Breaking Point

  “Look.” Billy pointed to the neatly painted sign on the back wall of what appeared to be a printing factory of some kind. One Whole Family.

  Resistance.

  CHAPTER

  11

  “THEY’RE the good guys,” assured Sean.

  Slowly, Chase brought the gun down. He and Tucker jumped to the concrete floor and did a quick search before the rest of us followed.

  “Welcome to Greeneville,” said the man with dark skin. “Or what’s left of it anyway. I’m Marco, and this is my esteemed colleague, Polo.”

  I scoffed, noticing that their name badges had been removed.

  Some of the boys at the Wayland Inn had talked about Greeneville. As with most of the smaller U.S. cities, the town’s population had dwindled during the War—no jobs. People had forsaken their homes for the larger cities where they could at least access resources like soup kitchens.

  As I looked around I found my earlier assessment had been correct. We’d been brought in through the loading docks to a factory floor, where several monstrous silver machines waited, dormant. A black rubber belt stuck out like a tongue from a gaping hole in the machine on the left, and upon it at even intervals rested neat stacks of paper, waiting to be loaded into various sized boxes near where we’d parked.

  “The lovely Sister has informed us that y’all are taking the Tubman express to the safe house,” said Polo. “Feel free to use the amenities, grab a delightful Horizons bottled water, and make yourself at home.”

  “Such hosts.” Cara winked at Marco as she slid by them into a small office where the water was located. Polo whistled, an appreciative gaze trailing after her.

  “How long until the carrier returns?” asked Chase.

  Marco’s shoulders fell. “They’re in such a hurry to leave, Polo.”

  Polo nodded somberly. “Is it me? Am I unlikeable, Marco?”

  “You do smell a bit…”

  “Later today?” Chase pressed.

  “Oh no.” Marco shook his head. “He was just through. Tomorrow morning at the earliest. Besides, you can’t make it across the Red Zone border before curfew. Such an attempt would mean certain death.”

  “So dramatic,” chided Polo.

  Chase and I shared a glance; we’d tried to cross into a Red Zone once, and nearly been arrested. If not for Chase’s smooth talking, we might not have made it through.

  I stepped closer to the black belt, leaning over the nearest stack of papers.

  “Look,” I whispered to Chase. Statute Circulars. We had come to an MM Statute Printing Plant. I thought of all the times I’d seen them—at school, on the windows of businesses, even on my own front door when my mother and I had been arrested. I wondered if they’d all come from here.

  “We’re spending the night?” Tucker asked with a sigh.

  “I can try to find you a pillow,” offered Marco.

  “I’m not staying the night,” said Sean. “I’m taking the truck to Chicago.”

  “We’re taking the truck to Chicago,” I corrected.

  A small grin fought its way through his exhaustion. His face was paler than usual, and his eyes were bloodshot. When he turned to the side, I could see the copper streaks that had soaked through the back of his uniform—he hadn’t yet attended to his burns from the fire. Feeling the weight of Chase’s stare, I climbed back into the truck and searched for the first-aid kit.

  “Wrong,” sang Polo. “You won’t make Chicago before nightfall and Horizons drivers have to obey the curfew. Only soldiers can go out after dark.” He popped his collar importantly.

  Sean blinked, obviously having forgotten this information. He sighed in frustration. I found the first-aid kit behind one of the boxes and sat on the bumper, motioning for him to sit beside me.

  “Since we’re all sharing,” said Cara, returning from the office with several plastic bottles cradled in her arms, “I’m cutting out. I’ve got family in town. My cousin lives here.”

  My brows knitted together. I’d never heard she had family here, but then, I didn’t know she had family anywhere—we’d never talked about that. I worried the circular medallion around my neck, feeling the smooth, puckered flesh beneath it had seared into my skin. It stung fiercely, and reminded me of how she’d disappeared from the Wayland Inn during the fire, how she and Tubman had separated sometime after they’d left with the truck full of refugees. Like Tucker, I had a grim feeling she wasn’t telling us everything.

  She passed me a bottle of water, which I guzzled, spilling streams of it down my chin. I wasn’t sure anything had ever tasted so good. The others followed Marco and Polo, who announced that there was food in their office.

  Sean had a hard time removing his arms from the Horizons uniform, so I helped, cringing when the fabric stuck to his back. He sat bolt upright, the heat wafting off his skin.

  “I can clean it, but we don’t have a big enough bandage,” I said, fighting the nausea. An angry red welt spanned from his shoulder to the opposite side of his waist, surrounded by smaller cuts and burns. Some of the skin had already been sloughed away when he’d removed his shirt.

  “It looks like something fell on you.” I could still feel the burst of flames when the ceiling had nearly toppled on my head.

  “Honestly I don’t remember. I guess that’s probably better.” With effort that had nothing to do with physical pain, he twisted so that he could look into my face.

  “I never should have let you guys leave without me,” he said.

  Gently, I cleaned his back with a damp rag. The black film wiped away, making his injuries less monstrous. I couldn’t help but think about how Chase’s shoulders were wider, how he, too, had a scar, one I didn’t know the origin of, that looked like the swipe of a giant set of claws from the side of his ribs to his spine.

  “I know why you did.” Tucker had information on Rebecca—at least that was what Sean thought. If I’d thought someone had information on Chase, I would have stayed, too.

  Sean looked through the glass office window at my mother’s killer. “Can I trust him?”

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

  “I don’t know,” I said finally, apologizing when he winced.

  Chase came up beside us. His gaze flickered to mine, just for a moment, but I concentrated on the task. “Hell of a burn,” he commented.

  “Thanks,” Sean said tightly. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  Chase stood silently for some time, watching me work, and I chewed my lip, remembering how stupid I’d been to kiss him in the truck.

  Finally he said, “We should change the plates on the truck first thing tomorrow.”

  I smiled as he walked away.

  * * *

  “WHOA.” Billy’s voice came from within the office, just as I was helping Sean back into his shirt. “They hooked you up! I had to build a machine out of spare parts and cruiser panels to access the mainframe.”

  As I approached, I saw the source of Billy’s fascination: a computer, scanning equipment, and a printer atop a wooden desk. A shoulder-high gun safe was in the back corner, beneath a flat window revealing the bright blue afternoon sky. I shied away from the open area instinctively.

  “Only the best for the FBR,” said Marco. Several people chuckled. It took a few seconds to realize he wasn’t joking.

  “Don’t freak out.” Cara smirked. “They’re still on the payroll.”

  “Soldiers and resistance?” I clarified.

  “Article Nine, at your service,” said Polo, referencing the new Statute that would punish rebels to the full extent of the law.

  “Turncoats,” grumbled Tucker. He snorted when every eye shot to him, and raised his hands in surrender. “Tough crowd. Not like any of us are any better.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  Sean laughed uncomfortably from the doorway. Obviously Tucker had told him nothing of why we hated each other.

  “It was a joke,” he said. “A bad one.”

  Was it just
a joke? Directing Tucker to the largest safe house on the Eastern Seaboard felt like pulling the pin out of a grenade and throwing it into a playground. I felt a wave of responsibility that I should somehow stop him, but how could I, after he’d saved Sean and me in the fire?

  Marco was eyeing me curiously. “You look familiar,” he said, taking a seat behind the desk.

  “A lot of people say that.” I twisted the gold band around my ring finger.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” said Marco. “Hey, Polo, come look at this.” Needing to see exactly what they did, I skirted around the desk for a better look at the screen.

  It was my picture from the reformatory that had been posted around the Square. My eyes were red and swollen from crying after the arrest, and my hair was a natural brown and long past my shoulders. I still had stretches in my school uniform from where Beth had tried to pull me away from the soldiers. I read the caption just below it, but it didn’t scare me as it had before. I guess the shock had worn off.

  Ember Miller, it said. ARTICLE 5. Wanted in association with Region Two-fifteen sniper murders. My stats and charges were listed below.

  “I figured they’d already closed your case,” said Polo conversationally.

  “Oh, don’t play coy,” said Marco, big eyes bugging at me. “If I print out your photo, will you give me your autograph?”

  I couldn’t help but laugh at how genuinely awestruck he sounded.

  “Make sure you sign it Love, Sniper,” said Cara. The chill in her tone melted my smile.

  “She’s not the sniper,” Chase insisted. “She doesn’t know the sniper. She’s being framed.”

  He was right to put a stop to it; I’d seen what happened to the people who gave the MM information about me and it was no laughing matter.

  “Told you,” said Polo, resigned. He shoved Marco’s shoulder. “You know, I met him once,” he added.

  “Here we go,” groaned Marco.

  “What?” Polo looked injured.

  “He met this guy in Chicago like, ten years ago who said the way to break down the FBR was to go to a public place and take out one soldier at a time,” explained Marco. “As if no one’s ever had that idea before.”

  “It was like … four … or five years ago,” Polo pointed out. “And anyway, he was tough. He’d fought overseas, before the War. He showed up at the FBR enlistment office in old army fatigues, spouting all this stuff about how President Scarboro and his Restart America buddies were behind the attacks.”

  “What?” I stole another bottle of water. “Insurgents were behind the attacks.” I’d memorized the word from the news reports we’d watched in my living room, but it wasn’t until high school that I learned what it actually meant.

  The people who had bombed the major cities weren’t terrorists from a foreign land, though many suspected that’s where they’d gotten their support. They were American citizens. They were born and raised in our towns, in our schools, and held jobs that weren’t particularly special.

  But they were poor, even though they were educated, and even though they worked. They lived like my mother and I did, paycheck to paycheck, and when the money wasn’t coming in, on what assistance they could find. One of the Insurgents was the manager of a restaurant—a normal looking guy with a receding hairline—and when he gave his statement before execution he said that he was tired of sleeping in the back of the kitchen, feeding his kids rich people’s scraps. He just wanted to level the playing field.

  My mother told me once that the world was like her favorite singer, an overly busty blonde with a tiny waist. It was just a matter of time before her middle was stretched too thin and she broke in half.

  And that’s what the Insurgents had done. They’d broken the world in half. They’d hit every major city on the coasts, and some of the big ones in the middle, too—like Chicago and Dallas—and when it was done, nobody was rich, and nobody trusted anyone.

  That was when Scarboro became president. Maybe before people thought his rigid stance on government control was a joke, but they didn’t anymore. It wasn’t two months after he’d taken office that the military branches—what were left of them—were relieved of duty, and the Reformation Act came into effect. It was said that Reinhardt, the man he’d named the Chief of Reformation—the man who had nearly been assassinated while we’d been in Knoxville—was responsible for the changes, including the creation of the Moral Statutes.

  Polo leaned forward, rubbing his hands together. “Yes, but how did the Insurgents get their bombs?”

  “Same way we get our guns,” said Sean, although he didn’t sound so sure. “They stole them. Or bought them on the underground.”

  “That’s a lot of firepower,” said Polo, conspiracy brightening his eyes. “I’m not saying it’s true, but this guy—he had a point. Scarboro and his pal Reinhardt were backed by Restart, and Restart had money. Tons of money. Lots of people believed in their cause, too—getting rid of the division between religion and the government, bringing back those old-fashioned values. Think about it. He sets up the crash, then swoops in to save the day.”

  “Ridiculous,” said Tucker dismissively.

  Polo laughed. “The Insurgents effectively brought down our nation. I’ve yet to see Three make that kind of stand.”

  “What do you know about Three?” I asked.

  “What does anyone know about Three?” Cara said cynically.

  “Heard they operate out of the safe house.” Polo winked at me. “Sure you don’t want to wait for Tubman?”

  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.