Breaking Point (20 page)

I did feel the sudden urge to wait for the carrier and find out more about these elusive resistance leaders. Beside me, Chase made a noise halfway between a groan and a sigh. He’d thought the safe house would be safe, but if the largest resistance organization in the country was there, it couldn’t possibly be. I glanced back at him, noting how quiet he’d been through this conversation.

“
I
heard they operate from a Bureau base,” said Billy.

“No one knows,” said Marco. “Honestly, they’re probably the ones that started this whole sniper rumor anyway.”

I felt my eyes narrow. Had he been in the Square during the last attack, I doubted he’d be referring to it as a rumor.

“Marco’s a skeptic,” said Polo, waving him off. “He thinks the whole thing’s a crock. That those soldiers were done by their own troops and the Chief of Reformation’s just looking to cover it up.”

“Which is more likely than the sniper being some random tattooed protester,” argued Marco.

“He did have a tattoo on his neck,” Polo admitted. “I mean, who does that?”

“The sniper, apparently,” said Sean.

Polo pointed at him. “Exactly.”

“What kind of tattoo?” asked Chase suddenly. “A snake?”

His uncle had a snake tattoo on his neck, and he had been in the military. That Chase would speculate the man could be responsible for a string of murders made me even more cynical of the time Chase had spent with him before the War.

Polo frowned. “I don’t remember. Maybe. Why, you’ve met him?” Sudden excitement lit his eyes.

“There are a lot of guys with tattoos out there,” evaded Chase.

“No way it was soldiers. It had to be a sniper,” Billy interrupted. “Cara was at the draft in Knoxville when he hit. Tell them, Cara.”

One blond brow arched. “They’re saying it was someone in a uniform, you know,” she said. “A mole. Sort of like you boys. I’d be careful if I were you.”

Marco and Polo were speechless.

“I think we’ve had enough bedtime stories to give everyone nightmares,” Marco announced finally, his eyes even buggier than before. With that, he stepped on the office chair and lifted a slat from the ceiling. Hidden in the rafters was a lumpy trash bag, which he tossed down to his partner.

“Santa Claus has arrived,” announced Polo. Clothes were doled out from within, and I was given some old dusty jeans and a sweatshirt. Both were big enough to fit two of me, but I was glad to get out of my smoke-drenched wardrobe.

Tucker pulled off his shirt right in front of everyone, and I immediately looked away. I had no desire to see what he looked like under his clothes, nor did I want him to see me change. It didn’t help when Chase checked to see if I was watching.

I retreated into the single-stall bathroom. The light flickered, and the door didn’t lock, so I pushed the trash can in front of it. My mind was still spinning with Marco’s and Polo’s claims—about the War, and the president, and the mysterious Three. When I peeled off my singed pants something clattered to the floor. I crouched beneath the sink to see what had fallen and retrieved the copper cartridge I’d found under the front seat of the Horizons truck at East End Auto. With everything that had happened, I’d forgotten all about it.

Someone knocked, and I jumped up, stuffing my legs into the borrowed jeans.

“Just a second!” I called, but Cara was already forcing her way in. Apparently the trash can wasn’t enough of a hint that I’d wanted some privacy.

“Girls only,” she called over her shoulder to whoever waited behind, then slammed the door. “What do you got there?” she asked, pointing to the fist I’d clenched to my chest.

“Oh.” I opened my hand reluctantly. “Just something I found.”

Cara’s mouth rounded in surprise.

“Where’d you get that?”

I shrugged, and when my hand moved, her eyes followed.

“Riggins thought it was you,” she said in a strange voice. “He told me, at the garage in Knoxville. After you went missing on the mission.”

I winced. “Yeah, I know.” He’d died thinking it was me.

“He says you’ve gone missing a lot.”

I balked at that.
She
went missing a lot. Chase and I had been pulled apart in the Square during the attack, but she’d been separated from Lincoln and Houston as well. And yet no one, not even paranoid Riggins, questioned
her
whereabouts.

She plucked the bullet from my palm, holding it close to her body as she admired it. Again I considered how much larger it was than the standard rounds the resistance and the soldiers used.

“Why aren’t you at the safe house?” I asked, something inside telling me to tread carefully. “I thought you said Sisters could get through the highway lockdown.”

She turned her hips, still mesmerized by the cartridge. Her blue woolen skirt fanned from side to side.

“Looks like I was wrong.”

“I’m serious,” I said. “Sarah and that family with the baby needed a doctor. Did they get caught?”

Her tongue skimmed along the edge of her teeth. “Are you suggesting I jumped ship?”

My blood heated. “You didn’t exactly stick around to help when the motel was burning to the ground.”

She laughed, but it felt forced. “Self-preservation. Not all of us are martyrs.”

“If it was self-preservation, what were you doing talking to that soldier?” I pictured her standing before the flames, the man in uniform urging her to back up.

For a moment she seemed confused, and then shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe he was looking for a date.”

“Why can’t you just answer the question?”

She smiled coldly, eyes like blue crystals. “Look, the soldier at the fire thought I was a Sister, and asked me to help clear the area. As for Tubman, we made it to the roadblock and saw a sign that only FBR would be allowed past. I bailed before anyone saw me. But since you’re so concerned about your precious little party favor, relax. I hid off the side of the highway and watched Tubman drive that FBR truck straight through.”

I was relieved, but no less irritated. “Why do you have to cut her down like that?”

Her look turned to exasperation as she began to disrobe.

“Please. Did you see her? She had it coming. You can’t put wrapping paper on a present and expect no one to rip it off.”

“You’re
blaming
her?”

“I would if she wore that dress to a social.”

A
social
. That was what Sarah had called it, too, back in Tent City. A party for all the lonely soldiers who’d dedicated themselves to the cause.

I kept my arms pinned to my sides so I didn’t throttle her. Blaming Sarah for what others had done to her was like saying my mother deserved death because she’d broken a Statute. Like saying Billy’s mom had been right in selling her own son for cash.

She pulled off her Sisters of Salvation blouse, and as she slipped into a faded black sweatshirt, I caught sight of three parallel scars just below her collarbone—scars not unlike those I had given Tucker. She made a point of quickly hiding them, and despite myself, I suddenly found myself feeling sorry for her. Apparently she wasn’t made of steel. Someone, at some point, had been able to hurt her.

“Hey,” she said as I placed my hand on the door in preparation to leave. “Thank you. For what you’ve done.”

I turned back to face her, surprised by the smallness in her voice. It took a full beat to realize what she was talking about, and when I did I nearly groaned.

“Cara, Riggins was wrong. I’m not who he thought I was. I didn’t shoot anybody.”

“I know,” she said. But I wasn’t sure she believed me.

I had more important reasons to be on the defensive. I gathered my clothes and returned to the factory floor, and Tucker Morris.

*   *   *

WHEN
I emerged, Chase was leaning against the wall outside the door, arms crossed, scowling across the station at the Horizons truck. I smoothed down the sweatshirt and cuffed the ends of the pants four times before they finally reached my heels. I’d forgotten my arms were still smeared with dried blood and soot, and while I examined them he combed a tentative hand through my hair. Instinct had me leaning into his touch, but I frowned when he revealed a fistful of ash. I would have given my next meal for a shower.

“Billy’s checking the mainframe for new arrests,” he said, crossing his arms again as Tucker’s shadow appeared in the back of the truck.

“Has he found anything yet?” It seemed callous, but if Wallace hadn’t made it out of Knoxville, I hoped he’d gone down with the Wayland Inn. I knew what awaited him in the holding cells should he have been captured.

“Nothing new.” Chase hesitated. “Lincoln’s name was Anthony Sullivan. I never knew that.”

The room silenced. Sean looked up from where he stood with Marco and Polo outside a small storage room across from the truck. From the look on his face, he, too, was surprised. Some people went by nicknames so we couldn’t get too close, but Chase had just torn that down. He’d made Lincoln more human, his loss even more devastating.

The mood, already tense, turned somber fast.

Tucker, hopping down from the back of the truck, lifted two bottles of whiskey. “Might as well make the most of being stranded.”

No one objected.

Cara, who’d emerged from the bathroom behind me, said, “You boys got any cups?”

Marco disappeared into the storage room and returned with a tower of paper cups. Tucker popped the top on a bottle of whiskey and poured a liberal amount into each. While we formed a circle behind the truck, I contemplated how the one and only drink I’d ever had was when Beth and I had snuck some wine from my mother’s contraband supply in the ninth grade. I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage a half cup of whiskey on a nearly empty stomach.

“Someone should say something,” mumbled Sean.

The others looked at Chase expectantly. Not Cara, who had known Lincoln longer, but Chase.

Wallace’s voice echoed through my head.
“You had it, Jennings. You had it, and you threw it away.”
I’d thought at the time he was just disappointed to lose a good soldier, but it was more than that. He’d seen Chase as a leader.

I sloshed the amber liquid around the cup. Wallace was right; Chase was good in times of crisis. All the time I’d spent fighting him after he’d rescued me from reform school seemed like wasted energy now.

As Chase raised his cup, I felt a wave of uncertainty. What were you supposed to say at funerals? We didn’t even know if Lincoln had family.

“To Lin—Anthony,” Chase said, clearing his throat. “He was a good soldier in … in the fights that mattered.”

This is the only fight that matters. The one we fight today.

“To anyone else stuck in that building, too,” he added. “Cats included.”

Billy gave a wet hiccup, his shoulders rounding. Cara wiped her eyes on her sleeve and leaned against Sean, who patted her shoulder, looking grim. Marco bowed his head, lips moving in a silent prayer.

The air within the printing plant grew heavy. Loss after loss surrounded us, so that the space seemed to thicken with their ghosts. We remembered our loved ones—those we weren’t strong enough to name. We remembered why we were fighting back.

I missed my mother so much it hurt.

My gaze found Tucker’s across the circle. His shoulders were heaving, like he’d just run a mile, and all I knew in that moment was that I didn’t want to know what he was thinking. Anticipating the taste with a cringe, I brought the cup to my lips.

“Wait,” said Tucker. “While we’re on it. To … to the people we … the person I…” His head rolled back and he looked up, of all places, for inspiration.

I lowered the cup. A clock from the office ticked by each second.

“Tucker,” Chase warned. “Don’t.”

My whole body tensed in anticipation. Tucker stole a quick breath and met my gaze.

“I’m sorry, Ember.”

The peace and power of the moment shattered, and I was horrified.
How dare you
. That was all I could think.
How dare you
.

“You’re sorry,” I repeated. I saw him, only him, as a haze of red blocked the others out.

In one quick motion he downed the shot, hissing at the sting. I hadn’t realized I’d dropped mine until Billy bent down to pick up the cup.

“Ember.” I shook Chase’s hand off my shoulder. I was closer to Tucker now, though I hadn’t even felt my feet move.

“You want to
apologize
?”

I couldn’t have heard him right. He was incapable of remorse.
I’m a good soldier,
he told me after he’d admitted his crime.
I did what needed to be done.

Tucker stepped back, tapped the empty cup against his leg. His cheeks were flushed.

“You want to drink to her, Tucker? Is that what you were thinking?”

“Easy, girl,” said Cara.

“Say her name,” I demanded. “If you’re so sorry.”

He didn’t.

“You don’t even know it, do you? You don’t even know her name.”

I pushed him hard, and he staggered into the bumper of the truck. I wanted to kill him with my bare hands.

“That’s enough.” Chase was between us now, trying to block me from Tucker.

“Her name was
Lori Whittman
!” I shouted. “That was her name! That was my mother’s name!”

I saw Tucker’s face, sallow and shocked, for one instant before Chase caught me around the waist and hoisted me over his shoulder.

“Let go of me!”

“Cool off,” he said.

I kicked him and punched his back and only when my teeth sunk into his shoulder did he toss me down. We were in the storage room, surrounded by weak metal shelves holding tool boxes and printer paper and boxes of ink. He wheeled around and slammed the door shut.

“If you value your life at all, you’d better turn right back around,” I hissed, fists clenched.

“I’m not leaving.” To make his point, he placed both hands on the shelves on either side of the door. He’d taught me to always keep my exits open, and here he was, blocking them off.

A noise snuck up my throat, halfway between a groan and a growl. I paced around the tight circle, keeping out of reach, so furious at Tucker, at Cara, at
everything,
I couldn’t even speak.