Three

  “How does this story end?” I asked.

  He glanced down, then reached for my forearm to help pull me to a stand. He reached into his pocket and withdrew something small, hidden in his fist. He locked it into the palm of my hand and closed my fingers around it, squeezing tightly.

  Small and round. A perfect circle, never ending.

  “It ends with our someday,” he said.

  I blinked rapidly, stuffing the tears back down, and touched his face. He turned his cheek into my hand and kissed my thumb, and then he removed my necklace and placed the ring on the chain beside the Saint Michael pendant.

  Someday, I thought. When we were so far outside this fence we wouldn’t even bother looking back.

  “Someday,” I promised. His arms surrounded my waist, and we kissed in the silence, with only the floodlights high atop the chain-link fence to bear witness.

  * * *

  BY the time we returned inside, several of the refugees were loading the hijacked Statutes into boxes under Marco and Polo’s direction. I went to join them but was stopped by raised voices outside the office. Chase and I hurried over, finding Jesse and Billy arguing.

  “It’s less than half a day away!” Billy shouted. “Half of Endurance is going there any—”

  “Enough,” barked Jesse. He leaned over Billy, casting a wide shadow over him, and lowered his voice. “You could no more easily break into the Charlotte prison than break out of it. The place is impenetrable. Trust me.”

  If I didn’t know better, I would say that Jesse had tried.

  “What’s going on?” Chase asked.

  “Last week there was a prisoner transfer to the Charlotte base. Some from Virginia, a few from up north. One from Knoxville.” Billy stared into my eyes, willing me to understand. “All of them were flagged as high priority and marked for completion.”

  The chill of their impending deaths shivered through me.

  “Did it say their names?” asked Chase.

  “No,” answered Jesse for him.

  “It’s Wallace,” said Billy. “Who else from Knoxville would they keep alive this long?”

  A glimmer of black hope lit inside of me. A man with shoulder-length hair, peppered around the temples, and a sharp, twisting tattoo climbing his wrist came into view.

  You figure out what matters, he’d told me once. And you do something about it.

  “Wallace,” repeated Jesse. “Franklin Wallace from the Knoxville post.”

  “Who’d you think I was talking about?” shot Billy.

  Jesse wove his fingers behind his head and turned his gaze toward the ceiling.

  “You knew him?” Chase asked.

  For several seconds Jesse was silent, but his shoulders had begun to sag and it was obvious there was more than just recognition at play.

  “I’ve heard of him,” he said. “A good man.”

  “Which is why we’ve got to get him out before they kill him,” said Billy.

  “We don’t even know he’s alive,” I said gently.

  “Let’s say he is,” said Jesse. “Would he leave the others behind? Could he walk away knowing others had been sentenced to die?”

  Now I was certain that Jesse knew Wallace. There was no way Wallace would leave his brothers—family had always been what he’d preached at the Wayland Inn. But Jesse’s words reminded me of being trapped in the Knoxville holding cells, and all the men I’d left behind to save Chase and myself.

  “He would for me,” said Billy obstinately.

  Jesse scoffed. “Then he’s not worth saving.”

  Beside me, Chase’s posture grew rigid. He stared at Jesse as if waiting for him to say something more, but Jesse met his gaze evenly and added nothing.

  “We can’t take these people with us,” I said. “And we can’t leave them here.” Billy looked as if I’d betrayed him.

  “We’re wasting time!” he pleaded.

  Jesse was right; this was a mission that required planning. I’d heard of the Charlotte prison during my time in the Knoxville holding cells—it would be no easy feat to break into. Even with Three’s forces gathering outside the gates, there were no guarantees we could save anybody without getting caught in the crossfire.

  “Three will save the prisoners,” I said, hoping it was true.

  A commotion from the main floor distracted us from the conversation. The refugees were charging away from the back exit.

  “Hurry!” shouted Marco.

  Polo ushered them through the supply room door where one by one they disappeared.

  Chase and Jesse ran onto the floor, weapons drawn. I caught sight of the girl—Kaylee—the last in line to reach the room. She glanced back over her shoulder, eyes wide, as the garage door at the back of the loading dock began to rise.

  “Hide,” whispered Marco.

  I dove beneath the nearest printing press, feeling the heat radiating off it in waves. Across the floor, Chase crammed behind a tall stack of boxes near the emergency exit. Jesse followed Kaylee into the supply room and rammed the door closed just as the garage lifted fully.

  The noise of the machines clanged into sudden silence, replaced by the growl of the delivery truck as it backed into place beside the parked car we had brought. From my viewpoint, I could see the glossy black boots of a soldier emerge from the passenger side of the cab and step to the ground.

  The boxes of hijacked Statutes waited at the edge of the loading dock, boxed and ready, though there were still stacks that were unpackaged sitting on the black belt above me.

  I held my breath until my lungs burned, knowing I could not make a sound.

  “Kind of late for a delivery,” I heard Polo say.

  Another man—the driver—came around the hood of the car to join the first. I could only see four pairs of boots and their pants from the knees down.

  “We’re on doubles, they didn’t tell you?” The new soldier yawned loudly for effect.

  “Always the last to know,” said Marco.

  “Chief’s throwing a party on account of all those rat nests we took out last week,” said the driver. “Everyone in the region’s been invited. Didn’t you get leave approved from command?”

  “Oh, that party,” said Polo. “We get invited to so many…”

  “We’ll be there,” said Marco. “Um … where exactly was it again?”

  “Charlotte,” said the driver. The second laughed, obviously realizing Marco and Polo had not received an invitation. “That’s our last stop on this run.”

  “Charlotte?” asked Polo. “Why are you taking Statutes to the base?”

  My stomach twisted.

  “We’re not,” said the passenger. “We’re half full with booze for the party. We’ll drop these off at the distribution center in Asheville then head over to the base. Trying to get our run in before the bender.” He snickered.

  “In that case let’s get you loaded so you can get out of here,” said Marco.

  The back of the truck was opened.

  “You got company?” asked the passenger.

  “No,” said Polo quickly. “Why?”

  “The other truck.”

  “Down for repairs,” Marco explained. “Transmission went out on the road and they towed it here. Said they’d pick it up last week, but…”

  “Huh,” said the driver. “Thought maybe it was your rebels again.” The other soldier laughed as they began throwing boxes haphazardly into the back.

  “What rebels?” Polo’s voice had dropped. I glanced to the side, catching Chase’s dark gaze just for a moment before looking back to the truck.

  “Your cruiser,” said the driver. “Everyone heard how someone stole it from the lot.”

  We’d taken it—Chase, Sean, and I—to get back to Louisville the last time we were here. Marco and Polo had reported the car stolen when we didn’t return.

  “Can’t even keep your hands on a two-ton piece of metal,” jibed the passenger.

  “Everyone knows?” said Polo. “Well, that??
?s embarrassing.”

  “Probably why you missed your invite to the party,” said the driver.

  Marco and Polo laughed weakly.

  They exchanged a few more words as they loaded the back of the truck with the hijacked Statutes. I felt sick. If they looked at what they were doing—if they stopped for one second to actually read what they were packing up—we were all dead.

  But they didn’t. It was business as usual, and soon they were slamming the door closed and saying their good-byes.

  I could hardly believe it; we were going to get out of this. But just as my muscles began to release, one last pair of boots went sprinting silently for the back of the truck. The door was rolled up, just a few inches, enough for a flash of navy blue to roll over the tailgate into the main compartment.

  “No!” I whispered. My fingers dug into the cool cement floor.

  By the time the soldier had returned with the key to lock the back, the gate was in place, as if it had not been moved. The two soldiers continued their routine, said their good-byes, and started the truck. A minute later they pulled out of the loading dock into the night, taking Billy with them.

  * * *

  “WE can’t leave him!” I argued to a stone-faced Jesse.

  “We didn’t leave him anywhere,” he said. “He made his decision, now he’s got to play it out.”

  Chase swore quietly.

  “You heard what the soldier said,” Jesse added. “They’re on doubles. How long before another truck comes through here?”

  “You’ve got to get them out,” interrupted Marco, coming toward us from the supply room where Polo was still trying to calm the refugees. “We’ve got one scheduled visit a week on the night shift. Now who knows when they’ll be dropping in. If we don’t get these people out of here, we’re closing up shop. I mean it.” The fear thinned his voice until it almost broke.

  They were right. All we could do for Billy now was hope Three’s army would be able to help him in Charlotte. If he was caught, he was as good as dead.

  “Then let’s get out of here already,” I said grimly.

  CHAPTER

  16

  THIS time I rode in the front of the truck, seated on a folded blanket in the narrow space behind Chase’s seat. There was no longer enough room in the back; the space was packed with the twenty-one refugees and boxes of hijacked Statute circulars that we would use to show the resistance posts once we found them. The thousands of flyers running through Marco and Polo’s printing press would be taken and distributed by the MM. At least until someone in a blue uniform actually read them.

  I hoped Marco and Polo had a good exit strategy before the MM figured out what they’d done.

  Night shifted to dawn. The gears of the truck grinding loudly beneath the sticky floor mats were not enough to stave off thoughts of Billy on his way to the prison base, or Sean and Jack in search of Tucker. I didn’t like us all being split up like this, not knowing when, or even if, we would see each other again.

  I reached between the passenger seat and the door until I found Chase’s hip. His hand closed around mine and squeezed. It was enough to say he was thinking the same.

  We stopped twice during the day to give everyone a break. Once at an old rest stop off the highway with wooden benches under gazebos, and posters featuring information about the over one hundred species of trees found in the Great Smoky Mountains. The second right off a deserted road, where the smell of moss and damp leaves was so thick you could taste the earthiness on your tongue.

  Our drive became increasingly more difficult in the delivery truck. We had to slow in the afternoon on account of all the fallen branches and debris in our path. Chase and I took to walking ahead, clearing the road by hand as we climbed the curvy incline.

  “I sure hope he knows where he’s going,” I said between breaths, the sweat running down my face. I’d tied the heavy skirt around my thighs and caught Chase looking, not for the first time since I’d done so.

  “Jesse never lies,” answered Chase, returning to the task. “He may not always tell the whole story, but the parts he does tell are true.”

  “Kind of the same as lying,” I muttered, thinking of the prisoner at the cemetery.

  Chase gave a half smile, then pointed ahead to where a dirt road forked into our path. A closer inspection revealed tire tracks in the mud that hadn’t yet been washed away by rain.

  It looked like Jesse was right after all.

  * * *

  IT was late afternoon as we clunked along through the low clouds into the mist. My pity for those stuck in the back was about to get the better of me when Jesse hit a sharp bump, and the truck began to rock unsteadily. I gripped the seat in front of me for support and felt the air hiss from my lungs just as it began to hiss from the front tire.

  “Damn,” said Jesse. He opened the door.

  There was a movement in the trees behind him, a flash of gray in the bright emerald hues. It could have been nothing, but the tingling in my hands told me differently.

  “Ten o’clock,” said Chase. And then a moment later. “Another at two o’clock.”

  I forced my breath to steady. Soldiers would have set up a road block, but there were other things that lurked off the map—the Lost Boys on the coast had proven that.

  “Leave your weapons on the dash,” instructed Jesse. “Everything you’ve got.”

  The metal gun clattered against the plastic partition as Chase did as he was told. He reached into his boot and removed a knife. I had a gun, too, one I’d placed beneath the seat in front of me and hadn’t realized I’d reached for. I leaned between the front seats and put it beside Chase’s, hoping Jesse knew what he was doing.

  Jesse stepped slowly out of the cab, hands raised.

  “We aren’t here to stir trouble,” he said. His uniform jacket was still in the car, and his undershirt, damp with sweat, stuck to the caramel skin of his back in a V shape. “There are two more in the cab, and a whole mess in the back.”

  A beat of silence, and then four figures, two on each side, emerged from the woods. They were armed with rifles and wearing tattered old-school military fatigues, camouflaged with browns and greens and gray. Their faces were painted in the same colors, making it hard, but not impossible to distinguish that the two on my right were women. I jumped as the back door slid open. There were more of them, now verifying Jesse’s claim.

  The closest man walked up to Jesse and patted him down. When it was clear he was unarmed, he withdrew, the whites of his eyes standing out in sharp contrast to his dark face paint.

  Jesse saluted him, the way I’d once seen the army soldiers do during the national anthem at a minor league baseball game I’d gone to with Chase’s family. With his chest puffed out and his shoulders thrown back he looked like a different man.

  “Sergeant Major Waite,” said Jesse. “I was with the thirty-first cavalry division in Operation Unchained.”

  Chase had said that Jesse had served in the army before the War—I remembered a photo that had hung in the hallway of his home when we’d been little: Jesse—much younger, though just as serious—in a dress uniform seated before the American flag.

  The man before him hesitated, then released his weapon to its shoulder strap, and returned the salute.

  “Lance Corporal Blackstone,” he answered. A smile split his face, revealing white teeth. “U.S. Marines.” Jesse gave a short groan as if this were funny.

  Captain Blackstone lifted a radio from his belt and stepped away from the truck. The others didn’t move. I found myself watching the women—one had spiked hair, the other a slicked-back ponytail. In uniform they looked absolutely fierce.

  Not more than a few minutes passed before a Jeep came careening down the road and slammed to a stop before us. A man in his mid-forties with a black goatee grabbed the overhead bar and swung out, shoved past Lance Corporal Blackstone, and came toe to toe with Jesse. He was easily six inches shorter and swimming in his faded red sweatshirt.

&
nbsp; “No,” he said emphatically. “Not this one. Not after last time.”

  “Uh-oh,” I whispered. Chase stepped out of the cab but was yarded by the two women. I scrambled out over the seat to get outside.

  “Max,” said Jesse between his teeth. “Nice to see you.”

  “Don’t get smart, Waite,” said Max. “Thought we made it clear you were done here.”

  Jesse’s shoulders slouched as his hands came to rest in his pockets. “Is that what we said?”

  “Go,” barked Max. “Turn this rig around.”

  “Not a lot of room…”

  “Then back it down the hill,” said Max clearly. “Blackstone? Help Sergeant Waite—”

  “And my tire’s blown out. Don’t know if you saw that.”

  I looked down, now noticing the strip of nails half-buried beneath the dirt.

  “We’ll get that fixed right up for you,” said Max, his grin as genuine as an MM officer’s.

  “Sir,” said Chase. “I don’t know what he’s done—I’m sure it wasn’t good—but we’ve got twenty people in the back in need of refuge.”

  Max turned, as if noticing us for the first time.

  “And you are?” he asked.

  Chase stood tall, but didn’t salute as Jesse had.

  “Chase Jennings,” he said.

  “Careful,” said Jesse. “He might bite. He is related to me after all.”

  “Ember Miller,” I said, giving Jesse a look.

  Max scoffed. “Of course you are.”

  “Sir,” came a voice from behind the truck. Another man in fatigues came around the compartment, followed first by Kaylee, pale and drenched with sweat, and then half a dozen others.

  “We come in peace,” said Jesse, half-kidding.

  Max turned back, laughing suddenly. An instant later the sound silenced, replaced by a sneer.

  “Perfect,” he said, muttering something else unintelligible as his skin turned blotchy red. He stalked back to the Jeep, the engine still thrumming.

  “Blackstone, clear the truck and take these people up the hill.” He hit the gas hard, spraying us with mud as he spun the car and sped back up the mountain pass.

  An hour later we were searched, disarmed, and informed in no uncertain terms that we were not to tell another living soul what we found here. Their demands raised my curiosity, but as we walked into camp I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointment. This was not the sprawling campus of Endurance with its gardens and livestock. There were a few horses watching us with interest from a round pen beside a small stable, but otherwise the compound looked more like a quiet mountain resort. The single lane beside a river was lined with small log cabins, many of which had tendrils of smoke spiraling from their chimneys. There was no fortified wall, no team looking down their rifles at us from the trees. Still, it had an air of secrecy about it, like the whole place might disappear if you blinked too long. I wondered what was here that they were so intent on protecting.