I froze. “We were just there and didn’t hear anything…”
Beside me Chase had stilled. Jesse found something fascinating to stare at on the ceiling.
“Excuse me a moment,” Moustache said when one of the guards behind him turned up the volume on his radio. As he turned back to convene with the three men behind him, Chase closed our small circle, boxing out August the carrier.
“Was that you?” The lines of Chase’s neck were pulled taut.
Jesse picked at something in his teeth.
He was going to act as if it were nothing. As if he hadn’t potentially compromised our mission and taunted the MM to come and find us.
“The prisoners,” I said. “Reinhardt killed more of our people because of you.”
“Once they hit that prison they were already lost,” said Jesse.
Not according to Billy, who might now have been among them.
“You should have told us,” said Chase.
“You should have told those women,” I said, the fury overridden by a sudden dose of fear. “What do you think the MM is going to do to their people now?”
“I did tell those women. Well, the one at least. Felicity.” Jesse sounded out the name and flashed a dangerous smile. “I have a better question. What do you think the civilians in town will do with that push?”
“That’s what the Statutes were for!” I shook my head, swallowing the growl.
Jesse leaned down until we were the same height.
“Are you sure you’re cut out for this, neighbor?” he asked. “War is ugly. Sometimes you’ve got to do things you don’t like and hope they’re better for everyone in the long run.”
“Like keep a man in a cage?” asked Chase.
Jesse lifted his chin. The tension hummed between them.
“Better if you don’t think of them as men,” he said finally.
Chase scoffed and turned away.
“Easier, you mean,” I whispered. It would have been easier to live with Harper’s death had he not been flesh and blood. Easier, but not right.
The three cuts on my chest stung.
“Might want to take a listen, friends,” called Moustache. He motioned us over to where the other guards were now gathering.
A radio report was playing on the handheld, and the voice I recognized all too well.
“In what the chief has called a momentous victory in the fight against terrorism, Doctor Aiden DeWitt was captured this morning during an FBR raid. DeWitt, leader of the rebel organization known as Three, has confessed to the sniper shootings throughout Virginia and Tennessee in the last three months, including the attack on the FBR draft in Knoxville. His sentencing, as determined by the Chief of Reformation, has yet to be decided. With more to come on this story, this is Felicity Bridewell.”
My gut plummeted through the floor.
DeWitt had been captured. The report didn’t say where, or if they’d found Endurance, but the cold snaking through my veins said that Rebecca, Will, the children, and the rest who remained in Endurance were in trouble.
A scene played out before my eyes, of Sean and Jack reaching the safe house wreckage, finding Tucker, and bringing him back to Endurance. Of the MM following them, attacking, taking DeWitt.
Rebecca wouldn’t even be able to run.
Chase was watching me, the same horror I felt mirrored on his face.
One of the guards with Moustache suddenly bolted toward the front of the stage, his previously silent shoes now slapping up the center aisle. He disappeared behind the auditorium door, leaving a strained silence behind him.
For several seconds no one moved. Then two shots rang out, magnified off the theater’s high ceiling. My heart slammed into my throat. I backed against the nearest wall, my gun drawn. Chase and August hid behind the curtain.
“Soldiers?” Chase whispered to August.
“It’s time to go,” said August. “Someone was followed.”
Jesse crouched on the opposite side of the stage behind a false wall painted with orange and red flames. If it was us, the MM could have found the trash truck, still packed with boxes of hijacked Statutes.
Moustache crawled toward us. He slapped a set of keys into Chase’s outstretched hand.
“Silver sedan around the southeast corner of the building,” he said. “It’s time you three hit the road.”
“The Statutes,” I hissed.
“We’ll take care of it, just go!”
He led us to another exit, this one emerging below the sidewalk, where Jesse joined us. Carefully we surveyed the street, and finding it empty, climbed the steps and made a dash for the nearest cover—an old bus stop awning. Chase led the way and Jesse took the rear, smashing me between their backs when we came to a sudden stop.
“See anything?” As soon as Chase asked, a volley of shots came from the front of the building, followed by a man’s sharp cry of pain. I clenched my teeth.
We should have helped, but we couldn’t risk capture, not with the Statutes out in circulation and not if DeWitt was really gone. We needed to get back to Endurance to find out what had happened.
“There’s the car,” said Chase, pointing across the street with his weapon. He removed the keys from his pocket and rolled back his shoulders, ready to run.
“We’ve got you covered,” said Jesse.
“Go,” I said. “Now!”
Chase took off toward the car, just as another shot rang out. I glanced around the metal siding of the bus stop and searched for any signs of movement.
Seconds after Chase made it to the car, the engine sputtered, then revved. An eerie silence punctuated the firefight at the front of the building, and in it I knew they were coming for us. The seconds ticked down.
I ran for the car, sliding into the backseat, Jesse just after me. Chase hit the gas and the tires squealed against the pavement. We stayed low, out of view from the windows.
As soon as he was out of range Chase slowed our speed, trying to make us appear inconspicuous, like the other cars passing through this part of the city. After a while I peeled my cheek off the leather seat and chanced a quick look around. We hadn’t been followed. Yet.
“We have to go back to Endurance,” I said.
“If DeWitt’s gone, Endurance is gone,” said Jesse. He stared out the side window, a blank expression on his face.
“He could have been captured somewhere else,” said Chase. “They told us Endurance was protected. Off the MM’s radar.”
I hoped he was right.
CHAPTER
18
BY late afternoon we’d crossed into the Red Zone by way of an obscure dirt road that cut through the woods. Jesse had learned of the route from DeWitt before we’d left, and it was a good thing he had, because the radio in the sedan’s glove compartment picked up a signal that indicated the MM had increased their border patrol. It left me with a bad feeling that they’d already reached Endurance.
We parked under a highway two miles away and hiked in through a cement ditch that led to a junkyard behind the compound. The gate we’d left through three days earlier was open, and as far as I could tell there weren’t any guards lurking in the old oak trees that ran along the sides of the barricade.
“What are the chances everyone went to Charlotte?” I asked.
Slim. Chase had already told me on our drive here that the last shift of fighters would have left yesterday, but that a core group would be left behind to guard the compound. There were children here, and too many secrets.