Kristen Simmons - Breaking Point

CHASEand I made it to the Red Cross Camp just before noon. We didn’t have any other options. The safest place was a crowd. The biggest crowd was the Square, and we weren’t about to risk that place again.

We crossed Cumberland outside the tall wrought-iron entranceway to World’s Fair Park, the location of the camp. Suspended above the white circus tent patched with blue tarps was an enormous copper globe—the sunsphere, a structure that Billy had told me was built for the World’s Fair in the early 1980s. Now, half the panels were missing, and it served as a marker that temporary relief—not the actual Red Cross, they’d gone under during the War, but the Sisters of Salvation—waited below.

Chase motioned me through a long line and I followed him in shock, reeling from my latest encounter with my mother’s killer. From letting him go again .

What lies was Sean being fed? All Tucker had told Sean was that Rebecca had been in the holding cells a very short time before being transferred to Chicago. But what if he’d seen her? What would he have done to her?

And how could Wallace be so stupid? He’d always put his home, his family, first… yet here he was, letting the most dangerous person I’d ever met sneak past his defenses.

I told myself not to think about it. He’d kicked us out and that was that. Adapt. Move on. Get over it. It wasn’t like we were going to stay there forever anyway. We’d have to find a way to meet Sean and figure out what evil scheme Tucker was devising.

Chase stopped suddenly and snagged my elbow. He jerked me away into a crowd of people waiting for the medical clinic to open.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Soldiers.” My mind immediately shot to Tucker, but no, Tucker wasn’t here. Tucker was with the resistance.

Chase carved an exit, not forcefully enough to cause a fight, but definitely with purpose. I kept my eyes on his heels, half skipping so I didn’t step on them. When I ventured a glance over my shoulder, I saw that there were soldiers swarming the entire compound.

Across the street, where we’d been standing five minutes earlier, another patrol team started picking through the huddled groups of vagrants. One officer had a clipboard and was showing photos to a feeble old man who leaned against a half-collapsed bus shelter. Above, on every rooftop roamed a soldier with a shotgun.

We would have been safer hiding out in some dark alley.

“Come on,” Chase said. “We’ve got to keep moving. Let’s go inside; people are thinning out here.”

The Red Cross Camp was comprised of over a hundred cots, shoved into even rows and covered by drooping canvas tents. There were no walls, no privacy, no heat in the winter or fans in the summer. It was fenced off by removable chain-link partitions, which boasted cracks large enough for any thief to sneak through. The sign-in station at the front was manned by a Sister of Salvation, and behind her, attached to a metal pole was a sign: 4 HOURS ONLY.

Below it, on a large plywood board, were five photographs. The five suspects wanted in conjunction with the sniper murders.

“Chase,” I whispered. He squinted across the distance.

Despite this, he made his way toward the entrance, where a line of twenty or so people waited to get a four-hour bunk. A warning within me screamed that this was wrong. We couldn’t go inside and pin ourselves down; I would be recognized.

“Stay in line,” he said, and headed toward the sign-in station. I saw him glance quickly at the board. His back straightened, and that was enough to say he’d seen my photo. He leaned forward to talk to a Sister at the desk who was wearing a white paper surgical mask.

The line moved forward. My gaze was drawn to a woman who’d moved in front of the board. Her green collared shirt made her skin appear ashen, and the long denim skirt was black where the seams dragged through the dirt. Though probably only in her early thirties, her hair had gone almost completely gray. Two soldiers, both younger than she, flanked her on either side.

“Listen up!” one of them shouted. I bumped into someone as I stepped back. For the moment I still blended with the crowd, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long. I stared at Chase’s back, willing him to return.

The woman stepped aside and revealed a boy maybe five years old. He had red dashes on his cheeks, not just from a recent tantrum but a long season of crying. The fingers of one hand twisted his mangy, shoulder-length hair. The other hand was missing.

The woman approached the boy and opened his shirt. His skin was scarred and warped by past burns, red with infection. She lifted him up for everyone to see.

“Oh God,” I said before I caught myself. Chase approached, eyes betraying no shock.

“Here.” He was holding a surgical mask like the Sisters were wearing. Hurriedly, I looped the elastic bands around my ears and felt my breath warm the covered space over my nose and mouth. This shield would hide my identity at least for a little while.

“There are…” The woman’s voice trembled. Her eyes darted around the crowd of onlookers.

“Louder,” prompted the soldier.

“There are worse ways to live!” she cried. “You think it’s bad now, but you have no idea. If you have information on the sniper, if you’ve seen the criminals from the wanted posters, tell a soldier right away!”

Rampant whispers flew around the circle.

The soldier unhooked the strap locking the gun in his belt. He toyed with the boy’s hair, like a father might, but for the threat so obviously posed by his weapon. From his blank expression, I knew he’d have no trouble hurting this boy to get what he wanted. I shoved back, but those behind me held solid.

“Do you think the soldiers did that?” I whispered to Chase.

His expression remained flat; only his eyes showed his rage. He didn’t answer.

“Now, who has information for me?” the soldier asked.

“Someone’s got to stop it,” whispered a man beside me. He was right. My blood was boiling again.

“I heard that Miller girl was in Tent City yesterday after the attack,” a woman to my right confessed.

I went absolutely rigid. I didn’t dare breathe. Chase’s shoulders rose. He shook his head as if to say don’t move.

“Come with us. We need to ask you a few questions,” said the second soldier. The mother was now grasping her child against her chest, though she seemed too petrified to move.

“That’s all I know,” said the confessor, her voice faltering. “I swear, that’s all I know.”

“Come with us,” he repeated. “Or you’ll be charged with withholding information.”

“I told you all I know!” she screamed as one of the soldiers hauled her away.

My mouth fell open in horror. There were hundreds of people within earshot. Hundreds who could take down these two soldiers, but no one moved. I wanted to stop them myself, to say, “I’m the one you’re looking for!” but I couldn’t. They’d kill me on the spot.

“The sniper did this to us!” The mother finally set her child down, close to where we stood in the arc surrounding her. She wept bitterly. “We were fine before he got here!” People murmured their agreement.

I wanted to shake her. I told myself she was scared, that’s why she was saying this. Things were just as dangerous before. But the woman in Tent City had told me not everyone would see the good of the resistance, and she was right.

The second soldier lifted his baton, and a path cleared back into the medical station. I followed Chase’s gaze to the little boy, who was now bawling quietly and trying to close his shirt with his single hand while his mother ushered him away.