HE seemed taller than before, and bigger, even since he’d become a soldier. Maybe it was the low ceilings of the shack or the company I kept. Randolph was only a few inches above my five four, and Brock was just between our heights. Chase towered over us at six three.
His face was blank, his eyes unreadable. After I got over the shock of his presence, I found myself hoping more than anything that his words were true. He had come to take me to a trial, to get me out of those gates and deliver me to my mother.
Chase removed a folded piece of paper from his breast pocket and handed it to Brock. She snatched it away, reading for what felt like several minutes.
“When must you leave?” she asked sourly. My eyes darted to the guards before me, and my arms hugged tighter around my chest. I needed to leave now. I couldn’t wait to see what they would do to me.
“Immediately. The trial is tomorrow morning, in Chicago,” Chase said.
I turned away then, fearing that my face might betray me. Of all the soldiers, of course they had to send Chase Jennings. The reason I was here in the first place. And if I looked at him now, surely one of them would see the betrayal, the questions, written across my face. And what was worse, my eagerness to get in the car with him. To get out of here.
Brock sighed irritably. “As an Article 5, Ms. Miller’s mere existence is enough to sentence the birth mother. Why the trial? Highly unusual for the offense.”
I forced myself to breathe. Why did the MM need me? Would my presence become the evidence they needed to condemn her? I had no idea what this trial or the sentencing entailed, but I was feeling the pressure to get there as soon as possible.
“All I have is the summons and order to transport,” Chase answered, his voice bland.
No one moved or spoke for a full minute. The only sound I heard was my heavy pulse, throbbing in my ears.
“Very well,” said Brock reluctantly. “But I’m only approving one overnight pass on account of Ms. Miller’s inability to stay where she belongs.”
For the first time Chase’s eyes floated over me. I still wasn’t looking at him, but I felt his impartial stare. I straightened, trying not to show I was afraid. I needed to maintain a cool head from this point forward.
“Is that why she’s here?” he asked, voice flat. “Her ‘inability to stay where she belongs’? I’m sure the Board will be interested.”
A ghost of a smirk passed over Randolph’s face. “More like an inability to keep her legs closed,” he said under his breath.
My teeth clenched. I remembered the way he’d grabbed me outside, ready to share in Sean’s supposed fun, right before he planned on shooting me. Again, a hot, misdirected shame filled my gut, as though I were dirty and tainted. I hated him.
“Don’t be crass,” Brock snapped. “There is at least one lady present.”
She grabbed a pen from Randolph and scribbled her signature on the bottom of the summons.
“Sergeant, I’m assuming you’re new to this line of work, since I haven’t seen you before, so I’ll make this clear,” she directed to Chase. “These girls are federal property and under my authority, even when temporarily removed from campus. Therefore, you must abide by my treatment recommendations, do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Chase answered respectfully.
“Observed one-to-one contact at all times. No release from restraints except during restroom breaks. No extra rations, and do not speak to her under any conditions.” She passed a threatening look down her nose at me.
“We’ll continue this conversation when you return, Ms. Miller.”
We would not. I knew that much. I wasn’t coming back.
In a hurry, I was ushered outside and back up the stairs to the main hall. My stomach was pinching uncomfortably, but not from hunger. Soon I was standing beside a navy blue MM van with Chase and Randolph.
The morning was dreary and still. The snow had stopped, but the freeze still scraped my cheeks and iced my throat as I gulped down breath after breath.
Chase opened the door but blocked my entry, first removing a double circle of thin green plastic from his pocket. A zip tie.
“Hands,” he ordered, holding the restraints out expectantly. I’d known this had been coming, but I still felt a wave of claustrophobia staring down at the cuffs. They immobilized my arms. I wouldn’t be able to run, defend myself, or even go to the bathroom unless Chase released me. I was, for all general purposes, trapped. But I needed to be trapped in order to achieve freedom. The process seemed too twisted to be real.
I balled my hands into fists to prevent the soldiers from seeing them shake. Chase’s eyes paused on the thin, criss-crossed welts that were now turning white in my exertion to hold still.
“Make sure they’re nice and tight,” Randolph said. I bit my lower lip hard to keep quiet.
Chase snorted, snatched my forearms, and jerked me closer so he didn’t have to reach. My breath caught—I had never known his touch to be harsh—and I looked deliberately away. But as he secured the loops, Chase did something unexpected. Subtly, he slipped his first two fingers within the tie beneath my wrist, where my pulse beat like the wings of a hummingbird, while simultaneously tightening the strap with his other hand. The space didn’t allow me to get out, but it impeded the tie from cutting off my circulation.
I felt a flutter of anger, deep in my stomach. He couldn’t think this made up for everything he had done. But before I had too much time to think about it, he’d shoved me roughly up the two steps into the van’s front seat, purposefully blocking Randolph’s view of my noncompliant restraints.
A moment later the door was slammed shut, Chase was in the driver’s seat, and the key brought the ignition to life.
MY fingers wove together on my lap, as they could do little else within the restraints. We pulled down the lane, passing the dorms on my right and the cafeteria below on my left. The van picked up speed, leaving the last of the main campus buildings.
I am never coming back, I promised myself. Never.
“It’s her, isn’t it? My mother. Is she okay?”
A dark expression spread across his face. “Quiet. We’re coming to the gate.”
I glared at him. No one was listening now, why couldn’t he talk to me?
We slowed as the road turned to gravel, and a small check station came into view. It was a single brick cottage, nestled right against the side of the road. Beyond it, I saw the high steel fence, latched by a security gate. Its sinister embrace stretched into the woods around us.
Almost there. Almost free.
Chase slowed the van to a halt and rolled down the driver’s side window. A guard leaned out the porthole on his elbows, scowling when he saw me. He disappeared for a moment and returned with a clipboard.
“Get the papers signed?” he asked Chase, flipping through the pages. He had a bald spot right on the top of his head. His name badge said BROADBENT.
My spine straightened. I recognized his name from my phone call in the infirmary. I looked ahead at the closed gate in front of the van as Chase handed Broadbent my summons. He scribbled something on the clipboard.
“Walters!” he called outside the station. “Sweep the van so they can get moving when I’m done. Damn, you’ll be driving straight through, huh?”
“I guess so. Your headmistress didn’t approve more than one night,” said Chase. I remained silent.
Walters, clearly a merit-badge winner, opened my door and reached his hands beneath the seat. I tried to remain calm. He slammed my door and jerked open the slider, checking the empty body of the car.
“All clear,” shouted Walters. He closed the trunk.
“Good luck with that,” Broadbent said to Chase, nodding my way.
I nearly jumped out of my skin at the blaring buzzer that unlatched the front gate. With a lurch, it swung open.
Chase pressed the gas. And the Girls’ Reformatory and Rehabilitation Center of West Virginia faded behind us.
I WAS out. Away from the shack and from Brock, from the terrifying guards and the Statute classes. Everything within me wanted to push Chase aside and slam my foot down on the accelerator, but I knew that couldn’t happen.
I was out. But not free.
I glanced over to the driver. His face was set, like it had been in front of my mother’s house. This was not the Chase I’d pictured in the woods, in those seconds before I’d thought Randolph would pull the trigger. This was the soldier, and I was still very much imprisoned. Unconsciously, my wrists jerked against the restraints, making my still-sore hands even more sensitive.
We left the winding road outside the facility and joined the highway. The area was clean here. No stalled cars, no giant potholes in the asphalt. It was obviously a heavily traveled military route: The MM only paid for maintenance on the roads they used most.
As we continued, the frequency of military vehicles increased. A blue van sped past, then several more cruisers, then a bus filled with frightened new residents who had no idea what awaited them. Each sighting made my stomach lurch. If I had escaped last night, there would’ve been no way I could have snuck by all these soldiers. I’d be shot and bleeding in a ditch right now.
The radio squealed, making me jump. Irritated, Chase flicked it off. The van seemed very quiet without its consistent hum.
I glanced at the speedometer. A perfect sixty-five miles per hour. What a good soldier.
“How long will it take to get there?” I tried not to sound too impatient.
He didn’t answer, completely focused on driving.
“I’m not going to tell anyone if you speak to me,” I assured him.
Silence.
Why was he doing this? Continuing to punish me after all he’d done? I wanted to throttle him. He had seen my mother, and despite my aggravation, being near him made me feel closer to her than I had in days. I wanted to ask how she looked, if she’d been harmed, if they’d given her enough to eat. But he was adhering strictly to Brock’s rules. Any slight hope that he’d come to rescue me slipped away.
“You don’t know if she’s been doing any kind of rehab, do you?” I ventured, wondering if she had to “complete” something, like Rebecca had heard.
“Can’t you just be quiet?” he snapped. “Right now? You’re a prisoner. And I need to think.”
I blinked, instantly livid.
“Ms. Brock didn’t mean absolute silence.” I tried to keep my voice even, still hoping that being congenial might earn me some information.
“It’s not her rule; it’s mine.”
I knotted my restrained fists in my skirt. Another MM vehicle flew by. I watched Chase tense, and I felt my face heat up.
“How embarrassing it must be for you to cart around reform-school trash,” I said quietly. His grinding jaw told me I’d hit the mark.
WE didn’t talk for over an hour. The silence took on a physical presence, a hammer, that bruised me again and again with the reminder that, despite all my memories, I was nothing to him.
It pounded me with new fears, too. What had the last two weeks been like for my mother? And what was going to happen tomorrow morning? Images filled my mind: her dragged into a courtroom in shackles, with Rosa’s empty eyes, while a bright, accusing spotlight pinned her in place. Her hands, marked with welts like mine. I shook my head, trying to rid myself of these thoughts, and glanced over at Chase.
What was wrong with him? Was he really going to pretend like I wasn’t sitting three feet away? Like our histories hadn’t been braided together since we were children? He was a soldier now, I got that. But he’d been human once, too.
Switching between anxiety and anger was exhausting, and yet I still found myself watching him, as if at any moment he’d confess this whole thing was some sick, twisted game.
The clock on the dash said 8:16 A.M. when I felt the van decrease in speed.
“Are we getting near Chicago?” I asked him, not expecting an answer. It seemed odd. I was poor at geography but had enough sense to know our trip had been too short. Plus, we’d taken a side road about twenty miles back and hadn’t passed any MM vehicles since that time. I would have thought there should be an increase in soldiers as we neared the base.
Even so, I felt a flutter of panic anticipating that my mother might be close; I still knew nothing of her trial.
The van curved off the highway down a single-lane ramp and stopped completely before turning right onto an isolated road. The weeds here had grown over the edges of the asphalt during the summer and then died in their tracks with the winter freeze. Dead branches littered our path. This area had not been maintained by city workers in a long time.
As the van slowed, my heart rate doubled.
“We are going to the trial, right?”
He exhaled. “There’s been a slight change of plans.”
My shoulders, which had been hunched over my restraints, jerked back sharply. “What do you mean?”
“There is no trial.”
My mouth fell open. “But the summons…”
Chase bore right again on a narrow dirt road. With every bump, the van jolted.
“It’s a fake.”
“You… faked an MM document?” I was baffled for only an instant before the floodgates opened. “Well, where is she then? She didn’t have a trial? Did they put her in rehab? Oh, God, was she hurt?”
“Don’t forget to breathe,” he said under his breath.
“Chase! You have to tell me what’s going on!”
There were dark shadows under his eyes that I did not understand. He looked to the side, as though the answer were hidden somewhere in the foliage, and then raked one hand through his black hair. I was getting a very bad feeling about all the things he wouldn’t say.
“I promised her I would get you out of there.”
“You promised—”
“My CO thinks I’m assisting with an overhaul in Richmond.”
I didn’t know what an overhaul was. I didn’t immediately understand why Chase was here when he’d been ordered to be somewhere else. None of it made sense.
“Is she still in jail?” I felt as if I were standing on the edge of a cliff, anticipating a horrible fall.
“No.”
The pieces came together too slowly in my impatient brain. My mother was free. I was free. Rebecca and Sean were right: There were no more trials. And as for Chase…
“You’re not a soldier anymore. You’re a runaway, too.”
“It’s called AWOL,” he said flatly.
I stared at him, remembering what Rebecca had said about Sean running away, how the MM would punish him for defecting. Chase had condemned himself by bailing me out. My mother had asked him to risk his life for me. I couldn’t think of what this meant, if he might not be so terrible after all. I could only think of her and how we were free and whether we were in more or less danger than I’d previously anticipated.
Chase braked suddenly, and made a hard right down a hidden path that I never would have noticed had he not turned just then. After a curtain of low-hanging tree limbs, we came upon a clearing, where an ancient seventies-era Ford truck was parked. The maroon paint was peeling off in bubbles from the side paneling, and the step bar beneath the door was warped by orange rust.
I looked down at my bound wrists. If Chase had intended to reunite me with my mother, why was I still in restraints? Why were we parking in a deserted clearing miles off the main road? I became increasingly aware of how isolated we were. I’d trusted him once, but after what I’d seen at reform school, being alone with a soldier didn’t seem like such a good idea.
“If she’s free, why didn’t you just tell me?”
He heard the tremor in my voice and looked over. His eyes held a depth of guarded emotions.
“That’s a major FBR route we were on, in case you didn’t notice. Any one of those soldiers could have stopped us if they’d been suspicious.”
I thought of how focused he’d been while driving, watching each MM vehicle that passed, demanding silence. He’d been fearful. If we were caught, his life would be at risk.
A moment later he reached into his hip pocket and retrieved a large folded knife. I siphoned in a tight breath, and for an instant I forgot that it was Chase. I saw a weapon and a uniform, and before I could process anything else, my bundled fingers were jerking at the door handle. It didn’t open. A small cry let loose from my strangled throat.
“Hey! Easy. I’m just going to cut the restraints,” he said. “Jesus, who do you think I am?”
Who did I think he was? Not Randolph, preparing to murder me in the woods. But not my friend. Not my love. Not a soldier, either, apparently.
“I have no idea,” I answered honestly.
He scowled but didn’t respond. The knife flipped open, and adeptly he cut the straps off. The second the task was done he jerked his hands away and unlocked my door from his side. I rubbed my wrists, willing my breath to come more steadily.
An instant later he was out of the van, leaving me in a haze of confusion.
I tore out of the seat after him, toward the truck. My feet splashed through cold puddles of mud.
“So where is she?”
Chase jerked open the rusted door, threw his shoulder into the seat, and popped it forward. A stuffed canvas backpack was revealed, along with a large box of matches, bottled water, a steel pot, and a knitted blanket. He emerged with a screwdriver and returned to the MM transport.
“Not here.”
He pushed aside the utility box in the back of the van, ripping away a section of loose carpet covering the floorboards. There waited a slender metal rectangle, which he removed before slamming the trunk closed. A license plate.
“Did you… steal that truck?” I asked after a moment. My mouth was hanging open.
“Borrowed it.”
“Oh my God.” Was he crazy? The MM was probably looking for us right now, and he had stolen a car? I felt a jolt of panic echo through me.
What else would you have him do? a small voice inside my head asked.
He began screwing the license plate in place beneath the tailgate of the truck. “Minnesota” was written in blue letters over an image of a fish jumping from the river to snag a fly.
“Don’t freak out,” he said without looking up. “It was abandoned.” He placed the screwdriver handle between his teeth and rattled the plate with both hands to make sure it was secure.
Clearly my abduction had not been on impulse; Chase had already packed a getaway car with supplies. I began to feel the urgency ripping through my veins. He had gone AWOL and forged documents to get me out of rehab. It wouldn’t be long before Brock and the MM figured out what he had done.
“What happened?” I asked.
I blocked his path back to the van. He shoved past.
“There’s no time to explain, trust me. We’ve got to move out.”
“Trust you?” I asked incredulously. “After you arrested me?”
“I followed orders.”
I was shocked at how cold he sounded. I had rationalized that maybe there was still some humanity left within him—he had promised my mother he’d get me out—but I realized now that his actions were in no way altruistic. They were full of resentment.
The shock burned into rage. Before I thought it through, I clenched my fist and punched him.
He reacted instantly, tilting back so that I missed his jaw and just barely grazed his ear. I lost my balance and pitched forward, but before I fell he grabbed my shoulder hard and jerked me back upright.
“You’ll have to be faster than—”
Furiously, I kicked him as hard as I could, stomping my heel into his thigh. The breath whistled out of his clenched teeth as he staggered back a step. One brow quirked, and I felt my heart kick up a notch.
“Better,” he commented. As if we were playing some kind of game.
I seethed, hating him in that moment, but when he released my arm I didn’t attack again. It didn’t seem to get the point across the way I had hoped.
“What is wrong with you?” I shouted.
A shadow flew across his features. “A lot. Now, if you’re all done, get in the truck.”
He slid in the driver’s seat and slammed the door in my face. Gritting my teeth, I rounded the front and propped open the passenger door. I wasn’t about to get inside without him telling me what was going on.
“Where is she?” I demanded.
“Get in and I’ll tell you.”
“How about you tell me and I’ll get in.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“You’re a pain,” he said bitterly. A hand clawed through his neat soldier haircut. I was learning quickly that this meant he was angry with me.
I waited.
“A safe house in South Carolina,” he said. “She knew it was too dangerous to go home.”
“A safe house?”
“A place off the FBR’s radar. People go there to hide.”
My throat constricted. I’d known my mother and I would have to hide. But knowing it and doing it were two different things.
“So we’re going to meet her in South Carolina?”
“Sort of. The exact location is a secret. You’ve got to meet someone who’ll bring you in. There’s a man, a ‘carrier,’ at a checkpoint in Virginia who’ll get us there. We’ve got until noon tomorrow to meet him.”
“Why tomorrow?”
“He only transports on Thursdays.”
“Every week?” I asked, thinking of my mother. Maybe she had met him last week. If not, she might be there when we arrived. I might see her tonight!
“We don’t have another week!” Chase said, misinterpreting my question to hear that I wasn’t in a tremendous hurry. “After a soldier is AWOL forty-eight hours they put him on a list. Each unit gets a copy of it when their tour of duty starts. After noon tomorrow they’re coming after me.”
I shuddered. “And me.”
He nodded. “You’ve got a little longer before the overnight pass is invalid. But they’ll link you to me—”
“I get it,” I interrupted. “How did you find out about this?” If he’d heard about the safe house in the FBR, surely other soldiers had, too. My mother could be walking into a trap.
“Civilians sometimes talk about safe houses during arrests, but this one…” he sighed heavily. “My uncle. I ran into him on a training exercise in Chicago a few months after I was drafted. He was going to South Carolina. He told me about the carrier in Virginia. Good enough?”
“That was almost a year ago. How do you know it’s still there?” Chase’s uncle had ditched Chase during the War. I didn’t exactly trust him.
“The FBR never found out about it. My security clearance gave me access to operations. South Carolina hasn’t had any movement since they evacuated the coast.”
“And you’re sure my mother found this carrier?” I pressed.
“No,” he answered bluntly.
Which meant she could be anywhere. Still, if she’d been attempting to get to South Carolina, we had to as well. In less than twenty-seven hours, the MM would know we were fugitives. We needed to hop aboard this underground railroad as soon as possible.
For the first time, I truly felt like a criminal. I rolled my still sore shoulders back and, making my decision, scooted into the truck.
Chase jammed the screwdriver into the steering-wheel column, and it released with a soft pop. Then he fiddled around with something under the console until a few fast clicks sent the engine squealing to life. He sat up, revved the gas. There was no key in the ignition.
“Learn that in the MM?” I asked spitefully.
“No,” he said. “I learned that during the War.”
I reminded myself that it shouldn’t matter that the truck was hot-wired. Or that it was stolen. As long as it got to Virginia fast.
I COULDN’T stop looking at him. A month he’d been home from Chicago, and sometimes I still couldn’t believe he was really here.
“What?” he asked, a smile in his tone. He didn’t have to look over to know I’d been staring. We sat on his back steps, facing the jungle of grass and weeds that had become his back yard.
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m just glad you’re back. Really glad.”
“Really, really glad? Wow, Em.” He rocked back, laughing, when I shoved him.
“Don’t push it.”
He laughed again, and then became quiet. Pensive. “I’m glad I’m back, too. There was a while I wasn’t sure it would happen.”
“When Chicago was hit, you mean.” My voice sounded small under the big, open sky.
“Yeah.” Chase frowned, leaning back against the top step. I didn’t want to pressure him; I knew some people didn’t like to talk about the War. I was just about to change the subject when he continued.
“You know my chemistry teacher tried to tell us the air sirens were just drills? He was still trying to get us to pass in our lab sheets when the quakes started. By the time we all got outside, the smoke was so thick you couldn’t see the school’s parking lot.” He paused, shook his head. “Anyway, they bussed us all to this old arena on the west side and gave us two minutes each to use the phones and call home, and my uncle told me to meet him at this restaurant in Elgin. So I took off. Hitched there. It was a good thing too: The bombing didn’t stop for three days.”
“Wait, you hitchhiked there? What were you, fifteen?”
“Sixteen.” He shrugged as though this detail was unimportant. “When we met in Elgin, we found out Chicago had been attacked on the southeastern side, all the way up I-90 from Gary. What was left of it was just… chaos. We were being displaced to some town in the middle of Indiana, but we only made it as far as South Bend before the busses got called somewhere else. We stayed there for a while; my uncle found some work doing day labor, but they wouldn’t hire me because I was too young.
“And then he told me he was sorry, but he couldn’t look out for me anymore. He gave me his bike and told me to keep in touch.”
My eyes were wide.
“He couldn’t… what? You must hate him!”
Chase shrugged. “One less person to worry about, one less mouth to feed.” At my horrified expression he sat up. “Look, when Baltimore and DC fell, and all those people started packing inland into Chicago, he knew, just knew it was going to get bad. So he taught me to scrap. He and my mom had grown up poor, and he was, well, resourceful.” A guilty laugh had him turning his head the opposite direction, making me wonder just what that meant.
“I’d have been scared to death,” I said.
He took off his hat and tapped it against his knee.
“Losing your family… it puts fear in a different perspective,” he said. “Besides, I got by all right. I stayed on the fringe around Chicago,hopped around tent cities and Red Cross camps. Worked for some people who didn’t ask questions. Avoided caseworkers and foster care. And thought about you.”
“Me?” I huffed, completely unsettled. In awe at how vanilla my life seemed. In awe of what he’d endured. He turned then, meeting my eyes for the first time. When he spoke, his voice was gentle, and unashamed.
“You. The only thing in my life that doesn’t change. When everything went to hell, you were all I had.” It took me a full beat to realize he was serious. When I did, I had to remind myself to keep breathing.
I SHIFTED in my seat. My life did not seem so vanilla anymore. I knew what he meant about losing family now, and in another day, every soldier in the country would have our photos.
Had we been able to take the highways, we would have crossed the border into Virginia before sunset, when everyone had to be off the roads for curfew. As it was, Chase had stuck to back country roads, which led us east rather than south, cautiously avoiding any potential contact with an MM patrol.
By late afternoon, the sun was heating up through the windshield. Chase removed the navy MM jacket and slung it over the seatback between us. He wore only a thin T-shirt, and beneath it I could see the sculpted muscles in his arms and shoulders. My gaze lingered a little too long, and I rubbed my stomach unconsciously.
“We’ll stop soon for supplies,” he said, thinking I was hungry.
I didn’t like this; we needed to get every mile in that we could before curfew. But as I glanced over Chase’s forearm I saw that the gas gauge was nearly empty. It would take us a lot longer to get to Virginia if we had to walk.
We passed two closed gas stations before we found one that actually claimed to be in business, at least on weekdays. It was a small place called Swifty’s, with only two pumps and a note taped over the price board that said PAY INSIDE, CASH ONLY. We were the only ones in the parking lot.
“Wait here,” Chase instructed. I had just been getting out of the truck but paused.
“I’m sorry, you must have forgotten. I’m not actually your prisoner.”
His jaw twitched. “You’re right. You’re a wanted runaway. You can be their prisoner.”
I glowered at him but slammed the door. As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. We shouldn’t both be showing our faces if we didn’t have to.
Chase removed a worn red flannel shirt from the back of the cab and buttoned it up over his T-shirt. He untucked the bottoms of his pants from his boots, and hid his MM jacket, and it hit me, a furious pang of nostalgia. A vision of him sitting on his front steps, long legs stretched out and crossed casually at the ankles. Eyes, dark and watchful as a wolf’s, still piercing even from a distance. His smooth bronze complexion, a reflection of his mother’s Chickasaw heritage. His hair was short now, cleanly cut like the other soldiers’, but then it had been thick and glossy and black, hanging around his angular face.
He looked like the old Chase, even if he didn’t act like him. I swallowed hard.
The change made me suddenly self conscious of my appearance: My gray sweater and pleated navy skirt screamed “reform school.” I scanned the parking lot for any bystanders, worried that I might be recognized.
Chase disappeared behind the tinted glass of the mini-mart. As the minutes ticked by, my paranoia intensified. I’d believed his story about leaving the MM without question, but I didn’t know what had really happened. He wasn’t telling me anything, not why he’d arrested us, not why he’d come back. For all I knew, he could be contacting the MM right now. My heels drummed a cadence on the rutted rubber floor mats.
The sun was just above the tree line now. It would be getting dark soon.
What was taking so long?
I was just grabbing the door handle, intent to check for myself on Chase’s intentions, when I saw it. A large bulletin board on the far side of the store window. The blood drained from my face. Though I was twenty feet away I knew exactly what it would say.
I had seen this board before, of course. At the mini-mart near school.
My photo from the reformatory would be posted just as soon as Brock figured out I’d escaped. A desperate need arose in me to see if it was there now, but I couldn’t risk being spotted. What if the clerk inside had already caught a glimpse of me when I’d opened the door earlier? How could I have been so careless?
It’s too soon. You’ve only been gone a few hours, I reminded myself.
I envisioned Beth and Ryan scanning through the pictures the way we had looked for Katelyn Meadows. Defending me when people whispered about what I’d done to be arrested. They were true friends, not the kind that would turn their backs. It struck me that they didn’t even know Katelyn was dead. I shivered, frightened by the reality that my friends would never know if I was dead.
The door lurched open, catching me off guard. I nearly leapt out the window.
“Here,” Chase said. The change was sliding off the top of a wrapped flat of plastic water bottles he shoved onto the seat, and I grabbed it before it fell to the floor. The total on the receipt was over three hundred dollars. I hastily shoved the assorted bills into my pocket, uncomfortable with any money sitting out in the open. I was shocked by the amount of cash he’d been carrying.
“I worked for it,” he told me snidely before I could ask. “Soldiers collect pay. It’s a regular job.”
“It’s hardly a regular job,” I grumbled.
I placed the supplies on the floor while Chase filled up the truck. Among the groceries—peanut butter, bread, and other staples—was a chocolate bar with almonds. Had he remembered that this was my favorite kind of candy? Probably not. He didn’t do things out of the kindness of his heart anymore. Still, it seemed too frivolous to be anything but a peace offering.
It only took him a few moments of connecting the exposed wires beneath the wheel before the truck thrummed to life again. As we pulled onto the street, I stared out the back window at the Missing Persons board, in grim awe of how my life had changed. My freedom from the MM’s clutches had come with a stifling loss. I would never be able to walk around in the open again.
CHASE flipped on the MM radio. A man with a cool, flat voice was talking.
“…another FBR vehicle stolen outside Nashville earlier today from the parking lot of a textile plant. The truck contained uniforms to be shipped to bases throughout Tennessee. No eyewitnesses. Rebel activity suspected. Any suspicions should be reported to command.”
“Who is he?” I whispered to Chase, as though the speaker might hear me.
“A reporter for the FBR. He does a newscast for the region every day. They cycle through it at the top of the hour.”
“Are there lots of rebels?” I liked the idea of people striking against the MM. I wondered what they planned to do with the uniforms.
“Occasionally someone gets it in their head to steal a rations truck, but not often,” he informed me. “Mostly it’s just anarchy. Ripping up the Statutes, attacks on soldiers, mob riots. Things like that. Nothing that can’t be managed.”
I frowned at his confidence. There had been a time he was much like the people he now denigrated.
“The overhaul of Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia is nearly complete. Oregon, Washington, Montana, and North Dakota will be overhauled beginning June one, with estimated compliance by September….”
Anticipating my questions, Chase explained that an overhaul was when the MM systematically went through a city’s census to weed out Article violators.
“It’s what they did to you,” he said.
For a fraction of a moment his eyes flickered with pain, and I found myself glad that some part of him felt guilty for what he had done. The mention of the arrest had triggered my hands to fist in anger, and I had been fighting the urge to hit him again.
“It’s a tedious process,” he continued. “It takes a lot of manpower. All records—medical, employment, anything you can think of—are reviewed. Anyone who’s not in compliance with the Statutes is subject to sentencing, or is automatically sequestered.”
“Sequestered?” I felt as if I were talking to a stranger rather than someone I’d known my whole life.
“Put into federal custody. Like you were.”
“What happened to tickets and fines?” I remembered the night we’d received a citation for an old pre-War fashion magazine my mother had hidden under her mattress. “Lewd Materials,” the sheet had said. “Paper Contraband— $50.00”.
“They’re history. No one can pay them.”
I’d complained about this to him when he’d come home from Chicago. I hadn’t at the time considered that this would be the alternative, or that Chase would be a part of it.
We listened to a list of missing persons. I held my breath, but my name was not spoken. Chase’s forged documents had worked. Brock still believed I was on an overnight pass. When the report ended, Chase flicked off the radio.
Dusk was imminent; the sky had already tapered to a dull gray. I sighed apprehensively. We were going to have to look for a place to stop for the night, which meant the hours we could be traveling would instead be spent hiding somewhere just over the Pennsylvania border. It seemed like an insurmountable waste.
A road sign appeared on the right. The white paint stood out in sharp contrast to the metallic background.
I could feel Chase tense across the cab.
“What’s a Red Zone?” I hadn’t heard the term before.
“Evacuated area. Like Baltimore, DC, all the surrounding cities. Yellow Zones house FBR bases. Red Zones are deserted.”
It struck me just how small my world at home had been.
“This is new,” he added. It was clear from his tone that he hadn’t intended to cross into an evacuated zone on our way to the carrier.
As we neared the sign, a car, hidden behind a tangle of brush, was revealed.
A blue car. With a flag and a cross on the side.
All at once, every nerve in my body screamed danger. We couldn’t stop and turn around, because it was too late. Though Chase was driving the speed limit, the MM highway patrol pulled out onto the road behind us.
A moment later the bar of lights on the cruiser’s roof flashed to life and a loud siren pierced the air.