Kristen Simmons - Breaking Point

“Hurry up, Tubman!” Cara yelled. She kicked the garage again.

Before she’d finished, the door rose, just to hip height, and she disappeared beneath it. Riggins followed, as did Sarah. Chase and I gave each other one last glance before the plunge.

As soon as we were out of the storm, a skinny man with dark brown skin in a Hawaiian shirt slammed the metal door down and chained it to a metal hook in the floor. He had a crooked nose and a jagged taupe scar that ran from the corner of his right eye down to his mouth. When he smiled, crooked white teeth broadening his face and flattening his nose, my shoulders dropped an inch, but I didn’t breathe until he’d set down his pistol on a metal cart of mechanic’s tools.

There were two cars in the garage. To my right was a dark blue FBR delivery truck. I imagined this was what the carrier used to deliver fugitives to the safe zone. Beside it, in the center of the garage, was a Horizons shortbed distribution truck with a perky yellow sunrise emblazed across the metal siding—the same one the team had hijacked two days ago.

“So this is where you stashed it,” Riggins said to Cara, who grinned.

It was hard to believe that I used to worry about the morality of Chase hotwiring cars when here I was standing with a bunch of felons beside two stolen FBR vehicles. I removed the handkerchief on my head and shook the hail out of my hair, knowing I looked much like a dog coming in from a snowstorm. Chase had already removed Sarah’s zip ties.

“Hope you didn’t pull a muscle sprinting to the door,” Cara said, reminding me of the other man’s presence. She punched his arm and he staggered, feigning injury.

“This is Tubman,” Cara said to us. “Carrier extraordinaire.”

He stuck out his hand, and I reached to shake it. A shiver of fear worked through me as his amber eyes lit with recognition.

“Your mug shot doesn’t do you justice,” he said, and raised my knuckles for a lingering kiss.

Chase cleared his throat. The room felt very warm all of the sudden.

“Big guy,” Tubman observed, moving to Chase. “I know you. No, not quite.” He continued to scrutinize Chase’s features. “You got people on the coast?”

“My uncle,” Chase said in awe, and any resentment I harbored for his mom’s brother was overridden by sheer shock that he had survived.

Chase’s uncle had taken him in when his parents and sister had died in a car accident, then abandoned him during the War when he’d no longer been able to provide. They’d reconvened only once since their separation; just after Chase had been drafted. It was during that chance meeting that Chase had learned of the safe house.

“He’s about my size,” Chase continued. “Has a tattoo of a snake on his neck and long hair, at least the last time I saw him. His name—”

“Wouldn’t know it,” Tubman interrupted. “You’re right. I’ve seen him. Can’t forget a brand like that.” He placed a thumb on the left side of his neck thoughtfully.

I felt a staggering clutch in my belly. Chase’s uncle could have been my mother, waiting at the safe house for word from us. Instead we were escorting someone else to the checkpoint, where they would await transport, and we were staying here.

Until we get Rebecca, I told myself. Then we would go, too.

“So he made it,” Chase said with a relieved smile. I hadn’t seen him that happy in some time.

Tubman laughed dryly. “Oh, he made it all right. Not by me though. Another carrier, maybe Baton Rouge or…”

“Or Harrisonburg,” Riggins said in a low voice, causing my stomach to sink.

Riggins knew that Chase and I had been in that checkpoint on Rudy Lane the night the carrier had been murdered by MM soldiers. We’d told Wallace as much when we’d joined, and if any proof was needed, my size seven footprints had been found on the scene.

I wanted to close my eyes, to erase the last few minutes, but I didn’t. I kept them wide open, otherwise I’d be back in that house, I’d see the carrier’s legs spread across the floor, hear his rasping voice as he told us the location of the next checkpoint.

Tubman’s eyes had pinched around the edges. “Yeah. Or that.”

So he’d heard. It wasn’t hard to see how it affected him, and no wonder, given their shared profession.

A crack of thunder hit so hard that I cringed.

“Can you take him a message?” Chase asked.

“Save it,” said Tubman. “I ain’t goin’ back for a while. Hear that, Ladybird?” he called over his shoulder to Cara.

His words tripped the conversation, and everyone paused, waiting for an explanation. My gaze fixed on the scar on his face, and I wondered if it was the Harrisonburg carrier or the posting of Article 9 that had gotten to him. Maybe both.

“What’s that mean?” Cara appeared, scowling, from around the cab of the Horizons truck.

The thunder cracked again; the hail and rain beat so hard against the garage doors that we could barely hear one another. I glanced at Sarah, noting the way she was drawing closer to me, away from the other men. We needed to get her out of here as soon as possible.

Tubman grabbed the battery-powered lantern, sitting beside his weapon on the tool cart, and motioned toward the left side of the garage, where the floor opened up to reveal a red metal staircase. Downstairs was a darkened concrete room—the “grease pit”—where at one time working mechanics did oil changes. Most of the tools were cleared out now though, and in their places were boxes of nonperishable food, a few black plastic trash bags likely filled with clothes, a fold-out table and chairs, and several cots. On one wall I caught a glimpse of a stack of blue cards I knew to be U-14 forms, the documentation one needed to cross into a Red Zone.

People congregated warily against the back wall in the shadows; a man, and beside him a woman, holding a baby in her arms, and five or so guys—probably draftees, looking for sanctuary at the safe house. They watched us cagily, sticking close together for support.

“At ease, puppies,” Tubman told them. He pointed at Chase and Riggins. “They’re fakes.”

A violent shiver shook through me, despite my attempts to stay collected. I was freezing.

“You talk,” said Cara. “I’m raiding your stash.” She revealed a box of crackers from a bag on the floor and tossed it to the man with the family, then rifled through a bag of stolen clothes.

Tubman sat on a metal fold-out chair and leaned back on two legs. “Highways are closed, have been since the sniper hit the draft. Or don’t you remember?” He laughed like this was somehow funny.

We looked to one another—Tubman had yet to hear about the newest attack at the Square.

“They’re not closed to Sisters,” Cara said, fanning her skirt out in a curtsy. “And they’re not closed to soldiers. And our best chance of moving is now, before the radios go back up and broadcast the newest sniper hit. Riggins, strip.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Riggins eagerly.

“And give Tubman the uniform,” she finished. “We’ll take the blue truck.”

Tubman threw his hands up. “Wait, hold on, the newest sniper what ?”

“A soldier, maybe more than one, was shot in the Square today,” I found myself explaining. I thought of the woman in Tent City, how she’d thought I’d killed those soldiers, and cringed. “We don’t know it was the sniper yet,” I added.

“Oh, right,” Tubman scoffed. “Who else could it be?”

“A copycat,” said Riggins, and I braced for the challenge, but it never came. “A rogue civilian. She’s right. We don’t know anything yet.”

I didn’t know why he was suddenly agreeing with me. It didn’t suit him.