Breaking Point

Chase scrambled back.

We sat in stunned silence for a full beat, watching the blood pool on the floor from Harper’s chest. He didn’t cough or choke, he didn’t rasp words like the carrier in Harrisonburg. He died instantly.

And then, in a flood, everything within me burst into motion. My ears rang, my pulse scrambled. Even my muscles burned to run.

Chase felt Harper’s neck for a pulse. He grabbed the dead boy’s uniform and shook him. “No!” he shouted. And then, “Get up, man. Come on. Get up!”

I grabbed Chase around the waist, feeling the quake echo through my body. He was still shaking the dead soldier; both guns were lying to the side.

“Chase!” I grasped his face, turned it toward me. His face was blank with shock.

“Look at me!” I shouted, just as he’d told the soldier moments before. “Look at me, Chase! We need to go! We need to get out of here!”

His breath came in one haggard gasp, and as his eyes readjusted, his hands cupped mine, and he staggered to a stand.

And then he was back. He grabbed my hand, scooped his weapon off the floor, and together we skirted around the body through the exit.

CHAPTER 20

THE chaos in the stairway was thinning, but the way was still blocked by Sisters guiding patients down the steps. They hadn’t heard the gunshot over the alarm. They didn’t know what we’d done.

Chase released my hand so we wouldn’t draw attention. The loss of his touch felt like something breaking off of me. My airway tightened, made it hard to breathe.

Put it away, I told myself. Lock it up. That was the only way to get out of here alive.

Finally we reached the bottom of the stairs. I kept my head down, peering through my fringed curtain of black hair as we entered the foyer, where we’d nearly had ID scans, and then through the buzzing door, into the lobby.

It wasn’t hard to find Tucker. He was alone, and a foot taller than the Sisters. His brows lifted in surprise when he recognized Chase, but he had the good sense to flatten his expression. As he steadily shoved toward us, my gaze darted from side to side in search of an ambush in these last twenty feet before our freedom.

There was a bottleneck effect near the door. We packed in tighter. When Tucker got close enough, I fought the urge to punch him in the face. He’d been the one to tell me Rebecca was here. He’d known she’d been transported to this facility, so he had to have known why, and he hadn’t once mentioned her injuries.

But he’d also gotten us inside.

“Have you seen Sean?” I asked him.

“I saw him carry her outside,” he answered. “She can’t walk?”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t know,” I whipped back, too quietly for anyone to hear above the chaos. His eyes changed then. From that haughty, hateful edge to something different. Something I’d never seen before.

“Would it have mattered if I did?”

It was honest, maybe the first honest thing he’d said to me. And if I were being honest with myself, too, I would have said no. It wouldn’t have mattered. I would still have come here.

Each shuffling step filled my head with more crazy thoughts: Harper wasn’t dead; he was chasing us, blood oozing from that anemone-shaped hole in his chest. Others were coming, too. Maybe the siren had created too much interference for the radio, but he could have called us in before that.

We had to get out of here. I wanted to push them all out of my way and run, but I couldn’t. We were packed like sardines; I couldn’t lift my arms, much less shove someone.

Finally we toppled out the exit and onto the sidewalk. The van was still there, ready to go. My chest tightened when I saw how Sean struggled to load Rebecca in the backseat.

Chase and I walked as calmly as we could around the hood, but once I was seated in the middle row he slammed the door behind me. Tucker was already in the passenger seat. Sisters and patients filtered onto Reformation Parkway, blocking our path.

My fingers tapped on my thighs as Chase eased onto the main drag.

“Get out of the way,” Tucker told the crowd. His voice angered me. Why had he helped us? Good deeds didn’t erase evil, even if they did even things out a little. Did he think he could make up for what he’d done?

Did I think I could make up for what I’d done? My friend might never walk again. Harper certainly wouldn’t.

I glanced to the backseat. Rebecca was sitting on one side, hunched over her knees. Sean was on the other, his face pale. They were not touching.

“Sean,” I said between chattering teeth. He looked over slowly, as though there was a delay in his hearing. What was he doing? She was broken and frightened, and his distance only reinforced that she was damaged.

“I didn’t know you couldn’t walk,” he said. His stare returned out the window.

“Sean!” I snapped. Rebecca sobbed loudly.

Tucker fell back in the seat, hollering excitedly. The path had cleared, and soon Chase was speeding down Reformation Parkway away from the hospital.

“What happened to Sprewell?” I demanded.

“We had a disagreement about my discharge status,” Tucker answered, high on adrenaline. “He’ll be sleeping it off in the elevator while they clear the building. Good thing the place isn’t really burning, huh?”

“You pulled the fire alarm?” I asked incredulously. I thought it had been Chase, but it made sense. Chase wouldn’t have been able to get past the front desk if not for the commotion.

“Go ahead and thank me,” he answered.

I didn’t. But for the first time, I felt a glimmer of respect for him. For the person who’d let us believe Rebecca was healthy and the last person to see Cara alive. For my mother’s killer.

Like a blow it hit me. We’d killed someone, too. We’d crossed a line today—one we could never take back.

Tucker kicked back in his seat. “What a rush. I get why you like it.”

“Shut up,” said Chase coldly.

“Come on, Jennings,” he said, obviously unfazed by the impenetrable tension in the car. “I thought we were pals again.”

“Shut up!” Chase roared. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

I felt a sob bubble up in my throat.

No. Not yet.

We passed a line of supply trucks, all blue with the FBR logo and motto on the side. So much blue. Blue everywhere. Watching.

“Where are we going?” My voice trembled.

“To the waterfront.” Chase tapped the radio on his belt. “Truck is waiting.”

My heart took a momentary leap from its fear. If ever we needed a safe house, it was now.

* * *

THE bruised sky was high, leaving the air beneath chilly. In the morning light it was easier to see the devastation from the War. Most of the area looked like the airfield. Piles of debris and obtuse rebar, mountains of cinder blocks, and everywhere, the fuzzy peach-skin dust. My eyes drew to a thirty-story building behind the tunnel exit that was somehow still standing, even though it looked like a giant monster had taken a bite out of its waist. It went on like this for miles, until the lake consumed the horizon.

I had the sudden recollection of talking with Chase so long ago, listening to his story about when the bombs had hit Chicago. He’d been evacuated with the other students, and then hitchhiked to a town outside the city limits