“YEAH right!” shouted someone. “I’m the sniper, too, Mags!”
People laughed. The woman—Mags, I assumed—smirked.
“And why should we believe you?” challenged Mags. All voices silenced when she spoke. “How do we know you’re not lying?”
“Check the mainframe,” I said. “Pull up my photo. I’ll verify anything you want.” My body felt rigid, strung too tight. There were murmurs from the crowd.
“Mm…” Mags gave me an evaluating look. “You do look like the picture. Not so soft though.”
“Give her a gun.” I braced at Tucker’s voice. “See what she can do if you don’t believe her.”
We both knew the only thing I could do with a rifle was prove myself a liar.
“Let’s not,” muttered Jack. Mags laughed.
“They stopped running that report,” a guy near Mags said speculatively. “They must’ve verified that that Greeneville girl was Miller.”
“It wasn’t,” Tucker said, staring at me with the clear message not to screw this up. “I don’t know who that was. Just a code one victim. But that’s good news, isn’t it, Ember? I guess you’re off the hook.”
The fact that he could even pretend to be indifferent made me sick.
I was frozen, unable to jump for joy that my name was cleared because it had meant Cara’s demise. But if he was right, how was it possible? Cara and I looked similar from afar, but the MM couldn’t possibly think she was me after a good look at her poor, lifeless face.
Still, if these people here had heard that the sniper—Ember Miller—was killed, then I had a few moments reprieve. Moments to get Rebecca. To deliver her to the safe house. If we survived the day.
“They’re lying!” shouted someone. “They’re just trying to skip a beating!”
“Ask him,” I said, pointing to Sean. He shot a worried glance in Chase’s direction. “He was my guard at reform school. There’s got to be some records in the mainframe that prove that.”
My heart thundered in my chest as we waited. Waited. Mags walked a slow circle around me.
Chicago is going to turn me in. They’re going to shoot me right here.
But no one looked angry. It slowly occurred to me that these people weren’t mad at me at all. Like the woman in the square who’d given me the medallion, they’d been supporting me. They’d been cheering for me.
Or rather, for who they thought I was.
“How’d you do it?” someone called out. “How’d you get so close to all those uniforms?”
I closed my eyes, just for a moment, and summoned Cara’s cool exterior.
“Do I look like a threat to you?” I smiled sweetly.
“What kind of gun? Was it an M40?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, fixing my hair. “It was a big one.”
Someone laughed. It was contagious, and soon the others were nodding and smiling as though they’d never intended to harm us. I could hardly believe it. Was it really so easy to evade the truth? To be someone else?
“I like it,” said a guy wearing a cockeyed knit cap. “A patriot if you ask me.”
The adrenaline was humming through me. I had no idea what would come next, but at least I’d stopped them from killing us.
As the copper cartridge was passed around the whispering crowd, Chase and I locked eyes. His betrayed nothing, though I knew he feared what I had done, and what would happen when Chicago realized my lie. Would it just be a fight then? Or would Chicago skip the beating and eliminate the problem?
“Who do you work for?” Mags asked. “Let’s just say you are the sniper. No one could have gotten half those hits without some protection.”
I stiffened. Tried to swallow, but couldn’t.
“Everyone reports to someone,” she said, testing me.
I closed my eyes, and tried to remember what Sean had told me at the Wayland Inn, how Marco and Polo had only added to the mystery.
“Everyone reports to Three,” I answered, immediately regretting my words. How far did Three’s power extend? How much trouble would I stir for dropping their name?
Before me, Mags had stopped her pace. Her brows had lifted. I prayed that she didn’t ask anything more direct.
“Indeed,” she said. “I’ve heard rumors that something big’s about to go down. Is that why you’re here?”
I wanted to ask what she’d heard—was Three planning some kind of revolution?—but I couldn’t break from the story now.
“Our friend was sent to rehab,” I said. “We need to find her.”
Everyone had gone very quiet. They were watching Mags, who wore authority just as she wore those battle-beaten boots.
“Rehab… you mean the circus?”
I glanced at Tucker, who appeared just as clueless as the rest of us. This was not a term soldiers used.
“Find her and what?” Mags added. “Extract her? Waste of time.”
A vein on Sean’s forehead bulged. “Hold on—”
“It’s our time to waste, ma’am,” Chase interjected. He moved beside me. “But we’d waste less of it with your help.”
I held my breath as Mags’s eyes traveled over the four of us. A frown pulled at the corners of her small mouth, but she regarded us with less suspicion now. When she spoke, her tone was flat.
“We have a plant inside at the base who can get an updated roster for the circus. You’ll brief me tonight at eighteen hundred”—she articulated the words so there would be no confusion—“with a full report of your plans before you make a move up top. You may have immunity according to Three, but this is still my territory. Not one trigger pulled without my go-ahead. Is that understood?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Chase.
She turned to her people. “I don’t want to hear about anyone roughing them up.”
Jack nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Thank you,” answered Mags. “For your service to the cause.” She fixed my collar, and I fought the urge to jerk back. “But just so you know, I have zero tolerance for vigilantes and cocky hotshots who can’t follow orders.” My gaze turned down from her harsh stare, and I felt her smile, twice as cool as Cara’s.
“Got it,” I said.
“Good. Now clean that blood off your face and get some sleep.” She smirked as she walked away. “You people look like hell.”
AFTER gathering our belongings at the car, we followed Jack around the dunes toward the airfield. Chase was beginning to stumble. The adrenaline was wearing off and I worried protectively that these new people would see him weakened and attempt another attack. I didn’t trust Mags’s peace decree; their actions would have to prove it.
The other soldiers pestered me with questions. Most of them I deflected like Cara had done, and in response, Tucker had taken to filling in the blanks. I’d never seen someone so pleased to be the accomplice of a serial killer. How much he seemed to know about the sniper murders was just starting to worry me when Chase leaned down and whispered, “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”
I watched the others. No one seemed to have heard.
“What do you think?” I said. “I’m getting us in.”
“That’s when we decided on the roof across the City Square. It was a clear shot to the draft tables.” Tucker was just behind us, surrounded by fighters Mags hadn’t detailed to surveillance. I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“They’re eating this up,” I said. Chase nodded.
Toothless, the bat back over his shoulder, jogged to catch up with us.
“I saw you fight a couple times before they kicked me out. Always thought I could take you, but you’re meaner than you look, Jennings.” He stuck out his hand, and when Chase reluctantly offered his own, Toothless shook it enthusiastically.
“Truck,” he said. “’Cause I drive the truck.”
Chase closed his eyes momentarily, looking utterly disappointed.
“You’re the carrier?” I asked.
“You’ve heard of me!” He looked delighted. “Jack, she’s heard of me.”
“That’s real sweet, Truck,” said Jack from the front of the line. I glared at him.
“We have a mutual… friend,” I settled on, though that didn’t seem right. There was no way Beth could have trusted this person, even if she was naïve. Though now that the fight was over he did seem surprisingly benign.
I could almost hear Chase’s teeth grinding. The plan was to get Rebecca and go to the safe house, but Chase wasn’t about to put our lives in the hands of a carrier who took nothing—not even a punch to the face—seriously.
“So wow,” said Truck in awe, standing a little too close to me for comfort. “You and Jennings really did break out of the base. Nice.”
I almost laughed. He’d chosen the one accusation that was actually true.
“I suppose you had a little help from Three…?” he asked. I forced a smile, and this was answer enough for him. Beside me, Chase’s jaw twitched.
“This contact that’s checking on our friend,” I said. “Would he be able to check on someone else, too?”
Truck shrugged. “Don’t see why not.”
“His name is Billy. Or… William,” I said, suddenly unsure. I realized I didn’t even know his last name. “He disappeared in Greeneville yesterday, at the checkpoint, about the time the girl was shot there.” I stumbled over the last part.
Truck scratched a hand over his clipped, flaxen hair. “I didn’t hear anything about a raid on a checkpoint. I’ll ask around though.”
Some of the tense muscles behind my neck eased. Marco and Polo could have taken Billy somewhere. He might still be safe. “Thanks.”
“Anything for Three,” he said with a wink. Chase coughed into his hand.
“Whoa,” Sean interrupted. “Look at that.”
It was a plane—at least, what was left of one. The big jumbo jet balanced precariously on one broken wing while the other reached into the sky like the arm of a dying man. The tail end was missing completely, but the hull was still largely in one piece. Its smooth, silver metal was tarnished by black burn smudges. It filled me with both awe and a kind of sad nostalgia. There was so little left from the time before.
“Strange that there’s only one,” Chase said.
I scanned the debris-covered field, but he was right. This was the only plane. If the airport had been attacked during the War surely more of them should have found their graves here.
I didn’t consider it further. At that moment we turned toward a mausoleum-like hole in one particularly large pile of rubble. Three armed guards hunkered nearby. They’d been expecting us, based on their lack of affect.
“Welcome to Chicago,” said Jack. As Sean went to move past him, Jack slapped a hard hand in the middle of his chest. “You scram and squeal, we hunt you down.” He grinned viciously.
“Good to know,” grumbled Sean.
Jack pulled back a large piece of sheet metal—the hatch on the side of a plane—and descended a ladder secured to the wall. We all followed.
It was dark, cave dark, when the last man in closed the hatch. The fear contracted in my belly as we dove deeper into the well, rung after rung, feeling our way blindly toward the bottom. Sweat slickened my grasp, and the bars groaned under our combined weight. Just as my arms were beginning to shake, my feet found solid ground. I listened for Tucker, more wary of him than all these strangers and their dark tunnels combined. There was a whirring noise, and then the light built steadily from a wind-up lantern. Tucker was still feeling his way down the ladder.
“Guess you all aren’t too concerned about heatstroke down here.” Sean’s voice echoed off the low, dome-shaped ceiling. He was right. My skin alighted with goose bumps. It was easily fifteen degrees cooler than the surface.
“What is this place?” I asked. “The sewers or something?” I wrapped my arms around my body. The dark was like a palpable thing; everywhere the light didn’t stretch seemed to stroke my skin with its icy tendrils.
“The tunnels,” corrected Jack. He shined his lantern down a long corridor that faded to black. My foot bumped against a metal rail, and when I looked down I saw two parallel lines of steel.
“I thought the subways were blown up,” said Chase.
“They were,” said Jack. “And it must have shaken something loose, ’cause that’s how Mags found this place. The Bureau never thought to check that something might exist below the subway.”
Black cords ran overhead, breaking into a fray of dusty wires at every crack in the cement ceiling. The air was stale, and brittle, as though a fresh breeze hadn’t swept through in a hundred years.
“How old is this place?” I asked.
“Older than you and me,” said Jack.
While he and the other rifleman led the way, Truck recounted the gory details of some of Chase’s fights to anyone close enough to hear. I eavesdropped with morbid curiosity. This wasn’t something Chase liked discussing, and though I wanted the guy to shut up, I couldn’t bring myself to stop him.
What I heard sounded brutal. Broken limbs. Blood, dripping from wounds gouged by fists and teeth. Matches that weren’t called off, even when they should have been. My heart broke for the little boy within him that was afraid of haunted houses, who kept pictures of his family in a box beneath the floorboards. I was the only witness of his existence. These people only knew a fighter.
Chase walked just before me, back straight, eyes flicking from side to side. I wondered what was going through his head. He didn’t like places where he couldn’t readily access an exit.
“Those stories aren’t all true,” he said quietly to me, and then swallowed.
“Neither are mine,” I said. His shoulders lowered a full inch.
We walked what felt like a long way before we came to a raised, open area. Up atop the platform, I saw what had happened to the other planes. Luggage racks had been rigged into bunk beds and bolted to the walls. Below them on the chipped tile floor were army cots, lined up like those at the Red Cross Camp. A dozen or more people were laid out sleeping as we passed. There was at least one girl in the mix.
“Barracks,” said the third guard, who hadn’t spoken very much. A rusted tin sign on the platform wall said CHICAGO TUNNEL COMPANY. Beside it was a metal door, and the words BOILER ROOM—EXIT could barely be deciphered through the corrosion. We were heading right underneath the city. I began to feel claustrophobic. What was above us? Burned-down buildings? The base? Rebecca?
Our path widened as other tracks converged with the central line. Small hanging lanterns were rigged to the cords that ran along the ceiling, low enough that Truck could wind them up as we approached. Chase had to weave around them to avoid hitting his head.
We continued on past the latrines—airplane lavatories taken straight from the planes. They were pressed against the wall of the tunnel, but not particularly evenly. A shovel was leaning against the last open stall, and when I glanced in I saw my distorted reflection in the shadowed aluminum mirror.
I tried to picture the resistance dismantling planes, lowering piece by piece of scrap metal down to the tunnels, but the task seemed too daunting. They were planes, thousands of pounds. And yet, the proof was all around us.
“When will we have the roster for the rehab facility?” I heard Sean ask.
“When you stop whining like a little girl,” answered Jack. Apparently association with Three didn’t buy us good manners from everyone. Sean fell into place beside Chase and me.
We walked farther. A mile, it felt like. My eyes were already adjusting to this grade of darkness. I began to see details more clearly, even without the assistance of a flashlight or the lanterns hanging from the low ceilings. There was graffiti on the walls here. One Whole Country, One Whole Family, but other signs, too. The flag and the cross—the insignia of the MM—X’d out. Swear words. The names of the deceased with the dates they died.
And three hash marks. Someone from Three had been here. I hoped they weren’t here now to call me out.
We came upon another station, which our tour guide named sick bay. Several train cars sat dormant on the tracks, crowded with towels, gauze, and medical supplies. Lanterns hung in the last compartment and a dirty-faced boy about my age sat on a large wooden stool and hugged his bleeding arm against his body. He hollered when a medic doused it with peroxide. The medic laughed. I cringed and jogged past a stack of white buckets to keep up with Chase.
The next stop on our tour—the Receiving Station, going by the faded paint on the wall—was much more open, and packed with people. Fifty at least. They sat in blue wool plane seats, using the trays from the row in front of them to hold plates of food. I could smell the warmth and the salt above the cold, dank mold and dirt of the tunnels.
Their glances turned to stares. Their conversations turned to whispers. Truck told anyone who lifted a brow my direction that I was the sniper. I reminded myself to stay aloof, but the lie had grown beyond my control, and I hated myself for ever mentioning it.
“How many people live here?” I found myself asking.
“About a hundred, give or take a few,” said Truck.
I cleared my throat against the rasp of cold air. We’d only had thirty in Knoxville, and who knew how many of those were left.
“If you keep going that way, you’ll hit the Loop,” said Truck. “That’s where the briefing is. Make sure you leave early, it’s a hike.”
We climbed out of the trench, and a full kitchen was revealed. A cafeteria-style counter, made of welded pieces of plane hull, ran along the length of the far wall. Behind it were a steadily humming generator and three mismatched refrigerators. Five workers, one of them a thick girl with cropped hair, were serving tubs of Horizons instant mashed potatoes and cooking burger patties—real meat—over a grill atop a flaming metal trash can. The smoke was wafted down the tunnels by some unperceivable current.
I thought of how much cereal and canned corn we’d eaten at the Wayland Inn. Food we’d stolen from the MM. These people had someone working inside at Horizons, that much was obvious.
Truck was kind enough to get us some food and damp rags with which to clean ourselves before leading us behind the mess hall. Despite my anxiety I was beginning to see double again. I thought if I closed my eyes, I could be asleep in seconds.
The farther we moved away from the tracks, the more debris cluttered the area, and the stronger the scent of rust and concrete dust became. Truck explained that the bombings during the War had taken out the city above us, but that the deeper tunnels, and some of the old elevator shafts to the surface, were still clear. When I pointed out the large crack in the ceiling, he only raised his lantern and shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal.
He led us around a cramped area with smaller rail carts filled with what looked like coal, toward a room that said ENGINEERING on the door. Inside were two young men, one with spiky blue hair, the other with porcelain skin and almond-shaped eyes. Their guarded demeanors turned eager as soon as Truck informed them they were in the presence of celebrities, and I was bombarded with questions again.
I pawned off their enthusiasm on Tucker while I explored the room. It was like someone had gone Dumpster diving in a Contraband Items bin. The walls were lined with stacks of clothing, both uniforms and otherwise, linens, and boxes of hair dye and electric clippers. Everything from jewelry to batteries to religious items, including crucifixes and menorahs, were laid out across three sturdy tables. Behind all this was an emergency exit sign, hanging pathetically on wires from the ceiling.
“Is that still a way out?” Chase asked. We all followed his line of sight to the back of the room, where a corridor stretched into darkness.
“Yeah,” said the guy with the almond eyes. “That’s where they bring supplies down. Guards keep watch up top to make sure no one unapproved gets in.”
Chase nodded and took a deep breath. This settled him only minutely.
“We’ve still got five hours until curfew,” Sean whispered to me while the others were rifling the inventory for stolen uniforms and blankets. “If we wait until the meeting, we’ll be stuck here until morning.”
I felt his urgency. The time had begun ticking through my bloodstream, weighing me down, but we had to play it safe. We weren’t going to get to Rebecca any faster if we broke the rules and got kicked out of the resistance. I should know.
“We’ll get her out, okay?” I said, trying to summon patience. “We need a plan and before we can do that, we need to crash.”
“All this attention wearing you out?”
His cynicism surprised me.
“You’re not the only one who wants her back,” I said, waving when one of the supply boys continued to stare at me.
He sighed. “I know. Sorry. It’s just, we’re so close.”
“We’ll get the roster soon,” said Tucker, inserting himself in the conversation. “And then I’ll get us in. Trust me.”
“Trust you. Great idea,” I muttered.
EXHAUSTION was taking over by the time we’d taken turns in the “showers”—nozzled bags of undrinkable water—and returned to the barracks. Chase chose two empty cots near the back where he could face the rest of the platform. The glow of our flashlight revealed a steady vein of water leaking from the ceiling that disappeared into a mound of mud wedged against the wall.
I didn’t like separating from Sean and Tucker, but Sean couldn’t rest until he knew more about Rebecca, and there was no way I could sleep if Tucker was anywhere near.
“Turn that light out,” someone groaned. I clicked off the flashlight, glad for the first time to be made anonymous by darkness.
What had I been thinking, declaring myself the sniper? I’d gotten us in, sure, but it was just a matter of time before Chicago poked a hole in my lie. We’d better make sure we were gone by the time they figured it out.
Was this how Cara had felt? Always deflecting the truth—whatever that truth actually was. I pictured her pretty face, her cold, sparkling eyes, her mouth curved up in a flirtatious smile. It made me sick to think about, and even sicker that I felt thankful to be alive. Not glad she was dead, but relieved that I was still here. And that was just the same as being glad, wasn’t it?
I collapsed on the edge of my makeshift bed and it squeaked. The next cot over felt miles away, too far from him, and in this place, surrounded by people I didn’t know, people who thought me someone else, I didn’t want to be alone.
I grabbed his hand, urging him down to sit beside me. When my cheek brushed against his shoulder, his chin came to rest on the top of my head. We still smelled vaguely of smoke.
“Don’t go,” I whispered.
He exhaled slowly, then shifted. I heard the slide of fabric as he removed his boots, and then his warm breath on my knee as he removed mine. I scanned the blinding darkness of the room. I couldn’t see anyone. Which meant they couldn’t see us.
He lay back. I remembered the way he’d clutched his side after the fight, and tentatively pushed back his shirt. My fingertips skimmed over the rise and fall of his abs and the lean, quivering muscles sweeping around his ribcage. There were bruises here; even in the dark I could imagine them. Purple blossoms tinged with yellow. I swallowed thickly.
“Does it hurt?” I whispered.
He hesitated. “That doesn’t.”
His skin was so smooth I couldn’t take my hands off of it. I briefly wondered what he would do if I kissed that spot, right near the base of his sternum. Thoughts of Cara gave me pause. Cara, who would never touch anyone this way again.
“Lay down with me,” he said. The metal frame of the cot whined as he pulled me close. I fit into the cradle of his hips, my back flush against his chest, my knees bending over his. My head found a pillow on his biceps, and I trembled when his other hand rose up my hip, beneath the hem of my shirt, and his fingers spread over my bare stomach and wrapped around my waist. He held me tightly, until the warmth of his body melded with mine. Until I couldn’t tell where he ended and I began.
In the peace that followed, I thought of Jack and Truck and Mags, how heavy the weight from the surface pressed down on the shoulders of the soldiers beneath. How it made them brutal and callous, and how much more familiar that felt than Beth’s innocence, even after such a short time.
Even hardened, there were still moments like this. Soft spaces in time. Moments that made everything else matter.
That was when I finally realized that though I may have changed, I wasn’t broken at all.
I AWOKE to passing footsteps and the dim glow of a lantern. My limbs were tangled with Chase’s, reminding me how tall he was when my socked feet only reached his shins. One heavy arm locked me against his firm chest and his warm breath tickled my ear.
Home, he’d told me once. I was his home. He was mine, too. Had my mind not already begun churning with what the next hours would bring, I could have stayed right there forever.
He had obviously been hurting for sleep. Normally up at the slightest sound, he barely stirred when I wiggled away. Carefully, I slipped on my boots and meandered toward the muted light of the main tunnel, trying not to bump into anyone sleeping on a cot or luggage rack.
I needed to find Sean—hopefully he’d learned more about Rebecca’s situation while I’d been asleep. Now that I was more alert I felt it. She was close, and we were wasting time until the meeting not attempting a rescue.
I heard footsteps again, and a light appeared thirty feet down the tunnel in the direction of sick bay. I squinted, and in the dim glow caught a head of golden hair hurriedly walking away.
It could have been any number of people I hadn’t met, but I was certain it was Tucker. The knot in my gut was proof enough.
Heart pumping, I ran after him. I should have waited for Chase—I knew that. But I also knew that whatever Tucker was doing, he was doing in secret. I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to bust him. If he caused trouble here on Chicago’s turf, all of us were going down.
The light disappeared as I rounded the bend in the tunnel. My feet kept between the dull blue tracks, but reactively slowed when the path before me lay empty. The clatter of my steps echoed like mocking laughter, drawing a prickling sensation down the back of my neck. I was surrounded by shadows and corridors that disappeared into the black. Tucker could be hiding anywhere.
There was a rustling to my left, and I gripped the long metal handle of the flashlight as though it were a weapon. The sound came from the line of temporary showers down a tile-encased corridor. As I tiptoed toward it I heard Sean’s voice from the medical car twenty feet away and told myself to relax. He would hear me if I ran into trouble.
I pushed back the trash bag curtain, but there was no one standing on the wet tile floor. Drip, drip, drip, went the steady, ear-shattering leak from the doorway. The IV shower bags with their attached spray nozzles hung limply on their wall hooks. I stared so long into the shadows that I began to see shapes. Hear things that didn’t exist—creaking, moaning, whispers.
“You get used to it.”
I spun, already swinging the flashlight, and watched Truck stagger back into the wall, surprise painted all over his simple face.
“What?” I bent, hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath.
“The dark,” he said, and then began to laugh. “You get used to the dark after a while.” He leaned close and whispered, “Saw you sneaking around. It gets to you quick, doesn’t it?”
His blond hair gleamed in the glow of the flashlight. He was the one I’d seen, not Tucker. I shook my head to clear my thoughts.
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said.
He walked with me to sick bay to meet Sean, who was sitting on a wooden stool in the train car, talking to Jack, and the medic I’d seen earlier; a short, bawdy man with a bald spot on the back of his head.
There was no sign of Tucker.
I stepped inside guardedly, remembering how Jack had looked below me as I pressed a baseball bat into his throat.
“I guess we’re all friends now, huh?” I said.
“No sense of humor,” said Jack. He flashed a condescending grin from across the car, and I caught the thick red mark across his neck. “Guys, we forgive and forget, but not a chick, man.”
“Find a bat and I’ll remind you,” I said.
“Ooh!” Truck gave me a high five, which I reluctantly returned. Here, under the wind-up lanterns, it was obvious that his left eye was swollen from the fight. He was sitting beside a cardboard box with the word morefeen scribbled on it. The medic laughed as Truck playfully shoved a sullen Jack off his perch.
“Shut up!” Sean shouted, slamming his hand against the wall. I stiffened. “The report’s wrong. Your man screwed up,” he said.
“The roster,” I realized, deflating. “She’s not here.” We had the wrong town. I hated myself for ever believing Tucker Morris would tell the truth.
“He’s never wrong—” began the medic.
“He’s wrong,” interrupted Sean. There were shadows of disbelief under his eyes.
“If you didn’t want to know, why’d you come?” asked Jack.
“What’s going on?” I said. “Is Rebecca at the reformatory or not?”
“Good news, she’s there,” said Truck. “Bad news, it’s not a reformatory.”
“What?”
“It’s a physical rehabilitation center,” the medic said. “Attached to the hospital. We don’t go there—not because it’s packed with soldiers or anything,” he qualified. “There’s only a skeleton staff of uniforms and it’s mostly manned by Sisters and doctors. But it’s… bad luck.”
“What does that mean?” I was beginning to feel that cold hand of panic walk down my spine.
“The place is a circus,” said Truck. Mags had said this earlier, but Truck’s tone held far more disgust. “A freak factory. They’re all over. You seriously haven’t heard of a circus?” I shook my head. “All right, look. It’s a place where they patch up the injured just enough that they can put them on tour and… what did they call it? Deter something…”
“Deter noncompliance,” finished Jack.
“Right,” said Truck. “All the people the Bureau messes up get sent there. Civvies and ex-soldiers and Sisters. They’re kept in enough pain so that they’re dependent, you know? So they can’t run away.”
I saw the burned boy in the Square, whose mother had held him up for everyone to see.
Advertising, Chase had said. Nothing puts people in their place like the threat of pain. He’d seen this first while he’d lived here, in Chicago. Had he suspected?
“One of our guys got caught,” said Jack. “They beat him pretty bad. Kept him on a breathing machine in that rehab facility and toured him around the base. Wanted to show off what happens when you bite back.”
It was the first time I’d seen him without his tough front. Even Truck was quiet. The cold air around us grew thin and brittle.
My anger for Tucker was scalding. How could he have neglected to mention this? If he’d really been inside that building, he would have known what went on there. Unless his supposed training—and his contact on the inside—were just more lies.
“What happened to him?” I asked weakly.
“Mags,” said Truck. “Mags went topside with a team, to this old abandoned high-rise across the street. From the top floor you can see down onto the courtyard on their roof. When they brought him outside, she took him out.”
“Mercy kill,” added the medic. It was the first time I’d heard the term used with something other than a bird with a broken wing, and it sunk into my body like fangs. “Mags is tough as nails. She could probably teach you a thing or two, Sniper.”
It took me a moment to remember my role, but when I did, all I managed was a one-shouldered shrug.
Now I knew why the gang outside had silenced when we’d mentioned where we needed to go. Why they’d all waited for Mags’s reaction. She’d killed one of her own men there, and instead of being horrified, they’d been reverent.
It occurred to me the sniper could have been in Chicago all along. It made perfect sense. Mags was cold, protected by a legion of ex-soldiers who could defend her if needed. I wished Chase was here. I wondered if he’d woken yet; if he was looking for me.
My mind turned back to Rebecca, my fear for her swelling. “Why couldn’t the team break into the facility and get him? You said there aren’t many soldiers.”
The three Chicago boys glanced at one another warily.
“A Sister has to accompany any soldier into the building,” Truck told me. “And it’s not that Mags couldn’t rig that, but what were we supposed to do with him once we got him out? We can’t support that kind of care down here.”
Sean had had enough. He tore out of the car into the darkened passage.
I shook my head, wishing I could replay this conversation with a different outcome. But we’d come here for answers, and we’d gotten them.
I left the car and found Sean just outside, pacing.
“Sean,” I said. He didn’t stop. I stood in front of him. “Sean!”
“I still have to go. I have to see.” He crouched, hands on his head.
“Sean, stop it,” I said, grabbing his shoulders. “We’ll figure this out.”
“How? How are we going to do that?”
“I… I don’t know. Yet. I don’t know yet, okay? But we’ll think of something.”
He stood, shaking his head. “I should have gotten her out of there years ago.”
“Sean, it’s not your fault. If anyone’s, it’s mine.”
“No.” He shook his head. “No, I was supposed to look out for her.”
“Sean…”
“Chase got you out!” His voice was powerful enough to push me back a step. “Chase didn’t wait, but I waited. I kept waiting, thinking that there’d be a better time. She’d age out, and then I’d go AWOL…”
Sean was losing his control, and as he did, mine returned. My hands had captured his wrists, and squeezed when he tried to brush me off.
“Sean, listen to me.”
“I swear, if they’ve been towing her around the base…”
“Stop. They said it’s run by Sisters. I promise, if I have to go in there by myself and get her, I will, okay?”
“I should have—”
“We’ll tell Mags tonight we’re going to try Tucker’s contact.” I couldn’t believe what I was saying, but we had no other options. “We’ll see her tomorrow, okay?”
Finally, he blew out a strained breath.
“Dawn,” he said.