  I stared at Chase’s back, a sharp ache tearing through me.

  The truck came to a stop.

  Tucker and Chase had positioned themselves side by side at the exit. They seemed to be having some unspoken conversation that hadn’t yet evolved to manslaughter.

  Please let us live through this, I thought.

  Chase chambered the cartridge on the 9mm. Tucker lifted a bottle over his shoulder.

  “Nine to twelve,” said Chase.

  “Check. Twelve to three,” answered Tucker grimly. “Just like the good old days.”

  “What are they talking about?” I whispered. The adrenaline pounded in my ears.

  The bottle Billy was holding scraped against the metal floor as he shifted closer.

  “Chase’ll take out anyone on the left side, Tucker anyone on the right,” he said. “Wallace taught me that. It’s like numbers on a clock.”

  So they were partners again. I closed my eyes and listened, praying that Tucker would keep his word.

  A knock on the side of the truck nearly made me scream. Billy grabbed my arm and pulled me back down, but my muscles quivered. We couldn’t run. We were trapped.

  Chase. We couldn’t end like this. We needed more time.

  Male voices outside the truck. I strained my ears, but the words were muffled, like we were underwater.

  Someone knocked on the sliding metal door at the rear of the compartment, where Chase aimed the gun down on whoever waited outside. Tucker angled his body so that his back was to his partner.

  “I’m opening the back,” came an intentional call from Sean outside. “If one of you shoots me I’m not going to be happy.”

  I sobbed with relief, but covered my mouth. We weren’t in the clear yet.

  The back latch of the door squealed as it was unlocked. As Sean opened the gate, a slice of florescent light highlighted the bottom of the cab. He stumbled back.

  “What a way to greet a guy,” he said, coughing to hide the hitch in his voice.

  Neither Chase nor Tucker lowered their weapons. There, behind Sean, waited two uniformed soldiers; one African American with buggy eyes, the other pale with a hooked nose, balding prematurely. Both were in their late twenties and in good shape, and neither reached for the firearms holstered in their belts.