Kristen Simmons - Breaking Point

When the tank was full again we moved out.

THElights from the old basketball arena, which had been converted to a Horizons manufacturing plant after the War, were the first signs of home. Cold and yellow, they lit the night like a warning rather than a welcome. The rest of the city was black, but for the gleam in the distance from the hospital—the first place I’d been taken during the overhaul. I returned to the edge of my seat, absently tugging at the knot in the uniform handkerchief around my neck.

The roads had been completely empty, but as we approached the Kennedy Bridge another cruiser came careening from the south, going fast enough to jump the Ohio River.

My heart clutched in my chest.

“No,” I whispered. “Don’t stop don’t stop don’t stop.”

I sank in the seat. Sean remained motionless behind us, sleeping.

It sped by without a hint at braking. Chase exhaled loudly and continued on.

“So, I guess we know what the MM does after curfew,” I said shakily. I wondered if the soldiers inside just liked to drive fast, or if they were drunk on whiskey like the kind in the back of the Horizons truck. Or if actually, there were two people inside just like us.

It helped to think that.

The clock on the dashboard flashed 2:27 A.M. as we crossed the dark waters of the Ohio on the high metal bridge. There were only four hours until curfew was up, until any nosy civilian could recognize our faces and make a report. The pressure made my muscles tense. We hadn’t said it out loud, but it would be better all around if we were out of here before dawn.

The cruiser rolled over the cracked pavement, headlights shining on landmarks like we were historians excavating some ancient tomb. There was the stop sign halfway between Beth’s house and mine. We used to meet there before we walked to school. Back when I used to go to school. Trees I recognized, dogwoods, already turning pink with blossoms. Tall, overgrown grass and weeds in front of every home. I remembered before the War when people had used lawnmowers. What a waste those things were. That much gas could power a generator for hours.

I’d tripped there and skinned my knee on the sidewalk. On that corner, a girl once set up a lemonade stand for a quarter a glass. And right beneath that tall brick wall was where I’d been standing when I’d fallen in love with Chase. I was nine, and he’d just won a race against Matt Epstein. He was the fastest boy in the whole world.

So many Statute circulars glued to so many doors. How many people had been taken since my overhaul?

We reached Ewing Avenue—my street—and a small whimper came from my throat.

I looked up a steep embankment on the right, but the old, abandoned house where I’d met Chase for the first time was now hidden by shadow. Hidden, like the children we used to be.

My house had come into view. Small and boxy, white. A sister to its next-door neighbor, the Jennings’s home.

“No fast moves,” Chase hissed. Two headlights came over the swell at the top of the street and caused my heart to stutter. The FBR cruiser eased by Mrs. Crowley’s house, right across the way from mine.

“They’re already here!” Bands of tension ratcheted around my lungs. I bit my lip so I wouldn’t scream, so hard it bled.

“It’s just a curfew patrol,” he muttered as we rolled past. “Just like us.”

The tinted windows were too dark to see inside. As Sean continued to snore, the patrol car continued to the intersection and disappeared around the block.

We approached my house. The familiar L-shaped walkway led to the front door where a Statute circular, the same that had been placed there during my arrest, still hung. A single tear slid down my cheek and I hurriedly wiped it away.

“Look.” I pointed. Below the living room window someone had tagged my house with black spray paint. One Whole Country, One Whole Family.

Someone was here after all. Someone fighting back. My pulse ran a mile a minute.

Chase buttoned the top of his collar, which he’d left slack in the car, with one hand. “We’ll park off the street and go through my backyard. Check your house from mine.”

I had to get in there as soon as possible, but was petrified of what we’d find.

We parked two streets down, in a cul-de-sac overrun by trash the city workers had missed and storm debris from the surrounding trees. I recognized this place, though barely. Chase and I had played here as children. Hide-and-seek. It was close enough we could still hear our parents calling us home to dinner.

It was disheartening how much the place had changed. Now it was dark and silent. Those who hadn’t moved away were hidden inside for curfew. Those who caught a glimpse through their closed curtains of our stolen FBR cruiser were afraid.

Chase killed the engine. Behind us, Sean woke and took in our surroundings.

Time to go, I told myself. But my legs wouldn’t move.

Sean got out. Chase followed, and I heard them conversing in low voices. Sean took off around the block, moving stealthily through the shadows. He was going to keep watch from up the street.

Get up. Still nothing.

Chase returned to the car. He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand and we sat in the dark. One minute. Two. We didn’t have time to waste; sunrise was coming, we had to move on to Chicago, but even though I told myself this, I could not summon the courage to open that door.

Slowly, he leaned over the center console and unbuckled my seat belt. I still felt where his hand had touched my stomach even after it drew away.

I could tell there were things he wanted to say. Chase things. Things like, we don’t have to do this , or why don’t I look and you can stay here . He didn’t say any of them though. Maybe he knew what my response would be. Likely he knew just as deeply as I did that this was something we had to do. This mystery, left unsolved, would haunt us the rest of our likely short lives.

He stayed close, and the warmth from his body flowed across the inches between us. I could hear him breathing. His uniform jacket shifted, and in the moonlight I saw the raised half circle of skin where the cords of his neck met the muscles of his shoulder. Teeth marks, from where I’d bitten him when I’d been so furious at Tucker. Shame heated my cheeks. Chase hadn’t been the intended target for my rage, but all the same, he always seemed to get the brunt of it.

Tentatively, I closed the space between us and kissed that spot. I could fix it, I thought. I could reverse all the harsh words if he gave me the chance.

His skin was soft, but the muscles just beneath were taut and strong. My lips stayed against his neck as his breath quickened in my hair. I closed my eyes.

“It’s time,” he said, voice heavy. “Let’s go, Em.”

We stepped outside the stolen FBR cruiser, knowing we left all uncertainty, and the safety that came with our once-believed truths, behind. There was no going back now. Hope, and all her terrible consequences, had struck. In minutes we would learn the truth.

Either my mother was alive, or someone was playing a very dangerous game.

WEsnuck between two weathered garage units and through the yard behind Chase’s house. The dose of adrenaline coursing through my veins gave me the resolve to scramble up and over the privacy fence, but left me twitchy.

I waited in the wild tangle of grass beside the back door while he rummaged quietly through the bushes for a large rock. Beneath it, to my surprise, was a dirty plastic bag holding a key, and though it grabbed as he slid it home, the door opened in virtual silence.