Kristen Simmons - Breaking Point

I was grateful when Sean entered the compartment. He winced when he saw Sarah’s face.

The woman kneeled in the corner, poking around a junk pile near the clothes. When she stood, she was holding something small and silver in her hand, something I mistook as the contraband Cara had warned her to dump until she placed it between her thumb and forefinger and held it up to the firelight.

A thin chain hung from a medallion of some sort. On it, an angel wielded a knife overhead. If I squinted I could make out something beneath it, too: a demon with horns and wings. It didn’t look like something that came out of the Church of America, and since I hadn’t been raised with a religion prior to the War, I didn’t know what the token was supposed to mean.

“I know who you are,” the woman said with a tight smile. “And I’m glad. I’m glad it’s you. It’s good to see a woman fighting back.”

I froze. I knew I should say something confirming, that the time had come, but I couldn’t. My mouth had gone bone dry. Sean glanced between us, unsure, as I was, of what to say given the new circumstances.

“There’s rumors you’re hunting the soldiers that gave you that Article Five, is that true?” she asked. Sarah flinched beside her.

Whatever relief I’d felt faded.

“I… I didn’t shoot anyone.” Even if I should have. My jaw snapped shut as Cara’s fist closed around my forearm. I could feel her fingernails digging into my flesh.

“Right. Of course.” A wicked gleam lit the woman’s eye. Though part of me wanted to make her understand I was innocent, the rest of me saw the bigger picture. This was why Wallace had sent me out: to stir things up. Few things got as much attention as claiming you were the sniper.

I shoved the necklace she’d given me into my skirt pocket and mumbled, “Thank you.”

“You’re in my prayers,” she said. “But be careful. Not everyone will feel the same. The world’s gone hard these past years.”

I thought of the boy who had pretended to shoot Chase outside. When I was little we played cops and robbers. Now they played snipers and soldiers. Everything was changing.

Chase stuck his head through the door. “We’ve got to move.”

Sean took Sarah’s wrists gently and fastened them together with a neon green zip tie—a necessary protocol to deflect any suspicion. As far as everyone outside was concerned, we were here to make an arrest. Still, my wrists tingled, remembering the discomfort of restraints, and Sean scowled as he grasped her bare upper arm. I knew he was thinking, as I was, of what had happened these past weeks to Rebecca.

“Let’s go,” I said as soon as he was done.

We exited the shelter, Cara and I walking on either side of our prisoner. Sarah hung her head and refused to glance up at the murmuring crowd. I didn’t look up either, though I was now more concerned about the sniper than everyone else.

The wind was whipping now, and a plastic sheet that had served as someone’s roof came slicing through the air. I hopped nimbly out of the way, but not before Chase had reached out to steady me.

“We’ve got to hurry!” I shouted. The sky was growing black. A strong enough storm could level this place, and then there’d be nowhere to hide from the MM. I wished I could unfasten Sarah’s restraints, or at least shelter her beaten face from the weather, but I couldn’t, not while other people were watching. A new thrash of wind knocked us both back a step.

We pushed on toward the back exit of Tent City, away from the Square. Behind us came the crackling of the bullhorn; the soldiers were sending a team to search the alley. It was too much to hope that the guards at the back gate had been called to the disturbance; as soon as the way cleared we saw the flashing blue lights. The exit, a chain-link fence broken in the middle by two vertical poles, was blocked by an FBR cruiser.

Two soldiers sat in the front seats.

“Keep moving!” Cara shouted. I hadn’t realized I’d frozen.

The rain had thickened into sheets, and people were retreating to their shelters or cramming up beside the solid walls of the neighboring buildings to avoid the worst of it. By the time we reached the fence, it had already begun to hail. The pellets made a tinny crackling sound as they bounced off the cruiser’s roof, like a popcorn machine full of bullets. Just above the back tire was that dreaded insignia. The flag and the cross, and the mocking cursive message: One Whole Country, One Whole Family.

The tinted window rolled down, and a uniformed soldier with a dark complexion waved us over.

“Pick this one up in the Square?” he asked, and grimaced as the moisture that had gathered on top of the car doused his shoulder. He jutted a dimpled chin toward Sarah.

I swallowed, but my heart had lodged in my throat and would not go down. The Sisters were one thing; a secondary threat at best. They couldn’t harm us themselves. But soldiers were an entirely different matter. I raised a hand to shelter my face from the rain, praying they would not recognize us.

“Sisters found her at the soup kitchen,” said Sean in a voice loud enough to cut through the hail. “The tower still down?”

The soldier raised the small black radio and made a show of pressing a button on the side with his thumb. “Complete silence. Unbelievable timing, isn’t it?”

Chase subtly repositioned himself between me and the car, blocking my view.

Every sane thought in my head told me to bolt, to grab him and run, just like we’d done time and time again, but I couldn’t. The soldiers didn’t recognize me, at least so far. Taking off now would be fatal, not just for us, but for Sean and Cara, too. We had no choice but to play this out.

“Why are you bringing in the whore?” the soldier pressed. “She the sniper?” His partner laughed.

Sean floundered. I glanced to Cara, who was flexing her hands against the sides of her skirt. Obviously she wanted to say something but couldn’t. A real Sister wouldn’t undermine a soldier’s authority.

“Says she might have a lead,” said Chase. He, too, guarded his eyes from the rain with his hand.

“We’ve got to get her back to base,” said Sean. “Command’s going to want to hear this.”

The driver said nothing for several long seconds.

“We’d give you a ride, but someone needs to watch the gate,” he finally answered.

“We’re fine,” said Sean. “Our car’s just around the corner.”

We were just about to pass when he called out to Sean one final time.

“Watch your back,” he said, rolling up the window as he spoke. “One of those maggots in the Square reported he saw a uniform on the roof after the sniper attacked in the Square. Thinks it was FBR.”

A spy within the MM. I almost liked the idea until I realized that every resistance fighter in a blue uniform was now in double the danger.

“Really,” Sean said flatly.

Without another word we passed and made our way to the sidewalk, keeping a brisk pace for five blocks until it was clear the streets were empty. Then we ran for five more. At the sound of a siren somewhere nearby, we took refuge beneath the awning of an old abandoned clothing shop. Sean kicked the boarded-up door, but it didn’t budge. Chase called him back, and with one hard kick he split the wood just above the handle. On the second try the door swung inward, and we all piled through.

WEheld still in the dark, barely breathing. When the siren faded into the distance, we relaxed a little, enough to catch our breath. Sarah was whimpering, and jerked her bound hands away from Sean’s grasp. He looked to me to smooth things over.

“No one here’s going to hurt you,” I said. She kept her hands over her distended belly like a shield and continued to cry, anxious gaze traveling from one of us to the next. Cara sighed dramatically; something about this girl obviously rubbed her the wrong way. I remembered that the soldier had called Sarah a whore without a second glance and wondered if she was really a prostitute.