Three

  “What happened?” Rebecca asked.

  “I don’t know.” I stood, intent to follow, but before I could, Rebecca shoved something into the palm of my hand. Two unmarked squares in blue plastic wrapping. The same that had been in the jar on the counter. The same that were practically contraband in the civilian population without a prescription because they were the gateway to immoral behavior—the kind reserved only for married couples.

  My face flooded with heat.

  “They’re condoms,” she said.

  “Rebecca, I know.” My mom had traded for some at the soup kitchen to give me before Chase had been drafted, but we’d never gotten that far. I shoved them into my pocket; the sharp corners of the plastic stuck through the fabric into my thigh.

  “They stole them from the FBR. Soldiers get them for free, you know. I figure you probably need them more than I do. For now, anyway.” She snickered, but it was cut short when she saw my face. “Oh. I thought … I mean, wow. Really?”

  “Shut up,” I said. “I’m leaving.”

  “Wait.” She snatched my hand and pulled me down beside her. “You’re awfully squirmy.”

  “I’ll see you later.”

  Her arms latched around my waist. “Stop it. I just want to say something real quick.”

  “Fine,” I mumbled.

  She took a deep breath, and I was reminded of the time my mom told me how babies are made. I didn’t want to have the conversation when I was twelve; I sure didn’t want to have it again now.

  “I don’t know a lot about this stuff, but from the sound of it I know more than you.” She blushed, which made me feel a little better. “And I guess I just want to say that it’s not bad like they said at the reformatory, not if you love the person. You’re not dirty or anything if you want to. Although, some of the other girls, they didn’t have someone like Sean their first time, and it was pretty bad for them.” She met my eyes. “Anyway, if you have any questions or anything, you can ask me, okay?”

  There were questions. Lots of questions. Questions I’d wondered about and questions I hadn’t even considered until right then. About what I was supposed to do, and how much it would hurt, and how you knew when it was the right time if you already knew you were in love. All things that didn’t really matter with everything else going on. I sighed, allowing her grip to turn into a hug. She was a good friend, and I was glad to have her back.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Thank you,” she replied. And I could see in her eyes that she meant for all of it: getting her out of the hospital and pushing her from town to town until we could finally come here.

  I smiled, then pushed all thoughts of condoms, and Chase naked, and me naked in front of Chase from my mind. There were more pressing issues to deal with.

  I walked evenly to the door so as not to scare her, but inside I was wary. Something urgent had pulled DeWitt away. Something bad.

  As soon as I was out the door, I ran into my guard. But this time I didn’t give him a chance to ask where I was headed. I raced back to the north wing, thoughts growing louder and louder in my mind.

  Tucker called. They’re in trouble. They’ve been hit again.

  There were more people inside the radio room than before. Hastily, I reached the doorway, just as DeWitt was leaving. We collided, his expression furious and frightening. I could see then how this man could kill soldiers if prompted.

  I glanced over his shoulder, eyes falling to the map on the far wall. It took only a moment to recognize that there was one more pin than yesterday—this one in Southern Ohio.

  Another post had fallen.

  “Wait—my friends,” I said as DeWitt charged by. He didn’t even notice me on his trek down the hall. The tech I’d sat beside earlier hunched over the radio, holding the round metal headphones to his ears as if the headband was useless. I tried to reach him but a guard shut the door in my face.

  Within me, something dark flexed its claws. Another post had fallen. More good people were dead. I hated the MM. I hated them so much I could barely breathe.

  I needed to find Chase. He needed to know what had happened. I couldn’t hold this news alone; it was eating me from the inside out. But when I turned around, there was the guard.

  “Going somewhere?” he asked.

  CHAPTER

  10

  BARRED from finding Chase until the soldiers were done with their training, I was assigned to the kitchen, where I spent the remainder of the afternoon in the sweltering cafeteria. The north wing had grown eerily quiet, like a calm before the storm, and no one else came or went. According to my guard, whose name I had learned was Rocklin, DeWitt had requested I stay nearby in case Tucker tried to make contact. I didn’t know where DeWitt himself had gone; after he’d left the north wing, I hadn’t seen him. But I did as Rocklin ordered because if any new developments arose, I wanted to be close enough to hear them.

  Panda, council member and kitchen commander, had tasked me to peel potatoes. By my guess there were probably about a thousand of them in the pile beside the stove. While I worked I watched him through my lashes. His head gleamed with perspiration, and his sleeves were rolled up to reveal names listed down his forearms. The muscles beneath flexed as he chopped cabbage.

  I’d thought DeWitt might order a council meeting to discuss what had happened, but Panda hadn’t been summoned. Each minute that passed wore down my patience. The questions replayed in my head over and over. If Tucker had been caught. If what remained of his team was being followed by the MM. If they were still on the mission, still trying to warn the other bases.

  If Tucker was dead.

  “What do your tattoos mean?” I asked Panda after I nicked my finger for the tenth time.

  Panda didn’t look up. “Will the answer help you peel potatoes?”

  I tossed a potato into the dismal completed pile and reached for another. White, starchy residue coated my skin up to the elbows.

  “They’re my reminder,” he said after a while. “I’m sure you’ve got your reasons for being here.”

  My chest constricted. There wasn’t enough skin to fit my mother’s name and those of all my friends lost at home, at the reformatory, in the resistance. I focused on peeling until Panda said it was time to serve dinner.

  * * *

  NIGHT came slowly, the color of the sky changing by the slightest degrees from red to purple to blue. I helped Will serve a hearty fish stew on the patio outside the cafeteria. He talked little once the fighters began to arrive through the curtain of trees. With his eyes as round as a puppy dog’s, it was easy to see he wanted to be with them. I wondered why he wasn’t—maybe that had been DeWitt’s decree.

  As I ladled the soup into bowls my thoughts drifted to my mother, of her days serving at the soup kitchen. It felt good to be doing something she’d done, even if half of that something was listening for gossip.

  While searching for Chase I found Billy. He’d returned with Jack and some of the other safe house survivors, but lagged behind, not joining their conversation. The awkward hacker I’d known at the Wayland Inn had all but disappeared, and in his place was someone older and distant who oozed anger from every pore. He barely acknowledged me as he came through the line, and admittedly I didn’t make much of an effort to draw him out. Even Sarah, who he’d seemed friendly with just yesterday, was ignored.

  I grew weary as the darkness descended. I still hadn’t seen Chase or his uncle, and DeWitt had yet to reappear. I listened to those who came through the line, but no one acknowledged their leader’s absence. Talk was mostly of the arrival of a new shipment of weapons that had been hijacked somewhere near the Red Zone border on the outskirts of South Carolina.

  Torches were lit around the cracked patio where the people of Endurance were finishing their meal. The tang of flames and earthy smell of wood made my nose crinkle as the smoke puffed into the night sky. I found Rebecca sitting with Sarah at one of the tables, and though I felt drawn to join them, my feet were leadin
g me in the opposite direction, back toward where Chase had gone this morning.

  “Where are you going?”

  I cringed as Sean approached, right arm hanging in a sling against his chest.

  “How’s your shoulder?” I muttered.

  He bit his lower lip, as if to hide a smirk. “It’s incredibly uncomfortable, thank you for asking. Remind me not to ever pick a real fight with your boyfriend.”

  I closed my eyes and sighed, imagining how that scene had played out.

  “I’ve got to go find Chase,” I said.

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “No.” I glanced back to Rebecca. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”

  Sean placed himself in front of me, dipping some bread into a bowl tucked in his sling and stirring it around.

  “They’re watching us,” he said. “That shifty kid that served the soup, he’s been following me all day.”

  My gaze drifted over the tables in search of Will, but I was unable to find him. Everyone was distracted by the meal; it was the perfect time to take a walk. But before I could a tall, shadowed figure cut through the crowd, searching through the sea of faces until his eyes landed on me. My breath did a little hitch in my throat as it always did at Chase’s slow smile, but automatically my gaze lowered. He wore the same hand-sewn outfit we all did, though I hadn’t noticed this morning that the pants stopped short around his calves, revealing a band of skin between his boots and the hem.

  I smirked, forgetting the rest of the world for a moment, and then covered my mouth with one hand.

  “I think it’s time you moved up to the big-boy pants,” said Sean as Chase approached. He was met with a dangerous glare.

  “Funny. That’s the first time I’ve heard that today.” Chase shook his head at me, then playfully pinched the ticklish spot on my side. “Not you, too.”

  “I think you look cute,” I said.

  “Cute,” he repeated, as if I’d just called him something really terrible. He leaned down and kissed me—the kind of kiss that made the world tilt on its axis—and I gripped his shirt so I didn’t fall over.

  “Right,” I heard Sean say somewhere beyond the rushing in my ears. “Thanks for making me a part of this.”

  Chase drew back slowly and I pulled away, unable to look directly at our friend. My lips still tingled. He seemed different today. Something about this place was changing him, maybe even healing him. He smiled more easily, and for the first time since Chicago I didn’t sense that thoughts of Harper were waiting to drag him under. He needed a purpose, and Endurance was giving him that.

  “You guys haven’t seen my uncle, have you?” Chase asked.

  I shook my head, thrust back into the present as quickly as I’d been flung out of it. At once I recalled everything that had happened while Chase and I had been apart. We needed to talk.

  “I thought he joined up with you,” said Sean.

  “He did.” Chase scratched the back of his head. “But he disappeared right after. Thought maybe he’d say good-bye first.” He chuckled dryly, but it was obvious he didn’t think the situation funny. I placed my hand in his and gave it a light squeeze.

  Rebecca joined us, frowning.

  “Something’s happened.” She nodded toward the concrete corner where Billy had staked his claim. A small group of people had gathered around them—mostly survivors, but others from Endurance as well.

  We headed toward them, joined by others as we passed the rest of the serving tables. Soon the music faded, and those that had been dancing joined the pack.

  Chase grabbed my hand and pulled me through to the front to where Jack sat on the bench of a picnic table, head in his hands. Billy was standing on the seat beside him adjusting the dials on an old radio he held against his chest.

  “What’s going on?” Chase asked.

  “They’ll play it again—it’s run on two different channels already,” said Billy, biting off the words. I remembered what the tech had said about boosting the signal with a tower and wondered for one alarming moment if Billy had connected with Tucker.

  He clicked a switch at the top of the radio, eliciting a loud screech that made the back of my jaw light up. A second later the crackle of static, magnified off the patio, gave way to a familiar woman’s voice.

  “… Reinhardt, who made his first public appearance this morning after surviving the attempt on his life in Region 414 last month, told reporters that measures have already been taken to crack down on domestic terrorism.”

  A short crackle came from the radio, and then another voice, this one male but softer, almost delicate, came through.

  “The president has deemed Reformation to be the highest priority of our country, and I for one will not rest until that goal is achieved. Those who oppose progress shall be dealt with quickly, and without mercy.”

  Beside me, Rebecca gasped.

  “The Chief of Reformation,” she said. “He visited the hospital in Chicago once.” Sean pulled her close under one arm.

  “The chief reported that the individual responsible for the handmade bomb, delivered to him in person at a fundraising dinner, is still at large, but that all available resources will be dedicated to bringing him and his associates to justice. To demonstrate his seriousness, Chancellor Reinhardt has signed execution orders on fourteen suspects thought to be in collaboration with the rebellion, and released the name of one Thomas “the Truck” Rhodes, a known terrorist out of Chicago, who was executed this morning at the Charlotte Prison.”

  “No,” I murmured. Part of me had accepted it would come to this, but had been denying it all the same. Hearing it out loud made it so much worse.

  Jack rose, red in the face, and shoved away through the crowd. One of the other survivors followed him. I wanted to as well, but my boots were stuck in place.

  I pictured the musclehead carrier with the missing tooth. I remembered how he’d fought us just to see which side we were on, and driven us and the other survivors from Chicago’s tunnel explosion to the coast. My name’s Truck, came a weak voice in the back of my mind, because I drive the truck.

  I looked at Chase, horrified. A muscle in his jaw ticked.

  The Chief of Reformation’s voice came on again.

  “Despite our efforts to rehabilitate, these terrorists are determined to bring our country to ruin. They admit to being directly responsible for the deaths of good, honest people in Tennessee, in Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, and Virginia. Though they don’t call themselves insurgents, make no mistake that they are terrorists, and before they can do the same damage as that of their predecessors, they will be stopped, expunged, as a demonstration of the power of Reformation. The safety of our people is too important to take any chances.”

  He was speaking to us. To Three. I could almost feel the MM’s cold watch slide over Endurance.

  The female reporter returned to the broadcast.

  “Citizens are, as always, encouraged to contact the FBR with information on any suspicious activity, and reminded that assisting the noncompliant is in direct violation of the Moral Statutes. With more to come on this story, I’m Felicity Bridewell.”

  The line went dead.

  I remembered where I’d heard her voice then: in a farmhouse in Virginia, where a couple had tried to turn us in as fugitives after she’d reported our flight. We’d barely escaped.

  Nice to hear she was still the MM’s mouthpiece.

  “Maybe Reinhardt’s bluffing,” said Sean, but we all knew he wasn’t. Truck was gone, and we didn’t know who would be next.

  “The chief’s a dead man,” said one of the fighters behind us.

  “How many times you going to say that?” asked another. “Not like we haven’t been trying.”

  At the Wayland Inn we’d heard a radio report that someone had nearly succeeded in assassinating the Chief of Reformation. We’d suspected Three’s involvement, little that we knew about them. We’d been right.

  “Shut it off.”

  We turned,
finding Dr. DeWitt, chin lifted, gaze cold. Those around him cleared a space, as if at any moment he might erupt, like he presumably had when he’d killed those soldiers before going on the run.

  “You shut it off.” Billy swung the radio at the doctor, but Chase, between them, snagged it from the air. He pressed the top button, and the red light above the speaker went dark.

  Truck was gone, not killed in an attack, but murdered by the FBR as a message to the resistance. Tucker could be next. A strange sense of numbness filled me as I considered the possibility of my mother’s killer dying in the same manner that she had.

  “Are you aware there are children around?” DeWitt said evenly.

  Billy scoffed and tossed back his hair. “I’d heard worse by the time I was their age.”

  “Then it was a shame there was no one there to protect you,” DeWitt said.

  Billy stuffed his hands in his pockets, glancing away. There had been someone who’d looked out for Billy—Wallace. And now he was gone.

  “What about the other thirteen?” said Chase, but we both knew that number meant nothing. The MM executed who they wanted, when they wanted. This was just the first time they chose to acknowledge it.

  “We’re dealing with it,” said DeWitt.

  “Doesn’t look like it,” muttered Billy. “If I hadn’t lifted this radio none of us would even know this was happening.”

  To my left, Sarah hugged a bowl of soup tightly to her chest. We’d been pretending everything was fine while Felicity Bridewell had been broadcasting Truck’s death across the country.

  “Billy could find them,” said Sean. “Get him on the mainframe. He can find anyone.”

  Billy puffed up.

  “They can’t access the mainframe here,” I said, remembering what the woman in the north wing had said. We were out of range. All we could infiltrate were the radio signals. Since the safe house’s destruction, we didn’t even have the reports of the surviving carriers.

  When DeWitt glanced at me, I remembered that no one from our party knew that Chase and I had been to the radio room and added, “I mean, that’s what I heard from someone.”