Three

by Kristen Simmons

  It would have been nice to talk to her about what had happened with Chase, too.

  I hoisted the borrowed wool skirt around my knees and opened the stuffy collar. Billy held out a few minutes longer, until he finally gave up and lowered beside me. For a long time we said nothing, just watched the light move across the ceiling. Then, without looking over, he said, “Sarah doesn’t have a boyfriend.”

  It took a moment to realize he meant the same Sarah we’d found in Knoxville, who was still quite pregnant.

  “Oh, no?” I asked.

  “She hasn’t said anything about me, has she?”

  I hadn’t had the chance to check in with her since we’d arrived at Endurance. “I saw her looking at you at dinner the other night.”

  I could feel him beam.

  “I was thinking maybe after we get back I’d see if she wanted to hang out.” It wasn’t a question, but it sounded like one.

  “You should bring her flowers. Steal some from the garden.”

  He snickered. “You’re crazy for putting your name in those Statutes.”

  I breathed in slowly. “I know.”

  “It’s what we said we’d do after we got to the safe house,” he said. “Tell everyone what happened to them—your mom and Wallace.”

  The truck turned, and I bumped his arm as we slid six inches to the right.

  “If you didn’t know for sure she was dead, do you think you’d still be looking?”

  His voice was different, not quite as hard. Like the old Billy. My friend.

  “Yes,” I said. “I would still be looking.”

  He reached over and grabbed my arm, latching us together. “I can’t tell Wallace’s story until I know for sure.”

  “I know.” I rolled onto my side to face him. “Sarah, huh?”

  He covered his eyes with his hands, but not his smile.

  By the time we reached Greeneville, the light across the ceiling of the compartment had dimmed, and all but disappeared. Even with the scheduled detours that took us off the main highways, the trip had taken longer than I’d expected. By the time the truck eased to a stop and Chase’s double knock came from the back, my patience had worn thin.

  When the exit door rolled up, Chase was already reaching to help me down. Beside him stood a familiar soldier with a hooked nose and toothy smile.

  “Marco!” Polo exclaimed. “Marco, look what the Red Zone dragged in!” He batted Chase’s hand aside and instead helped me down himself. When my feet found the ground he lifted my knuckles to his lips and planted a wet, noisy kiss there.

  “You’re happy to see us,” said Chase, stealing me away. “We get it.”

  Monstrous black machines with silver trays and black rubber belts that protruded like tongues stretched across the factory floor, sleeping and silent though still warm from recent use. Cardboard boxes of different sizes, some larger than me, were stacked against the side wall, and the room smelled musty, like old books that hadn’t been opened in a long time.

  A lanky man, with skin as dark as Polo’s was light, stepped out from behind a machine on the opposite side of the loading dock. When he saw me a grin split his face from ear to ear.

  “You missed us!” cried Marco. “You all missed us,” he added as Billy hopped from the back of the truck.

  “Hey, guys,” said Billy.

  Polo slapped him on the back. “Glad to see you didn’t take the one-way train to Charlotte.”

  A lump formed in my throat. Marco muttered something that had Polo wincing.

  “Sorry,” he said. He reached a hand toward Jesse, who was checking the high back windows as if we’d been tailed. “Have we met before?”

  Jesse shook his hand as he continued to assess the building.

  “Doubt it,” he said.

  “Are you sure? Because I’m good with faces.”

  “He’s terrible with faces,” said Marco.

  Polo gave him a pithy look. “I practically have a photographic memory.”

  “Just like I can practically read minds.”

  “Oh, yeah?” said Polo, gesturing rudely. “What am I thinking now?”

  “Yet another reminder why I never settled down,” grumbled Jesse.

  “Speaking of photographs,” said Polo cheerfully. “Saw a spooky one lately the Bureau was trying to pin on you two. In a hospital in Chicago, I think it said. You should see it. Didn’t even look like you.”

  Chase and I glanced at each other.

  “Hold the bus,” said Polo. “That was you?” When neither of us answered, Polo slapped his partner in the chest. “Read their minds, Marco.”

  Marco grimaced. “Signs definitely point to yes, Polo.”

  “Are they always like this?” asked Jesse.

  “Yes,” said Billy and I together.

  A noise came in the direction I knew to be the office, just beyond the factory doors. Before I could react, Jesse had already drawn his weapon and pointed it at the soldier who walked through. The trash bag in the soldier’s grip fell to the floor with a dull thud.

  “Whoa, easy big guy,” said Polo. Marco had thrown his hands up in surrender, though he was not in the line of fire.

  “That’s a friend of ours. New Guy.”

  As Jesse lowered his weapon, Marco quickly beckoned the soldier forward. “Come on New Guy, don’t be shy now.”

  The soldier was in his early twenties—younger than Marco and Polo—and wore his pants and sleeves a hair too short, making his limbs look long and skinny. As he approached, his pale skin took on a grayish tint, and his eyes grew round.

  “Didn’t mean to surprise you,” said New Guy. He laughed weakly. “I cover the day shifts now. I was just heading out, actually.”

  “He’s with you,” Chase clarified.

  “He’s a good, old-fashioned double crosser,” said Polo, slapping New Guy on the back. “Just like Marco and me. We needed to expand the operation to include non-vampire hours.”

  I forced a smile, though the introduction of a new player made me nervous.

  “Marco and Polo,” said Billy. “Turning the Bureau to rebels, one soldier at a time.”

  “That’s it!” shouted Polo so loudly I jumped. “You’re him! Tattoo-on-the-neck guy from Chicago!” He pointed at the snake sneaking up under the collar of Jesse’s borrowed uniform.

  We looked at him blankly. All except Jesse, who had begun to glare.

  “I knew I recognized you. You were at the protests!”

  “Polo,” said Marco with a frown. “We’ve talked about this…”

  “You were talking about taking down the Bureau. You scared the hell out of me, man. I nearly ran before I signed the papers.”

  “I think you’ve got me mixed up with someone else,” said Jesse.

  “He mixes things up sometimes,” said Marco.

  “No, I’m telling you, I don’t forget a face,” Polo argued. “He was the one who said Restart was behind the bombs, and that they were blaming the insurgents so they could fly in and save the day.”

  Project Restart, President Scarboro’s political platform. It was the big spending donors behind Restart that funded his ideas of bringing America back to old-fashioned values. The very ideas that helped spawn the Statutes and put the government in charge of policing morality.

  Jesse considered this. “That does sound like me.”

  I couldn’t tell if Jesse was admitting to Polo’s claim or just avoiding the question. Either way, I unfolded the carefully worded message from the council and handed it to Marco.

  “What’s this?” he asked, his scowl pulling deeper the farther down the page he read.

  “Are you writing your memoir?” asked Polo. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”

  “It’s to put in the Statutes,” I said.

  Marco folded the paper gently. He looked to Polo and then back to me. “This isn’t what we do.”

  “It is now,” said Jesse. Polo frowned.

  Marco looked worried. “We’re happy to help fight the
good fight and all…”

  “They’re orders from Three,” said Chase.

  Marco and Polo stopped fidgeting. They stared at us. It was so quiet you could hear the breeze outside rattle the rain gutters.

  I opened the top button of my uniform and peeled aside the bandage.

  “Whoa,” said Polo. “They’re in deep, Marco.”

  “Yes, Polo.” Marco swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “And that means we’re in deep, too.”

  Polo took a step closer to examine the marks. “Maybe pull that open a little more?” He demonstrated on his own collar, showing off a significant amount of skin.

  “All right,” said Chase, pulling me closer to him. “They get the point.” I rebuttoned my shirt, laughing under my breath.

  “I guess we’ll get started,” said Marco, looking not very enthusiastic. “I suppose you’ll want to take your delivery and move on.”

  “What delivery?” asked Chase with a frown.

  Polo did stop then. Silently, the three soldiers led us to the supply room, to the back corner where a trap door I hadn’t seen before was fitted into the corner of the floor. Polo crouched and knocked on the wood three times, then with a heave, Marco pulled the latch back.

  A dozen faces stared up at us from the basement.

  “They’ve had nowhere to go since the train to the safe house stopped,” said Polo. “You’re here to take them, right?”

  “What are we supposed to do with them?” I huddled closer to Chase and his uncle, creating a shield against the almost twenty refugees that stared at us from outside the supply room door. Most of them were probably draft dodgers, but there were families, too, some with young children, and two women holding hands, and a man laying a mat out on the floor to kneel and pray in a language I didn’t know.

  “They aren’t on my to-do list,” said Jesse. I was grateful we were the only ones within earshot. Behind him, the printing press was up and running. An hour ago I’d delivered the carefully worded message to Marco, who reformatted the silver lettering by hand, and brought the machines to life with the flip of a switch and an anxious warning: “I’d disappear after this one if I were you. For good this time.”

  His words had made me cold, and before I thought too much about them I’d sought out Chase and Jesse.

  “We can’t leave them,” I said. “We have to bring them back to Endurance.”

  Chase’s thumb dragged absently over his lip. Behind him, Marco and Polo were doling out rations to those who’d been delivered by four different carriers from four different states, who’d heard of the safe house’s fall too late in their journey. Their silent pleas for help weighed heavy on my shoulders.

  “Sure, let’s take them with us. Show them the sights,” said Jesse. “We’ve still got work to do, neighbor.”

  Chase gave him a warning glance.

  “Em’s right,” he said. “We can’t leave them here. If Marco and Polo get caught, this whole operation’s blown.” My mind turned to the new guy who’d gone home shortly after we’d arrived. I hoped he understood the risks, and responsibilities, of these secrets.

  My gaze turned to Billy, currently behind the computer in the office searching for the names of the rebels captured by the Chief of Reformation.

  “There may be another option,” said Jesse. “A settlement near here. In the mountains,” he added after a moment.

  “The Appalachians?” said Chase.

  “The Smokies,” clarified Jesse.

  “A settlement?” I asked. “Another safe house?” Rumors Jesse had heard had taken us to Endurance. He’d managed to gather a lot of information over the years.

  Jesse scratched his dirty nails over his chin.

  “What?” asked Chase suspiciously.

  “I was there for a while before going to the coast,” said Jesse. “Didn’t end too well.”

  I narrowed my gaze. “It didn’t end too well for them or it didn’t end too well for you?”

  He smirked. “Let’s say neither party benefitted from my presence.”

  Chase rubbed his jaw. “He got kicked out is what he means.” He didn’t seem too surprised.

  “A disagreement,” said Jesse. “Long time ago. I doubt they even remember me after all these years.”

  Somehow I wasn’t entirely convinced that was true.

  “Marco and Polo haven’t mentioned it,” I said. “Maybe it’s been found out.”

  Jesse shook his head. “The carriers don’t typically go there.” At my look he added, “They’re a little antisocial.”

  I didn’t like it, but wasn’t seeing a lot of other options. We couldn’t leave these people here, and if we were going to go to the existing posts to spread the word about the Statutes, we would need to be light on our feet.

  “You remember the way?” Chase asked.

  Jesse nodded reluctantly.

  “Excuse me.”

  I turned to find a girl with a messy blond braid, dressed in the borrowed clothing provided from Greeneville’s stash. Her face betrayed her youth; she was my height but couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen. At the sudden attention her round cheeks darkened and she looked to her hands, where she clutched a piece of paper.

  “You’re Ember, right?”

  I nodded. There was no use hiding it now. Behind me, I heard Chase and Jesse step away, giving us a little privacy.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked, immediately regretting the question. Of course things weren’t okay; that was why she was here. In confirmation of my thoughts her hazel eyes welled with tears.

  I placed a hand on her forearm, unsure what else to do.

  “My dad sent me here,” she said. “He had to take another ride to the safe house, our ride was too full. Now they’re saying it’s gone. Is it gone?”

  I exhaled. “Yes.” There was no point in lying; she would hear it sooner or later.

  A sudden bravery took her, and she wiped away her tears with the back of one hand. “I thought so.” She seemed to remember the paper she was holding then and shoved it into my grasp. “I’m Kaylee. We talked about you where I’m from.”

  I looked at her, confused. “Where is that?”

  “Outside Nashville. We said if we ever got busted, we’d escape reform school, too.”

  I shifted. “Who’s we?”

  “Just some of the girls at school,” she said, as if it wasn’t strange for people I’d never met to be discussing my life. “I know I don’t look it, but I’m pretty good in a fight. My dad taught me how to shoot.”

  “Hope he taught you how to run, too,” I said before I caught myself.

  Her hands balled into fists. “He did. But sometimes you can’t get away.” The hard sound of her voice brought a wave of pity through me. “He’s got an Article 5, too. My mom split when I was a kid.”

  You still are a kid, I wanted to say.

  “Kaylee,” called one of the women from the group. She held a bottle of water in each hand and tried to hide her worried look.

  The girl slumped, like a child who’d been reprimanded.

  “I can fight, that’s all I wanted to say,” said Kaylee before walking away toward the woman.

  I unfolded the paper in my hand, seeing the neatly printed words of the Statute circular. I knew what it was supposed to say, but still my heart began to pound. It looked like any other that I’d seen—the format was the same, nothing looked out of sorts. But as I read more carefully, the change became glaringly obvious. Articles 1 through 4 had not been tampered with, but after Article 5 the following message was printed:

  You’ve wondered what happens to the noncompliant—to every neighbor or family member the FBR has taken. Truth: they are being tortured, brainwashed, and murdered by the soldiers that are supposed to keep you safe.

  a) When ARTICLE 5 was revised, Ember Miller was removed from her home and school. She was placed in rehabilitation where she was beaten and tortured for her mother’s noncompliance.

  a) (revised) Ember’
s mother was arrested by FBR soldiers and murdered for her “crimes” as part of the government’s new Expungement Initiative to cleanse the country of immoral behavior.

  b) Every day families are ripped apart by the FBR. Yours will be next unless you help stop it.

  c) The time for hiding is over. Protect your family and your freedom. Join Ember when the first base falls and FIGHT.

  “Oh,” I said aloud.

  A darkness made my insides grow slick, like the wings of the birds we’d found on the beach, drenched in oil. It spoke of validation and vengeance, and then with Sean’s words: This never stops. It will be chaos all over again.

  There was no turning back now. I’d known that before, but holding the Statutes in my hands, hearing that my name was being spread around the country in a blatant cry of treason, gave me the sudden sensation of drowning. Three, the Statutes, what it would mean when people read them beat at me, wave after wave, until my hands were shaking and I could barely breathe.

  As evenly as I could, I walked to the side door and pushed outside into the night.

  It was quiet now, and from this side exit I had a clear view of the woods behind the brick building. I crossed the asphalt track that surrounded the brick building, careful to keep to the shadows, and approached the chain-link fence. It was tall, twice Chase’s height, and topped by a spiral of barbed wire, and for the first time since we’d arrived I felt like a prisoner.

  The door opened and closed behind me, and Chase came beside me, staring out into the dark forest, breathing in the pine that came on the wind. He didn’t speak, but his presence was enough to tear down the last layer of reserve.

  I sunk to the ground and turned away from the freedom of the Red Zone, just beyond the fence.

  “What have I done?”

  “You told the truth.” He knelt before me.

  “The truth?” I asked, holding up the Statutes. “I’m asking these people to fight. To die, maybe.”

  He rocked back on his heels, staring at my hands, small in his.

  “You’re more than you,” he said. “You’re them. If people fight, it’s because your story could just as easily be theirs.”

  I thought of Kaylee inside, a young girl with the same brand I carried, willing to stand up to the MM.