Breaking Point

“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.

“Why aren’t you at the safe house?” I asked, something inside telling me to tread carefully. “I thought you said Sisters could get through the highway lockdown.”

She turned her hips, still mesmerized by the cartridge. Her blue woolen skirt fanned from side to side.

“Looks like I was wrong.”

“I’m serious,” I said. “Sarah and that family with the baby needed a doctor. Did they get caught?”

Her tongue skimmed along the edge of her teeth. “Are you suggesting I jumped ship?”

My blood heated. “You didn’t exactly stick around to help when the motel was burning to the ground.”

She laughed, but it felt forced. “Self-preservation. Not all of us are martyrs.”

“If it was self-preservation, what were you doing talking to that soldier?” I pictured her standing before the flames, the man in uniform urging her to back up.

For a moment she seemed confused, and then shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe he was looking for a date.”

“Why can’t you just answer the question?”

She smiled coldly, eyes like blue crystals. “Look, the soldier at the fire thought I was a Sister, and asked me to help clear the area. As for Tubman, we made it to the roadblock and saw a sign that only FBR would be allowed past. I bailed before anyone saw me. But since you’re so concerned about your precious little party favor, relax. I hid off the side of the highway and watched Tubman drive that FBR truck straight through.”

I was relieved, but no less irritated. “Why do you have to cut her down like that?”

Her look turned to exasperation as she began to disrobe.

“Please. Did you see her? She had it coming. You can’t put wrapping paper on a present and expect no one to rip it off.”

“You’re blaming her?”

“I would if she wore that dress to a social.”

A social. That was what Sarah had called it, too, back in Tent City. A party for all the lonely soldiers who’d dedicated themselves to the cause.

I kept my arms pinned to my sides so I didn’t throttle her. Blaming Sarah for what others had done to her was like saying my mother deserved death because she’d broken a Statute. Like saying Billy’s mom had been right in selling her own son for cash.

She pulled off her Sisters of Salvation blouse, and as she slipped into a faded black sweatshirt, I caught sight of three parallel scars just below her collarbone—scars not unlike those I had given Tucker. She made a point of quickly hiding them, and despite myself, I suddenly found myself feeling sorry for her. Apparently she wasn’t made of steel. Someone, at some point, had been able to hurt her.

“Hey,” she said as I placed my hand on the door in preparation to leave. “Thank you. For what you’ve done.”

I turned back to face her, surprised by the smallness in her voice. It took a full beat to realize what she was talking about, and when I did I nearly groaned.

“Cara, Riggins was wrong. I’m not who he thought I was. I didn’t shoot anybody.”

“I know,” she said. But I wasn’t sure she believed me.