Kristen Simmons - Breaking Point

As we passed through the barrier, the air whooshed out of my lungs. It seemed a great accomplishment that we were still alive.

Tent City was meant to be a temporary housing settlement, set up during the War when people had evacuated from the major cities on the Eastern Seaboard. In the beginning, the Red Cross had provided supplies, but over time, as it became obvious that the occupants had nowhere else to go, they began building shelter with whatever they could find. Tent City became as much a fixture in the city as the Wayland Inn. I could see that now, as the street opened up into what Cara termed blocks. The stalls contained within each were no more than six feet wide, and made of anything people could get their hands on. Car doors. Trash can lids. Piled stones. Cracked windowpanes and scavenged pieces of plexiglass. All latched together by spare twine or even leather belts.

People peeked out of their flimsy thresholds, having no doubt heard the ruckus from the Square. They regarded us with suspicious glares, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. I hadn’t considered that we wouldn’t be well received—we were here to help—but now of course it made sense. We looked like government employees; clearly they wouldn’t trust us. We rushed down the main drag, feet shuffling through the cyclones of trash that swirled around our ankles. The guys took the lead, weapons in hand, directed by Cara’s subtle instructions. We were given a wide berth. Even though the entire Tent City could easily overwhelm two soldiers, they were afraid. Should the MM have reason, this whole colony could be gunned down in an hour, tops.

It worried me that given the sniper attack, it still might be.

I looked up, scanning the rooftops on either side of the road for movement.

Four blocks down, a boy, no more than ten, with a dirty face and a greasy mess of strawberry hair popped out in front of my path, and I jumped back in surprise. One bony shoulder stuck out from his collar, and his hands were gripped before him like he was pointing a gun, aimed directly at Chase. Chase blocked me automatically, and Sean slid in at my side.

“David!” a woman hissed, ushering him away. “Sorry to bother you, sir,” she added desperately over her shoulder.

“Move along,” said Chase. I knew he had to play the role, but my teeth still ground together at the lack of compassion in his tone.

“No place like home,” Sean muttered.

“You lived here?” I said, keeping my gaze ever moving.

“St. Louis.”

When Sean had told Wallace he didn’t want to go to Tent City, I’d thought it was because the place made him nervous. I should have guessed his reasons were not so simple.

“It gets old, you know,” he confessed, and when I glanced over I saw that his cheeks had grown ruddy. “Freezing and being hungry all the time. Lots of guys joined when the recruiter came through. I wasn’t the only one.” He kicked a can across the walkway.

There was more to this story, more hidden behind his creased brows, but now wasn’t the time to ask. My hair was now dripping from the rain, and I swiped it out of my face.

“How much farther?” I heard Chase ask.

Even Cara had started to jog. The urgency hummed through us. It wouldn’t be long before the soldiers infiltrated this place.

We turned right. Three blocks down we reached a slightly larger shack, made of loosely bound, serrated sheets of yellow plastic and broken wooden pallets. It was bigger than its neighbors, about eight feet by eight feet.

Sean pulled aside the door flap and ducked within. When he unfolded from the shelter a few seconds later, his expression was far graver than before. He nodded once.

Silently, Cara and I moved inside, eyes watering from the smoke that emanated from a small fire in the corner. The plastic wall behind it was the density of molding Swiss cheese, blackened by smudges from where the flames had burned through. An old woman in rags with frizzy silver hair squatted beside the fire, roasting what looked like a charred rat on a skewer. I swallowed hard.

“Don’t know nothin’ about what’s going on out there,” she said gruffly, setting the rat directly on the dirty asphalt ground. She clutched her lower back as she rose, then shuffled back a step. “Oh, it’s you.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. She didn’t recognize me, she recognized Cara. I nearly opened my mouth to tell her my name, but with a new possible sniper attack, that seemed like a bad idea.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” Cara said. “Soldiers are coming. Better drop anything that’s going to get you locked up.”

The woman’s leathery face drew tight. “That’d be you, Sarah girl.”

She stepped over the rat to the opposite corner, where I’d previously only seen a stack of dirty laundry. Now it was a clear there was a person beneath it.

“Up you go. Get up now.” She swatted the girl’s bare leg, which emerged from beneath the covers. “Soldiers had a field day with this one,” she said quietly to us.

Sarah groaned.

“I know, dear,” answered the woman, sympathy cutting through her rough exterior. I bent to help her hoist the body from the floor. When I came close to Sarah’s face I gasped and nearly dropped her.

One cheek and brown eye remained perfectly intact— I could see the way her full lips could easily be dazzling—but her other cheek was black and yellow and swollen an inch off the bone. Just below her jaw line was a fist-wide arc of stitches, and her left eye was completely swollen shut. Even her brow was distorted by bruising and a missing hunk of skin. I was glad I was standing on the side that was wounded. I wouldn’t have wanted her to see my reaction.

Sarah was pregnant. The FBR had beaten a pregnant girl half to death.

“There we go,” the woman said when Sarah stood. I kept a steadying hand beneath her elbow and glanced down, shocked by her outfit: a low-cut, cream-colored dress that blossomed around her hips and the swollen bump below her ribs. Blood stained the front of her chest and left russet streaks down to the seam. Her shoes looked like dancing slippers.

Cara seemed to notice the absurdity of her appearance as well and scowled.

“Great,” she breathed. “Can you run?”

The girl nodded timidly. There was something about her demeanor that seemed entirely too innocent for the violence surrounding her. How old was she? Sixteen? That would have put her a year under me.

The wind rattled the roof, lifting it completely off its base for a few seconds of howling, then the rain began to pelt the metal, making my ears ring.

“Here’s how it’s going to be,” Cara told her. “We’re going to bring you to someone who’ll take you somewhere safe. You’re going to keep your mouth sealed tight until you get there. All the way until you get there.”

“Yeth, ma’am.” Sarah dug her heel into the ground, and a new wave of pity rose within me. “William didn’ mean to do it, you know,” she said. “He loved me. He picked me. At the thocials.”

“That’s enough,” snapped Cara. She stuck her head outside and motioned for Sean.

“The socials?” I asked, confused.

“FBR pays top dollar for primo entertainment,” said the woman under her breath. “I’ll bet Officer William didn’t think she’d get knocked up.”

All new FBR recruits signed a contract dedicating themselves to Reformation when they entered the service. They weren’t allowed to date. I knew this intimately; it was one of the violations they’d used to try to break Chase during our year apart. But I hadn’t thought that they’d find other ways to keep their soldiers happy.

I forced myself not to wonder if Chase had gone to socials; we had bigger things to worry about. But the thought of him lonely, needing someone to talk to, crawled under my skin. It was then that I realized the woman was staring at me.