Article 5 (28 page)

Chase swore softly, and I could feel this fact settle on him, sink into his pores. When he continued, his tone was bleak.

“One of them shut the lights off. It didn’t work out like they hoped. I took off out the back, and that’s when I found you.”

“I shut the lights off,” I confessed.

“You what?”

“I cut the power to the generator.”

“You…” A long beat passed before he slowly approached and placed his hands on my shoulders. The confusion reflecting from his dark eyes made me uncomfortable. Here he was again, touching me while his mind disagreed with his actions.

“You’re shivering,” he said anxiously. I shook out of his grip, but it was too late. All the feelings I’d been trying to stuff away since his good-bye kiss came pouring back. The longing and the hope. The rejection. All magnified by the fact that we were now barred from Lewisburg and, it felt, my mother, too. He seemed to sense something was off and lowered his face to mine.

“Hey, are you —”

I slapped him.

We sat in stunned silence for a full three seconds before he spoke.

“Damn. That was fast.”

“That’s all you’ve got to say for yourself?” I nearly shouted at him. My hand stung just enough to tell me it hadn’t shattered in the cold.

He floundered. “I … I guess. What exactly was that for?”

“You know what it’s for,” I accused furiously. “How dare you do …
that
 … after … you know!”

“I
don’t
know,” he said bluntly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You kissed me!”

He faltered back a step, and I heard the breath whistle through his teeth.

“You didn’t seem to mind so much at the time.”

I growled at him and then grabbed the bag and violently zipped it shut. “I was thinking you were someone else.”
The old you.

He snatched the bag out of my hands and shoved it onto his back. Then he shook it off, remembering we weren’t going anywhere, and slammed it down on the ground.

“I told you,” he said in a low voice. “He’s gone. That’s over.”

I fought back the tears and spun away from him. Chase’s acknowledgment of the two separate entities within himself should have made me feel better, but it only made me feel worse. I couldn’t stand being near him any longer. Dawn couldn’t come fast enough.

“Ember, wait,” Chase called. He snagged my arm and held fast. Reluctantly, I turned, but I refused to look up and meet his eyes.

“Look … I know you’re torn up about him. He’s probably fine,” he said, frustrated.

He’s probably fine?

“What do you … who are you talking about?” I thought he’d understood that we were talking about the Chase who cared for me and the Chase who didn’t, but he was referring to someone else entirely. I felt the slow burn of oncoming humiliation.

“The guard from reform school. Isn’t that who you’re talking about?”

“Sean?”
I asked, baffled. And then I remembered. Randolph, in the shack, had insinuated that I’d messed around with a guard when Chase had inquired, and then later I’d reinforced that fallacy when I’d asked Chase what would happen to a soldier caught with a resident. With everything that had happened, he remembered
that
?

I felt only a breath of embarrassment, because immediately after that came my awareness of the insult.

“You think I would have let you kiss me if I was with somebody else?”

“It’s not like you had much of a choice,” he said indignantly.

“I’m not some three-dollar hooker!” I blurted. “I don’t know who you’re used to spending your time with, but—”

“Hold on—”

“
You!
You kissed me thinking I was with someone else! What kind of person does that make
you,
huh?”

“Hold
on
!” he interrupted. I had encroached on his personal space in my anger, and now we were only inches apart. “First, I know you’re not easy; you’re actually the most difficult person I’ve ever met. Second, I never claimed to be a good person. And third, if you weren’t talking about
Sean,
who the hell were you talking about?”

“That’s…” I stammered. “That’s none of your business,” I said evasively.

“If you’re thinking of another guy while I’m kissing you, I’m pretty sure it is my business,” he said heatedly.

“Not anymore it’s not! Why do you care anyway?”

He straightened, making me look up nearly a foot to see his eyes.

“I don’t.”

“Doesn’t sound like it.”

He kicked the ground. Seconds passed. They felt like hours.

“You’re right. It doesn’t matter,” he said coldly.

My stomach plummeted, but he was right. It was better this way. He was leaving when we got to the safe house, and caring about him only complicated things.

He blew out a long breath, and we both faced the parking lot, stamping our feet impatiently. He attempted to turn on the radio, but it didn’t even hiss; the battery had gotten wet in the rain or had simply died. If he could pick up a local frequency, we might be able to track the MM’s movement. As it was, we were flying blind.

The anxiety settled my temper. The cold numbed my nerves. And when I glanced his way, I was surprised to see that he was already watching me. Just the outline of his face was visible in the moonlight.

“Thanks. For saving my life tonight.”

He didn’t add anything to it, and I didn’t press. Instead I sat, and he sat beside me. I pulled my knees to my chest, tucked the jacket hood over my head, and waited for the dawn.

*   *   *

CHASE
roused me an hour later. He’d placed the sleeping bag around us when I’d drifted off, but he had stayed up to keep watch. I rubbed my eyes, instantly alert.

Though the sun was coming, it was still dark. The crickets had ceased their chirping, giving way to the second shift of outdoor musicians: a woodpecker tapping away and the high train-whistle buzz of some likely enormous insect. When I felt something crawling on my hand, I jumped up in a flurry of unnecessary movement.

There was nothing crawling on my hand. There was, however, a thin gold band around my left ring finger.

“Where did…”

“They were right to think we were thieves,” Chase said, referring to the ranchers.

I thought of how he’d scoped out their house right after we’d arrived, but I didn’t feel even a little bad after what they had done.

“You married me while I was sleeping?” I asked in amazement. The sky was beginning to bruise with the purple haze, and in it, I could see Chase’s face glow a little deeper copper.

“You hit me for kissing you. It seemed in my best interest to marry you while you were passed out.”

A short laugh caught me by surprise. I wondered when I’d last heard Chase make a joke. I supposed that meant we weren’t fighting anymore. I admired the ring. The Loftons had so much, they probably wouldn’t even notice it was gone.

“My mom will be so surprised.”

His head dropped a little.

“It’s just a cover. It’s nothing serious,” he said, with a twinge of annoyance. Apparently the joking was over. I was just about to bite back about him not having to be so rude, when he stiffened and pointed across the lot.

“Look!”

The dawn brought clarity. There, on the semitruck was a tin sign, nailed askew to the metal siding.

ONE WHOLE COUNTRY, ONE WHOLE FAMILY.

“Do you think…” I began, but he knew what I was going to say before I finished. The corners of his mouth had risen deviously.

The carrier had said to look for the sign. I felt certain that this was what he’d meant.

We scanned the parking lot for any signs of danger, and then ran for the semitruck, a hundred yards away. I couldn’t help but think of the last empty parking lot we’d been in, at the sporting goods store, and I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise up. My wary gaze circled our position.

Just as we approached the eighteen-wheeler, a scuffle came from within.

I snapped back against the metal siding and froze. Though I expected help here, my body was now trained to react. Chase swooped in front of me and removed the baton from his belt. I wished we had the gun and ignored the fleeting awareness that I wouldn’t have thought that two days ago.

It could be an animal. But then we heard the distinct and steady groaning of footfalls on metal.

Chase glanced over his shoulder, making sure I was behind him.

I squatted to look under the truck, past the flattened tires, and saw a person’s legs as they jumped down. Then another, and finally a third, though this one more slowly, waiting for a hand from the other two.

Three of them. Two of us. They must have been sleeping when we arrived. Either that or the truck’s compartment had muted out voices. We wouldn’t be so lucky now. We didn’t know what weapons they had, and it was fifty yards back to the trees. If we made a run for it, they would certainly hear us.

Please let them be friendly.

A moment later, a boy about my age came around the corner—and froze.

He wore an old suit jacket, torn and patched by various fabrics on the stress points, and several layered T-shirts beneath it. His cargo pants were tied on by a length of red twine. He said something we couldn’t hear, and then two girls revealed themselves. One was about his height, wearing a torn long-sleeved thermal. The other was short, with pretty mocha skin and rounded, candy-apple cheeks.

She was at least six months pregnant.

I felt my blood buzzing with the same suspicion these strangers surely felt. They turned their heads to confer with each other quietly. Chase returned the baton to his belt and raised his empty hands in peace. He took a few slow steps forward.

We were twenty feet away, and the trio still had not moved. I saw the male pull back his jacket, revealing a black tire iron tucked into his waistband. My breath caught, but I was somehow relieved that there was neither a gun nor a knife visible. Yet.

Chase scoffed.

“Hold up,” the boy called. We stopped.

“We don’t want trouble,” Chase told him, clearly not intimidated. The tall girl turned to the boy and whispered something in his ear. Closer now, it became obvious that these two were twins. They had the same androgynous face: straight brows, flat cheekbones etched by the shadows of malnourishment, dark hair coming to a widow’s peak in the center of their foreheads.

“Got a trade?” the female twin asked.

“We’re looking for a carrier,” I said.

I felt Chase brace before me and wondered if I’d been too bold. But it wasn’t like these people were going to turn us in to the MM, at least not immediately. Scalping anything that the MM had profit rights to was illegal.

“We’re car salesmen, not drivers,” said the female twin. The boy elbowed her.

I didn’t like her tone. Or the way she was staring at Chase.

“Do you know a carrier or not?” I asked.

“There’s one in Lewisburg that goes to Georgia and South
—
”

“Can’t go to Lewisburg,” Chase interrupted.

“Then Harrisonburg, but that’s farther.”

“Can’t go there, either,” Chase said flatly. I felt my jaw tighten.

“Bad boy,” clucked the girl. She grinned flirtatiously at Chase. I narrowed my eyes at her, and though it was cold out, I rolled up my sleeve to show off the ring on my left hand.

The small girl was whispering something to her boyfriend. When she turned to the side, she placed a hand on her distended abdomen. I felt suddenly sorry for them. She was only fifteen or sixteen
—
too young to be married
—
and certainly in violation of the Moral Statutes. That was probably why they were living in a truck.

“MM following you?” she asked.

Neither Chase nor I answered.

“You need Knoxville,” she continued. “Tennessee. You know it?”

My attention perked at this.

“What’s in Knoxville?” Chase asked.

“A carrier?” I clarified, feeling my breath begin to come faster.

“A whole underground system,” said the girl twin. “Lots of people have been heading there. That’s where half our cars have gone. Total liquidation.” She laughed.

“Knoxville,” I repeated. I felt Chase release a slow breath beside me.

We were back on track.

*   *   *

IT
was a long day.

The new Red Zones, those cities evacuated from the War, and Yellow Zones, those areas entirely comprised of MM, were marked in bold corresponding colors on highway signs and called for multiple detours throughout Virginia and Northern Tennessee. For brief patches I dozed, never falling fully asleep. I lingered on edge, my heart always beating a little too fast, my mind filled with worries.

The girl twin occasionally popped up in my mind, and I found myself bitter when I thought of her. She’d insisted on a trade for the car, and since we had nothing they wanted, we’d had to pay them. One thousand dollars.
Cash.
For an item that wasn’t even theirs to begin with. But since they’d siphoned all the gasoline, our hands were tied.

Still, I didn’t regret the interaction.

A whole underground system,
the girl had said. A whole resistance movement. My mind couldn’t wrap around what this might look like. People like us. On the run. Scheming against the MM. My fantasies seemed too unrealistic. All that mattered was that someone would take us to South Carolina.

As the day wound on, my chest began to squeeze with that familiar anxiety. My mother was just beyond our grasp, but now when I focused hard on her, I only saw fragmented images. Her short, accessorized hair. Her socked feet on the kitchen floor. I needed to find her soon, or I was afraid even more of her would disappear.

Finally, we came in range. As we closed in on the city of Knoxville, the MM presence on the highway increased. There were other cars as well. Not many, but enough for us to blend in. This fact didn’t ease our minds as the FBR cruisers began flying by with regularity.