his teeth.
I rubbed my temples. “I keep thinking it’s my fault,” I said quickly. “That I could have stopped all of it— whatever he’s doing—that day at the base. If I’d have shot him he never would have shown up at the Wayland Inn, he wouldn’t have come with us to the checkpoint, he wouldn’t know anything about the safe house. But I couldn’t, you know? I messed up. I was a coward, and now… now something even worse is going to happen, I can feel it.”
It had burst out in one breath—things I’d been hiding from him because I’d hated to admit they were true, even to myself.
“Wait,” he said. “
I shrugged. I didn’t like him turning this around on me. He rubbed the back of his neck.
“Em, what you did that day, it makes you better,” he said. “If you’d given me the gun that day, I would have done it. I almost did at the Wayland Inn. And killing someone—even if it’s
In the silence I remembered the Wayland Inn, purged by fire. Remembered how Wallace had forgotten what was most important.
“Be glad you didn’t kill him,” Chase said gently. “Holding back, that was brave.”
I shifted, because
“I wish I knew what he and Cara were doing in Greeneville,” I said.
“You didn’t buy the cousin story either, huh?”
I glanced behind me, but Sean was still blissfully ignorant to our conversation. It wasn’t that I didn’t want his opinion, I just felt more comfortable discussing some things with Chase alone.
“All I know is that she’s hiding something,” I said, picking at my fingernails, frustrated that I didn’t have the answers. Thinking of Cara suddenly reminded me of the copper cartridge I’d shown her in Greeneville. I’d been so distracted by the things she’d said about Sarah and the scars on her chest, I’d forgotten she’d been the last to hold it. Now who knew where it was.
I needed to change the subject.
“It’s strange going home after everything, isn’t it?” In my mind it was preserved, just as it had been when I left, but maybe it was different. I knew
“I would,” he said.
I laughed and combed my fingers through my short, dyed hair, catching a new waft of smoke. “Right. I look just like I did when I left.”
“You look beautiful,” he said. “And anyway, I’m not planning on running into anyone we used to know.” He cleared his throat, fixing his eyes on the road. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
All the hard edges within me had shimmered and gone soft.
“You said I was beautiful.”
He smirked and settled back in his seat. “I guess I did.”
I hid the smile in my shoulder.
CHASE drove fast, simply because he could. We passed no one on the highway. Not a soul. It was desolate, a half-pipe with trash and forest debris and the occasional stiffened roadkill arcing up against the side partitions. We were mostly silent, each lost in our own thoughts. My guarded hope, and his fearful dread.
Three hours in, just after we’d passed the turnoff for Frankfort on I-64, we pulled off for gas. It was dark, and the cold scent of rotten leaves filled my nostrils. Chase removed one of the canisters from the trunk and tipped the yellow nozzle into the fuel tank while Sean and I stretched our legs.
“So this is home,” he said, rolling his shoulders.
“It’s close.” I hesitated. “It’s weird coming back. Not knowing who is going to be there.”
“Yeah,” he said with a strange, strangled sigh. “Sometimes it’s better not to know.”
I frowned. Sean shook his head. “It’s good to check, though,” he added as an afterthought.
My thoughts returned to Tent City, to Sean’s confession that he had lived in such a place, and I wondered if he had family somewhere. He never talked about them. He didn’t look like he wanted to start now.
“What did you find out about Chicago?” I asked. His head bobbed gratefully.
“Marco told me we rendezvous with the resistance at an old airfield in the Wreckage.”
I shivered. During the War, the first places the Insurgents attacked were the airports. I’d seen what remained of them on the news: demolished buildings, concrete dust storms, but never a plane. Not since air travel had been banned at the beginning of the War. Chase shifted nearby. These weren’t just television scenes to him. He’d been there.
“He says it’s a rough bunch up North,” continued Sean when neither Chase nor I commented. “Says they’re crazy. Too much time in the field or something.”
“Will they help?” I asked speculatively.
“Sure. We just shouldn’t expect any hospitality.”
I frowned, wondering what this meant, but imagined that little in our line of work rivaled Marco and Polo’s generosity. They had let us steal their car, after all.
When the tank was full again we moved out.
THE lights from the old basketball arena, which had been converted to a Horizons manufacturing plant after the War, were the first signs of home. Cold and yellow, they lit the night like a warning rather than a welcome. The rest of the city was black, but for the gleam in the distance from the hospital—the first place I’d been taken during the overhaul. I returned to the edge of my seat, absently tugging at the knot in the uniform handkerchief around my neck.
The roads had been completely empty, but as we approached the Kennedy Bridge another cruiser came careening from the south, going fast enough to jump the Ohio River.
My heart clutched in my chest.
“No,” I whispered.
I sank in the seat. Sean remained motionless behind us, sleeping.
It sped by without a hint at braking. Chase exhaled loudly and continued on.
“So, I guess we know what the MM does after curfew,” I said shakily. I wondered if the soldiers inside just liked to drive fast, or if they were drunk on whiskey like the kind in the back of the Horizons truck. Or if actually, there were two people inside just like us.
It helped to think that.
The clock on the dashboard flashed 2:27 A.M. as we crossed the dark waters of the Ohio on the high metal bridge. There were only four hours until curfew was up, until any nosy civilian could recognize our faces and make a report. The pressure made my muscles tense. We hadn’t said it out loud, but it would be better all around if we were out of here before dawn.
The cruiser rolled over the cracked pavement, headlights shining on landmarks like we were historians excavating some ancient tomb. There was the stop sign halfway between Beth’s house and mine. We used to meet there before we walked to school. Back when I used to go to school. Trees I recognized, dogwoods, already turning pink with blossoms. Tall, overgrown grass and weeds in front of every home. I remembered before the War when people had used lawnmowers. What a waste those things were. That much gas could power a generator for hours.
I’d tripped there and skinned my knee on the sidewalk. On that corner, a girl once set up a lemonade stand for a quarter a glass. And right beneath that tall brick wall was where I’d been standing when I’d fallen in love with Chase. I was nine, and he’d just won a race against Matt Epstein. He was the fastest boy in the whole world.
So many Statute circulars glued to so many doors. How many people had been taken since my overhaul?
