His fingers dug into my forearm. “Forget the party. This isn’t the Knoxville holding cells. This place has real security. And it’s tripled because the chief’s here. Even if you find him, you’ll never get out of here alive if you don’t go now.”
“Let me worry about that.”
He made a noise of disgust. “I don’t understand you.”
But I wasn’t sure that was right, because locked in one fist was a knife he’d given me.
“You should go,” I told him, though everything in me screamed that it was wrong. “Get out of here. You’re better than this.”
He stared at me for one long moment. Finally he shook his head.
“I’m really not.”
The noise of the crowd grew louder as we approached, and made my bones turn to slush. So many soldiers—their voices snide and condemning. I did not know what I would do should they turn and attack. The rope pressed against my throat, as dictated by Billy’s firm hold on my leash.
We came to a high metal fence where an armed guard looked down from atop a watchtower.
“You’re late,” he said. “They just took the last one through.”
“Doesn’t look like it,” said Tucker condescendingly. He released my wrists to flash the gold star on his chest up at the soldier, who immediately turned to a control panel to his right.
“Sorry, captain. Gate’s opening now, sir.”
The back row in the crowd turned as the gate rolled back on its wheeled track. Some of the men, drunk with excitement, smiled slickly.
“All right,” one said. “I didn’t know there’d be a girl mixed in.”
“Out of the way,” said Tucker.
“Yes, captain,” they responded. He lifted his chin while I lowered mine. If it wasn’t for the cold sweat making his grip on my wrists slippery, I would have thought Tucker was enjoying his newly earned status.
The majority of the crowd was still focused on something happening beyond them though, and as I looked on I saw what had drawn their jeers.
A line of prisoners, their faces covered by black bags and hands bound behind them, waited to get into the building. Some were badly injured and barely upright but were forced into motion by the chains that bound each man’s ankles to the person before him. The soldiers threw handfuls of dirt and rocks on them from across the last barrier of fence. Some were attempting to spit on them; a few succeeded in hitting their mark.
“Wallace?” Billy said behind me.
I lifted on my toes, trying to see over the others, but I could only catch glimpses through the churning sea of uniforms and flying dust.
A second later the pole fell behind me, choking me, and my hand flew to my throat.
Billy was gone.
CHAPTER
24
TUCKER wasted no time snatching up the fallen pole. He gave me a sharp jerk, one which made the air lock in my lungs and my eyes nearly pop out of my head, and I fell to my knees. In a hurry, I lunged up, gasping, searching for Billy, but he had disappeared into the sea of blue.
More soldiers began to turn around, pointing and laughing at me. I couldn’t escape it. To them I was a freak; I felt like a freak. I was exactly what they had made me.
At that moment, the front of the group erupted into cheers. The door to the building had opened, and the guards watching the line began to order the prisoners through. With all the attention directed back on the door, Tucker pushed me to the right, leading me against the fence to a narrow juncture between two gates. If I hadn’t already been told an alley was there, I never would have seen it.
“No,” I said. I had to go with the others. I had to reach Chase. Tucker didn’t understand—none of this mattered if Chase died tonight.
Tucker twisted the pole, tightening the noose even further. As we approached the entrance, he pushed me within, and the weight on my neck grew heavy once again as the metal pole was finally released. I turned around, but he was facing the crowd.
Giving me a chance to escape.
Quickly, I shed the leash, and flung it to the ground.
“You have to go,” I said. “By midnight this place will be flattened.”
“Get out of here,” he hissed over his shoulder.
I stared at his back for one final moment. A feeling close to what I’d felt before Harper had tried to kill Chase in that hospital in Chicago came over me. An unfilled well of potential. An inability to stop a train wreck.
I turned and ran.
As I neared the end of the alley I saw the parking lot Tucker had mentioned. A hundred cruisers, navy vans, and buses filled the lot, with soldiers in groups crossing to an entrance on the other side. I looked for anyplace I might sneak in but found none.
A caravan of government cars stopped one by one at the gate before being allowed inside. As I watched, three soldiers emerged from a check station and began to search a van. One examined the undercarriage with a mirror attached to a long handle.
The other two soldiers opened the doors and assisted half a dozen girls outside. They were dressed like the girls I’d only seen in my mother’s magazines from before the War. Short, tight skirts clung to every curve. One of the girls’ tops was see-through; the others looked as though they’d been scavenged from donation bins, and ripped and tied to create a new style all their own.
Cara’s last words came alive in my mind: “If you’re breaking into a base, make sure you dress the part.”
The girls were patted down, giggling at the wandering hands of the guards, and permitted entry through the gate that buzzed open. Overhead, the light was fading. Night would soon arrive.
No time left, my thoughts echoed. No time left.
A clicking sound came from overhead, and without another thought I hit the ground, covering my head. Behind closed eyes I saw the ruins of the safe house. The burned bodies.
No time left.
The parking lot lights flickered on.
Shaking, I rose, damp with sweat. I laughed to myself—a crazy sound, even to me. Maybe I had a little more time after all.
The girls were approaching the entrance to the base. There were more now—maybe fifteen or eighteen—moving together as a group. Smart, I thought, when the sharks were already beginning to circle.
Without another thought I ducked behind one of the cruisers and ran to the second row of cars, situating myself between two vans. I could hear the girls laughing now, shouting their taunts to the soldiers, who whistled and catcalled back.
I needed to break into that group; if I made it to the middle, I might be able to get into the building without anyone noticing my shredded, muddy, bloodstained outfit. Just as I was about to chance joining them, I caught my reflection in one of the vans’ side mirrors. My cheek was still an angry red, like my neck where the Lost Boys’ rope had rubbed. But my gaze drew lower, and my knees weakened, because on my shoulder where I’d been marked a member of Three were now two more slashes, these ones ugly, gaping, condemning. Five hash marks, forever branding me an Article violator.
The MM found a way to twist everything.
I covered it quickly with my torn collar, knowing the red stain on the fabric would do little to hide what lay beneath. The group drew closer, moving through the rows of cars toward the entrance. I stood, still unseen, but before I could join them one of the girls—a redhead with a shiny blue skintight gown—dropped something that rolled across the ground in my direction. Her heels clacked against the asphalt as she chased it.
“Hey!” I called softly. She looked up, rose, and tucked the tube of lipstick back into her purse.
“Someone there?” she asked tentatively, fluffing her hair. She glanced back to the group, continuing on without her.