Breaking Point

though; if I were the sniper, I’d want all the help I could get. Maybe he’d even hear how I helped Sarah, and the people downstairs, and want to work together or something.

Which of course I’d politely decline, because he was obviously off his rocker.

“Oh. Hey. Sorry.”

I jumped straight back into the humiliation of reality, acutely aware of my ratty bra and cotton underwear. Some watch I had been keeping. I hadn’t even heard Chase climb the stairs until he was standing in the shadows, eight feet away.

If I’d been cold before, I wasn’t anymore; my skin was practically glowing with heat. I tried to pretend I didn’t care, that now that we’d finally slowed down I wasn’t remembering how he hadn’t wanted us to come on this mission, or how we’d been separated in the Square, but pretending made my movements so jerky that I ended up tying both sides of the fly into a knot rather than zipping up the baggy cargo pants.

“It’s just me.” Chase had quietly faced the opposite direction while I finished.

“You just scared me,” I said. That was truthful at least.

He began checking the exits; the doors, the garage window, mostly blocked by a black trash bag but for a peephole in the corner.

“I said I’d take the first watch,” I said, more harshly than I intended. He clawed at his scalp with one impatient hand and scowled.

“Wait,” I said as he headed back toward the stairs. “Stay?”

He turned slowly, a small smile taking the edge off my nerves.

A necklace fell out of my folded skirt pocket and bounced off the oil-stained concrete floor as I hoisted myself into the open bed of the Horizons truck. He picked it up on his way back before sitting beside me. Our legs were close enough to touch, but didn’t.

“Where’d you get this?” he asked, using the flashlight to discern the details.

“It was a gift from the lady hiding Sarah.” I forced a yawn; my jaw had grown tight.

“You should hang on to it.” He handed it over, his fingers lingering in my palm a few seconds longer than necessary. His skin was always so warm, like he had an internal furnace, and his touch made the hard angles of the world soften, like a shadow at dusk.

“I don’t even know what it is,” I said, withdrawing my hand.

“It’s Saint Michael. The Archangel. He led the good angels in the fight against evil.”

I didn’t remember hearing about Saint Michael at the mandatory Church of America services. Chase must have learned this before the War.

Thunder struck again, and I ducked reactively. I felt the rough edges of the contraband silver pendant, watching the light play across the tiny winged figure and the chain shift over my skin. As the seconds passed it grew heavy, but I couldn’t seem to put it away.

“Do you believe in heaven?” I asked.

I didn’t know if I did. I’d accepted it before as a reality; just as blindly as I’d believed in Santa Claus as a child. But since my mother had died, a festering desire to know the unknowable had gnawed at me. I wanted so desperately to believe in something concrete. I wanted to know that somewhere there was peace.

Chase leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his face hidden in the shadows.

“You mean, is it just for the reformed?” The last word was bitter and drawn out.

I cringed, imagining the angels at the pearly gates checking our compliance status before letting us through. Redemption can only be found through Reformation. Redemption can be earned through rehabilitation. That’s what the Church of America ministers liked to preach. The FBR, the president, they all gave the same message: you aren’t good enough the way you are.

Every Sunday, as we walked home from service, my mother would make a point to tell me the opposite.

My chest tightened.

“For anyone,” I asked again. And when he hesitated, I said, “Well, do you?”

He picked at a frayed spot on his jeans.

“I believe bad things happen to good people. And good things happen to bad people.”

He was evading. “That wasn’t what I asked.”

“I know,” he said finally. His shoulder jerked up, reminding me of the boy he’d once been before the world had hardened him. “I used to believe if you were good, good things would happen to you. I don’t know what I believe anymore.”

“So that’s it?” I said. “You die and that’s the end. There’s nothing else?” The panic swelled inside of me. I could barely keep my voice from breaking.

I watched him try to swallow. “My mom said there was more. She called it the spirit world. She said death is just the bridge there, that souls stick around to guide us.”

That felt truer than anything could at the moment. I felt my mother’s ghost constantly. I felt it now, in the space between Chase and me.

He reached for my hand, holding it between both of his.

“Ember, I think if there is someplace like that—someplace good—I think that’s where your mom would be.”

It was instantaneous. The pain, the fear, the loneliness, all balled together inside of my gut and soured. My eyes burned, but not with tears. I wanted to cry. I’d wanted to cry for days, especially when this happened, but I hadn’t since our escape from the base. My tears had been choked off, and all that remained was anger.

Nothing felt right. My thoughts didn’t feel right. My skin didn’t feel right. Even Chase sitting beside me made me claustrophobic. I wanted to run away. Disappear. Forget myself.

I couldn’t stop the questions: Did you do enough? Could you have stopped him from killing her? Why couldn’t I stop this? Why couldn’t I see this coming?

I didn’t want to grieve my mother. I didn’t want to wonder if she’d been hauled to the crematorium outside the base like any other bin of trash. I didn’t want to remember that she loved pancakes and hot chocolate and contraband books. I didn’t want to remember her at all, because I didn’t want her to be dead.

It wasn’t fair. My mother had been murdered simply because I’d been born.

At that moment I could see exactly why someone would snipe off soldiers.

I shook Chase’s hand away. He looked intolerably sad, and that infuriated me, too. What was wrong with me? I was taking it out on him, even when I didn’t want to. She was gone and he couldn’t change that. Nothing could change that.

I shoved off the tailgate and paced around the garage.

“Maybe if you talked to me,” he suggested tentatively.

“I’m talking! We’re talking! It doesn’t fix anything!”

He was standing now, too, hands hanging limply at his sides. He moved closer.

“I don’t know if it works exactly like that.”

“What are you, my damn therapist?” I fumed, fists balled at my sides.

“No!” His hand raked through his hair, but it was so short, his hand slid back to the collar of the holey, borrowed golf shirt. “No, I’m just your…” he shrugged. “Neighbor,” he muttered, his face darkening. His eyes fixed on a particular spot of oil on the floor.

“My neighbor?” I said, and the laughter that bubbled out of my throat sounded so evil I turned away so I couldn’t see my own cruelty reflected in his face. Not his best friend. Not his girlfriend. Just the neighbor. My mind flashed to Sarah, and her once-pretty dress, and suddenly I was sick with wonder of how Chase had spent his nights in the MM.

The silence grew thin and was punctuated by another clap of thunder.

There was something in the way he looked at me then, as if he’d asked a question and were waiting for an answer. As if he were willing me to answer, but how could I? I didn’t know what we were, even if what I felt was strong enough to die for.

“We’re loading the truck,” announced Riggins from the stairs. I jumped at the sound of his voice and noticed that Cara was with him. I wondered how long they’d been standing there.

Chase pulled back, averting his gaze.