Article 5 (18 page)

Get out!
my mind ordered.

I bent my knee and, like a donkey, kicked her as hard as I could in the shin. With a cry she released her hold and fell onto the floor.

I turned, suddenly fearing that I’d hurt her badly. To my horror, she curled up on the dirty linoleum in the tufts of dog hair and trash and began to weep. The Labrador moved from licking the blood to licking her face.

“What’s going on?” asked a male voice. One I had never in my life been so happy to hear.

I spun toward Chase, probably appearing crazy myself. His face was grim but otherwise unreadable. Sensing the urgency, he grabbed my arm and jerked me out the door. I tripped over the chair but righted myself and ran, pausing at the edge of the field when he didn’t follow. He had hesitated in the doorway, blocking the woman from coming after me.

I swallowed mouthfuls of fresh air, thankful for the rain striking my face. My stomach was still knotted. How could I have been so stupid as to step inside her house? How could I have thought she would have helped me? My plan and my prized intuition were useless. The world outside of my hometown was as foreign as an alien planet.

Thunder cracked, and a white fork of lightning stabbed across the sky.

“Can’t you Bureau bastards just leave her alone?” the woman shrieked at Chase. I could see her through the open doorway as Chase jogged away. She was still on the floor, her sagging arms wrapped around her chest.

“Hurry!” I motioned to him. My knees were knocking hard, the stench and the sound of buzzing flies still fresh in my memory.

“Alice!” the woman wailed. “I’m sorry about Luke!
Alice!
”

There was a moment where I was torn between fear, pity, revulsion, and the guilt that my mere presence had upset her fragile mental balance. Then the woman screamed, a bloodcurdling sound that ended in a gargling sob, and I ran blindly into the cornfield.

*   *   *

CHASE
led the way, moving fast. It didn’t take long for me to realize he’d marked his path by cornstalks bent at right angles.
Clever,
I thought fleetingly.

After several minutes he slammed to a halt, grabbed me hard around the shoulders, and gave me a firm shake.

“Don’t do that again!” he reprimanded. “I told you to stay close!”

Then he turned just as unexpectedly and plowed onward. I could hear him tossing indecipherable comments over his shoulder, but he didn’t glance back.

I did. I searched our path, panicked, convinced the woman was ready to do whatever it took to retrieve me. I jogged to catch up.

“Crazy lady probably hasn’t been off her property in months,” he was saying. “Why’d she call you Alice, anyway? And who’s Luke?”

It was as if he’d pulled the trigger on a loaded gun. I pitched forward onto my hands and knees and heaved. Black spots appeared before my vision as the spasms raked my body. I could still smell the dead, rotting animal. I could taste it in my mouth.

Chase stopped. The anger he had been directing my way replaced itself with alarm, and he knelt beside me.

“She thought I was her daughter, Alice,” I gasped, spitting. “Luke was the dog. She butchered him.”

“That explains the smell,” he said.

“Come on! She’s following us!” I groaned. We were a good distance away from the trailer, but I could feel her presence on me, her arms winding around my body. When I tried to stand, I stumbled again. The rain seemed to bore me straight into the ground.

“No she’s not. She’s gone,” he said in a hushed tone. A gentle hand was placed on my back—a test, I knew, after I’d shied away from him earlier. I didn’t shake him off; his touch was oddly reassuring. His dark eyes probed mine, searching for the details of what had transpired in his absence.

“Help me up.” I didn’t care if he saw me crying, if he could even tell through the rain. I just wanted to get out of there.

Without a word, he slid an arm behind my knees and lifted me, cradling me against his chest like a child. I watched the rain pool on my jacket at the bend of my waist and gave myself, for the moment, to lightness.

“At least this way you won’t get lost,” he said dryly.

But I
was
lost. The lines between danger and safety were blurring.

*   *   *

A FEW
minutes later, the truck appeared through the cornfield. It was a bitter reminder of my failure to escape, but I still felt a flood of relief at the sight of it.

“Put me down,” I said, wriggling out of his arms. Though my strength hadn’t fully returned, I needed the distance. His presence had too quickly become a comforting shield; one I wasn’t sure which side to be on.

He paused, as if he were reluctant to let me go, but then he set me down abruptly. The second I was out of his arms he shoved his hands into his coat pockets. When we were close enough to the car, he reached around me and opened the door. As if I would just get in. As if we could pretend that nothing had happened.

“Are you all right?” he asked, registering the fury that flew across my face.

I had vomit coating my mouth and my hands. I had mud and wet hair plastered to my face. Every inch of me was streaming with cold water. I’d just been accosted by an insane woman while trying to escape a guy who’d nearly killed an armed robber. And that was just since this morning. No, I was definitely not “all right.”

I slammed the door shut. His brows rose in surprise.

“I was leaving, you
idiot
!” I shouted over the rattle of the rain hitting the truck’s metal hood. “I didn’t get lost
—
not on purpose. I ran away!”

CHAPTER

8

THE
seconds passed. I still felt the urgency to fly, but my feet were stuck in the mud. The weight of my words hung between us, and though part of me feared his reaction, I did not regret them. I knew what he was capable of; he needed to know the same about me.

After what seemed like a long time, he shrugged.

“Hope you’ve got good shoes. It’s a long walk to the check-point.” He lifted his arm toward the road. His eyes mocked me, but there was a hint of something else in them, too. Almost like fear, but that couldn’t be. He wasn’t afraid of anything.

“I … I can catch a bus,” I stammered, glancing into the corn for Alice’s mother. She’d had a car behind her house. What if she drove to town to look for me? It didn’t seem so ludicrous based on the strength of her delusion.

“A
bus
? To a transport station? Great idea. Watch out for the soldiers that search the vehicles, though. And the Missing Persons boards. And the cashier who’ll need your U-eleven form. And…” His tone became increasingly sharper.

“I’ll give a fake name, and I have … money,” I shot back.

“You have
my
money. Probably only half of what you need, too. Why don’t you go back and ask your friend to spot you the rest?”

“I get it, okay!”

I hated him then. For everything he knew. Everything I didn’t.

“You
don’t
get it!” he said with sudden ferocity. I jumped at the volume of his voice but was surprisingly unafraid. “Other places, they aren’t like home! There’s no safe side of town out here. There are no doors that lock after curfew. Jesus, they told us girls like you were dangerous, but I didn’t believe it until now.” He looked very close to pulling his hair out. If he didn’t soon, I thought I might do it for him.

I could picture him sitting in a classroom while an MM officer wrote terrible things about “girls like me”—girls with scarlet fives pinned to their shirts—up on a board. The thought of him believing it was infuriating.

“
I’m
dangerous?
Me?
You almost killed that guy! You would have if I didn’t stop you!” It flew out of me, the disappointment, the
confusion.
Like waves pummeling a concrete dam. I didn’t even care in that moment if he
had
been injured.

I saw the change come over him slowly. The rise in his shoulders. A slight bulge in the veins of his neck. The narrowing of his black eyes, more like a wolf than ever. He moved toward me, large and ominous, blocking the light. I took a step back, bumping into the truck, forced to acknowledge the sudden panic in my chest.

“They were going to hurt you.” His voice was low and uncontrolled.

“So that makes it okay?” I countered. No, I didn’t want to be hurt—I certainly didn’t want to die—but that didn’t excuse murdering someone, however foul, based on speculation!

A crack of thunder shattered my concentration, and my eyes shot back into the cornfield. Was the woman coming? Or was she still on the floor, weeping for Alice? Only a few minutes had passed, but it seemed like much longer.

“Yes, that makes it okay,” he said between his teeth, eyes flashing with the lightning. “And don’t pretend you wouldn’t have done the same thing.”

“I would never!”

“
Never?
Not even if they’d threatened your mom?”

His words pierced clear through me. If I had been Chase, and my mother had been me, nothing in the world could have peeled me off of Rick.

I realized then with terrible clarity that maybe Chase and I weren’t so different after all. Everyone knew that a dog backed into a corner bites. I’d just never actually considered that the dog could be
me.

At the same time, Chase had just used the love I felt for my mother to justify his actions. Like the two were somehow on the same level. It was a cheap shot, even for him.

He’d watched the transition of my thoughts in silence but could hold back no longer.

“If you think you’re safer on your own, stay here. Otherwise,
get in the truck.
”

His knuckles whitened as he gripped the door, but he did not advance any closer. He was not going to force me inside. He was giving me a choice.

I had to go with him. Despite how much I hated it, he was right. I needed to get to the carrier, so I needed him.

He slammed the door after me and rounded the hood, but he paused outside with his hand on the driver’s side handle before he joined me in the cab. Maybe he was making the same decision I had: to risk his life to stay with me or to go his own way.

We didn’t speak immediately. A puddle of rainwater soaked the seat and pooled on the rubber floor mats. My feet sloshed in wet shoes. My fingers had gone numb with the cold. Chase’s hands disappeared beneath the dash, bringing the engine to life. A moment later we were jostling along the path back to the main road, wrapped in prickling, uncomfortable silence.

The clock on the radio said 10:28
A.M
.

“Oh no,” I whispered miserably. I’d wasted so much time! We would have been nearing the checkpoint by now if I hadn’t run away. Soon the MM would be gunning for us, and who knew how late the carrier would wait.

Chase knew all this, too. I’d put us in grave danger, and he would not pretend I hadn’t.

We passed a truck flipped on its side with a shredded tarp tied around the top wheel well. It had probably been a lean-to at one time. The material now floated in the static breeze like a flag of surrender. I looked away, fighting back the hopelessness.

I slumped in the seat, stripping off my jacket and wiping my puke-covered hands on the rainwater that had gathered in the hood. There seemed no better place to put it than the floor, as it was still soaked. Without the barrier, the cold air of the cab needled through my sweater. I had dry clothes in Chase’s bag, but I wasn’t about to ask him to stop so I could change. We had to make up for lost time.

“You need to know something,” Chase said abruptly, startling me as I swished water from one of the bottles around in my mouth.

When I glanced over I found him sitting perfectly straight, his eyes boring holes through the windshield.

“I’ll get you to the safe house, and then I’ll be gone. I won’t bother you again. But while we’re together, you don’t have to be afraid of me. I won’t hurt you. I promise I will
never
hurt you.”

It wasn’t just his proclamation that surprised me but his proposal. I’d seen what soldiers could do—what they’d done to my mom, and Rosa, and Rebecca. So maybe Chase wasn’t like that—he
had
taken me from rehab, and despite my discomfort, defended me with his life—but that didn’t erase the cold, hard look on his face when he’d taken away my mother. There were plenty of ways to hurt someone without using your fists.

Still, I wanted to believe I was safe with him, despite the soldier that was so easily triggered inside of him. I wanted to trust him again, maybe not like I had in the past but in a different way. Yet here he was, saying he was going away again.

But that’s what I had wanted, wasn’t it? That’s why I’d run away, because I needed to get away from him. Suddenly that decision—despite how much I’d thought it through—seemed very impulsive.

“Okay,” I said.

His shoulder jerked, reading my confusion as disbelief.

“When noon comes, the game changes.”

“I know.”

“I can’t get you to South Carolina without your help.”

I glanced over at him. It surprised me that he was giving up some control.

“What do I need to do?”

“Don’t take off,” he said. I crossed my arms, annoyed.

“Is that all?”

He pulled in a deep, steadying breath.

“You have to listen to me,” he said authoritatively. “I mean
really
listen. If I tell you to hide, do it. If I say run, you
move
. And you have to let me call the shots. You’ll stick out too much as a Statute violator otherwise.”

Lean the way I lean,
he’d once said.
Don’t fight me.