Patrick introduced us, quickly explaining the situation. A blush lit her cheeks. Unconsciously, she began running her hands through her son’s hair. He leaned against her leg like a purring cat.
“Welcome … Goodness, welcome,” she said finally. “And thank you.”
“I thought Jacob and Elizabeth might like to stay for dinner.” At Patrick’s suggestion, my stomach rumbled again. “They’ve got family in Lewisburg. I’ve offered them a ride in the morning.”
Morning?
“You … sure. I mean, absolutely,” Mary Jane said, shaking her head.
“I’m sorry,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound ungrateful. “I was thinking we were going to Lewisburg tonight.” I looked out the window. It wasn’t completely dark yet.
“My uncle hasn’t been well,” Chase added.
Patrick frowned.
“It’s illegal to travel after curfew. Besides, after all you’ve done…”
The way he said illegal made my spine tingle. Patrick clearly followed the rules. I stepped stealthily on Chase’s toes, and he nodded once, without looking my way, in silent confirmation.
We had no choice but to stay the night—or at least make them think we were staying the night—unless we wanted to risk them contacting the MM for a curfew violation. They did have a generator, which meant a working phone after dark. Their obedience frightened me.
Mary Jane faked a smile. “Don’t you dare argue. You’re staying, and in the morning I’ll drive you to Lewisburg myself. We wouldn’t have it any other way.”
They wouldn’t. That much was clear.
“That’s very nice,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t sound too grim.
In confirmation of my ragged appearance, Mary Jane hustled me into their bathroom with a tattered old towel that she pulled from the washroom and a bar of soap. Chase followed with our bag. I knew he was getting a layout of the house, the exits.
“They’re awfully friendly,” I whispered while he washed his hands. “We could be serial killers for all they know.”
He made a small sound of agreement in the back of his throat.
“We can’t stay until morning,” I informed him. But my bloody, blistered feet, and the cramping muscles in my lower back and calves argued otherwise.
He didn’t answer, his mood black again, and I found myself resentful that he put on such a happy face for strangers while I got the silent treatment. The moment between us outside had obviously been lost, and that hurt more than I cared to admit.
As he stalked out of the bathroom, I saw his eyes lift to scan their oversized dresser and plush gold comforter with interest. Surely he didn’t mean to steal anything. Not while they were in the next room.
The water was warm, thanks to the generator, and soothed my aching body while I scrubbed away the layers of grime. Even so, I couldn’t relax. I didn’t like not knowing what was happening in the rest of the house.
I changed quickly, making sure my boots were on tight just in case we needed to make a quick exit, and checked my hair in the mirror. The short length of it shocked me; since Chase had cut it I hadn’t had the chance to grow accustomed to my reflection. Now wet, I could see the uneven patches where his knife had gone astray. Frowning, I knelt to search the backpack for my hair tie, but my hand stalled on the outer pocket.
Why did Chase never allow me to look through the bag? He’d insisted on getting everything I needed from it himself. There had to be something he was hiding.
I glanced toward the door, now worried that he might come back to check on me. When I strained my ears I only heard the sounds of Ronnie playing with his toy trucks in the living room. I pulled open the thick copper zipper.
The top layer in the pack was clothing, rolled economically to a more compact size. Most of it was damp from when the weather had soaked through the canvas the other day. Beneath, I found my hair tie, which I automatically latched around my wrist, and matches, a flashlight, the dreaded nightstick, a plastic box of soap, and some other toiletries. I came upon a plastic Ziploc bag, filled with cash. My jaw dropped as I flipped through the bills. All twenties. Nearly five thousand dollars. How long had Chase been saving?
My hand bumped into something else. A Statute circular, rubber-banded around something rectangular and hard. The band slid off easily, and the paper unfolded at the creases, revealing a paperback novel, stuffed thick with folded papers.
My heart thudded against my ribs. The worn cover read Frankenstein.
* * *
“WHAT is it about that book?” His tone was mildly teasing.
I set it on my nightstand and watched him wander around my room. He picked things up carefully. Set them down. Wiped them off if he left a fingerprint. Since the War he’d never really known what to do with possessions.
“I like it. What’s wrong with that?”
“It’s just an interesting choice,” he said, now even more intrigued. “It’s just not very … girly, I guess.” He laughed.
“It was written by a girl.”
“A girl who likes monsters.”
“Maybe I like monsters.” I hid a smile.
“Is that right?” Chase narrowed his eyes my direction. He sat beside me on the bed and bounced a little, unused to a mattress, then grinned like a little kid.
“He’s not really a monster, anyway,” I said. “It’s everyone else that makes him that way because he’s different. It’s sad, you know? How people can tear you down like that. How you try to do the right thing but you just can’t.”
Like telling Roy to stay away from my mother, I almost added, and felt my face heat up.
He tilted his head, eyes peering deep inside of me in a way that made me feel exposed, like I’d never really been seen before, yet at the same time safe, like he’d never tell a soul what he’d found. His fingers laced with mine.
“It sounds lonely,” he said.
* * *
I OPENED the book and gently unfolded a small bundle of papers, two of them sherbet green. These were legal documents, passing on the deed of his parent’s house to the surviving family member, Chase Jennings. It saddened me to think of this weight he carried.
The next papers, and there were thirty or so of them, were pounded thin and creased so severely they could have ripped if I’d opened them too fast. My pulse raced forward. I recognized the paper … the penmanship.
These were my letters. The ones I’d written to Chase in the MM. I opened a few, knowing I needed to hurry but not able to resist the temptation to verify they were real. I read through my meaningless small talk: what Beth and I were doing, how classes were going, conversations I’d had with my mother. My words produced a flood of nostalgia. The hard feel of the kitchen table and the smell of vanilla candles as I wrote late into the night. The fresh concern for his safety. The longing I’d felt for him.
I’d written about some of this. I’d told him that I missed him. That I was waiting impatiently to hear about his life. That I thought of him constantly. I’d finished each letter with “Love, Ember,” and it had been true. I’d loved Chase Jennings.
I thought of how he’d held me outside and wondered if I didn’t love him still.
Acknowledging this made my heart twist with confusion. He was infuriating and inconsistent. Bossy and overprotective and vague about everything. No one bothered me as much as him.
Because, I knew, no one meant as much to me. No one except my mother, and the love I had for her felt entirely different. Like needing oxygen and needing water.
Somehow, I was annoyed. Why had he kept these letters? At times it seemed he could barely stand being around me, and yet he’d carried mementos of our relationship through the service and halfway across the country. How separate was the old Chase, my Chase, from the soldier, after all?
And what would the hope that he still cared cost me?
I placed the letters back into the novel, careful to leave them just as they’d been found. When I did so, my eyes fell upon a quote, spoken by the
narrator, Victor, to his beloved.
“I have one secret, Elizabeth, a dreadful one; when revealed to you, it will chill your frame with horror, and then, far from being surprised at my misery, you will only wonder that I survive what I have endured.”
I shivered involuntarily. Apparently my false identity hadn’t come out of nowhere.
CHAPTER
11
“HOW come you’re so big?” Ronnie said in wonderment from the dining room. He stood on top of his chair to try to measure up to Chase, but still fell drastically short.
“I eat lots of vegetables,” Chase lied, eliciting an encouraging thumbs-up from Mary Jane. “You mind if I sit here?” He’d chosen a seat that backed against the wall so that he had a clear view of the room.
“Nope,” said the kid.
“Use your manners, Ronnie,” said Mary Jane. I was helping her set the table.
“No, thank you,” said Ronnie.
She laughed nervously. “I mean, sit down please. Over here, by Mom.” She clearly wanted her son—the only one who seemed comfortable with the dinner arrangement—between his mother and father. Which left me relegated to the stranger’s side of the table with Chase.
I hated that Patrick hadn’t taken us straight to Lewisburg. His earlier friendliness had washed away, and he now gave off the distinct impression that he regretted asking us inside.
And to think I’d banked on just such kindness when I’d tried to run away.
We gathered around the table, and Ronnie gave the slowest rendition of Johnny Appleseed I had ever heard. The tension thickened. Finally we were eating, focused on something other than each other. I had hardly swallowed the first bite of pot roast before jamming the loaded fork back into my mouth. I told myself to eat as much as I could; we didn’t know when we’d get the chance at another hot meal.
I let Chase do most of the talking: He was more skilled at lying than I was. He embellished on his story about his family relations in Lewisburg, never saying enough to draw suspicion. I was impressed at how much he talked. He hadn’t said that much to me in the last week.
While they were focused on him, I snuck a bread roll into my pocket for later.
As the conversation turned to Ronnie, the signs of Chase’s exhaustion became more obvious; his eyes seemed to focus on nothing, he hunched over his bowl. How much had he slept in the last few days? Last night, barely any. The night before we’d been on the run. Before that, who knew?
And tonight he wouldn’t sleep, either. Our next minute alone would be spent deciding to stay the night or sneak out. Either way, there’d be no relaxing.
The mood remained uneasy for the rest of dinner. Unless Ronnie was telling some story, no one spoke. I began to feel more trapped by the second. The threat of a curfew violation and the morning’s ride to Lewisburg were the only things holding me to my seat.
In response to the strain, Mary Jane turned on a countertop radio, and I joined her in the kitchen while she washed dishes. The crackling sound reminded me of the MM radio in Chase’s bag. I hoped for music but was not so lucky.
The newscast had already begun. The reporter, a woman named Felicity Bridewell, clipped the ends of her words with an annoying sense of self-importance. She was talking about an increase of crime in the Red Zones and the FBR’s decree to boost their presence at the borders.
I remembered the highway patrolman with a shiver.
The men’s voices in the other room paused, and I knew Chase was listening now, too. I stood by in anxious silence, my mouth dry.
“… investigating the murder of another FBR officer in Virginia earlier today. Authorities have determined this to be the second victim of whom they are now referring to as the Virginia Sniper. No witnesses have yet come forward.…”
A sniper killing FBR officers … was this linked to the stolen uniform truck in Tennessee? I felt an odd tingling in my chest. It wasn’t right to wish for violence, but people were fighting back, and that made me feel hopeful.
Before my mother was taken, I’d accepted how ingrained the MM was in our lives. I didn’t like it, but the truth was that not everything they did was bad. The Reformation Act had instituted soup kitchens and mortgage freezes, things we might have died without. But since the overhaul, my views had begun to refocus. It now seemed blatantly obvious that those programs were just leverage, making us dependent on the very machine that oppressed us. The schism between the government and the people had never felt wider.
The MM had taken away my life. I couldn’t go back to school; I couldn’t go home. I might never see Beth or Ryan again. For the first time since the War, I envisioned what things would be like with no MM. With no Red Zones and curfews. No reform schools and Statutes. And I realized I could survive, because Chase and I were doing it right now.
I shook my head to clear it. I was the one who held things together, not the person who stirred up trouble. Joining a resistance was crazy. Irresponsible. And it didn’t even matter—not when I had to find my mother.
“… execution-style killing in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The deceased is an unidentified Caucasian male in his mid-forties.” A pause and the shuffle of paper. “We’re now receiving word that the Federal Bureau of Reformation has linked this death to the Virginia Sniper. Again, this constitutes the third serial murder in a chain throughout the state of Virginia. As always, citizens are strongly encouraged to stay out of evacuated areas and observe the Moral Statutes.”
I gripped my hands together so that they didn’t shake.
The MM was blaming their own kill on the resistance—on this sniper, whoever he was.
Mary Jane was babbling about how dangerous the country was becoming and how thankful she was for the FBR. I wanted to scream the truth at her but knew I couldn’t. I froze completely when the radio snagged my attention again.
“… Jennings, who defected from the FBR earlier this week, should be approached with caution as he may be armed and dangerous. Any information on the whereabouts of this criminal can be called in on the crisis line. That concludes the nightly news. This is Felicity Bridewell.”
I’d missed the story! What had been said? Mary Jane had talked over most of the report!
I couldn’t look at her; she’d see the truth right on my face. And if we ran now, the Loftons would know we were guilty. So I fixed my eyes on the window, staring at the tear tracks down the glass left by the earlier rain, and I nearly screamed when Chase’s hand came to rest on the small of my back.
“Dinner was great, wasn’t it Elizabeth?” he said with a hollow smile, interrupting my panic. I knew it was for show, but the touch comforted me enough to maintain my role.
“Delicious,” I said. The muscles in my legs were already working.
The next minutes seemed to pass in a fog. The next thing I knew, Chase and I were standing in a guest bedroom across the hall from Ronnie’s room. An Amish quilt covered one wall; the intricate pattern of colored squares made my eyes cross.
Chase shoved open the window, but it was reinforced by steel bars. Keeping out thieves. Keeping in criminals.
I swallowed a deep breath.
“I don’t think they know,” I said unsteadily. Chase shook his head, grave now that his acting stint was finished. “Maybe Patrick didn’t hear me say your name outside.”
“He was a little preoccupied.” Chase closed the window delicately, a line furrowed between his brows. He transferred his weight from foot to foot.
“What do we do?” I asked. “I don’t want to wait until the morning.”
“They’ve got a van in the front of the house, and there’s the bike, but we can’t risk the roads after curfew.” His tone was heavy. “We’ll hike out after they go to sleep.”
Which meant we were prisoners until the family went to bed.
* * *
WHILE Chase washed up, I tiptoed through the hallway, curious when I didn’t hear Mary Jane or Ronnie. Bedtime reading, I guessed. That seemed like a normal thing to do. In fact Patric
k, who was still in the living room, was doing the same. His feet were up, and he was wearing glasses now. I swallowed some resentment, remembering home, and how my mother and I used to read on the couch after curfew.
My heart rate slowed. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Not that I could tell.
When I slipped back into the guest room I found Chase sitting on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, face in his hands. He was so still, I thought he might be asleep.
I watched him just for a moment, unable to draw my eyes away.
He seemed to have become distracted in the midst of changing. He still wore his jeans and his boots, but his clean shirt lay untouched beside him on the bed. The lights worked on account of the generator, but he’d lit a candle to combat the shadows instead, and the hard lines of his jaw and neck were accentuated in the flickering flame. From this angle, I now noticed several raised scars on his back that I hadn’t seen in the house on Rudy Lane. They angered me, those scars, cut at a diagonal like the swipe of a claw. I wanted to know who had hurt him like that. I wanted to protect him. If such a thing was even possible. I felt sort of powerful thinking it might be.
Still, his scars, combined with the serpentine wound now visible without the bandage covering his shoulder, made him all the more dangerous.
He was, to me, terrifyingly beautiful.
All the nerves that had been crackling inside of me seemed to transform and redirect toward Chase. My body trembled with anticipation. What energy remained sparked in the air between us like electricity.
I wanted to move to him, but my feet were nailed to the ground. I opened my mouth to speak, but there were no words. I thought of the letters that he’d kept, of what they could mean if he let me in, and was confused again.
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