Article 5 (11 page)

“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.”