Kristen Simmons - Breaking Point

“Get as much air as you can,” he instructed, “then, all at once, shove your hips back and lean forward. It’ll throw me off balance.”

I breathed in as deeply as I could, and pushed back against him.

It didn’t work. We straightened, struggled, and then at some point became still. Every inch of my skin heated. I could scarcely breathe, feeling his heart pound against my shoulder.

“Not fast enough,” he said, voice thick.

Though his hold loosened slightly, his forearm stayed pressed to my throat, but the other hand holding it in place lowered, fingers inching down my waist to drag across my stomach. I gasped.

“You can get away any time you want.”

I could, but I didn’t want to. His nose nuzzled my neck, then drew up behind my ear. My knees weakened, and my eyes drifted closed.

Someone broke through the stairway. The door clanged so hard against the metal stop we both bolted apart.

Sean. He closed the distance between us, his hair disheveled and a wild look on his face.

“Lincoln radioed from the Square,” he said. “You should hear this.”

One unsteady breath, one last look into Chase’s eyes, and I followed.

SEANdidn’t hesitate. He flew down the stairs, leaving us scrambling in his wake, the worry over what had happened increasing with each step.

“You two picked a great time to disappear.”

“What is it?” I called after him. “What happened? Is someone hurt?” I pictured the faces of those that had left this morning.

“Not us,” he said. “Them.”

“What?”

We’d reached the fourth floor, and instead of answering, he pushed through into the hallway. It was like stepping into a party. People were cheering; even Riggins had taken on both brothers in a play wrestling match.

He paused when he saw us. There was a strange look on his face as he approached, almost curious, but for the ever-condemning speculation in his glare. I blushed, wondering if he knew what Chase and I had been doing upstairs, and braced for him to say something nasty.

“Where’ve you two been?” he asked.

“Not now, Riggins,” warned Chase. To my surprise, Riggins nodded slowly and backed away.

Billy elbowed in beside us, face flushed. He was carrying Gypsy, who was practically screeching from all the noise. “Can you guys believe it?” The cat sank her teeth into his wrist and he wailed, then dropped her on the floor. She darted away between our legs.

“What’s going on?” Chase was not entertained.

Sean led us through the crowd to the surveillance room, where Wallace was pacing from one corner to the other. If not for the grin plastered across his face I would have thought him seriously distressed.

Chase grabbed a radio from the coffee table and tuned it to the right frequency. We held it between us and cupped our hands over our opposite ears to drown out the noise. It was the FBR channel, and a male voice crackled through.

“All units to Market Square. There is a code seven in progress, repeat, code seven. Four soldiers down. Fire taken from above, single action, long-range sniper assault. All units cleared to return fire.”

“They’ve been repeating the same message for the last hour,” said Sean.

“The sniper?” I felt the blood rush from my face. “What’s a code seven?”

“Code seven is a civilian attack on a soldier.” Chase’s expression was grim. It seemed like he and I were the only ones who found the event sobering. “Any word on our people?” he asked Wallace.

“Not yet,” Wallace said. His grin had faded. “They’ll come home when they can.”

I closed my eyes. “They’re probably right in the middle of this.”

I didn’t even want to say it, much less visualize it. But it was too late. Maybe we all weren’t the best of friends, but I didn’t want to see any of them dead.

“These are the risks we take,” said Wallace simply.

However much I wanted to argue it, he was right.

“We need to double the perimeter guards,” Chase said to Wallace. “Now, before soldiers start digging around the slums and Tent City.”

Wallace slowed to a stop and shook his head, as if waking from a dream.

“Very good, Jennings,” he said.

SECURITYwas increased, as Chase has recommended. Nearly everyone was cleared from the building, assigned to tasks that secured the safety of our refuge. Just a few were left behind, Billy, Wallace, and me. Even Chase was detailed to the motel lobby.

I’d stayed on the fourth floor, itchy since the report that the sniper was so close. I wanted to do something, too, though I didn’t know what.

Four hours passed with no movement. I listened to the radio reports, which confirmed that four soldiers had been killed by sniper fire from a rooftop overlooking the Square. A riot had flashed only briefly, and nine civilians had died in the crosshairs. I prayed none of them were our people.

In the fifth hour three of our people returned, smelling strongly of sweat and streaked with grime. They hadn’t seen the others, but brought word that the Square had been locked down by soldiers, who’d made everyone lay across the bricks until the rooftops were cleared. Tent City had been overturned in the search.

In the seventh hour Houston and Lincoln came back. They laughed about how crazy it had been. It was a little too forced maybe, but they laughed.

No one said Cara’s name. Not even Billy, who had a hard time keeping his mouth shut.

I grew annoyed with the radio reports. They were running the same message, over and over. The sniper’s tally was up to eleven. The highways had been closed, cutting off access in and out of Knoxville to anyone not working for the FBR. Things had changed—the city, even within the Wayland Inn, felt different.

That night no one said a word at dinner. Not even to complain about the peas, which had gone yellow sometime since they’d been canned.

LATER,I would look back on the next morning’s meeting and be able to count a dozen clues that should have made me realize everything was about to change. The way Billy refused to meet my eyes, for instance, or the way Wallace stared at me, lost in thought, and then blew off Riggins when he asked if Cara had called in. The way the radios, which had been covering different channels all night, were all silent.

“Quiet down,” Wallace said. His face was a mixture of awe and concern, like he was surprised about something. It made my stomach tighten involuntarily. Wallace was never surprised about anything.

“It’s Cara,” I heard Lincoln whisper to Houston. His face was ashen, his freckles that much more severe.

“I lost sight of her,” said Houston more to himself than anyone else. “Before the shooting even started.” He swore, angry with himself.

“She does that, man,” said one of the other guys. “Don’t worry about it. Cara follows Cara’s rules. Doesn’t mean anything. She always shows back up.”

I cranked my head toward the guy who’d spoken. Not much taller than me, with a patchy beard and a pointed nose, Sykes they called him.

Wallace lifted the handheld radio. “They started looping a new feed about twenty minutes ago,” he said. “You’re all going to hear it eventually, we might as well get it over with together. As a family .”

The radio hissed with static as he adjusted it to the right frequency.

A familiar male reporter’s voice filled the quiet hall, where the grieving for Cara was threatening to spill over.

“…the Bureau’s office of intelligence has issued a list of five suspects thought to be in collaboration with the sniper. All bases in Region Two-fifteen have orders to post photos of these individuals in the community and offer rations passes in compensation for legitimate leads. A code one is called into effect for the following fugitives: