Kristen Simmons - Article 5

Hold it together!

“Give me my gun back. I’ll be busted down for that.” Tucker held his hand out.

“I’m not that stupid. You walk back down to the check station. Once I see you there, I’m going to throw it down the hill into those bushes. I hope you can find it.”

“And what’s to stop me from shooting you when I do?”

“There won’t be any bullets. You can ask the guards at the post, but that will mean a whole messy explanation. I recommend you come back later for it.”

He kicked the ground and finally nodded. “Get out of here.”

I swallowed a deep breath.

“Don’t shoot me in the back,” he added with repugnance.

“I’m not making any promises.”

Tucker turned and strode down the hill.

The gun grew heavier in my hands, as if I were holding a bucket filling with water. By the time Tucker had disappeared around the curve of the hill, I could barely lift my arms.

Chase gently placed his hand on my shoulder, sliding it down my bicep to my wrist. He pried the gun from my grasp. My ears were ringing.

I watched as he removed the magazine from the handle and stuffed it in his pocket. Then he tossed the handgun into a neat hedge wall, close enough so that Tucker would have to climb back up the hill to find it. If indeed he could find it at all.

“We need to go,” Chase said.

I led him back behind the crematorium, to where the asphalt met the woods. The brush thickened immediately, grabbing onto the fabric of my skirt and ripping little holes in it. Some of the branches nicked at my legs, too. I noticed this objectively, as though I were an outsider watching my body from above.

My mind was still reeling with the events of the last five minutes. I could think of nothing but my mother’s killer.

Should I have killed Tucker? Should Chase have? Tucker could hurt so many others now. There was no right answer.

The trail declined, leading us into the subdivision. We would have to be careful going between the houses; it was important to stay out of view from the hilltop behind the base.

We rested in a tight alleyway. Chase was struggling to breathe and squeezing his head between the heels of his hands. I wished I could take his pain away.

I searched for soldiers but found no evidence we were being followed.

“We need to keep moving.” I slid under his arm for support. He didn’t object, which worried me. The concussion seemed severe. We needed to find a doctor.

It was midmorning when we reached our destination. The parking lot was empty but for a thin, ex-reform-school guard roaming around near the Dumpster.

Sean stared at us, mouth open.

“You actually pulled it off,” he said in awe.

Chase squeezed my hand. “She pulled it off. I did nothing—”

“—but get your butt kicked,” Sean finished.

To my surprise, Chase smirked.

It appeared they were friends now. I thought maybe Sean and I could be friends one day, too. I didn’t blame him anymore for not telling me about my mother; people would do almost anything to protect someone they loved. If anyone knew that, it was us.

I walked straight up to Sean and gave him a hug.

“Thanks for waiting,” I told him.

“I’ve gotta say, Miller, I didn’t think I’d see you again.” His shocked expression morphed into one of concern.

“They moved Rebecca,” I said, before he could ask.

His eyes widened. “Where?”

“A rehabilitation center in Chicago.”

“A… what? How do you—”

“Doesn’t matter. That’s where she is,” I said. Chase glanced over at me but didn’t ask any questions.

Later, when we were safe, I would tell him what had happened with Tucker in his office, and how, now that I knew what Tucker had done, my actions revolted me even more. There would be time to talk about how I’d orchestrated our escape, and what I had seen in the MM base. But for now, we had to hide.

“Make the call,” Chase told Sean. I glanced at him, confused.

Sean took a step back. After a moment, he shook his head, focusing on the present, and removed a radio from his belt. It was like the one Chase had in the MM but smaller, and it clicked rapidly when he turned it on.

“Package ready for pickup,” Sean said. He had to clear his throat. An array of emotions was flying across his face.

Nearly a minute passed with no response from the radio.

While we waited, I caught Chase watching me. His gaze held no more secrets but was clear and honest and deep as a lake. I traced my fingertips over his high cheekbones and saw how the lines between his brows melted as the pounding in his head subsided. Finally finding peace, he closed his eyes.

“One hour,” came the response, making me jump. I recognized the voice. It belonged to a wiry man with greasy, peppered hair and a mustache.

Chase nodded his approval. He’d asked Wallace to help us. We were going back to the Wayland Inn.

We were going back to the resistance.

ITwas nearly dawn when I finished with Wallace. A deep exhaustion filled me, one that soaked into my bones until they were soft and pliable and barely able to sustain my weight. In this condition I dragged myself up the stairs of the Wayland Inn, out the exit onto the roof, and into the cool, dark air.

Wallace himself had attended to Chase’s injuries when we’d returned. Once a medic in the FBR, the resistance leader taught me how to check Chase’s pupils for dilation and how to manage the other symptoms of concussion. I’d led Chase to an empty room, to a bed with a moth-eaten comforter, and waited only minutes for him to fall asleep. Sean told me later that this was the first time Chase had rested since I’d been found missing.

Then Wallace and I had talked. I’d told him everything I remembered from the base: the layout, the personnel, and the horrors within. It was terrifying to relive, but ultimately purging. After hours of his soft but persistent interrogation, I felt empty.

Later we would talk strategy. The time to fight was coming, but until then we’d been granted a moment of peace; a deep breath before the plunge.

There was one thing I had to do before I slept. I had to see the sky.

I sat on an old wooden bench, positioned around the corner of the exit door. My body bowed into the weathered planks, rejoicing in the freedom coating my limbs. I tilted my head back and closed my eyes and felt the last bit of claustrophobia from the holding cells slip away.

My mother was gone, and with her, the child I had been. She’d been taken with violence, as had my youth, and in their place a new me had awakened, a girl I didn’t yet know. I felt achingly unfamiliar.

The sky had turned peach and raspberry when the rooftop door burst open with enough force to kick my heart straight into my windpipe. In an instant I was on my feet.

Chase’s hair was messy, his eyes wide and wild and tinged with pain. My heart throbbed as it did for him alone, with equal parts love and fear. Only when the sun brightened the bruises on his jaw did I remember to breathe.

“Is everything all right?” I asked.

He took a tentative step forward. Several beats passed. His gaze roamed over my face in a tender, familiar way, and for a moment I forgot that I felt lost and empty. I was the same girl I’d always been. The girl he loved.

“Everything’s fine. Sorry,” he apologized. “I just couldn’t find you and…” he shrugged forcefully, looking unbearably vulnerable for such a big person.

He’d thought I’d run away again. I let my hair fall forward, hoping it would hide the guilt heating my cheeks.

I sat again and he sat beside me. We didn’t touch, and I felt a severing as he turned to watch the sun stream over the horizon.