Article 5 (2 page)

There were two cars parked on the street, a blue van and a smaller car that looked like an old police cruiser. On the side of each was the FBR emblem. I didn’t need to read the motto below to know what it said: One Whole Country, One Whole Family. It always gave me a little jolt of inadequacy, like my little two-person family wasn’t
whole
enough.

There was someone in the driver’s seat of the van, and another soldier outside on the sidewalk in front of our house. As I watched, the back of the van opened and two more soldiers hopped out onto the street.

Something was wrong. There were too many soldiers here just to fine us for violating a Statute.

My mom returned to the door, digging through her purse. Her face was flushed. I stepped shoulder to shoulder with her and forced my breath to steady.

She found her wallet and pulled out her ID. Bateman checked it quickly before stuffing it into the front pocket of his shirt. Conner lifted a paper I hadn’t seen him holding, ripped off the sticky backing, and slapped it against our front door.

The Moral Statutes.

“Hey,” I heard myself say. “What are you—”

“Lori Whittman, you are under arrest for violation of the Moral Statutes, Section 2, Article 5, Part A revised, pertaining to children conceived out of wedlock.”

“Arrest?”
My mom’s voice hitched. “What do you mean?”

My mind flashed through the rumors I’d heard about sending people to prison for Statute violations, and I realized with a sick sense of dread that these weren’t rumors at all. It was Katelyn Meadows all over again.

“Article 5!” Ryan blurted from behind us. “How could that apply to
them
?”

“The current version was revised on February twenty-fourth. It includes all dependent children under the age of eighteen.”

“February twenty-fourth? That was only Monday!” Beth said sharply.

Conner reached across the threshold of our home and grabbed my mother’s shoulder, pulling her forward. Instinctively, I wrapped both hands around his forearm.

“Let go, miss,” he said curtly. He looked at me for the first time, but his eyes were strange, as if they didn’t register that I was present. I loosened my hold but did not release his arm.

“What do you mean ‘
arrest
’?” My mother was still trying to process.

“It’s quite clear, Ms. Whittman.” Bateman’s tone was condescending. “You are out of compliance with the Moral Statutes and will be tried by a senior officer of the Federal Bureau of Reformation.”

I struggled against Conner’s firm hold on her shoulder. He was pulling us outside. I asked him to stop, but he ignored me.

Bateman restrained my mother’s opposite shoulder, dragging her down the steps. Conner released her arm for a moment to jerk me aside, and with a stunted cry, I fell. The grass was cold and damp and soaked through my skirt at the hip, but the blood burned in my face and neck. Beth ran to my side.

“What’s going on here?” I glanced up and saw Mrs. Crowley, our neighbor, wrapped in a shawl and wearing sweatpants. “Lori! Are you all right, Lori? Ember!”

I sprang to my feet. My eyes shot to the soldier who had been waiting outside. He had an athletic build and gelled blond hair, neatly parted on the side. His tongue slid over his teeth beneath pursed lips, reminding me of the way sand shifts when a snake slithers beneath it.

He was walking straight toward me.

No!
The breath scraped my throat. I fought the urge to run.

“Don’t touch me!” my mother shrieked at Bateman.

“Ms. Whittman, don’t make this harder than it has to be,” responded Bateman. My stomach pitched at the apathy in his voice.

“Get the hell off my property,” my mother demanded, fury stabbing through her fear. “We’re not animals; we’re people! We have rights! You’re old enough to remember—–”

“Mom!” I interrupted. She was just going to make it worse. “Officer, this isn’t right. This is a mistake.” My voice sounded far away.

“There’s no mistake, Ms. Miller. Your records have already been reviewed for noncompliance,” said Morris, the soldier before me. His green eyes flashed. He was getting too close.

In a split second, his vicelike fists shot out and trapped both my wrists. I bucked against him, retracting my arms in an attempt to shake him loose. He was stronger and jerked me close, so that our bodies slapped together. The breath was squashed from my lungs.

For a second I saw the hint of a smirk cross his face. His hands, cuffing my fists, slipped behind my lower back and drew me in tighter. Every part of me went rigid.

A warning screamed in my head. I tried to get away, but this seemed to drive new excitement into him. He was actually
enjoying
this. His hard grip was making my hands prickle with numbness.

Somewhere in the street I heard a car door slam.

“Stop,” I managed.

“Let go!” Beth shouted at him.

Conner and Bateman pulled my mother away. Morris’s hands were still on my wrists. I heard nothing over the ringing in my ears.

And then I saw him.

His hair was black and gleaming in the last splinters of sunlight. It was short now, cleanly cut like the other soldiers’, and his eyes, sharp as a wolf’s, were so dark I could barely see the pupils.
JENNINGS
was spelled out in perfect gold letters over the breast of his pressed uniform. I had never in my life seen him look so grave. He was nearly unrecognizable.

My heart was beating quickly, fearfully, but beating all the same. Just because he was near. My body had sensed him before my mind had.

“Chase?” I asked.

I thought of many things all at the same time. I wanted to run to him despite everything. I wanted him to hold me as he had the night before he’d left. But the pain of his absence returned fast, and reality sliced at my insides.

He’d chosen
this
over me.

I grasped on to the hope that maybe he could help us.

Chase said nothing. His jaw was bulging, as though he was grinding his teeth, but otherwise his face revealed no emotion, no indication that the home he’d been raised in was twenty feet away. He stood between where Morris held me and the van. It occurred to me that he was the driver.

“Don’t forget why you’re here,” Bateman snapped at him.

“Chase, tell them they’re wrong.” I looked straight at him.

He didn’t look at me. He didn’t even move.

“Enough. Get back in the van, Jennings!” ordered Bateman.

“Chase!” I shouted. I felt my face twist with confusion. Was he really going to ignore me?

“Don’t speak to him,” Bateman snapped at me. “Will someone
please
do something with this girl?”

My terror grew, closing off the world around me. Chase’s presence didn’t soothe me as it had in the past. The mouth that had once curved into a smile and softened against my lips was a hard, grim line. There was no warmth in him now. This was not the Chase I remembered. This wasn’t
my
Chase.

I couldn’t take my eyes off of his face. The pain in my chest nearly doubled me over.

Morris jerked me up, and instinct tore through me. I reared back, breaking free from his grasp, and wrapped my arms around my mother’s shoulders. Someone yanked me back. My grip was slipping. They were pulling her away from me.

“NO!” I screamed.

“Let go of her!” I heard a soldier bark. “Or we’ll take you, too, Red.”

Beth’s fists, which had knotted in my school uniform, were torn from my clothing. Through tear-filled eyes I saw that Ryan had restrained her, his face contorted with guilt. Beth was crying, reaching out for me. I didn’t let go of my mother.

“Okay, okay,” I heard my mother say. Her words came out very fast. “Please, officer,
please
let us go. We can talk right here.”

A sob broke from my throat. I couldn’t stand the obedience in her tone. She was so afraid. They were trying to separate us again, and I knew, more than anything else, that I could not let them do that.

“Be gentle with them, please!
Please!
” Mrs. Crowley begged.

In one heave, Morris ripped me from my mother. Enraged, I swiped at his face. My nails caught the thin skin of his neck, and he swore loudly.

I saw the world through a crimson veil. I wanted him to attack me just so I could lash out at him again.

His green eyes were beady in anger, and he snarled as he jerked the nightstick from his hip. In a flash it was swinging back above his head.

I braced my arms defensively over my face.

“STOP!” My mother’s pitch was strident. I could hear it above the screaming adrenaline in my ears.

Someone pushed me, and I was flung hard to the ground, my hair covering my face, blocking my vision. There was a stinging in my chest that stole the breath from my lungs. I crawled back to my knees.

“Jennings!” I heard Bateman shout. “Your CO will hear about this!”

Chase was standing in front of me, blocking my view.

“Don’t hurt him!” I panted. Morris’s weapon was still ready to strike, though now it was aimed at Chase.

“You don’t need that.” Chase’s voice was very low. Morris lowered the stick.

“You said you’d be cool,” he hissed, glaring at Chase.

Had Chase told this soldier—
Morris
—about me? Were they friends? How could he be friends with someone like that?

Chase said nothing. He didn’t move.

“Stand down, Jennings,” Bateman commanded.

I scrambled up and glared at the man in charge. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

“Watch your mouth,” snapped Bateman. “You’ve already struck a soldier. How much deeper a hole are you looking to dig?”

I could hear my mother arguing through her hiccuping sobs. When they began to move her toward the van again, I lunged forward, my hands tangling in Chase’s uniform. Desperation blanketed me. They were going to take her away.

“Chase, please,” I begged. “Please tell them this is a mistake. Tell them we’re good people. You know us. You know
me.
”

He shook me off as though some disgusting thing had touched him. That stung more than anything could in this moment. I stared at him in shock.

The defeat was devastating.

My arms were pulled behind me and latched into place by Morris’s strong grip. I didn’t care. I couldn’t even feel them.

Chase stepped away from me. Bateman and Conner ushered my mother to the van. She looked over her shoulder at me with scared eyes.

“It’s okay, baby,” she called, trying to sound confident. “I’ll find out who’s responsible for this, and we’ll have a nice long chat.”

My gut twisted at the prospect.

“She doesn’t even have her shoes on!” I shouted at the soldiers.

There were no more words as they loaded my mother in the back of the van. When she disappeared inside, I felt something tear within me, loosing what felt like acid into my chest. It scalded my insides. It made my breath come faster, made my throat burn and my lungs clench.

“Walk to the car,” Morris ordered.

“What? No!” Beth cried. “You can’t take her!”

“What are you doing?” Ryan demanded.

“Ms. Miller is being taken into custody by the federal government in accordance with Article 5 of the Moral Statutes. She’s going into rehabilitation.”

I was getting very tired all of a sudden. My thoughts weren’t making sense. Blurry lines formed around my vision, but I couldn’t blink them back. I gulped down air, but there wasn’t enough.

“Don’t fight me, Ember,” Chase ordered quietly. My heart broke to hear him say my name.

“Why are you doing this?” The sound of my voice was distant and weak. He didn’t answer me. I didn’t expect an answer anyway.

They led me to the car, parked behind the van. Chase opened the door to the backseat and sat me down roughly. I fell to my side, feeling the leather dampen from my tears.

Then Chase was gone. And though my heart quieted, the pain in my chest remained. It stole my breath and swallowed me whole, and I tumbled into darkness.

CHAPTER

2

“MOM,
I’m home!” I kicked off my flats at the front door and proceeded straight down the hallway to the kitchen, where I heard her laughing.

“Ember, there you are! Look who’s back!” My mother was standing at the stove, beaming like she’d just gotten me a shiny new toy. Skeptical, I rounded the corner and stopped cold.

Chase Jennings was in my kitchen.

Chase Jennings, who I’d played tag with and raced bikes with and had a crush on since before I knew what crushes were.

Chase Jennings, who had grown into a rough-around-the-edges kind of handsome; tall and built and so much more dangerous than the scrawny fourteen-year-old I’d last seen. He was leaning back casually in his chair, hands in his denim pockets, a mess of black hair stuffed beneath an old baseball cap.

I was staring. I looked away quickly, feeling the flush rise in my cheeks.

“Um … hi.”

“Hey, Ember,” he said easily. “You grew up.”

*   *   *

MY
eyes blinked open as the FBR cruiser shuddered to a stop. Slowly, I sat up, head heavy and clouded, and pushed the hair from my face.

Where was I?

Night had descended, and the darkness aided my disorientation. I rubbed my eyes, catching a glimpse of the blond soldier’s profile through the thick glass partition between the front seats and the back.
Morris.
I remembered his name badge. I looked out the front windshield, distorted by the barricade. With a jolt of panic, I realized I was searching for a van. One that was no longer in front of us.