Kristen Simmons - Article 5

“Wait, you hitchhiked there? What were you, fifteen?”

“Sixteen.” He shrugged as though this detail was unimportant. “When we met in Elgin, we found out Chicago had been attacked on the southeastern side, all the way up I-90 from Gary. What was left of it was just… chaos. We were being displaced to some town in the middle of Indiana, but we only made it as far as South Bend before the busses got called somewhere else. We stayed there for a while; my uncle found some work doing day labor, but they wouldn’t hire me because I was too young.

“And then he told me he was sorry, but he couldn’t look out for me anymore. He gave me his bike and told me to keep in touch.”

My eyes were wide.

“He couldn’t… what? You must hate him!”

Chase shrugged. “One less person to worry about, one less mouth to feed.” At my horrified expression he sat up. “Look, when Baltimore and DC fell, and all those people started packing inland into Chicago, he knew, just knew it was going to get bad. So he taught me to scrap. He and my mom had grown up poor, and he was, well, resourceful.” A guilty laugh had him turning his head the opposite direction, making me wonder just what that meant.

“I’d have been scared to death,” I said.

He took off his hat and tapped it against his knee.

“Losing your family… it puts fear in a different perspective,” he said. “Besides, I got by all right. I stayed on the fringe around Chicago,hopped around tent cities and Red Cross camps. Worked for some people who didn’t ask questions. Avoided caseworkers and foster care. And thought about you.”

“Me?” I huffed, completely unsettled. In awe at how vanilla my life seemed. In awe of what he’d endured. He turned then, meeting my eyes for the first time. When he spoke, his voice was gentle, and unashamed.

“You. The only thing in my life that doesn’t change. When everything went to hell, you were all I had.” It took me a full beat to realize he was serious. When I did, I had to remind myself to keep breathing.

I SHIFTEDin my seat. My life did not seem so vanilla anymore. I knew what he meant about losing family now, and in another day, every soldier in the country would have our photos.

Had we been able to take the highways, we would have crossed the border into Virginia before sunset, when everyone had to be off the roads for curfew. As it was, Chase had stuck to back country roads, which led us east rather than south, cautiously avoiding any potential contact with an MM patrol.

By late afternoon, the sun was heating up through the windshield. Chase removed the navy MM jacket and slung it over the seatback between us. He wore only a thin T-shirt, and beneath it I could see the sculpted muscles in his arms and shoulders. My gaze lingered a little too long, and I rubbed my stomach unconsciously.

“We’ll stop soon for supplies,” he said, thinking I was hungry.

I didn’t like this; we needed to get every mile in that we could before curfew. But as I glanced over Chase’s forearm I saw that the gas gauge was nearly empty. It would take us a lot longer to get to Virginia if we had to walk.

We passed two closed gas stations before we found one that actually claimed to be in business, at least on weekdays. It was a small place called Swifty’s, with only two pumps and a note taped over the price board that said PAY INSIDE, CASH ONLY. We were the only ones in the parking lot.

“Wait here,” Chase instructed. I had just been getting out of the truck but paused.

“I’m sorry, you must have forgotten. I’m not actually your prisoner.”

His jaw twitched. “You’re right. You’re a wanted runaway. You can be their prisoner.”

I glowered at him but slammed the door. As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. We shouldn’t both be showing our faces if we didn’t have to.

Chase removed a worn red flannel shirt from the back of the cab and buttoned it up over his T-shirt. He untucked the bottoms of his pants from his boots, and hid his MM jacket, and it hit me, a furious pang of nostalgia. A vision of him sitting on his front steps, long legs stretched out and crossed casually at the ankles. Eyes, dark and watchful as a wolf’s, still piercing even from a distance. His smooth bronze complexion, a reflection of his mother’s Chickasaw heritage. His hair was short now, cleanly cut like the other soldiers’, but then it had been thick and glossy and black, hanging around his angular face.

He looked like the old Chase, even if he didn’t act like him. I swallowed hard.

The change made me suddenly self conscious of my appearance: My gray sweater and pleated navy skirt screamed “reform school.” I scanned the parking lot for any bystanders, worried that I might be recognized.

Chase disappeared behind the tinted glass of the mini-mart. As the minutes ticked by, my paranoia intensified. I’d believed his story about leaving the MM without question, but I didn’t know what had really happened. He wasn’t telling me anything, not why he’d arrested us, not why he’d come back. For all I knew, he could be contacting the MM right now. My heels drummed a cadence on the rutted rubber floor mats.

The sun was just above the tree line now. It would be getting dark soon.

What was taking so long?

I was just grabbing the door handle, intent to check for myself on Chase’s intentions, when I saw it. A large bulletin board on the far side of the store window. The blood drained from my face. Though I was twenty feet away I knew exactly what it would say.

I had seen this board before, of course. At the mini-mart near school.

My photo from the reformatory would be posted just as soon as Brock figured out I’d escaped. A desperate need arose in me to see if it was there now, but I couldn’t risk being spotted. What if the clerk inside had already caught a glimpse of me when I’d opened the door earlier? How could I have been so careless?

It’s too soon. You’ve only been gone a few hours, I reminded myself.

I envisioned Beth and Ryan scanning through the pictures the way we had looked for Katelyn Meadows. Defending me when people whispered about what I’d done to be arrested. They were true friends, not the kind that would turn their backs. It struck me that they didn’t even know Katelyn was dead. I shivered, frightened by the reality that my friends would never know if I was dead.

The door lurched open, catching me off guard. I nearly leapt out the window.

“Here,” Chase said. The change was sliding off the top of a wrapped flat of plastic water bottles he shoved onto the seat, and I grabbed it before it fell to the floor. The total on the receipt was over three hundred dollars. I hastily shoved the assorted bills into my pocket, uncomfortable with any money sitting out in the open. I was shocked by the amount of cash he’d been carrying.

“I worked for it,” he told me snidely before I could ask. “Soldiers collect pay. It’s a regular job.”

“It’s hardly a regular job,” I grumbled.

I placed the supplies on the floor while Chase filled up the truck. Among the groceries — peanut butter, bread, and other staples — was a chocolate bar with almonds. Had he remembered that this was my favorite kind of candy? Probably not. He didn’t do things out of the kindness of his heart anymore. Still, it seemed too frivolous to be anything but a peace offering.

It only took him a few moments of connecting the exposed wires beneath the wheel before the truck thrumm ed to life again. As we pulled onto the street, I stared out the back window at the Missing Persons board, in grim awe of how my life had changed. My freedom from the MM’s clutches had come with a stifling loss. I would never be able to walk around in the open again.