Breaking Point

marking the entrance of Tent City, just as Sean had said. A CLOSED sign hung low enough to have been spat upon multiple times.

We followed the length of the bus to a large Dumpster, overflowing with the last bits of trash that people couldn’t use for shelter or warmth: broken glass, damp paper, and food too long gone to provide any nutrition. It smelled rank, like mold and vomit. My nose scrunched up involuntarily.

Hidden in a nook between the bus, the building, and the trash was the rendezvous point, and a quick scan told me that we were the first to arrive.

“Sean should be here by now.” My heels tapped impatiently. Chase’s gaze darkened, and I followed it to the bus window where five printouts had been posted.

John Naser, aka John Wright. Robert Firth. Dr. Aiden Dewitt. Patel Cho.

Ember Miller. And there below my picture, in bold letters: ARTICLE 5.

A tightness stole my breath, like a fist squeezing my lungs. It was one thing to know this picture existed. It was another to see it for myself. Part of me wanted to tear it down, to burn it, but I couldn’t, because that was the whole reason we were here.

Movement at the end of the bus snapped me back into the present. Chase and I spun toward the sound, expecting the rest of the team.

“S-sister?” a small female voice squeaked.

It was a small, lumpy woman, no more than twenty, with a face as pale and cratered as the surface of the moon. Her eyes were round, and her hands latched in place over her mouth. My insides knotted when I recognized her navy uniform matched my own.

We’d wanted a couple people to see us, but not those employed by the MM.

Chase’s hand rested on his gun. He glanced behind her for soldiers. The Sister’s gaze lifted from me, to him, and back to me. She knows our faces, I thought, but then remembered that she’d called me Sister. She hadn’t studied our mug shots. I nearly laughed as I realized what she must be thinking: a FBR soldier and a Sister of Salvation, sneaking off to a deserted area. Not. Good.

There was no time to strategize. We had to act before she did. Sean was minutes behind us, and if this Sister called her friends, we’d have only moments before the soldiers arrived.

With only a fleeting look at Chase, I rushed toward her, taking care to let my shaggy black hair fall over the side of my face.

“Are you g-going to the soup kitchen?” she stammered.

“Yes,” I said, trying to sound relieved. “I was just on my way.” I thought if I told her to meet me there my intentions to ditch her might be too obvious.

“Are you all right?” she whispered, grasping my elbow. Sean was right—the Sisters here were different than at the reformatory. They were afraid.

“I am now, thanks to you!” I fisted my left hand so she couldn’t see the thin gold band on my ring finger. There was a lesser chance of getting cited for an inappropriate relationship if people thought Chase and I were married, but Sisters were only Sisters because they weren’t fortunate—or compliant— enough to be wives. How could I have missed this detail? Covertly, I switched the ring to my right hand.

I could lose her in the Square, I thought. Distract her in the crowd. Though I’d been around Sisters at reform school, I’d never worked as one, and didn’t know the ropes. If she tried to do a secret handshake or something, I’d be busted.

“Where’d he go?” she asked, frightened. “He was so big!”

I looked behind us, feeling my stomach lurch when I didn’t see him either. Where had he gone?

When we reached the brick paddock, we ran into three of her friends, already doubling back for their lost companion. The masses congregated at the far end, where the Sisters had been heading to assist with breakfast.

“Peace be with you,” a wide-eyed blonde said to me. The apples of her cheeks were pink from the wind.

I smiled demurely, feeling my hairline dew with perspiration.

“And also with you,” came the canned response from my captor. Immediately, I parroted the phrase.

The crowds were still too sparse here for me to disappear, but if we got too much closer to the pack, Chase was not going to be able to find me. I was already kicking myself for separating. We would each be more vulnerable left out in the open alone.

We can rendezvous at the Wayland Inn, I reminded myself. I hoped we’d get there. Soldiers crawled all over the place. Wallace had said there’d be more here since the attack the other day, but that didn’t calm my nerves. I was glad now for the cover these Sisters provided.

The smell of unwashed human bodies thickened as we drew toward the rations lines, overriding the burned oatmeal in the air. People watched us hungrily, and in self-defense I hung my head and kept close to the other girls.

The next time I looked up was to catch myself before running into a soldier.

My heart tripped hard in my chest. A squeak came out of my throat as he bumped my shoulder. I stumbled to the side.

“Watch it,” he said. He didn’t even glance my way. An unexpected rage slashed through me. I didn’t want another soldier pushing me around as long as I lived.

Seconds later a woman screamed, her voice feral and high, clawing at the base of my brain. The soldier, still beside me, jerked his head up like a fox, sniffing the air, and then he unhooked the gun from his belt and raised it toward the sky.

“He’s been shot!” I heard a man in the direction of the soup kitchen shout. But the soldier at my side had not yet fired. He was talking about someone else.

More voices joined his.

“Sniper!” they cried. “Sniper!”

CHAPTER 5

I JOLTED back, slamming into someone behind me, then was shoved back into the Sister who’d dragged me out here. Her broad cheeks had turned a dark shade of pink.

“Oh no,” she was repeating. “Oh no oh no oh no.”

I heard the shot this time, a loud crack that resounded through the air and ricocheted off the buildings. The soldier that I’d nearly run into was nowhere to be seen.

Code seven, Chase had said when the sniper had struck before. A civilian attack on a soldier. During a code seven all FBR units had been permitted to return fire.

“Get down!” I shouted, remembering what Houston and Lincoln had said about the civilians being forced to lay on the bricks. If they rioted now, the MM would kill them.

Two men near me ducked, only to be trampled by the crowd. A crack of bone, a blunted cry. Horror turned my stomach. The Sisters bolted, scurrying away like mice. I kept low, scanning furiously for Chase, searching for his hard features, his copper skin, his serious eyes, but every face was a blur.

Another shot, this time followed by a chorus of shrieks. Ahead, near what had been the front of the lines, came a loud clang, and through a sudden window between bodies I saw that the giant black cauldron of oatmeal had been knocked to the ground. Half a dozen men and women fell to their knees, scooping the dirty mush into their mouths and their cupped shirts.

Someone called for a Sister—for me—but I was already taken by the stampede, and had to hold onto the back of a woman’s jacket just to stay upright. We were going backward, toward the entrance to the Square. The bricks had become slick with the light rain, and I slipped. A hand gripped my forearm, wrenching me sideways, where I banged into someone and nearly fell again.

The navy jacket nearly burst the panic swelling inside of me, but when Chase turned around, I almost sobbed with relief. He blocked the others with his body, holding me tight against his chest as he carved a path toward the