Breaking Point

Signs started cropping up for Indy. CLEARED, they said in big spray-painted letters. Indianapolis had been evacuated during the Chicago bombings. It was thought the Insurgents would hit there next. I’d heard rumors that people had tried to return, but the MM had barred them because they’d intended on making it a Yellow Zone, occupied by soldiers.

A cautious glance out the window revealed nothing but the sickle moon and the silver-streaked long grass that had overgrown on the side of the road. The highway was down to two lanes here, and quite suddenly Chase slammed on the brakes and parked just off the pavement at a slant. There was no forethought, not the usual care he’d take to hide the car or limit attention. No, he was in a hurry. My eyes scanned the night to see if I’d missed some obvious danger.

Chase jerked open the car door and unlocked the back.

“Stay here,” he growled.

I didn’t.

He rounded toward the back where Tucker was getting out, and slammed him into the side of the car.

“Hey!” Sean raced around the trunk and attempted to separate them, but Chase was almost five inches taller and outweighed him by a good thirty pounds.

“Stay out of this,” Chase warned. Sean took a step back.

“Give me your firearm,” he said. “That’s all I’m asking.”

Tucker gasped, the breath knocked out of his lungs. He tried to stand again but Chase shoved him back down and kicked him hard in the gut.

“Chase!” I yelped.

He seemed to register the sound of my voice through his fury. Though he didn’t face me, I saw his shoulders roll back.

I didn’t know what he was thinking. We couldn’t stop here. The roads were mostly empty, but we were closing in on a base. What if a cruiser drove by?

At the same time I wanted this. I wanted him to hurt Tucker, to beat the truth out of him. But Tucker was unarmed, and Chase in his rage could kill him. He would carry that blood on his hands for rest of his life, and I would, too, because I’d stood by. This couldn’t happen. This was wrong.

“I saved your life!” Tucker gasped. “The woman in the holding cells—Delilah—she was going to tell them she’d seen you alive! I couldn’t hide that Ember escaped, but I covered for you! I made her disappear!”

“You did have her killed.” I felt sick. Her death was my fault. If I hadn’t escaped, she would still be alive.

His green eyes stayed on Chase. “I just… scared her. That’s all. So she wouldn’t talk.” He was on his knees. Begging.

“Why,” said Chase.

“I don’t know,” Tucker spat. “We were partners.”

Chase laughed, a low, frightening sound. He leaned down, so that his face was right in front of Tucker’s. “You ratted me out to CO, and let them crucify me in the ring night after night, and killed someone I cared about. No. We were never partners.”

“Don’t you want to get into that facility?” Tucker shouted. He rubbed the back of his head, where it had connected to the metal above the window when he’d tried to get out. The other hand was braced before him in defense.

“What facility?” Sean asked.

“The one where they’re holding your girlfriend.” He siphoned in a deep breath. “It’s right next to the hospital. I did a rotation there after they discharged Jennings. Training for the Knoxville holding cells. I know a guy there. He’ll let me in.”

A long beat of silence passed.

“If you knew all this, why didn’t you say something before?” Sean’s voice was raised. “I’ve asked you a dozen times if you knew anything else about Rebecca!”

“I didn’t know if I could trust you!” Tucker pleaded. “I didn’t know who to trust.”

There was fire in his petulant green eyes, but Sean didn’t see it. He swore softly, and then his hands unclenched, and he said, “All right. I get it.”

“Sean,” I warned.

Chase’s words from Greeneville echoed in my head: This is what he does. He digs his way in and gets under your skin. And before you know it, he’s ripped your life apart.

“I’ll make it up to you,” Tucker told Sean. “I’ll get you in. From here on out, I’ve got your back. That goes for all of you.”

I was about to tell him to shove it, but Sean had shifted and, to my disgust, held out his hand to help Tucker up.

Chase very deliberately removed his gun from the holster. I held my breath and squeezed the skirt in my fists.

“Chase,” Sean’s voice quaked. “Come on, man. He knows how to get Becca….”

Chase handed the gun to Sean.

“Talk,” he told Tucker.

With pressured speech, Tucker explained how he and Cara had walked across Greeneville toward her cousin’s. She’d pointed out the house; a small place with a white sedan out front. Tucker had guessed that they were wealthy, and Cara had told him her cousin’s husband worked for Horizons Weapons Manufacturing. As they’d gotten closer, they’d noticed the squad car tracking them a block back.

“It was close to curfew,” he said. “I thought they were going to give us a citation for an Article Four.”

I shook my head, crossing my arms over my chest. Chase and I were always careful to portray ourselves as married in order to avoid a citation for indecency, but a couple walking the streets so close to curfew was bound to draw attention. Maybe Tucker was still too impenetrable to anticipate this, but Cara should have known.

In order not to endanger Cara’s cousin, they’d passed the house and ducked into a nearby ditch.

“But the patrol hit the sirens,” said Tucker. “So we ran.”

They’d hidden in a large, tubular cement drain packed with trash and waited for the MM to lose them. Thirty minutes, Tucker said. Until the rats got used to their presence and came to visit.

After a while Cara had ventured out, but Tucker had gotten a cramp in his leg. He’d stayed under cover while shaking it out.

“It happened fast, man. Fast. I heard someone on the road overhead, and I looked over at her and she fell. Just like that. Shot in the shoulder, straight through the heart. Done before she hit the ground. I went out the opposite side of the drain and hit the road running.”

“Coward,” muttered Chase.

“I’m the coward?” said Tucker in disbelief. “It was a code one, Jennings. No arrest, no questioning. They’re killing any girl they think might be Miller. They’re the cowards.”

For a moment Tucker’s words made no sense. It was like he was speaking another language. And then their meaning set in.

Code One, Chase had told me. They can fire on suspicion alone.

It had happened. Someone had been killed in my name. Someone had died as the sniper. A girl I’d known. I didn’t feel relief—my name wouldn’t be cleared once they realized it wasn’t me. I felt like I was going to throw up.

I didn’t kill her, I told myself. But I didn’t believe it. She was dead because I’d escaped those holding cells, because I lived. Because my death was the death the MM wanted. What kind of world was this where people had to die for others to live?

I backed away. I couldn’t listen anymore. Not just because I’d known Cara, because I’d worked beside her in the resistance and now she was gone, but because of the sincere pain in Tucker’s voice. He hadn’t hurt so much when he’d killed my mother, whom he’d shot in cold blood. When he’d been the coward. What was it that made Cara so much better than her? What made him care? Why could he feel remorse now, but not then?