Kristen Simmons - Article 5

“He’s gone,” spat Brock. “And so are you.”

“You—”

“Rebecca, no!” I shouted, just as she launched herself onto the old woman.

The next events happened very fast.

With the force of a cannonball, Rebecca took Brock to the floor. I saw a nightstick rise high and land with a dull thud on my tiny roommate’s back. The bones cracked, a sickening sound, and her scream halted prematurely.

I had been frozen up until then, but when Rebecca was hit, pure adrenaline scored through me. In a flash I saw my mother. I saw the blue uniforms pulling her toward the van. Taking her away.

My vision compressed behind narrow slits. With all my strength, I attacked the guard who had hit Rebecca. I kicked him, hit him, bit him. I felt skin gather and rip under my fingernails. Everything within me acted on instinct, as though my very survival depended on it. I saw fuzzy images, mostly blue, some gray, as Rebecca was thrown in front of me. Someone yelled. A girl screamed.

Steel arms clamped around my waist. I thrashed.

“Rebecca!” My eyes searched frantically for her. The snow was falling heavily from the thick, black sky. We were outside. One of the guards holding me slipped. I felt us plunge toward the cement steps before he righted himself. He swore loudly over the ringing in my ears. Then we were descending the steps backward, and my stomach was lurching as if I were diving into a bottomless pool. Warm blood filled my mouth. I’d bitten the inside of my cheek again.

“Let me go!” I hollered.

“Shut up!” barked one of the guards.

My shoulders hurt from where they pulled my arms. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the cafeteria pass on my left. More stairs. It took me some time to orient myself to lower campus, down by the infirmary. A metal door was pushed open. To my right I saw the fire hydrant in the gleam of the spotlights, defiantly red against the snow.

I was in the shack.

They dropped me unceremoniously on the dank cement floor. All my trembling extremities retracted into my chest. A soldier pointed his club in my face and I tucked my chin hard against my chest so that he couldn’t hit my throat as Randolph had done.

“Keep your scrawny butt down,” he commanded.

The room was small. A single overhead bulb hung from the center of the ceiling. There was a brightly lit space to my right, like a large shower, and to the left a dark closet with cement walls, but no racks or hangers. A confinement cell.

The fear was petrifying. I scooted into a corner, back to the wall, and waited.

LONGseconds stretched into torturous minutes. I saw their faces. Sean’s as the soldiers found us. Rebecca’s, torn with worry. What had I done to them? And worse, what hadn’t I done? I should have been on the outside now, running back toward home and my mother. What had this cost her?

The door creaked open finally, and a woman slid inside. My gut twisted.

Brock.

She had changed into a fresh Sisters of Salvation uniform. There was a bandage on her right cheek. The single yellow bulb overhead made her skin appear jaundiced, but it couldn’t hide the flush of rage still blanketing her severe features.

“Ms. Miller, I am very disappointed in you.”

“What have you done to Rebecca?” I stood, my legs trembling with fear or anticipation, I didn’t know. Tears burned my eyes, but I blinked them back, refusing to let her see me cry.

“You are a very bad girl. The worst kind. The wolf in sheep’s clothing. We shall need to shed that cover and remold your interior. I see that now.”

“What—” Even though I didn’t know what she meant, I was terrified.

“Guard, take Ms. Miller to the clean room.”

The clean room. The one that looked like a shower. One of the soldiers was already preparing the fire hose inside. Beside him, a pair of leather cuffs were chained to the floor beside his baton. He intended to strap me down and beat me, maybe even spray me with the hose. For a fraction of a second I saw Rosa, laid out across the floor, watching her blood twist down the drain while the force of the water pummeled her body.

My arms locked protectively over my body, fisting in my shirt.

“No,” I whispered.

Two guards moved forward. Dead eyes. Reaching hands.

“NO!” I shouted at them.

I spun to the wall, trying to hide my body from them. I could not go into that room. I could not let them touch me. They gripped my shoulders. My thighs. I screamed.

Just then there was a knock at the door.

The guards waited for Brock’s order. She flipped her head to the side, annoyed.

Randolph stuck his head in.

“What do you want?” she snapped.

“Sorry ma’am. I thought you’d want to know there’s a Dispatch who just arrived from Illinois. He’s come to collect her for trial.”

Several beats passed before I realized he was talking about me .

Brock and I must have thought the same thing at the same time. There weren’t trials for Article violations anymore. It’s been over a month since a soldier came out here to pick up a witness, Rebecca had said. Could Sean have misheard?

My blood turned to ice. It seemed impossibly cruel for life to offer such an illusion. But if it was true there would only be one trial I’d be called to attend. My mother’s. I tried to sort through the mixed emotions—joy that I might see her, fear, because this meant that she was still imprisoned, pure relief at the interruption.

“I thought they were doing away with those,” said Brock, annoyed.

“They still do trials in certain cases, ma’am,” said a low, familiar voice from outside. My mouth fell open. My heart thumped in my chest.

A moment later Chase Jennings entered the room.

HEseemed taller than before, and bigger, even since he’d become a soldier. Maybe it was the low ceilings of the shack or the company I kept. Randolph was only a few inches above my five four, and Brock was just between our heights. Chase towered over us at six three.

His face was blank, his eyes unreadable. After I got over the shock of his presence, I found myself hoping more than anything that his words were true. He had come to take me to a trial, to get me out of those gates and deliver me to my mother.

Chase removed a folded piece of paper from his breast pocket and handed it to Brock. She snatched it away, reading for what felt like several minutes.

“When must you leave?” she asked sourly. My eyes darted to the guards before me, and my arms hugged tighter around my chest. I needed to leave now. I couldn’t wait to see what they would do to me.

“Immediately. The trial is tomorrow morning, in Chicago,” Chase said.

I turned away then, fearing that my face might betray me. Of all the soldiers, of course they had to send Chase Jennings. The reason I was here in the first place. And if I looked at him now, surely one of them would see the betrayal, the questions, written across my face. And what was worse, my eagerness to get in the car with him. To get out of here.

Brock sighed irritably. “As an Article 5, Ms. Miller’s mere existence is enough to sentence the birth mother. Why the trial? Highly unusual for the offense.”

I forced myself to breathe. Why did the MM need me? Would my presence become the evidence they needed to condemn her? I had no idea what this trial or the sentencing entailed, but I was feeling the pressure to get there as soon as possible.

“All I have is the summons and order to transport,” Chase answered, his voice bland.

No one moved or spoke for a full minute. The only sound I heard was my heavy pulse, throbbing in my ears.