I WENT over the plan in my head as we walked up to the entrance. Most of it relied on Tucker. It still seemed beyond surreal that I was putting my life in the hands of my mother’s murderer. I reminded myself that he’d helped us out of the fire at the Wayland Inn. That he’d stayed to evacuate the tunnels, and seemed almost human when he’d told me about his family.
He hasn’t killed me so far, I told myself. But it was small consolation.
There was a glass-covered posting of the Statutes near the entrance, but I couldn’t see the five most wanted in conjunction with the sniper shootings. Maybe the FBR still thought that Ember Miller had died two days ago in Greeneville. Still, I kept my head bowed, just in case.
Tucker walked straight up to the front door and pulled it open, allowing me to step into a brightly lit lobby with a black-and-white checkered floor. A Sister of Salvation sat behind a glass window, smiling in a plastic way. She had a broad forehead and flat hair, pulled back in a pencil-thin braid. By the time we reached her, my nerves had settled into that same eerie calm I remembered from my escape from the base. I was glad for it. I needed a clear head now.
“Welcome to Horizons Physical Rehabilitation. How may I help you?” she chimed.
“Patient transfer,” said Tucker.
“I’ll need a copy of your orders, please.” She reached her hand under the bottom of the glass expectantly.
My fists clenched. Tucker hadn’t said we’d need paperwork.
“Is Sprewell here?” Tucker asked irritably, as though he couldn’t be bothered with this girl and her silly rules. I wasn’t entirely sure the sentiment wasn’t genuine.
“Um… yes, sir. Do you have an appointment?” she asked, her mouth now drawn tight at the corners.
“We’ll wait.”
He stared at her until she stood up and walked away.
“You don’t have to be so rude,” I whispered.
“Not now,” snapped Sean. Tucker smirked.
The Sister returned and sat back down. “Sergeant Sprewell will be with you in just a moment.”
“Thank you,” said Tucker, not particularly kindly.
Church of America music was piped in through the speakers. The soprano singing struck a note that gave me the chills. I nursed my sore wrist and tried to focus on relaxing the bundled muscles in my neck, but the Sister kept staring at me.
“We’ve met, haven’t we?” she finally asked.
I dropped my chin and looked away. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh, I’m sure of it,” she said. “I recognize your face….”
For several blank seconds the words caught in my throat and I seriously contemplated running. Then I remembered what Beth had said about the arrival of the Sisters in Louisville.
“Dallas,” I said. “I trained at the center in Dallas.”
“That’s it,” she said. “I trained there, too.” She smiled again, in her hollow way.
An atrocious buzzer sounded and I jumped to attention. A moment later, a ruddy-faced guard with beady eyes—SPREWELL, according to his name badge—pushed through the locked door on the left side of the check-in window.
His eyes drew to me first, with a look so slimy I felt the need to take a shower. I instantly despised him.
“Still guarding cripples, huh, Sprewell?” chided Tucker.
I bristled at the word cripple, thinking of the Chicago fighter that Mags had shot. Then I held my breath, praying that Tucker hadn’t been too bold. Thankfully the guard recognized him and laughed.
“Miss me that much, Morris?”
Something in his mannerisms reminded me of how Tucker had been at the Knoxville base. Cocky. Too clever for his own good.
He shook Tucker’s hand, and Tucker smiled, like he belonged in this world. I shifted, moving closer to Sean and the handgun in his belt.
“What brings you back this way?” asked Sprewell.
“Transfer. The Sisters put in a request to bring one of your girls to their order in Knoxville.”
“So that’s why you’re in mixed company.” The guard’s brows went flat with indifference. “Any gimp in particular?”
“Her name is Rebecca Lansing,” said Sean, sweat beading on his forehead.
I tensed. My heart hammered against my ribcage.
Sprewell’s chin lifted. “This a pal of yours, Morris?”
I was done talking to Sprewell. I wanted to see Rebecca now.
“Ms. Lansing is to set an example for the other Sisters,” I said. “To steer them away from a life of sin.”
Truck had said this is what they’d done to that poor Chicago soldier with the broken neck. Toured him around the base. I hoped it wasn’t too unreasonable that the Sisters of Salvation would do the same thing.
Sprewell glanced at Tucker, as if to verify that I’d spoken out of turn. I hid the irritated sigh that threatened to sneak out. It seemed men could only address men these days.
“They’re a little bold down south, aren’t they, Morris?” he said with a ghost of a smile. “The ones here are… what’s it called… like those bugs that don’t have any male or female parts. Asexual, that’s it.”
“We are on a time crunch, Sprewell,” said Tucker.
He sighed. “Fine, all right. Come on back and we’ll run your IDs.”
The three of us froze, refusing to look at one another. Had Tucker forgotten this crucial step? Was this an accidental omission, or a deliberate one? I looked out the front window, seeing the van still parked on the curb. There was still a chance to run for it.
But I couldn’t run. Any doubt that Rebecca was here had been erased. Anyway, I wouldn’t make it ten feet before Sprewell had shot me in the back.
I followed the boys through the locked entry. There was no turning back now.
ON the opposite side of the door was a long counter, where a Sister sat beside a young soldier doing paperwork. He had a strained look on his face, and averted his eyes from Sprewell, out of fear or aversion, I didn’t know.
“ID checks,” said Tucker, trying to sound casual. “That’s new since I trained here.”
“Is it?” asked Sprewell, but he wasn’t particularly interested.
“Name?” asked the soldier behind the desk. He pushed nervously at his dirty blond hair as though he was used to it being longer than the short soldier’s clip. It was a move that reminded me of Billy. It made him seem younger, and elicited a pang of worry for my friend.
Sean hesitated.
“Randolph. James,” he lied. I shot him a quick glance and then looked away. Randolph had been another guard at the reformatory. One I didn’t regard fondly.
“Where are your name badges?” asked Sprewell skeptically. “That’s a disciplinary action if your CO finds out.”
My hands fisted.
“Not today,” lied Tucker. “Cleaning Services lost them.”
Sprewell snorted. “Women.”
“Come on,” said Tucker. “You know me, that’s ID check enough. Let me get this girl so we can get back on the road.”
The soldier was still searching the mainframe for Sean’s alias.
“Yeah, fine. Having a tough time, New Guy?” chided Sprewell, then snorted. “Harper couldn’t count to ten with his shoes off.”
The soldier’s—Harper’s—face reddened. He glanced at me quickly, but I looked away.
“It’s the whole class of new recruits,” said Tucker conversationally, as though Harper wasn’t sitting right there. “We got two in Knoxville—neither one can read.”
Sprewell smirked. “Digging up the bottom feeders, that’s what it’s come to. Pathetic, but I guess we need the manpower. I’m sure you’ve heard all that talk about evacuating the rat nests. Now that we’ve got those heat-seeking missiles it’s cake; fifty warm bodies within fifty yards of one another, that’s all it takes to burn the house down. Those things just need a point in the right direction and BOOM!”
My throat grew too dry to swallow.
“LDEDs,” said Tucker. “Yeah, I’ve heard about those.”
“Too bad you weren’t here yesterday. Got a tip that a whole load of violators were hiding out in the sewers. Right under our feet.” Sprewell stomped one boot. “We sent the roof down on ’em. Whole damn compound shook when they blew the place.” He snickered as he retrieved a clipboard from behind the desk. “Let’s see. Just a rental, right? You’re bringing her back sometime next week?”
My teeth had clenched so hard I thought they might break.
“Sure,” said Tucker thinly. “If that’s all you can part with her.”
Sprewell laughed and looked up a patient chart while Tucker signed the paperwork.
“Lansing, let’s see… Fourth floor. Room 408,” he said.
I was already walking to the elevator.
“Peace be with you,” called the Sister.
“And also with you,” I responded over my shoulder with a smile.
“YOU’RE welcome,” said Tucker as soon as the three of us were alone in the elevator.
“Don’t jinx it,” I told him. He laughed. Sean wiped the sweat from his brow on the sleeve of his stolen uniform jacket.
“Come on, come on, come on,” he said as each floor lit up on the board.
I bounced on my heels, willing the elevator to go faster. How long had we been in this building? Ten minutes? Fifteen? Chase was going to follow soon if we didn’t hurry up.
LDEDs. Long Distance Explosive Devices. I’d heard of these once before; one of the other four who’d been wanted for the sniper shootings had been protesting a demonstration of the bombs. Sprewell and Tucker had said the heat-seeking missiles just needed to be aimed in the right direction, toward fifty warm bodies. Who had told them that the resistance would gather at that time beneath the city?
The elevator opened, revealing a cream-colored hallway and a nurse’s station, manned by Sisters and a middle-aged doctor in a white medical coat who didn’t seem affected one way or another by our presence. A quick survey revealed that Sean and Tucker were the only soldiers on the floor. Truck had been right about the security here, but my relief dissolved as quickly as it had arrived.
A man sat in a wheelchair against the wall wearing only his underwear. His legs had been amputated just above the knees, capped by bandages that were soaking through with blood. Branching up his bare white thighs were the red fingers of infection. His torso and face were flushed with fever. His eyes stared through us with no registration.
I wondered if he were a soldier who tried to escape or disobeyed an order, or a civilian who’d crossed the wrong officer. I couldn’t let myself think of it. We only had time for Rebecca. The tension in the air ratcheted up a notch.
Our shoes squeaked over the newly waxed floors. Don’t rush, don’t draw attention, I told myself. Sean beat me to 408, but there was no one inside.
As we returned to the attendants’ station the elevators dinged and opened again. Sprewell appeared, a look of consternation on his face. He was holding a paper in his hand. A computer printout. Was it my photo? Had the soldier downstairs remembered my face from the Missing Persons report? Involuntarily, I glanced at the gun on his belt, thinking of the code one.
“Morris, I need to speak with you.”
Tucker stiffened and walked slowly back toward his old friend.
My brain was reeling. What did they have to talk about? An instant filter through the possibilities left me with two options: either Sprewell had scanned Tucker’s name anyway and figured out he’d been dishonorably discharged, or Tucker had set us up.
I tilted my head, trying not to eavesdrop too obviously. The chalky music grated down my spine.
“You’re kidding,” I heard Tucker say in a shocked tone. He called to Sean: “Get the girl. I have to take care of something.”
Tucker was going somewhere with Sprewell alone. He was going to rat us out. I opened my mouth to say something, anything to make him stay, but my throat tied in knots, like Rebecca herself was gripping my vocal cords. We couldn’t follow Tucker. We had to find her.
I met Tucker’s eyes once as he entered the elevator. The concern in them was evident enough to spray me with doubt. Maybe he wasn’t turning me in. Maybe he really was the one in trouble.
Either way we were running out of time.
Sean sped back to the nurse’s station and harshly stated Rebecca’s name. The Sister looked frightened.
“Yes, sir. She’s either in physical therapy at the end of the hall”—she pointed to the right—“or in the rec room, that way.” She pointed the opposite direction.
Sean took off toward physical therapy, and I went the other way.
Slow down, I told myself.
I passed several patient rooms. Most of the doors were closed. All but Room 408, and its neighbor, 409. Inside, a withered man laid on the plastic covered mattress, staring blankly at the ceiling, his mouth open and crusting white. He was crying softly.
I shoved through the door at the end of the hall.
The room was empty but for a table in the center holding a ceramic pot and a plastic tray of pansies. There was a girl in yellow scrubs sitting in a plastic chair facing the side window. Her blond locks, once so long and beautiful, had been shorn to a tight cap around her skull.
Rebecca.
Suddenly, I was bombarded with memories. The first time I’d seen her, with her springy hair and plastic smile. Her unstoppable love for the sandy-haired guard, Sean Banks. Sitting beside her on my bed late into the night strategizing my escape. The night I’d told her about Chase.
She was not a friend at first, and she might not be now, but for a time, she was all I had.
I took a step forward, feeling a cool drip of nerves slide down my spine. If the Sisters were so casual in their supervision, there had to be another security measure in place. Maybe there were cameras, or another posted guard that I’d missed…. They were insane if they thought a girl who’d snuck out of her room at the reformatory every single night would stay, unguarded, in a space like this.
“Rebecca,” I said cautiously.
Ahead of me, I saw her slender body grow rigid.
“I don’t want to pray today.” She did not turn around.
My heart cracked at the sound of her voice.
When I rounded the table, Rebecca’s nose was down. Even though she wasn’t looking at me, I could see a bitter expression pulling at her once angelic face. She was repotting the pansies. Her fingers were black from the soil.
But she looked okay. No broken neck. No feeding tube. With the exception of her hair, she looked exactly as she had when we’d parted. A single wave of cool relief washed over me.
“Let’s go,” I said, focused again.
Her head shot up, and her pretty blue eyes went round with shock. The mustard-colored remnants of a bruise along her chin and jaw became apparent and elicited a strong twinge of guilt.
“Ember?” She kept the flowers on her lap.
“We’re getting you out of here,” I whispered.
“What? You… wait… no.”
I must have looked surprised, because that’s what I felt. “What do you mean no? We’ve got to hurry. Sean is—”
“Not Sean,” she said firmly, but there was an edge to her voice. “Ember, you have to leave.”
“What?” She was mad at me, that was the only explanation for why she was acting this way. She had good reason, but still, I was here, I was going to get her out. Surely she had to see that.
I realized she was probably afraid, but this seemed crazy. She’d attacked Brock and the guards with her bare hands for what they’d done to Sean, and now she was too scared to leave a hospital?
“You’re not taking me anywhere. You’re leaving. Now.” Her voice hitched. If she kept this up, the Sisters were going to hear her.
My brain couldn’t wrap around this. “You don’t want to leave?”
“No. I want to stay,” she said resolutely.
“We can’t talk about this now. There’s no time.” I glanced over my shoulder. No one was coming. Yet. I snatched the flowerpot off her lap.
“No! You don’t understand!” Her voice cracked. “He can’t see me like this!” Her perfect cheeks were splotchy red now. They stood out in sharp contrast to her yellow jumpsuit.
“Like what? With short hair? Rebecca, he won’t care.”
“That’s not what I mean!”
Sean burst through the door at the same time I jerked Rebecca to a stand.
Only she didn’t stand. She fell flat on her face.
“What the…” I knelt to the ground to pick her up.
“I told you!” She was crying now.
Time slowed, and everything became crystal clear.
There was absolutely no concern that Rebecca was going to run because she couldn’t run. That explained the limited military presence. That was why Sisters ran this place.
I closed my eyes and saw it happen, just as it did at the reformatory. Rebecca in her gray uniform charging Ms. Brock, the headmistress. The guards trying to contain her. Then crack! A baton colliding into Rebecca’s back. Her sharp cry of pain. We’d been separated. I’d never known the extent of Rebecca’s injuries.
“Sean!” I snapped. “I need your help!” I tried to pull Rebecca up, but she couldn’t support herself. Nothing below her knees moved. Her thin legs splayed limply to the side. Paralyzed. I heard the word in my head but it was wrong. It had to be wrong. She could walk, she just wasn’t trying.
Rebecca moaned softly, a terrifying, desolate sound, and I knew then that she could try all she wanted; she’d never walk again.
At that moment the fire alarm went off.
“Becca?” Sean asked, confused. He knelt beside her.
“G-get a wheelchair. Where is it, Rebecca?” The blood had drained from my head and extremities, and I felt very cold. The siren bit into my eardrums, and a bright light from above the door began to flash. Fear of another kind filled me. I had had about enough burning buildings to last a lifetime.
“She doesn’t need a wheelchair,” said Sean. “Get up, Becca.”
She didn’t get up. She was wailing softly into her hands. He reached for her arm but didn’t touch her. Like he couldn’t. Like there was an invisible wall between them.
I scanned the room, landing on a pair of crutches and leg braces against a cabinet on the opposite side of the room. Whoever had brought her here had left them far out of her reach. A surge of fury rose within me so immediately that I nearly screamed.
I sprinted toward them, gathering the intricate black plastic braces and the modified crutches, and returned to the floor.
“How do I put these on?” I demanded.
“Becca, look at me,” said Sean.
A Sister, about my age, pushed through the door.
“Oh dear!” she said. “Did she have a fall?”
“Back off,” I growled at her. She stopped short.
“There’s a fire drill,” she said cautiously, as if we couldn’t hear it. “We’ve got to move everyone we can outside.”
I shuddered to think about the people that couldn’t be moved.
“How do I put these braces on?” I demanded of the Sister.
Sean didn’t wait for an explanation. He scooped Rebecca up off the floor and carried her out of the room.
“She’s being transported to another facility,” I said between my teeth. The Sister’s mouth had formed a small o.
The siren was much louder in the hall. I stuffed Rebecca’s crutches under my arm and clapped my hands to my ears. Girls darted into rooms, shouting directions at one another. I inspected the chaos, convinced that this was some ploy to catch us.
Tucker was nowhere to be seen.
“The stairs are that way!” shouted the doctor over the noise. “The elevators shut down when the alarm is pulled!” He was pushing a man in a wheelchair toward the emergency exit. The patient cried out in pain, pressing his hands to his ears.
My breath was coming fast, raking my throat. We hurried to the emergency exit and joined the crowd of Sisters assisting amputees and wheelchair-bound patients down the stairs. Two girls had dropped their sweet Sister façade and were snapping at each other about how to get a patient’s walker out of a crack in the handrail. I prayed that this was simply a drill; they were leaving a lot of people behind.
“Blend in,” I told Sean unnecessarily. I might be able to do so, but not him. He was the only soldier in sight.
It didn’t matter what I told him anyway. He wasn’t listening.
Rebecca’s hands remained over her face, a shield from Sean’s blank stare. Her legs hung over his arm. I could not swallow the lump in my throat.
Truck’s words from before the blast kept echoing in my head. What were we supposed to do with him once we got him out? We can’t support that kind of care down here.
She’s okay, I told myself. We’ll make her safe. We’ll take care of her. She’ll be fine.
Please let her be fine.
We’d made it to the landing of the third floor when I saw the other soldier. He was running up the stairs, shoving through the crowds of Sisters into the second floor hallway.
My heart stopped cold.
Chase.
We’d taken too long. He’d come in after me. He’d probably been the one to pull the alarm. And now he had no idea where to look, and was going the wrong way. I opened my mouth to shout for his attention, but he had already disappeared behind the heavy silver door.
“I’ll meet you at the car,” I shouted in Sean’s ear, throwing the braces and crutches onto Rebecca’s lap. Without another word I shoved down the last flight of stairs toward the second floor.
My heart was racing as I burst through the heavy door. There were no Sisters here, no doctors either. I heard the weakened call of one of the patients left behind in his room and fought the urge to follow his voice.
“Hello?” I screamed over the siren. I didn’t want to say his name if I didn’t have to. Eerie worship music rang between the blasts of the siren. My blood burned in frustration. How was he supposed to hear me with all of this racket? How could I hear him?
“Hello!” I shouted again, this time running around the nurse’s station. I slid on the slick linoleum floor, grasping the circular desk for balance and sending papers flying through the air.
We saw each other at the same time. He didn’t hesitate. He ran toward me from the far side of the hallway. As he drew near I could see the fear creasing his forehead. We collided; he grabbed my hand and whipped me after him.
Our way was blocked.
We stopped short, and I slid again, righting myself just before I fell. A soldier stood before the door ten feet away, his face drawn with anxiety and fear, his gun raised at Chase’s chest. I didn’t have to glance at his gold name badge to know it read HARPER.
In a flash, Chase had drawn his weapon and jerked me behind him.
Nothing happened. No one fired.
I felt every part of me extending like roots down my legs, through my heels, and into the slick linoleum. I couldn’t move. I was frozen. Stuck. It was like a nightmare, when the monster is chasing you down, and you are helpless to defend yourself.
“I know who you are!” Harper yelled over the noise. “Jennings and Miller. We followed your case in basic training. Put down your weapon and come with me.”
He was new on the job; I’d figured that downstairs. If he’d followed our story in training, he must have just been sent to work in the past few weeks.
More blaring siren. More church music. I willed my body to move, to do anything, but it was like I was shoving through wet concrete.
“We’re leaving,” Chase responded. “You can let us leave. You can let us walk through the door. No one has to know.”
Chase lowered the gun a fraction of an inch. Every beat of my heart felt like an explosion in my chest.
No, Chase, I thought. Don’t trust him. But gone was the soldier who’d rescued me from the reformatory, the cold, fragmented soul who knew death too intimately. Back was Chase—my Chase—who believed in change.
The soldier’s hand was visibly shaking. Beads of sweat blossomed on his hairline and dripped down his jaw. I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he attempted to swallow. His fear was all around us, choking us, more potent than my fear, which only demanded survival. His fear weighed options. Weighed the consequences of Chase’s proposal.
If the MM knew he’d let us escape, they would kill him.
“Lower your weapon!” Harper repeated again, his voice breaking.
I thought of Billy, and how his voice broke because he was only fourteen. This soldier was only a few years older. He could be the same age as me. We could have sat next to each other in high school. We could have taken the same tests, and stood in line to punch our meal passes in the cafeteria. We could have been friends in a different life.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Chase said.
“Do it or I’ll shoot you!” he shouted.
A frightened cry snuck out between my lips. The soldier’s weapon jerked toward me, and I saw, straight on down the barrel of his gun, how the whites of his eyes surrounded his brown irises.
My still body grew hard and fragile like glass. If he fired, I would shatter.
“Look at me,” Chase said firmly. “Don’t look at her. Look at me.”
I begged my body to move. I tried to breathe, but I couldn’t.
The soldier aimed back at Chase’s chest.
“I’m taking you in,” he said. “I’m giving you five seconds to lower your weapon.”
“They taught me that one, too,” Chase said. “Back in Negotiations. I trained here, too, did you know that?”
“Four seconds,” said the soldier. His hands were still shaking.
The breath shuddered out of my body. My heels moved at last. My fists gripped. The freeze had passed.
“Come with us!” I heard myself say.
His gaze jerked my way, but Chase blocked his path.
“Three.”
“She’s right,” Chase said, the urgency now clear in his voice. “Come with us. We can protect you.”
“Lower it! Two seconds!”
“Please!” I begged.
“You don’t want to shoot me,” Chase said rapidly. “I don’t want to shoot you either. I promise, we can help you. We can protect your family.”
The soldier twitched. Chase lowered his weapon slowly, aiming it at Harper’s knees.
“We can keep your family safe,” continued Chase. “I know what it’s like. They hurt someone I cared about, too. They threatened to hurt her more if I didn’t follow orders, but I got out and you can do the same.”
“You don’t know that!” Harper choked on the words. The tears blurred my vision.
“I got her away from them,” Chase said. He removed one hand from the firearm, and held it up for Harper to see.
The soldier’s gun dropped an inch. Then another. A wave of dizziness came on, and I felt my knees begin to buckle.
“Come with us.” Chase took a tentative step forward.
“I can’t…” the soldier was crying now, that heaving, snot-filled crying that wracked spasms through his body. I couldn’t hear him over the sirens, but I saw it, and that was enough.
“You can,” said Chase. “Let’s go.”
One more step forward.
The soldier’s chin shot up, and he burned Chase with an agonized, distrustful stare.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said.
Everything slowed.
I saw Harper’s gun lift, as if pulling through water. I saw his eyes change, the lights in them go dark. Chase lunged for his arm, hitting him hard in the break at the elbow, and then they were locked together, chest to chest. They hit the ground in a streak of blue. Chase’s gun slid out, bumping against my foot. Before I could bend to retrieve it, the sound of gunfire ripped through my body, and I screamed.
Chase scrambled back.
We sat in stunned silence for a full beat, watching the blood pool on the floor from Harper’s chest. He didn’t cough or choke, he didn’t rasp words like the carrier in Harrisonburg. He died instantly.
And then, in a flood, everything within me burst into motion. My ears rang, my pulse scrambled. Even my muscles burned to run.
Chase felt Harper’s neck for a pulse. He grabbed the dead boy’s uniform and shook him. “No!” he shouted. And then, “Get up, man. Come on. Get up!”
I grabbed Chase around the waist, feeling the quake echo through my body. He was still shaking the dead soldier; both guns were lying to the side.
“Chase!” I grasped his face, turned it toward me. His face was blank with shock.
“Look at me!” I shouted, just as he’d told the soldier moments before. “Look at me, Chase! We need to go! We need to get out of here!”
His breath came in one haggard gasp, and as his eyes readjusted, his hands cupped mine, and he staggered to a stand.
And then he was back. He grabbed my hand, scooped his weapon off the floor, and together we skirted around the body through the exit.