I nodded. A reluctant smile spread across her face.
“Are you still a virgin?”
“Yes. Jeez.” I looked at the window at his empty house and wished he still lived there, and I still lived here, and things were as simple as him sneaking over after curfew.
“Oh. Good. Me too.” A quick laugh snuck out.
We settled into a tentative conversation, one which encroached on our old selves, but never quite reached them. I was afraid of getting too close because inevitably I’d lose her again. I wondered if on some level she felt the same.
Our time was running low. I could feel the tick, tick, tick of the clock with each beat of my heart.
“I’m sorry about Ryan.”
She bit her lip. “Yeah. It sucks.”
“You can’t tell him I was here.”
“I figured.”
“You can’t tell anyone.”
“I know.”
“Not even your parents.”
“I know.”
There was a knock on the doorframe.
“We need to get going,” Chase said, appearing in the threshold. I’d heard him walking from room to room, checking our exits while Beth and I talked.
“Already? But you just got here!” Beth said.
I felt it, too. The strain, the roots that bound my feet to the floor. I couldn’t stay, but I wanted to. I had to remind myself that my life wouldn’t be normal if I stayed. This, right now, was as good as it was going to get.
“Beth,” Chase cleared his throat. “You can come with us.”
“No, I can’t. I’ve got to do this. For Lori and for Ember.” Her tone was so resolute I knew we couldn’t argue with her.
“Do you have a way to get out of town?” he asked, obviously having expected this answer.
“My dad has a car he saves for emergencies,” she said. “But we never drive it.”
“Does it work?”
“Yeah. He starts it up about once a month when he’s having a my-life-sucks-so-bad-I-can’t-even-drive crisis.”
Chase removed the forty dollars cash from his pocket and handed it to her.
“Go to the fill station and get a can of gas and some food, something nonperishable. Leave them in the trunk with a few changes of clothes for you and your family. If you have to get out quickly, you’ll be ready that way.”
He was protecting her, even when she’d thrashed him earlier.
“Change your name and your hair,” I said. “And look for places that have a hand-painted sign outside: One Whole Country, One Whole Family. If you can’t find one, ask around for a carrier at a soup kitchen. But don’t talk to soldiers and don’t talk to Sisters. You have to keep a low profile.”
“O-okay,” she said. “But really guys, I think I’ll be fine.”
I rubbed my temples. Just then a knock came from the front door, and a moment later we heard it push inward. Unbelievable. The door wasn’t even locked.
Chase and I were on our feet instantly. He’d pulled the gun from the back of my waistband and aimed it low before him. I gripped my clothing and my mother’s magazine hard to my chest.
“It’s just Harmony’s brother,” said Beth uneasily, keeping her eyes trained on the weapon. “He always knocks at the front door. I told you, he’s okay.”
I didn’t like it.
“Don’t tell him we’re here,” ordered Chase.
“All right already. Let me go see what he wants.”
She made to leave the room, but I grabbed her arm frantically.
“Beth, be careful. The second you think someone’s watching, go. Promise me you’ll do that.”
“But—”
“Promise me!” My whispered voice hitched. A tear slid down her freckled cheek.
“I promise,” she said, voice pained. “I’ll be right back. Stay here.”
As she left the room, I fought the urge to follow and make sure she was safe. Chase motioned toward the window, but I shook my head. We had to wait. What if she was wrong and that patrol car had swung back around? We needed to be here to protect her.
I listened from the door, but could only hear muffled voices. Needing reassurance, I snuck into the hallway and caught a glimpse of Beth’s back. She was talking to a soldier, presumably Harmony’s brother, though I couldn’t see his face. See? I told myself. No need to panic, and yet somehow the pressure of Chase’s hand encompassing mine, squeezing as if to say, time to go, sent a wave of skepticism through me.
Then I turned my head, and at last peered into my mother’s bedroom.
It was empty, just like all the other rooms, the scent of mildew permeating the stagnant space. Her bed was gone, and her dresser and nightstand, along with her framed pictures atop it of me growing up. Vaguely, I was aware of a small pop inside of me, a pinch, as all the remaining strings binding me together were severed. And then I was unraveling, spinning faster and faster.
“Mom, that music’s contraband!”
She jumped on the bed, pulling me up, where we jumped and twisted and danced. It was like melting. I was an ice cube and she was the sun and I was powerless to stand against her.
“We used to do this when you were little, remember? I would hold your hands and spin you, and you’d giggle and shout ‘Faster!’”
The chill started in my bones and worked its way out to my skin, and soon I was shivering so hard I could barely stand. Maybe she wasn’t perfect, maybe things weren’t always easy, but she was my mom, and she was dead. Erased. As though she’d never existed. And nothing, nothing was left of her but an old magazine rolled up in my sweatshirt.
“Get me out of here,” I said quietly.
Chase gently pulled me back into the bedroom, gathering the bag of food beside the window.
“Stop!” I heard Beth yell.
In a snap I’d detached Chase’s grip and was running back toward the front of the house. One step into the entryway and I ran smack into Sean.
“Ember!” His breath hitched, but he recomposed quickly. “We’ve got a problem.”
Chase had succeeded in grabbing my arm and jerked me to his side. “What is it?”
“I told him not to come back here!” Beth said.
“You talked to a soldier you didn’t know?” I shrieked.
“I recognized his friend from your arrest,” she said indignantly. “I thought they were with you.”
And there, from the shadows, stepped Tucker Morris.
I couldn’t think of a word to say. Not one word.
“I’m sorry,” Tucker croaked. “I didn’t know what to do.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” Chase asked in a low, dangerous voice. His weapon was drawn, but Tucker didn’t seem to notice it. Distantly I registered the sound of Beth crying.
“We got hit.” Tucker’s voice was strained. “Cara and me. We got hit outside Greeneville on the way to see her cousin.” He scratched his neck nervously. “Before we left they said something about your house. That a driver came here. It was right before he kicked me out.” He pointed at Sean, then gulped down a deep breath. “And then … then everything fell apart. I went back to the printing plant, but everyone was gone. I thought maybe you’d try to come here. I didn’t know where else to go!”
I hadn’t even considered that my mother’s name had been spoken while Tucker and Cara were still in the building. But it had. I’d gotten lazy. I’d put Beth in even more danger.
My stomach turned to water. “Billy?” I asked. “Billy was gone?”
“They were all gone!” Tucker responded. “Lights off. Empty.”
“Oh no.” I reached for the wall for support.
“Where is Cara?” demanded Sean.
“She’s dead, man. She’s dead. They hit her.”
It took a second for Tucker’s words to sink in. Cara was dead. Billy was missing, probably captured. A silent scream filled my body.
“Turn around,” Chase said. Tucker complied. Chase patted down the back of his shirt and his pockets, but
found no weapons. “Did you turn us in? Is that what you did?”
“No! I went with Cara. That’s all.” Tucker’s face twisted.
“Get out of this house!” I shouted suddenly.
“Keep it quiet!” warned Stephen in the background.
“You can’t be here! Have you brought soldiers here? Are they following you?”
“No!” Tucker shook his head. “No, I got rid of them in Tennessee. But I didn’t know where to go. I don’t know the other check station … things. I don’t know!”
His fingers twined before him, as if he were praying, and for the first time since I’d known him he looked genuinely panicked.
“How did you get here?” asked Chase. His pacing was getting faster. I began to feel my heart keep time with the cadence of his voice.
“A car … I took a car. Her cousin’s car.”
“Where is it now?”
“I parked it at a dump a few neighborhoods over. Hid it, you know? So no one would look twice. And then … then I started walking. I remembered this place from the overhaul but couldn’t get the street right. I didn’t know where else to go. Man, she’s dead.”
“Shut up,” said Chase coldly. “It’s not your first time.”
My spine zipped straight up my back.
“We have to leave,” I said. “Right now. Right this second. He can’t be in this house.”
“We’ll get the other car,” said Sean.
“No.” I wouldn’t leave here knowing that Tucker could come back for Beth.
“No,” Chase agreed. “He’s coming with us. He doesn’t leave my sight until we clear the area.”
Tucker nodded gratefully.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. I felt sick. First an apology and now a thank-you? It felt all wrong.
“Beth, get out of here,” I said. “Go home. Now.”
That was all there was. I pushed her out the back door and she ran, and I hoped she would never, never come back to this place. Stephen watched on blankly, but I had nothing to offer him.
“Good-bye,” I said quietly, watching the spot in the black hole of night where she’d vanished. I hadn’t even told her to her face. I wasn’t going to say how much I loved her and how the memories of her kept me sane. It was just the same as it had been with my mother, only now, I was the one disappearing.
Good-bye, I said. To the little girl with the crooked eyebrows who cut her hair with her mom’s scissors. To the smell of vanilla candles after curfew. To the drooping plants on the kitchen windowsill, the shared hairbrush on the bathroom sink, and all the goodnights before bed.
Good-bye, Mom.
We passed through Chase’s yard, running in silence on numb feet. My head felt muddled. Cloudy. A sense of disillusionment filled the night air. I knew without a doubt that I would never come home again.
It’s just a house, Chase had said. Just a house, not a home. Just a shell. A vessel. I wanted it buried, just like I wanted my mother’s body buried. So that it could rest. So that I didn’t have to wonder what happened to it after its life had passed. I wanted Beth to be safe and alive. For tonight she was, and I guessed that was all we could ask for.
I didn’t know why Tucker was here. I didn’t know how Cara had been killed, or why he’d driven all these miles to find us, of all people, for help. One second I wondered if he’d murdered her. The next I was sure he’d been telling the truth. Whatever the case, we had to get him out of town fast. He was a grenade. He was poison.
We got to the car and once inside, Chase started the engine. He made Tucker sit behind the partition, right behind me, so that he could always see Tucker in his peripheral vision.
We drove away from our houses, from the haunted apartments where we’d met, from the wall where I’d watched him run faster than Matt Epstein. Past Beth’s street. Past the turn to Western High. Onto the highway where the black night before us blended with the black asphalt in defiance of the cruiser’s high beams.
“Don’t stop,” I said.
Chase didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at me.
* * *
TUCKER and Sean talked some. I tried my best to listen, but it was too muffled through the glass. I hated that he was right behind me. I felt like there was a loaded gun aimed at my back. I sat at an angle with my back to the window so I could see all of them. Tucker kept his eyes down.
The atmosphere grew increasingly tense. Chase was starting to worry me. The long hours without sleep were wearing on him, but it wasn’t just fatigue that tightened his jaw and the cords on his neck. He’d been deeply upset by Tucker’s presence in my home; I could feel his anger crackle between us. And we weren’t going anywhere that might offer comfort. Chicago had not been kind to him; its presence represented War, scavenging for food and shelter, and later, the FBR. It was not a place of happy memories.
Signs started cropping up for Indy. CLEARED, they said in big spray-painted letters. Indianapolis had been evacuated during the Chicago bombings. It was thought the Insurgents would hit there next. I’d heard rumors that people had tried to return, but the MM had barred them because they’d intended on making it a Yellow Zone, occupied by soldiers.
A cautious glance out the window revealed nothing but the sickle moon and the silver-streaked long grass that had overgrown on the side of the road. The highway was down to two lanes here, and quite suddenly Chase slammed on the brakes and parked just off the pavement at a slant. There was no forethought, not the usual care he’d take to hide the car or limit attention. No, he was in a hurry. My eyes scanned the night to see if I’d missed some obvious danger.
Chase jerked open the car door and unlocked the back.
“Stay here,” he growled.
I didn’t.
He rounded toward the back where Tucker was getting out, and slammed him into the side of the car.
“Hey!” Sean raced around the trunk and attempted to separate them, but Chase was almost five inches taller and outweighed him by a good thirty pounds.
“Stay out of this,” Chase warned. Sean took a step back.
“Give me your firearm,” he said. “That’s all I’m asking.”
Tucker gasped, the breath knocked out of his lungs. He tried to stand again but Chase shoved him back down and kicked him hard in the gut.
“Chase!” I yelped.
He seemed to register the sound of my voice through his fury. Though he didn’t face me, I saw his shoulders roll back.
I didn’t know what he was thinking. We couldn’t stop here. The roads were mostly empty, but we were closing in on a base. What if a cruiser drove by?
At the same time I wanted this. I wanted him to hurt Tucker, to beat the truth out of him. But Tucker was unarmed, and Chase in his rage could kill him. He would carry that blood on his hands for rest of his life, and I would, too, because I’d stood by. This couldn’t happen. This was wrong.
“I saved your life!” Tucker gasped. “The woman in the holding cells—Delilah—she was going to tell them she’d seen you alive! I couldn’t hide that Ember escaped, but I covered for you! I made her disappear!”
“You did have her killed.” I felt sick. Her death was my fault. If I hadn’t escaped, she would still be alive.
His green eyes stayed on Chase. “I just … scared her. That’s all. So she wouldn’t talk.” He was on his knees. Begging.
“Why,” said Chase.
“I don’t know,” Tucker spat. “We were partners.”
Chase laughed, a low, frightening sound. He leaned down, so that his face was right in front of Tucker’s. “You ratted me out to CO, and let them crucify me in the ring night after night, and killed someone I cared about. No. We were never partners.”
“Don’t you want to get into that facility?” Tucker shouted. He rubbed the back of his head, where it had connected to the metal above the window when he’d tried to get out. The other hand was braced before him in defense.
“What facility?” Sean asked.
“The one wher
e they’re holding your girlfriend.” He siphoned in a deep breath. “It’s right next to the hospital. I did a rotation there after they discharged Jennings. Training for the Knoxville holding cells. I know a guy there. He’ll let me in.”
A long beat of silence passed.
“If you knew all this, why didn’t you say something before?” Sean’s voice was raised. “I’ve asked you a dozen times if you knew anything else about Rebecca!”
“I didn’t know if I could trust you!” Tucker pleaded. “I didn’t know who to trust.”
There was fire in his petulant green eyes, but Sean didn’t see it. He swore softly, and then his hands unclenched, and he said, “All right. I get it.”
“Sean,” I warned.
Chase’s words from Greeneville echoed in my head: This is what he does. He digs his way in and gets under your skin. And before you know it, he’s ripped your life apart.
“I’ll make it up to you,” Tucker told Sean. “I’ll get you in. From here on out, I’ve got your back. That goes for all of you.”
I was about to tell him to shove it, but Sean had shifted and, to my disgust, held out his hand to help Tucker up.
Chase very deliberately removed his gun from the holster. I held my breath and squeezed the skirt in my fists.
“Chase,” Sean’s voice quaked. “Come on, man. He knows how to get Becca.…”
Chase handed the gun to Sean.
“Talk,” he told Tucker.
With pressured speech, Tucker explained how he and Cara had walked across Greeneville toward her cousin’s. She’d pointed out the house; a small place with a white sedan out front. Tucker had guessed that they were wealthy, and Cara had told him her cousin’s husband worked for Horizons Weapons Manufacturing. As they’d gotten closer, they’d noticed the squad car tracking them a block back.
“It was close to curfew,” he said. “I thought they were going to give us a citation for an Article Four.”
I shook my head, crossing my arms over my chest. Chase and I were always careful to portray ourselves as married in order to avoid a citation for indecency, but a couple walking the streets so close to curfew was bound to draw attention. Maybe Tucker was still too impenetrable to anticipate this, but Cara should have known.
In order not to endanger Cara’s cousin, they’d passed the house and ducked into a nearby ditch.
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