Kristen Simmons - Breaking Point

I smiled.

“And it turns out it was the scariest damn place he had ever been in his life. Not safe at all for little girls. He was fine, of course. Perfectly fine. But it wasn’t right to make a girl stay there, so he told her he heard her mom calling. Just so she didn’t feel bad for being such a baby.”

A giggle bubbled up inside of me.

I’d never been brave enough to go into that old house alone, but when Chase had shown up, intent to see beyond the splintering white columns and broken shutters, I couldn’t say no. I hadn’t known that the sour smell was asbestos and the raised veins in the wallpaper were termite highways. You didn’t think of those things at six. You only thought about how fear could be split down the middle like an orange, so both of you could eat half.

He pulled me a little closer and I didn’t even tense.

“You’ll never guess where she lived.”

As our smiles faded I noticed that his hand had moved up to the outside of my thigh, and his fingers were drawing small, slow circles that seared through my jeans. It had seemed logical to be ready to go at a moment’s notice, but now I wondered what his touch would have felt like on my bare skin.

His fingers brushed the dark, cropped bangs away from my eyes, and his lips pressed softly against my brow.

“I remember who you are. Even if you forget,” he said.

My eyelids weighed down, and in my last conscious moments I felt the warmth of his hand on my leg, the pressure of his touch, making me real. Not just a shadow. Not just a memory.

I DRESSEDalone in our room, facing the blank wall, wishing it would inspire a clear mind. My thoughts raced with anticipation of what the day might bring, always returning to the same image: the holding cell in the base. The sterile floor, the threadbare mattress that smelled of bleach and vomit, the overhead lights that buzzed and flickered. And Tucker Morris leaning in the doorway, his green eyes saying I knew you’d be back.

I reminded myself that I’d lived through his internment before, and focused on the mission.

My hands shook as I buttoned up the starchy blouse, as I zipped up the itchy wool skirt and tied the triangular scarf in a sailor’s knot around my neck. I wondered what Ms. Brock, my evil headmistress at the Girls’ Reformatory, would think if she saw me now, back—by choice —in a uniform I’d resisted so fervently.

Curfew ended with a sputtering of yellow light that had me jumping out of my skin.

Houston and Lincoln had already left with Cara, scouting our path for any positioned FBR. We would go next, followed by Sean, dressed as a soldier, and Riggins in street clothes. Sean would meet us outside of Tent City, the others would keep to our shadows and watch for trouble.

I walked out of the room and came face-to-face with Chase. A look of disappointment crossed his face when he saw that I’d actually changed; clearly he’d been hoping I wouldn’t go through with it. He straightened to his full height. The MM insignia—the U.S. flag flying over the cross—branded the pocket of his navy flack jacket, just above the name badge VELASQUEZ. His pants bloused over newly greased black boots. In the stolen uniform, Chase looked almost exactly as he had when he’d arrested my mother.

I realized he’d never said he would come. Some things he didn’t have to say out loud.

The next thing I knew, Sean, Chase, and I were in the empty lobby, standing before the double doors. It was still dark on account of the thick rain clouds, and I was glad for the added cover. I put my hand on the glass, edging it open, feeling the cool, misty morning air seducing me out into danger, just as the familiarity of the fourth floor pulled me back.

“The Sisters are different here,” Sean said. “Remember Brock? She had full authority over the soldiers at the reformatory—you’d never see her back down. In the cities, Sisters are charity workers. Models of obedience. They’ve got power, but not over the FBR. They’re the kind of women the Statutes intended them to be, got it?”

Subservient. Respectful. Spineless.

“Got it,” I said.

He paused, and then squeezed my arm. “You better go.”

I swallowed. “Bye, Sean.”

“I’ll be right behind you.” He hesitated, and then turned away from the door, as if he didn’t want to see us step outside. I was glad for the privacy. He was making me nervous.

“Ember,” Chase started, then shook his head. “Just stay with me, all right?”

There was something else he wanted to say, but I didn’t give him the chance. I nodded and pushed the door open.

For a moment I stood on the dark street, holding my breath, expecting something earth-shattering to occur. As if the whole MM was just waiting for me to show my face so they could shoot me. But nothing happened.

Beside me, Chase transformed. His expression grew grave, his eyes daunting. When we began to walk, each long purposeful stride had me hurrying to keep up. I dropped my gaze, and kept several feet behind him, because no woman walked side by side with a soldier.

A light rain had started by the time we reached the corner. It lowered the bruised sky, coating my forearms and the back of my neck with a prickly layer of moisture that made my skin feel itchy and somehow foreign. Without hesitation, we turned into a dank alley, garnished by overturned trash cans and stray animals. I nearly tripped over a man’s foot that stuck out from beneath a flattened cardboard box. Each sound—the flapping of a pigeon’s wings, a clatter from within a Dumpster—shoved my heart into my throat. My gaze roamed, but no one seemed to see us. Which was good. For now.

Finally, the alley opened to a street, kitty-corner from Knoxville’s city square. Two soldiers were positioned at the entrance to the Square, distracted by the words SAVE US SNIPER spray-painted across the front of an empty shop. The neon green letters drooled down the wall. I stared at the scene, wide-eyed, surprised by my own approval, before fixing my gaze on the ground.

Hastily, we moved past. The soldiers didn’t even turn their heads.

I padded around the empty Contraband Items bins and condemned buildings, trying hard to shut out the chorus of groans and steady whimpers from the shapeless piles of tattered clothing strewn across the red bricks. Homeless civilians, maybe a thousand of them, immigrants from the fallen cities who’d come here for help or pity. They huddled together against the gusting wind to conserve energy. The last time I’d been here, Sean had been inciting a riot, but now the place was as somber as a funeral. With the MM’s lockdown on rations, there was little to do but starve.

I glanced back, but the soldiers weren’t following. We passed the abandoned shops filled with squatters. Passed the large painted sign over an empty store that read: SEVEN P.M. WORSHIP SERVICE—MANDATORY. I remembered the church I’d made us go to back home after we’d received an Article 1 citation for failure to observe the national religion. While I gave our names to the church recorder, my mother would steal cookies from the welcome table.

The way cleared for Chase; no one looked at us twice.

I turned left, focusing on Chase’s heels. On the sidewalk before me a group crowded around a rain barrel, fishing out the cloudy liquid with a peeling, tin cup, fastened to the wood by a metal chain. Most bore the signs of malnourishment. Hollowed cheeks. Ashy skin. In contrast, their bodies looked bloated, loaded by layer upon layer of clothing. Trust ran thin these days; any possession left unattended was fair game.

A skin-and-bones tenant broke from the pack and approached me, sunken eyes searching hungrily over my disguise. A girl’s summer dress fringed out beneath his holey sweater, and for a fleeting moment I thought of the Statutes that had been hammered into my brain at the Girls’ Reformatory. Wearing clothes inappropriate for your gender could mean an Article 7 violation.