Breaking Point a5-2

by Kristen Simmons

  My calves were falling asleep, and reluctantly I kneeled, feeling a strange connection to his story.

  “It takes a toll,” he said, and his jaw twitched. “That’s what my mom used to say. It takes a toll, Tuck. That’s why he drinks so much. That’s why he beats the crap out of us. Because it takes a toll.”

  I didn’t want to hear this. I didn’t want to feel sorry for him, of all people.

  “And then the soldiers came to town.” He was wistful now. “And Dad got a job with Horizons, and things got all right after that. His boss knew a recruiter, and he’d come over to the house and talk to me about joining up. It made sense, you know? This officer, he had everything we used to have. Cars and a house and nobody screaming at each other. I made up my mind right then that that’s what I was going to do.”

  “And when you saw what they did? What you did?”

  His eyes blazed into mine with a sudden sharpness, and he stood, as if suddenly remembering who we both were.

  I stood, too, and asked one more time. “Why are you here?”

  He looked uncertain. “Because I’m a soldier,” he said. “If I’m out there, I’m not anything.”

  The door swung open, making us both jump. Chase walked toward me, hands clasped behind his neck. They dropped when his gaze flicked to his old partner.

  Without a word, Tucker left the room, but the doubt remained, deep in my chest.

  “Everything all right?” Chase asked.

  I nodded, but he stared at the closed door as if willing my answer to be different.

  By now he’d have heard the plan. I knew he was going to argue. Say we couldn’t do this. Say that I wasn’t going without him. He was going to fight tooth and nail until we found another way, and I was going to tell him there was no other way. This was our window. It was a matter of time before the MM figured out I wasn’t dead.

  I placed my hand on his chest, steeling myself for a fight, but when our gazes met, I faltered. I remembered those minutes trapped beneath the table; how the question of his survival drove me to live. How panic and despair stalked just beyond the border of our memories. Maybe he was thinking of the same things, because he cast his gaze away, as though he couldn’t look at me any longer.

  He pulled a silver key from his pocket. “Chicago keeps a spare key to an FBR van at the hospital. Truck gave it to Jack before he left in case they needed a set of wheels before he got back.” He shoved the key back into his pocket. “Looks like we’ve got our getaway car.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  Without further discussion, we left.

  * * *

  REFORMATION Parkway was only nine blocks west from where we’d left the others. The hospital was easy enough to find; it was right beside the FBR Recruit Barracks, where Chase and Tucker had lived during basic training.

  I’d known our stakeout would be there before I saw it. I’d known because Truck, Jack, and the Chicago medic had told Sean and me about it in sick bay. This abandoned building, just across the street from the hospital and rehab center, was where Mags had been when she’d sniped off her own man.

  We entered through a weakly boarded door in the back and climbed to the seventh floor, where we could spy on the five-story facility below without anyone catching a lateral glimpse of us across the street. As the hours passed we kept watch on that building, as if Rebecca might appear in any window, hip cocked, arms crossed, wondering what was taking so long.

  Tucker sketched a layout of the building on one of the walls with a jagged piece of glass, identifying all exits and stairways. We split our meager rations. We slept in shifts. Chase woke me every half hour to check my pupils; it was like when we’d first joined the resistance, when he’d been healing from a concussion, only now our positions had been reversed. The disruptions didn’t matter; after a couple hours I couldn’t fall back asleep anyway. No one could. When Sean got too restless, Tucker agreed to relocate with him to the bottom floor to watch the rehab’s entrance, leaving Chase and me alone.

  * * *

  “YOU’LL be fine. Tucker can’t do anything to you once you’re inside, not with all those soldiers standing around. He was right; he’s got nowhere else to go if he screws this up.”

  Chase was already in uniform, methodically taking apart the gun Jack had given us, and cleaning it with the ripped remains of his T-shirt. I turned back to face the window, because it wouldn’t do much good to mention he’d already cleaned it twice, or that we’d reviewed tomorrow’s plan double that. I let him talk because he needed to, and I needed it, too. It eased the pounding in my head.

  It was well after curfew, but the power across the street remained on at the hospital and rehabilitation center, as it did at the massive base behind it to the west. The triangle was completed by the prison across town. Three twinkling lights in the darkness. Their glow filtered in enough light to throw long, condemning shadows across the room.

  I gazed down at the stone entranceway of the facility, wondering what lurked inside. I found myself imagining the strangest things—if the floor was tiled or linoleum, what color the walls were painted—grasping for something.

  Did my mother know, walking into that jail cell, that she would never again come out? It seemed impossible that she couldn’t have felt mortality breathing down her neck, as I did now. I wondered if she’d felt brave. I wondered if tomorrow I would be.

  A chill took me despite the warm temperature in the room.

  Before I realized what I was doing, I’d begun a list. An inventory of all the things I wanted to do before I died. There were trivial things, of course. Take a hot shower. Eat ice cream, like in the days before standardized power. But there were more important things, too. Find Billy, and if I could, get him to the safe house. Put up a memorial for my mother.

  Be with Chase.

  Hold his hand without keeping the other on a weapon. Have long talks about nothing important, but everything essential, like we used to. Not just fight, but live. We had to live fast these days, because we died fast, too.

  I slid the uniform scarf over my head and let it fall to the floor, then opened the top buttons of my blouse, finding it suddenly too tight around my neck. I took a deep breath, then another.

  Chase trailed off, and for an instant I thought he might be preoccupied by the weapon, but then I heard the click of the metal atop the table and the rustle of clothing when he stood.

  He approached slowly, like a stalking wolf, or maybe it was the nerves burning low in my belly that seemed to exaggerate each second. Before he reached me he stopped, close enough that I could feel his warmth. Feel his eyes traveling over my reflection in the window, more intimate than any touch.

  He shook his head and glanced back at the table, as if he’d forgotten how he’d arrived here. Then he swallowed. Raked a hand through his hair. Tried to conceal an embarrassed smile behind a serious mask.

  “Are you paying attention? Or just trying to distract me?”

  “Trying to distract you,” I said. “Obviously.”

  His amusement swelled, then faded, leaving me anxiously awaiting his next move. It came slowly: his tentative fingertips found the back of my jaw and trailed down the nape of my neck, stopping right before my collarbone. Making me aware of nothing but the feel of him.

  “I remember you used to like to be kissed here,” he said, voice thick. “Do you still?”

  I had to concentrate in order to respond.

  “I don’t know,” I whispered. “No one has since you.”

  In the reflection I saw his lips part slightly. My heart beat so loudly in my chest I wondered if he could hear it. If he knew it beat that way for him, and no one else.

  He leaned down, the tip of his nose skimming my earlobe and lowering, until his lips found that spot, his spot, that made my knees weak and my whole body tremble.

  He turned me slowly, fingers weaving through my hair. He came closer, until we shared the same breath. His lips were warm and soft and full of restraint, but as the seco
nds melted together his arms pulled me tighter, and his mouth became more urgent, hot breath and grazing teeth, and the firm, soft feel of his lower lip between mine. He felt it, as I did. The moments counting down, pulling us apart, and if we didn’t hold on to each other fate would beat us, separate us, and we would be lost to each other forever.

  His large, calloused hands surrounded my ribs, untucking the coarse blouse, sliding gently down to my hips. Each place he touched lit with goose bumps and sparks of heat. Remember that, I told myself. How his hands feel right now. Remember every second with him.

  Our breathing became ragged and uneven. I grabbed the hem of my blouse and pulled it over my head, expecting to feel self-conscious or too skinny or too plain, but his lips parted, and his eyes grew round, and all of those thoughts disappeared. His fingertip slid just under the waistband of my skirt, circling my belly, and I grasped at the round wooden buttons of his canvas jacket, feeling an unquenchable thirst to be close to him. When my injured wrist made the task cumbersome, he tried to help, but our nervous hands fumbled. We laughed at our lack of grace.

  Then, I took a step back and laid his jacket on the floor, spreading it out like a blanket. He watched, silently realizing the weight of my intentions.

  He didn’t respond at first, but then nodded once, seemingly at a loss for words.

  I sat down on our clothing and he kneeled before me, holding my face in his hands, his bruised thumbs stroking my cheekbones. This is it, I thought, swallowing. And I didn’t even have to remind myself to remember this, because I knew without a doubt, I would.

  But his eyes drifted over my bare shoulder, to the floor and his coat, and his brows pulled together.

  I covered my chest with one arm. “What’s wrong?”

  “Is this okay?” The vulnerability in his gaze startled me. Made me realize he wasn’t asking if I was okay with this dusty room, but with him.

  “Yes.”

  He said nothing for a moment, then blinked. “You wouldn’t regret…”

  “No,” I said. My eyes lowered.

  He hesitated. “I’ve screwed up so much already. If you had second thoughts…”

  “I wouldn’t,” I said.

  He sighed through his teeth. “You say that now.” But he was already leaning back over me, brushing my hair out of my eyes and skimming his fingertips along my jaw.

  “I wouldn’t,” I whispered again. “This might be our only chance.”

  He stopped. “What?”

  “Nothing,” I said hurriedly.

  He sat back. “What do you mean?”

  I pulled his jacket over my shoulders, feeling very exposed suddenly.

  “We don’t have much time left in case… you know. In case something happens tomorrow.”

  His jaw fell slack. “You’re not planning on coming back.”

  “I am. I mean, I want to.” As if dying were a choice? I stared at my feet. “You haven’t thought about it?”

  He jolted up and began to pace, leaving me alone on the floor.

  “Of course I’ve thought about it,” he said roughly.

  “Then what is it?”

  “I’ll find you. If something happens I’ll find you. We’ll be okay. We’re going to South Carolina.” He sounded so desperate to believe that truth that I knew it was thin enough to shatter.

  “And if it’s not okay?”

  “It will be!” he shouted, making my back straighten. He inhaled sharply, trying to recompose himself.

  “You’re not going.”

  “Chase—”

  “You don’t even think you’re going to live through this! What was I thinking?”

  I stood as tall as I could, the tears threatening to spill over. My heart was breaking. I could feel it tearing apart inside of me. He knew, he had to know what this felt like, this guilt-punched hole inside of me.

  “You were thinking that if you could change things, you would,” I said.

  My mother’s spirit filled the room. Without blame or accusation, but she was there nonetheless.

  He stopped suddenly and stared out the window, not at the facility, but down the street at the barracks where he’d lived when we’d been apart.

  A minute passed. Two.

  “I would do anything to bring her back,” he murmured.

  “I love you.”

  The words were out before I’d even thought to say them, released by some force beyond my control. Instantly they consumed me, overwhelmed me, like the fact of my love was the only truth I’d ever known. The only truth there was. Chase Jennings, I love you. I love the boy you were and the man that you’ve become and even when I don’t like you at all I still love you because you are you, kind and safe and good, because you understand me and are not afraid.

  As the honesty of my words sunk in, he became very still. Statue still. And I waited, more raw and vulnerable than ever.

  He took a long shaking breath, and in it, my heart clutched.

  “You don’t fight fair.”

  “Yeah, well, neither do you,” I said. It was true. Risks weren’t so risky when you had no one to lose.

  With a short, dry chuckle he came to me and wrapped his arms around my waist and lowered his forehead to mine, closing his eyes. My fingers traced the pink corkscrew scar across his biceps, and I was reminded of a day he’d nearly died for my protection.

  “Now’s where you say it back,” I prompted.

  “Say what?” When I hit him he grabbed my hand and pressed it against his chest. “I love you, Em. I’ve loved you since I was eight years old, and I’ll love you my whole life.”

  His smile was so unguarded, so true. The tears clouded my vision, and my chest hurt, and I didn’t know how it was possible to feel so happy and so terrified at the same time.

  “What happens now?” My hands flattened over his chest.

  “Now I go find Tucker,” he said reluctantly.

  Of all the things I’d hoped he’d say, this was not one of them.

  “Why?”

  He kissed my temple, letting his lips linger there while he continued. “Because tomorrow, I need him to do what I can’t.”

  * * *

  CHASE came back an hour later looking edgy. I didn’t know what he’d said to Tucker, and he didn’t offer it. Instead we sat beside each other, watching the rehab center, and talked, really talked. About everything else.

  We talked about Cara, about Wallace and Billy, about Sean and Tucker and Rebecca. About the guys from Chicago, and how I’d found Jack, in shock, on the tunnel floor, and seen my mother in some concussion-induced vision. We talked about Beth and the place we’d once called home, knowing that history carried itself in the body and soul, not a physical location, not in letters burned in a fire or a magazine trapped beneath the rubble, and that now we had each other when we needed to remember. And we kissed. Sometimes gently, sometimes with the same frenzied passion as before. Sometimes in the middle of our sentences, when we’d simply forget what we were talking about. In those short hours we purged our secrets and held each other and prayed that time would both slow and hasten because just like the night before he was drafted, we knew tomorrow would leave us forever changed.

  Eventually, I fell asleep on the floor with my head on his thigh. The last thing I remembered was the feel of his fingers combing through my hair.

  * * *

  BEFORE dawn he snuck across the street to the hospital parking garage with the spare key given to us by Chicago. I bit my nails to nubs until light, when he pulled out onto the street like any other driver, and appeared around the backside of the abandoned building in an FBR van. Tucker sat in the front, and Sean and I slipped silently into the middle row of seats, where I rubbed the St. Michael pendant around my neck and hoped that I hadn’t used up all its luck.

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you backed out.” It took me a moment to realize Sean was talking to me, not Tucker.

  Was he crazy? Our plan was contingent on my presence. “I’m not going to back out.”<
br />
  He nodded out the window, as if expecting this answer.

  “What if I said I didn’t want you to come?”

  “I’d say good luck getting Rebecca without me.”

  He shrugged. “I’d figure something out.”

  “Well you don’t have to,” I said. “I’m coming.”

  He was quiet for a several seconds. “Don’t do anything stupid, okay? I’m not losing you, too.”

  “Sean.” I forced a smile, but it might have looked a little scary. “When have I ever done anything stupid?”

  “Perfect,” he muttered.

  It took less than five minutes to reach an intersection with Reformation Parkway. My pulse thrummed with the engine motor as we weaved through other FBR vehicles onto the main street. Chase slowly veered across the lane to park in front of Horizons Physical Rehabilitation.

  The sidewalk was crowded with people. Most of them wore navy FBR uniforms. I spotted a couple other Sisters, hustling to their destinations with their heads down. They didn’t exude the same confidence in this setting that the men did.

  The sideling patches of grass were all manicured. There were trees planted, too, surrounded by little wrought-iron fences and landscaped flowers. The stone face of the building was graffiti-free, with high glass windows and a trash can to the right that wasn’t overflowing with garbage. I felt like we’d driven into the past. It looked like someplace from before the War.

  We’re coming, Rebecca.

  Anticipation dripped through me. Here, at last, was my chance to make things right. To fix what I’d broken when I’d blackmailed her and Sean into helping me escape. Here was my chance for redemption.

  “Hopefully this won’t take long,” said Tucker.

  Sean was out of the car first. Tucker followed, and then Chase and I were alone. He stayed in the front seat and kept his head down, so as not to attract the attention of the passersby. We hadn’t said good-bye and we wouldn’t now.