Kristen Simmons - Article 5

What was wrong with me? Even if some of his actions made a little more sense after an explanation, it didn’t mean he wasn’t still insufferable. And besides that, who knew if he was even telling the truth. His whole story had been under the guise of Tucker’s misadventures, after all. Even if he had seemed genuinely affected back there, it didn’t mean he was the same person he’d been a year ago.

I turned on the water and was just about to disrobe when a slam in the kitchen interrupted my thoughts.

Chase was back. And, I soon found, frantic.

He bolted into the room, nearly knocking the door off its hinges, and slammed off the valve. His eyes darted wildly behind me.

“What—”

Without a word of explanation he jammed us both inside the closet and jerked the door closed behind him. I became acutely aware of the sound of his breathing, of the feel of his chest pumping in and out and pulling me with it. Of the truth: We were in imminent danger.

It was a tiny space, barely large enough for us to stand. The shelves holding the towels cut into my knees and hips, but he’d still managed to wrap himself around my body. One hand was firmly latched over my mouth. When I automatically bit down, I could taste the salt from the sweat on his fingers.

The adrenaline was pouring off of him. My own heartbeat accelerated to meet his.

“Hello?” a man’s voice called from the kitchen. I went stiff in Chase’s grasp. He held me tightly against him, angling his side and back toward our exit.

“Don’t answer,” he breathed into my ear.

“Hello? Is someone here?”

An instant later I heard a loud clang and splatter, likely our soup pot being knocked off the counter. Then the scrambling of footsteps across the wooden floor.

I couldn’t get enough oxygen. Desperately, I pried off Chase’s hand. He relaxed his grip slightly, only to press my face into his shoulder.

“Got him?” shouted a second male voice.

“Where you gonna go?” said another. There was a loud crash. Maybe the kitchen table.

“You going to arrest me?” the first man called. He sounded willing to bargain.

One of the others laughed. “You know we’re past that, old man.”

There was another struggle, then the sliding of something heavy across the wooden floor.

“No!” he begged. “Please! I’ve got a family!”

“Should have thought about that before.”

The other snickered. “Think they’re compliant?”

At the mention of compliance my body began to quake. These were soldiers.

We couldn’t run. We had no escape.

Click. The metallic sound that only a gun could make.

I jerked instinctively. I couldn’t stay here. I couldn’t die in this closet.

“No one is going to touch you,” Chase murmured into my hair.

I wanted to believe him, but as I turned my head, I saw in the crack of light from the doorframe that Chase had raised his own gun and was aiming it at chest height straight out into the bathroom.

I gasped. He continued whispering things I couldn’t make out. I wrapped my trembling fists in his shirt and bit down in the fabric covering his chest.

Someone walked into the bedroom down the hall.

“Clear,” he reported after a moment.

Don’t come in here. Not in here.

The bathroom door creaked open.

Footsteps moved across the tile floor, with just a little squeak. New boots.

With the door open, I could hear the carrier sobbing in the other room. He was begging for his life. He was crying for his little boy. Andrew.

“You try to take a shower, old man?” the soldier yelled from the bathroom. I pinched my eyes closed and tried to be absolutely still. Why had I turned on the water? What was I thinking? That we were at home? That mistake was about to get us killed.

The carrier continued bawling, and then grunted when he was struck with something. I smothered a sob into Chase’s shoulder.

“I was going to but … but t-the water heater… it’s broken… I forgot,” the carrier answered.

My stomach twisted.

Chase slowly eased back the slide on his pistol. It made a nearly unperceivable click . I prepared myself for the blast. I was ready to run.

The soldier abandoned the bathroom.

A second later, the deafening sound of gunfire split my eardrums.

It took me a moment to realize that Chase’s whole body, from the shins up, was cramming mine into the corner of the closet. He’d begun whispering again. I couldn’t hear him over my raging pulse, but I felt his lips move against my ear.

“Upstairs,” said a soldier. “Cover me. We’ll move the body in a minute.”

Footsteps ascending. The ceiling groaned under their weight.

I couldn’t hear the man anymore. He wasn’t crying for his son. I felt the bile scrape my throat.

The FBR was murdering civilians.

Before I could think through the ramifications of this, Chase was dragging me out of the bathroom. My legs didn’t feel right. Like they were pulling through water.

He halted unexpectedly at the entrance to the kitchen. I glanced down and saw a man’s denim-covered legs emerging from beneath the table. Before I saw anything else, I was again smashed beneath Chase’s heavy arm. His hand snaked around my face, blocking my vision.

But I could smell it. The metallic tang of blood. The peppery sting of gun smoke.

And I could hear the carrier gasping for breath.

I took a step, guided by Chase. I slipped on something wet. I tried to swallow, but my throat felt like sandpaper.

There was a change in the man’s breathing.

Chase paused. Leaned down. He did not release his grip over my eyes.

“Lewisburg… West Vir… ginia… two… o’clock… Tuesday…”

“Oh, God,” I sobbed. Imagining the scene below me was just as terrifying as the real thing must have been. The ceiling creaked again.

“Clear!” one of the soldiers called upstairs.

“Look for… the sign….”

That was all the carrier said. He sighed, a sound infused with liquid, and then he was gone.

Chase didn’t release me until we were outside, and even then, he didn’t let go of my hand. He pulled me at a run through the empty backyard, toward the woods. My legs, to my relief, were working again.

“Don’t look back,” he ordered, breaking the silence of our flight.

Frigid air needled at the drops of sweat lining my brow and neck. The grass crunched, frozen, beneath my rushed steps. I had to sprint to keep up with his breakneck pace as we crossed through the threshold of the woods. Neither of us made any attempt to soften the noise of breaking branches. My eyes stayed fixed on the pack over his shoulders; he must have grabbed it when we’d gone back through the kitchen. My strained hearing picked up only the sounds of the forest, tempered by the rush of my breathing. But my thoughts were loud, loud, loud.

The carrier was dead. Murdered.

My mother would have to find someone else.

Even if she’d already made it to South Carolina, she wasn’t safe. She’d never be safe again. I’d never be safe again.

I would never see Beth again. Contacting her would only invite soldiers to her doorstep.

And finally: It’s my fault. I hadn’t caused the carrier’s death, I hadn’t been responsible. But just as I knew this, I knew that he would never have been there if not for people like me.

They told us girls like you were dangerous, Chase had said after I’d run away. I hadn’t believed him then, but I did now.

I was dangerous. A man, a stranger, had just died to save our lives.

A commanding resolve shuddered through me. If I died now, his death would be in vain.