Kristen Simmons - Breaking Point

I HELDabsolutely still, the breath locked in my chest, as the operator repeated her report.

A fire in the Wayland Inn. Not a breach in Wallace and Chase’s imposed security, not an MM attack on the resistance stronghold, but a fire. Was it as simple as John the landlord failing to put out one of his cigarettes? It seemed entirely too coincidental that there should be a problem now, so near to the arrival of Tucker Morris.

The soldier abandoned the family without a word of explanation and jogged to the main entrance of the compound. As soon as he was out of sight, Chase grabbed our bag and pulled me toward the hole in the fence.

No one bothered looking up as we passed, or as we separated the chain links to sneak through. Halfway through the metal snagged my shirt and made a ripping sound as I jerked free.

The thoughts raced through my mind. Sean was still at the motel. Had he made it out? What about Billy?

It took only a few steps before I realized Chase was leading me in the wrong direction—toward East End Auto and Tubman’s checkpoint.

“Stop!” I dug my heels in. “What are you doing? We have to go back!”

“We can’t go back.” His expression was grim. When I whipped my hand out of his grasp, he blocked my way, steeling himself for a fight. His hands were down and loose, as if ready to yard me should I bolt.

“They’re sending every unit that direction.” He gaze darted behind me, sharp and focused, before returning to my face. “Who do you think they’re hoping to find?”

The sniper. They were looking for the same five people as the soldier who’d just been combing through the Red Cross Camp. They were looking for me.

“They won’t find us,” I said, ignoring the dread sticking to my insides. “But they might find Sean and Billy and Wallace, even stupid Riggins if we don’t help.”

He flinched.

“Tucker did this,” I said. “You know he did. We’re the only ones who know him. We’re the only ones who can stop him.”

I placed my palm on his chest, feeling his heart hammer beneath his threadbare sweater. Slowly, his fingers closed around my wrist, his thumb gently sliding over the sensitive skin covering my veins, before pushing it away.

“We stay together.”

I nodded.

We kept to the shadows when we could, avoiding the beggars and working girls in the alleyways. The warm day was humid enough from the week’s rain, and the sweat coated my skin and ran freely down my chest and back. We ran until we came to Church Avenue, a street still in use by the public, though not heavily trafficked.

An MM cruiser drove by with its lights on and siren blaring. My heart skipped a beat. I looked down and felt my hands grow clammy.

“Not for us,” Chase said.

We followed the smoke toward the Wayland Inn. People who had wandered from various areas of town had gathered on the surface streets surrounding the structure. Transients and drug dealers, unemployed scavengers, and even some curious workers from the west side of the city. They kept coming. With so little to occupy their days, a burning motel was prime entertainment.

Chase led the way through the crowd. As we came around the side of an old boarded-up Chinese restaurant we saw the flames, rising a hundred feet in the air, just below the line of windows on the tenth floor.

Instantly I became aware of the smell—sharp and suffocating. It made my eyes burn, even from my place across the street. A blast of sirens came from the two fire trucks parked in a V in front of the motel’s entry. The firemen had begun piping water from a nearby hydrant.

Soldiers arrived, marching in from the northern side of the street. Black, bulletproof vests covered their blue canvas uniforms, and Kevlar helmets shaded their eyes. They carried weapons—guns, nightsticks, and long plastic shields.

No rescue teams entered.

A man stumbled out the front door carrying a woman on his shoulders. They were both black with soot and coughing. No one I recognized. Three soldiers were on them immediately, and they were cuffed and led away.

A loud burst of gunfire elicited screams from the crowd. It sounded like fireworks; shots popping off one after another. My throat tightened, though not from the bitter smoke. I knew that sound was coming from the fourth floor.

“Ammunition caught fire,” Chase said, leaning close to my ear so that no one around us heard him. I searched in vain for Sean, but instead focused on a lone Sister of Salvation, speaking to a soldier near the front of the crowd. He gestured for her to back up with the others, and while he was distracted by another volley of gunfire, she slipped into the crowd, coming our direction.

Fearing she had recognized us, I backpedaled into Chase, and was just about to tell him we had to beat it when she appeared at my right side.

“Where’s everyone else?” I blinked and refocused on her blue eyes and the short, black hair that matched my own.

Cara. I couldn’t make sense of why she’d been talking to a soldier.

“What are you doing here?” A new dread washed over me as my mind flashed to Sarah and Tubman. Something had happened to the convoy.

“Where is Wallace?” Her voice was raw.

“Where is Tubman ? Did he get caught?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I don’t know!”

Her cryptic answers stoked my irritation. Something had happened for them to separate, but there wasn’t time to ask now.

A man I didn’t recognize was shouting from a third floor window. In only his boxer shorts, socks, and a dirty T-shirt, he attempted to climb out using only the moth-eaten curtains as a ladder. The top of them was already on fire.

“Hey! There’s a guy up there!” shouted someone.

“Help him!” begged a woman. None of the soldiers moved to assist.

More gunfire from upstairs. My heart kept time with its tempo.

This time the rear line of soldiers—those closest to the building—turned around and, as one unit, fired at the building. The discharge of weapons was muffled by the roaring spray of the hoses and the sirens; the bullets disappeared into the smoke. The man trying to escape through the window slipped in his surprise, and fell three feet before catching the tearing curtains.

“We need to get out of here.” Cara’s voice wavered. She was backing away, face pale. “Out of town.”

I grabbed her arm. “We don’t know if they’re still alive!”

Her gaze landed on mine. “All units are called in to contain the fire. Every head is turned this direction. This is our chance.”

A chill zipped through me. “How are we supposed to get out?” The highways were still blocked.

It started from the back, a wave of bodies shoving one another into the front line of soldiers. The soldiers pushed them back with their shields. Cara bumped into me, but when I tried to pull back she held on.

“The other truck at the checkpoint. If you’re not there in an hour, I’m leaving without you.”

Before I could respond, she’d disappeared into the crowd.

Chase’s grip tightened around my hand.

“Over there!” He pointed at a man in a singed sweater on his hands and knees at the corner of the building, by the Dumpsters. He’d somehow avoided the main entrance and the fire escapes.

“John!”

We shoved through the crowd toward the motel manager. His eyes were bloodshot and his teeth stained gray, like he’d been eating smoke.

“Guess I… don’t need a cigarette… now,” he huffed as I helped him up.

“Did you see if anyone got out?” I asked urgently.

“Heard ’em leave… through the west exit.”

My mind flashed to the blueprint of the building posted above the couch in Wallace’s room. There were several marked exits. The MM had covered the front, the fire escapes, and the two back doors. The side route was thirty feet behind the Dumpster, tucked within the building’s maintenance area. It was blocked by the looming stone office building Chase and Sean had searched. The alley between them was only wide enough for one person to sneak through at a time.