Article 5 (37 page)

COMPLETE.

One steadying breath, to find that emotionless calm from before Chase had come, and I returned to my task.

I used Delilah’s key to open the storage room and rolled a cart into the hallway. One of the wheels rattled and flicked awkwardly to the side. I stared furiously at the defective piece, as though this would somehow silence it.

I had just reached Chase’s cell when I heard the clicking of footsteps again.

My body became paralyzed.

A guard with dark skin and a permanent frown came around the corner.

“Good morning,” I said too cheerily.

“What are you doing out?” He looked down the empty hallway.

“Delilah … she came early,” I stammered.

“Where is she?”

“Still cleaning up the suicide in cell two. She told me to wait here.”

“Why here?”

Several swear words tore through my brain.

“To take out the trash,” I answered, quoting Delilah.

The soldier looked at Chase’s chart. His furrowed brows smoothed.

“I guess they blew off the trial. Figures. He didn’t deserve one.”

“Oh no?”
Please just leave!

“No. There are bad people in the world. He’s one of them.” He said this as though he were a father talking to his daughter about stranger danger. I thought about where I would shoot him if I pulled the gun.

I tried to look frightened. “Well, I’d better get to it.”

He turned on his heels without another word and did not look back.

Only thirty minutes until the next rotation.

My hands shook so hard I could barely fit the key in the lock. The doubt clawed at me, but I shoved it aside. I would not let Chase down.

I reopened his cell. He was standing inside, the stress still evident through his swollen features. I was careful to make sure the lock did not click behind me. Delilah’s cheeks were stained red with fury.

“Who was that?” Chase whispered.

“Just a guard.” I positioned the cart against the wall. “Get in.”

As I explained the plan, his countenance grew grim.

“And if you get caught? I can’t live with that.”

“You won’t have to for long,” I said morosely, glancing at Delilah, still bound and gagged. The guilt made my stomach burn. “It’s both of us or neither of us.”

His hand scratched through his hair.

“Don’t you see?” I argued. “We have to do something! So this doesn’t happen to anyone else!” He knew what I meant by
this.
What had happened to my mother. To us.

He swallowed. And very slowly nodded.

We were going to try to escape an MM base.

I didn’t think about it too long. If I did, the impossibility of it would overwhelm me.

I had to help Chase. He had difficulty bending; I suspected a few ribs may have been broken. He sat on the bottom of the cart, his knees pulled to his chest, his head locked down.

“If I hear things go south, I won’t stay hidden.”

I didn’t say anything and closed the lid over his head. One final nod to Delilah was all the time we could afford.

I shoved my shoulder into the cart, rocking it with effort until it rolled into the empty hallway. Every sense vigilant, I made for the elevator. I could hear my heart slamming in my eardrums and the screaming rattle of that stupid wheel as my trembling finger pressed the button. The freight elevator doors made a loud clanging noise as they opened.
Did they always do that?
I scanned the hallway. Still nothing.

Leaning into the cart, I pushed Chase inside.

The gears of the metal box squealed, then ground us inch by inch to the bottom floor. It took several steadying breaths to regain my focus.

The doors pulled open, revealing the dark, floor-level corridor where I had originally planned on leaving Delilah. Since this part of the building was not often used, the standardized power did not automatically kick on the lights here. I didn’t, either. I held my breath in the darkness, ignoring the frightening sounds and shapes I created in my mind, and took an immediate right. The utility door unlocked easily with my key. When the first breath of fresh air hit me, I felt renewed.

Yes. I could do this. I
was
doing this.

I had to plant my heels into the asphalt to push the cart down the narrow alley. Twenty more yards to the gate station. Fifteen. Ten.

The guard at post stuck his head outside.

No! Ignore me! That’s what you did yesterday!

“Where’s the old lady?” he asked. He had a chubby face and a dimple in the center of his chin.

“Sick, I think,” I responded. I prayed no one had found her yet.

“That old bat’s never sick.”

I shrugged.

“Early this morning for that, isn’t it?”

“They did it last night.”
Please let me pass. Please let me pass.

He pressed the button, and the gate buzzed before dragging open.

We passed through. My heart was racing. I rounded the corner and began straining up the hill. I had to keep my arms locked straight on the handlebar so that I wouldn’t topple backward.

“We did it,” I whispered giddily between labored breaths. I knew he couldn’t hear me. That was okay. He would know soon enough.

Step after step I pushed him up the hill.

Finally we reached the top. I pulled the cart off into a hidden area beside the awning and checked the driveway and hilltop for movement. We were alone.

The metal cover fell open with a clang, and Chase lifted his head.

“We did it!” I stifled a scream this time.

He didn’t smile until he’d seen for himself that the driveway was clear. After he was out, we pushed the cart over to the drop-off area at the crematorium. Behind the building was a wooded slope, which led to the subdivision and the gas station. This was where we would disappear.

“Come on.” Chase grabbed my hand.

But the skin on my neck prickled. Boots clacked across the pavement.

I spun around, my heart already leaping into my throat.

Tucker Morris was jogging up the hill, alone. It was too late to run, he had already seen us. He stopped three yards away, hands on his belt. His eyes were focused behind me, on Chase.

“So it’s true.” His voice was filled with both trepidation and disgust. “A soldier in sick bay told me you turned yourself in last night. I had to see for myself.” He laughed wryly. “The chart on the door said ‘Jennings,’ but she sure didn’t look like you.”

Delilah.
“Did anyone else see her?” I asked, flattening the apprehension in my voice.

“Not yet,” he threatened.

It struck me as odd that Tucker hadn’t alerted the entire base to our escape, but then I realized he would likely get in trouble for it. He was trying to fix a mistake on his shift before his command found out what had happened.

Chase was still silent. Somehow, he’d placed himself between Tucker and me.

“You look surprised,” Tucker said to him. “You didn’t tell him I was here, Ember?” He used my first name just to get under Chase’s skin. He’d never called me that before.

“Don’t talk to her,” Chase growled. “Don’t even look at her.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll finish what I started and break your other arm.”

My pulse quickened.

“You can barely stand,” scoffed Tucker. But there was a cautious light in his eye.

“So it’ll be an even fight.”

“We’re leaving,” I told Tucker flatly.

“The hell you are.”

I felt my eyes twitch. Chase took a step forward, intending to make good on his threat. I grabbed his arm.

Tucker’s tone turned from vehemence to conceit.

“Have you told him yet? About how you gave it up in my office last night?” Tucker began walking purposefully toward us.

“Nothing happened.”

He grinned. “If I’d known you were that wild I’d have busted you out of reform school, too.”

“Go,” Chase told me under his breath.

“Not a chance,” I told him fiercely.

Tucker was still approaching. I knew if we turned our backs to him he’d reach for the radio at his belt and call for assistance. I couldn’t let that happen.

Chase was leaning forward, ready to pounce. Before I took another step, Tucker whipped the baton from his hip and lunged at us. Chase moved to intercept, but there was no need: Tucker’s advance had been cut short. He was frozen, the nightstick suspended over his shoulder. Surprised by the interruption, Chase glanced back at me. His eyes changed slightly when he registered the gun in my hands.

“
You
stole my weapon?” He seemed genuinely surprised for a brief moment—but then his bravado returned. “You’ve really screwed yourself now.”

The gun was light as a feather in my hands. The rush was kicking through my system. I’d aimed the gun at Delilah but never considered actually shooting her. I thought if Tucker took another step forward I might just pull the trigger.

“Tucker, please let us go.” My words were icy.

“Begging?” He spat on the ground. “You sound like your mother did. Right before I shot her.”

My world stopped.

Tucker’s words sliced through my brain. Again and again.

Right before I shot her.

“You?” I asked weakly. I had assumed it was the CO that had killed her, but I was wrong. It was Tucker. That was why Chase had broken his arm. That was why Tucker had been promoted. I felt like I was going to be ill.

My blood was running cold. My mother’s killer was faceless no longer. I could see him holding the gun up, just behind Chase. See him shooting her.

“I thought you told her,” Tucker said to Chase. Chase said nothing.

“You killed her,” I said softly. My hands were wobbling.

“Ember.” I barely registered Chase saying my name.

“How could you?” Tucker was an inconceivable monster.

“I’m a damn good soldier. I did what needed to be done.”

His words hit me like a freight train.

“What needed to be done?” I repeated. The murder of an innocent woman was now necessary?

I focused on the gun. I would show him what needed to be done.

“Like you even know what to do with that,” mocked Tucker.

I glanced down, flicking the safety off.

“It’s a nine millimeter, isn’t it? I just pull back the slide, aim, and fire.”

With a steady hand I chambered the first round.
Click.

Tucker faltered, his face blotching with crimson, his mouth hard and set. I couldn’t stop the images. Tucker lifting the weapon. The sound the gun must have made when it fired. The fear in her eyes. The
death
in her eyes.

“Em,” Chase whispered. I barely heard him.

I saw her. I saw her mischievous smile. The clips in her hair. She sang songs from back before the War, and we danced in the living room. She made me hot chocolate. She gave away her space in line at the soup kitchen.

She’d forgiven Chase for the overhaul.
Thank God you’re here,
she’d said to him in the cell. She’d forgiven Roy for hurting her. Me for making him leave. She would blame the MM for Tucker’s corruption.

She would be ashamed of me if I killed him. Because of that single fact, I knew I could not take his life.

But I wanted to.

Chase was still watching me. His eyes were filled with understanding. I knew he would have supported me, regardless of my decision.

“Get the gun from her, man,” said Tucker to Chase. He was trying to revive their old friendship. His words jolted me back.

“If I do, I’m shooting you myself,” Chase responded darkly. I knew that if I asked him to, Chase would kill Tucker. Part of me wanted him to,
needed
him to. But I focused on my mother’s face. She had loved Chase, too. She wouldn’t want his soul any more compromised than it had already been.

Tucker shifted. “Think about what this will mean for you. You’ll never be able to stop running.” Fear laced through his voice.

“I’ve thought about it.”
Last chance,
I told myself. But my mind was made up. “We’re leaving, Tucker. Walk away. Or I
will
shoot you.”

I ignored the hammering of my pulse against my temple. I felt no fear, no anger. The grief, too, was gone. My whole body focused on the completion of this single task: securing our safety.

How like Chase I had become.

“What am I supposed to tell my command?” Tucker’s voice cracked.

“You tell them that Chase is dead. He didn’t make it to his trial. His chart is ‘completed.’ You tell them that he was taken to the crematorium. You tell them that I stole the key from Delilah by force, and when she confessed, you had me ‘completed’ too.”

Yesterday, I’d thought it pitiful that Tucker had threatened Delilah into silence. Now I was banking on it. I hoped this would save the sad old woman from the same fate as my mother.

“And if I say no?”

“You can always tell them that two criminals escaped on your shift, right in front of you. Though I doubt that would bode well for that career plan of yours.”

Several long beats of silence.

Tucker swore.

“All right.
All right!
”

Something cracked inside of me. I knew I was on the verge of breaking now.

Hold it together!

“Give me my gun back. I’ll be busted down for that.” Tucker held his hand out.

“I’m not that stupid. You walk back down to the check station. Once I see you there, I’m going to throw it down the hill into those bushes. I hope you can find it.”

“And what’s to stop me from shooting you when I do?”

“There won’t be any bullets. You can ask the guards at the post, but that will mean a whole messy explanation. I recommend you come back later for it.”

He kicked the ground and finally nodded. “Get out of here.”

I swallowed a deep breath.

“Don’t shoot me in the back,” he added with repugnance.

“I’m not making any promises.”

Tucker turned and strode down the hill.