Sean stood and gripped my forearm.
“We’ve got soldiers on our tail,” he told Jesse.
“They took Chase,” I said. “Why didn’t you go after Chase?”
Jesse’s eye twitched as he looked down over me.
“You’re bleeding, neighbor.”
He nodded at my waist, and when I looked down I saw that the glass puncture wound from the mini-mart was bleeding again. The patch of rose red on my shirt had blossomed to half of my torso.
“Ember…” Sean pulled me back, toward the car, but I stumbled into his arms. “Hang on,” he said. My cheek rested against the bandages on his shoulder.
“You shouldn’t have left him,” I whispered.
I didn’t remember much after that.
WHEN I woke again I was lying on a couch, blinking up at the yellow water rings on a white ceiling. It was late afternoon, or maybe early morning based on the red light seeping across the floor.
I tried to sit up, but was stopped by a shooting pain that emanated from the right side of my waist. When I pulled up the hem of my clean shirt I found a swell of bandages tied to my skin by long strips of cloth. My wound had been cleaned.
I took in my surroundings, recognizing the antique coffee table beneath the box of medical supplies, and the wilted magazines, now stacked on the carpet beside one of the legs.
The house with the supplies. The address: 3. The bodies on the bed.
The mini-mart where Chase had been taken was now miles and miles away.
I wasn’t alone; against the wall on a blanket lay a girl. I shimmied up to my elbows. The rest of the room was empty, though the floor was covered with muddy footprints, some tinged with red.
I swung my legs to the floor, stretching a little from side to side to test my range of motion. It pinched, and stole my breath.
Dark fingers of dread curled around my chest. How long had I been here?
The girl on the floor lifted her hands to her face, fingers probing through a crop of dark hair. She had blond roots, so it must have been dyed.
I looked closer; there were red welts around her neck and unconsciously my own hand went to my throat, finding only rough skin where the rope had previously burned. My necklace hung loosely there, the ring and the pendant resting just over the notch in my collarbone where a round burn had been left from the Knoxville fire.
The girl groaned quietly. One shoulder was bandaged, and her leg had been splinted. Whatever had happened to her, it hadn’t been easy.
Then she removed the hands from her face, and my mouth fell open in surprise.
“Cara?”
Her gaze flicked my way, a little dazed. “Hey, sister.” I noticed then that there was a bottle of pills by her shoulder on the floor. She grabbed it and without sitting up threw back a mouthful. At the sound of her dry swallow, I cringed.
Cara was alive. Cara, who’d let the country think I was the sniper, not her. Who’d been murdered by the FBR in Greeneville while out with Tucker.
“I thought you were dead.” As the shock passed, my hands curled to fists. If she wasn’t so injured, I might have strangled her.
“I thought so, too.”
She looked smaller than before. Not necessarily thinner—though her cheeks did look hollow—but more delicate. Never did I think I would see her so broken. She looked like a different person completely.
“What happened to you?”
She lifted her eyes to the ceiling. “I got caught.”
I scoffed. That much was obvious.
“How’d you get here?”
Her brows scrunched. “I don’t know.” She hesitated. “They let me go. Some Sisters fixed me up and gave me some meds and a ride to the Red Zone. I walked from there.”
“Your leg…”
“Hurts,” she finished.
I didn’t understand how the MM had released her. I hadn’t heard of them releasing anyone.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“A safe house of sorts,” she said. “A hiding place. Hasn’t been used in years. The old couple that ran the place kicked the bucket I guess.”
I cringed, remembering the bodies covered with roaches.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were the sniper?”
She pulled open her collar, tapped the same scar on her collarbone that now scabbed over mine. “The cause comes first. It always comes first.” Her weak laugh was laced with cynicism.
“It was my name, Cara. You killed people in my name.” My voice, raised in anger, scratched my parched throat.
“Isn’t that what you wanted? Revenge? Well, you got it. At least, everyone thought you did.” She coughed once, then shuddered. “Don’t tell me you’re already jaded. No one has to know it was me. You got all the credit, sister.”
“I didn’t want the credit.”
Cara closed her eyes. “You may not have, but Ember Miller did.”
I opened my mouth to object, but realized with a flutter of panic that it was no use. Cara was right. Just as I’d once seen two people in Chase—the soldier and the boy I loved—she now saw two people in me. The sniper, who thirsted for revenge, who called the people to fight through the Statutes, and the real me. The girl behind the curtain.
The girl who nobody really knew but Chase.
If I didn’t find him, I would be lost.
“DeWitt said it was him anyway,” I remembered. “We heard it on the radio. He was captured, and told the MM he was the sniper.”
She lowered the bottle and stared at the ceiling.
“Endurance endures no more,” she said. “I guess he got me out after all.”
Her words triggered a memory. The night I’d snuck out in search of Chase, and instead overheard Dr. DeWitt talking to someone at the cemetery.
“It’s not going to jeopardize the mission. We’ve already verified what the girl said. A quick extraction, that’s all we’re talking about.”
Had DeWitt been talking about Cara?
“You think DeWitt arranged for you to be let go?” I asked.
“We’re not so different, you know,” she said quietly, avoiding my question. “They took my mom, too. For harboring the enemy.”
She propped herself against the wall, expression pained. Her jaw was swollen, a collage of brown and purple, and her bottom lip was cracked and bloody. She shook the bottle of pills, the excess making a rattling sound. The strained lines beside her eyes relaxed. I wondered how many she’d taken.
I tried to clear my head. Sean had said the soldiers had followed us from the mini-mart to the Lost Boys—it would only be a matter of time before they tracked us to this house.
“We need to get out of here,” I said.
Something caught Cara’s attention over my shoulder and I turned to find Sean coming down the hall where the bodies had been. He reached me in three long strides, a look of urgency on his face.
“You’re awake. Finally.”
He sat beside me on the couch and gave me a hug so hard we both winced. I glanced over his shoulder to the window, where outside the morning sky was turning gray from the clouds rolling in off the ocean. “How long have I been out?”
“Seven hours,” he answered, pulling back. “Not that I’ve been counting. Jesse brought us here. All of us. Those boys, too.”
“Help me up.” Chase had been with the MM for seven hours. I couldn’t think of what had happened to him during that time. I wouldn’t think of it.
“Jesse told me about Endurance,” Sean said, lowering his voice. “He said you found Becca in the grove with the others. I’ve got to go find her.”
He looked more serious than I’d ever seen him.
“They took Chase,” I said.
“I know.” For a second he didn’t say anything, and then he grabbed my shoulders. “He’s my friend, too, Ember, but you can’t stay here. You have to come.”