Kristen Simmons - Article 5

“How long will it take to get there?” I tried not to sound too impatient.

He didn’t answer, completely focused on driving.

“I’m not going to tell anyone if you speak to me,” I assured him.

Silence.

Why was he doing this? Continuing to punish me after all he’d done? I wanted to throttle him. He had seen my mother, and despite my aggravation, being near him made me feel closer to her than I had in days. I wanted to ask how she looked, if she’d been harmed, if they’d given her enough to eat. But he was adhering strictly to Brock’s rules. Any slight hope that he’d come to rescue me slipped away.

“You don’t know if she’s been doing any kind of rehab, do you?” I ventured, wondering if she had to “complete” something, like Rebecca had heard.

“Can’t you just be quiet?” he snapped. “Right now? You’re a prisoner. And I need to think.”

I blinked, instantly livid.

“Ms. Brock didn’t mean absolute silence.” I tried to keep my voice even, still hoping that being congenial might earn me some information.

“It’s not her rule; it’s mine.”

I knotted my restrained fists in my skirt. Another MM vehicle flew by. I watched Chase tense, and I felt my face heat up.

“How embarrassing it must be for you to cart around reform-school trash,” I said quietly. His grinding jaw told me I’d hit the mark.

WEdidn’t talk for over an hour. The silence took on a physical presence, a hammer, that bruised me again and again with the reminder that, despite all my memories, I was nothing to him.

It pounded me with new fears, too. What had the last two weeks been like for my mother? And what was going to happen tomorrow morning? Images filled my mind: her dragged into a courtroom in shackles, with Rosa’s empty eyes, while a bright, accusing spotlight pinned her in place. Her hands, marked with welts like mine. I shook my head, trying to rid myself of these thoughts, and glanced over at Chase.

What was wrong with him? Was he really going to pretend like I wasn’t sitting three feet away? Like our histories hadn’t been braided together since we were children? He was a soldier now, I got that. But he’d been human once, too.

Switching between anxiety and anger was exhausting, and yet I still found myself watching him, as if at any moment he’d confess this whole thing was some sick, twisted game.

The clock on the dash said 8:16 A.M. when I felt the van decrease in speed.

“Are we getting near Chicago?” I asked him, not expecting an answer. It seemed odd. I was poor at geography but had enough sense to know our trip had been too short. Plus, we’d taken a side road about twenty miles back and hadn’t passed any MM vehicles since that time. I would have thought there should be an increase in soldiers as we neared the base.

Even so, I felt a flutter of panic anticipating that my mother might be close; I still knew nothing of her trial.

The van curved off the highway down a single-lane ramp and stopped completely before turning right onto an isolated road. The weeds here had grown over the edges of the asphalt during the summer and then died in their tracks with the winter freeze. Dead branches littered our path. This area had not been maintained by city workers in a long time.

As the van slowed, my heart rate doubled.

“We are going to the trial, right?”

He exhaled. “There’s been a slight change of plans.”

My shoulders, which had been hunched over my restraints, jerked back sharply. “What do you mean?”

“There is no trial.”

My mouth fell open. “But the summons…”

Chase bore right again on a narrow dirt road. With every bump, the van jolted.

“It’s a fake.”

“You… faked an MM document?” I was baffled for only an instant before the floodgates opened. “Well, where is she then? She didn’t have a trial? Did they put her in rehab? Oh, God, was she hurt?”

“Don’t forget to breathe,” he said under his breath.

“Chase! You have to tell me what’s going on!”

There were dark shadows under his eyes that I did not understand. He looked to the side, as though the answer were hidden somewhere in the foliage, and then raked one hand through his black hair. I was getting a very bad feeling about all the things he wouldn’t say.

“I promised her I would get you out of there.”

“You promised—”

“My CO thinks I’m assisting with an overhaul in Richmond.”

I didn’t know what an overhaul was. I didn’t immediately understand why Chase was here when he’d been ordered to be somewhere else. None of it made sense.

“Is she still in jail?” I felt as if I were standing on the edge of a cliff, anticipating a horrible fall.

“No.”

The pieces came together too slowly in my impatient brain. My mother was free. I was free. Rebecca and Sean were right: There were no more trials. And as for Chase…

“You’re not a soldier anymore. You’re a runaway, too.”

“It’s called AWOL,” he said flatly.

I stared at him, remembering what Rebecca had said about Sean running away, how the MM would punish him for defecting. Chase had condemned himself by bailing me out. My mother had asked him to risk his life for me. I couldn’t think of what this meant, if he might not be so terrible after all. I could only think of her and how we were free and whether we were in more or less danger than I’d previously anticipated.

Chase braked suddenly, and made a hard right down a hidden path that I never would have noticed had he not turned just then. After a curtain of low-hanging tree limbs, we came upon a clearing, where an ancient seventies-era Ford truck was parked. The maroon paint was peeling off in bubbles from the side paneling, and the step bar beneath the door was warped by orange rust.

I looked down at my bound wrists. If Chase had intended to reunite me with my mother, why was I still in restraints? Why were we parking in a deserted clearing miles off the main road? I became increasingly aware of how isolated we were. I’d trusted him once, but after what I’d seen at reform school, being alone with a soldier didn’t seem like such a good idea.

“If she’s free, why didn’t you just tell me?”

He heard the tremor in my voice and looked over. His eyes held a depth of guarded emotions.

“That’s a major FBR route we were on, in case you didn’t notice. Any one of those soldiers could have stopped us if they’d been suspicious.”

I thought of how focused he’d been while driving, watching each MM vehicle that passed, demanding silence. He’d been fearful. If we were caught, his life would be at risk.

A moment later he reached into his hip pocket and retrieved a large folded knife. I siphoned in a tight breath, and for an instant I forgot that it was Chase. I saw a weapon and a uniform, and before I could process anything else, my bundled fingers were jerking at the door handle. It didn’t open. A small cry let loose from my strangled throat.

“Hey! Easy. I’m just going to cut the restraints,” he said. “Jesus, who do you think I am?”

Who did I think he was? Not Randolph, preparing to murder me in the woods. But not my friend. Not my love. Not a soldier, either, apparently.

“I have no idea,” I answered honestly.

He scowled but didn’t respond. The knife flipped open, and adeptly he cut the straps off. The second the task was done he jerked his hands away and unlocked my door from his side. I rubbed my wrists, willing my breath to come more steadily.

An instant later he was out of the van, leaving me in a haze of confusion.

I tore out of the seat after him, toward the truck. My feet splashed through cold puddles of mud.