Matthias hugged Alia even closer. He should have taken his sweater off and put it on Alia hours ago. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Why hadn’t Percy suggested it?
“Let’s go out closer to the road and see if there are any houses,” Percy finished.
All day long they’d been walking parallel to a paved road. It was their guide for getting to Mr. Hendricks. But they’d wanted to stay far enough away that they wouldn’t be spotted from any car windows.
Strangely, now that he thought about it, Matthias couldn’t remember hearing a single car or truck go by.
Percy was already tramping off toward the road. Matthias wanted to call him back, to try to come up with a better plan. But Percy disappeared behind a tree before Matthias could put his thoughts together. Matthias struggled to follow the younger boy. In this section of the woods, the road lay downhill, and Matthias was terrified of falling with Alia in his arms.
The ground was wet, and his feet slipped out from under him. He landed hard on his rear.
“Oohh,” Alia moaned.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Matthias muttered.
He didn’t think she could hear him, but her eyelids fluttered—once, twice . . . Then, amazingly, they opened all the way.
“You’re awake?” Matthias whispered, not quite able to believe it.
“Hurts,” she mumbled.
“I know, I know. I didn’t mean to fall down. Percy’s off finding us a place for the night. Everything’s okay, now that you’re awake.” Matthias beamed at her.
Alia squinted up at him. She blinked as if the dim light of dusk was blinding and painful.
“I think . . . I think I was awake before,” she whispered. “You . . . were . . . carrying me?”
“Yes,” Matthias said. “We’re taking you to help, because of the tree falling on you.”
Alia winced and her eyelids closed again.
“Don’t remember . . . any . . . tree,” she murmured. “Don’t remember . . . Why aren’t we at school?”
It scared Matthias that she didn’t seem to remember the Population Police taking them away. It scared him the way her head sagged against his arm again.
“Percy?” he called softly, wanting the other boy there for reassurance, for comfort.
“Over here,” Percy answered from far down the hillside. “I think—”
But Matthias couldn’t hear what Percy thought. Because that was when the first gunshot rang out.
CHAPTER SIX
Matthias reacted instinctively, somersaulting himself and Alia down the hill until they came to rest behind a huge log. Protection. Alia screamed with the pain of being moved so roughly, but even Matthias could barely hear her over the sudden barrage of gunfire.
It took Matthias a few minutes to realize that no one was shooting at him and Alia, that all the bullets were whizzing and zinging farther down the hill.
“Percy,” he breathed out, in a way that might have been a prayer.
He dared to raise his head to peer over the log. From this vantage point, he could see a cabin’s roof and a swath of empty road. At first it seemed that the gunfire was coming out of nowhere—phantom guns firing phantom bullets, maybe. But then he saw a rustle of movement on the opposite side of the road. In the uncertain light of dusk, he could make out men in dark uniforms. Population Police uniforms.
They sent that many men after us, with guns? For three unarmed children? he wondered.
But—he squirmed around to get a better view—the Population Police weren’t aiming their guns even in the direction where Percy had been standing. They were shooting at the cabin.
And someone inside was shooting back at them.
Not Percy, Matthias told himself. When the gunfire had started, Percy’s voice had come from a closer spot than the cabin. And, as far as Matthias knew, Percy had never touched a gun in his life. Even if he’d found a gun in the cabin, Percy wouldn’t have picked it up and started shooting.
Oh, please, let that not be Percy, Matthias prayed. He could tell: Whoever was in the cabin didn’t have a chance against the Population Police.
He was so desperate to find Percy that he raised his head even higher, so he could scan the entire hillside. In the failing light, everything was in shadows, but if Matthias peered hard enough, maybe—
The sound of gunfire stopped suddenly. Matthias froze, his ears still ringing. Down below, the Population Police officers swarmed across the road, surrounding the cabin. Matthias ducked his head down behind the log again, but he kept peeking out. He heard a splintering sound that probably meant the officers had kicked in the cabin door. Then they began dragging out dead bodies. One, two, three, four, five. . . . How many people had been crowded into that small cabin? The bodies kept coming. Matthias couldn’t see all of them, but as far as he could tell, none of them was Percy.
Matthias’s ears were recovering a little, enough that he could catch snatches of the Population Police officials’ conversation.
“Seventeen rebels, just as our informant said,” a harsh voice said.
“Fools.”
Matthias could see the man who said that. He seemed to be leaning over one of the bodies, the way someone might lean over and kiss a child’s forehead.
This man spat on the dead body instead.
“What do we do with them now?” somebody asked. “Carry them back with us?”
“Are you kidding? Don’t you remember how far we had to hike to get here? I’m not carrying any corpse five miles in the dark.”
“What’s wrong? Scared of ghosts?” someone teased.
“Scared of getting blood on my uniform. Tell me again why we didn’t just drive here?”
“The element of surprise was necessary,” a steely voice said. It must have belonged to the group’s leader, because everyone else fell silent. “Here’s what we do. Take their I.D. cards, then pile these bodies by the side of the road. Then somebody—you, Sanders—make a sign. We want everyone who comes by here to see what happens to rebels.”
“What should the sign say?” a timid voice asked. “ ‘They was rebels’?”
“No, no,” the leader said impatiently. “We don’t want anyone thinking it’s possible to rebel.”
“But—”
“The sign will say, ‘Enemies of the People.’ Now do it!”
“Yes, sir!”
The officers scurried to obey.
Matthias watched with a growing sense of fear. He could see where they were piling the bodies, and any second he expected to see Percy’s striped flannel pajama pants, or his black shoes with the hole in only one sole. Percy had been so proud of those shoes, the best he’d ever owned in all his life.
Without realizing it, Matthias had been counting each thud of every dead body landing on the pile. At the same time that he reached seventeen, the Population Police officers stepped back, as though their work was done.
Matthias had seen no striped pajamas, no holey shoes. But it was nearly dark—how could he be sure?
“Do you think he’ll let us go now?” someone whined.
“Sir, should we search the rest of the area?” another man asked.
Matthias held his breath.
“No,” the leader decided. “We did what we came to do. We could spend our whole lives looking through this wasteland, and for what? Back to headquarters! Now!”
The Population Police officers melted back into the woods on the other side of the road, as silently as if they were shadows themselves.
“Matt-Matt,” Alia murmured.
“Shh,” Matthias said. “Wait.”
It was too dark now to see Alia’s face; he couldn’t be sure if she was awake or not. He couldn’t be sure what she’d heard or what she understood. He waited long, agonizing minutes, in case the Population Police came back. Then he whistled a soft imitation of a whip-poor-will. He and Percy had used that as a signal many times before.
Poor-will! Poor-will! echoed below him. Except it wasn’t an echo. It was Percy.
Matthias felt like screaming for joy, rushing down the hill immediately. But he stopped himself. He picked up Alia again and inched through the darkness. He had to call and wait for Percy’s answer again and again. Each call and response unnerved him. Percy should have been moving toward Matthias as Matthias moved toward him, so they could meet halfway. But Percy’s Poor-will! Poor-will! stayed in one spot.
Finally, after what felt like hours of stumbling through near-total darkness, Matthias thought he was close enough to whisper.
“Percy?”
A hand grabbed Matthias’s ankle. Matthias crouched awkwardly, almost thrown off balance by the weight of Alia’s body. He felt around on the ground. Dead leaves, furry moss, Percy’s bloody leg . . .
Bloody?
“Percy!” Matthias hissed, fear overriding caution. “What happened to you?”
“Bullet,” Percy said. It sounded like he was talking through clenched teeth. “Shot.”
And then Matthias felt Percy’s head loll over to the side, against Matthias’s shoe.
Percy had passed out.
CHAPTER SEVEN
As well as he could, Matthias tried raising Percy’s head up again. But it was impossible to balance Alia on his lap and lift Percy at the same time.
“Percy, no, I need you,” he argued.
He remembered how Samuel had always said, “God will never give you more than you can bear.” But how could Matthias bear this? Both Percy and Alia injured and in such great pain and maybe dying . . .
“Oh, God, no,” Matthias whispered, or maybe he was crying. He reached out for Percy’s leg again, as if he believed his plea would make the wound miraculously heal itself. But blood was still seeping out along the gash in Percy’s pajama pants. Lots of blood. Percy whimpered and jerked away from Matthias’s hand.
Shouldn’t touch, germs, infection, Matthias thought in a jumbled way. He was too horrified to think clearly, but the words “soap and water” fought their way into his mind.
I’m in the wilderness! Where am I supposed to find soap and water? he wanted to shout. But then the answer came to him.
The cabin.
If Matthias had stopped to consider how hard it would be to get both Alia and Percy down to the cabin, he might have given up right then. But the thought that kept cycling through his mind was, Can’t leave Alia, can’t leave Percy, can’t leave Alia, can’t leave Percy. . . . If he put Alia down to carry Percy, she might freeze to death before he could come back. If he left Percy behind and took Alia first, he might not be able to find Percy again in the dark. And then he’d have to wait for the morning light, and Percy could have bled to death by then.
What if Percy bled to death anyhow?
Don’t think about that, he commanded himself.
He forced himself to concentrate on shifting Alia’s limp body to one side, so he could support her with just one arm looped around her waist. With his other arm he reached down—awkwardly, almost toppling over—and wedged his hand under Percy’s armpit. And then he began dragging both of them downhill.
He made slow, torturous progress, and both of them whimpered and moaned and cried out in their sleep, in pain. He was of two minds about their cries. At least they were still alive—but, oh, how could he be the one hurting them?
The trek down the hill took so long, Matthias was almost surprised when he lifted his head and saw a wall of logs directly in front of him. He had a moment of worrying that there might be Population Police guards remaining behind in the cabin—or perhaps more rebels left alive who might feel no friendlier toward Matthias than they did toward the Population Police. But he was too desperate to give that worry much thought.
“Just a—little—farther,” he grunted to his two friends, even though they probably couldn’t hear him.
He dragged them around to the front of the cabin and then lifted them, one by one, over the splintered door.
Inside the cabin was utter darkness.
Well, of course it is. What did I expect?
The last, lingering light of dusk illuminated only the first few inches inside the shattered doorway. Even as Matthias huddled there with Percy and Alia, that light seemed to fade and disappear.
We’ve survived in darkness before, Matthias reminded himself. For most of their time in Population Police prison, they’d been in an underground dungeon and had gone for days without seeing sunlight.
Percy and Alia weren’t injured then, Matthias thought. And we had candles that we could light in an emergency.
Maybe there were candles in the cabin as well.
Even though every muscle in his body cried out in exhaustion, Matthias forced himself to reach out and grope around on the floor. He tried not to think about how many people had just died in the cabin.
“God rest their souls,” he murmured, another Samuel saying that somehow gave him the courage to keep reaching out, keep grasping for hope. All he asked for was a single candle and a single match, although a flashlight would be easier to work with. And he certainly wouldn’t complain if he found medical supplies just lying around, waiting for him. . . .
At first he found only splinters. The floor was made of rough wooden planks that hadn’t been sanded and didn’t fit together well. The gaps between the planks were so wide that Matthias began to fear an entire book of matches could be hidden between two planks and Matthias would never know. So he fell into a pattern of sweeping his entire hand across a plank (carefully, trying to avoid the splinters), then wedging his fingers down between the cracks before moving on to the next plank.
That was how he discovered the secret latch.
Matthias didn’t know what it was when his fingers brushed it, tucked away on the underside of one of the planks. But it was the first thing he’d touched that wasn’t wood, and it puzzled him: Who would put a round, hard knob underneath a floor? He felt all around it, pushing it from side to side. When he pushed it to the right, something clicked.
And then the floor rose up before him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Matthias was so stunned, it took him a few minutes even to wonder how he could see the floor moving.
There was a light. Under the floor.
He blinked a few times, and the sight before him began to make sense. He’d found the latch for a trapdoor, leading to an underground room.
Matthias slid over to the trapdoor opening—for it was actually just a small square that had moved, not the entire floor—and peered down. A ladder led down to a tidy room illuminated by one dim lantern. A row of cots stood at one end of the room, and he could just barely make out a sink at the other end.
Cots. A sink.
“I think I just found us a place to stay for the night,” he said aloud to Percy and Alia. “And then you’ll both be fine in the morning. Okay?”
His voice sounded strange and croaky in the dark night. Neither of his friends answered.
He pulled Alia toward him and began struggling to carry her down the ladder. He laid her as gently as he could on one of the cots and covered her with a blanket he found on the floor.
“I’ll try to find some food for you as soon as I take care of Percy,” he told her.
Her only response was a moan. The bandage Percy had fashioned for her had fallen off somewhere in the woods, so the wound on her head was exposed, all seepy and puffy-looking. A few strands of her hair were plastered to the wound, and Matthias felt faint at the thought of having to pull them away, hurting her even more.
“I’ll be right back,” he promised her.
He went back up the ladder. He tried carrying Percy down the same way he had Alia: over his shoulder. But Percy was nearly as tall and heavy as Matthias himself, and Matthias couldn’t work out the proper arrangement of arms and legs. Halfway down the ladder, Matthias fell, and Percy landed right on top of him on the packed-dirt floor. Percy let out a roar of agony.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Matthias apologized, but even the fall didn’t awaken Percy.
Matthias struggled to his feet. Ignoring the pain in his own legs and spine, he dragged Percy over to a cot near Alia’s. Percy left a trail of blood behind him.
How much blood can somebody lose and still live? Matthias wondered.
“I’ll stop the bleeding now,” he promised Percy. “Right after I shut the trapdoor. When the trapdoor’s shut, no one can find us down here. We’re safe. I think there’s some food down here—oh, yes! I see some bread over there on a shelf. I’ll soak that in water and feed it to you and Alia. And I can tear up some of these blankets for bandages. . . .”
He wanted so badly for one of his friends to finish his list of blessings for him with And God loves us. Then he would be able to believe that the underground room was a safe place, that nobody would find them there, that his friends’ wounds would heal. But his voice trailed off into silence, and no one answered him, no one at all.
CHAPTER NINE
Matthias did everything he could for his friends, but there was so much he didn’t know. Could Percy’s leg heal even if Matthias didn’t take the bullet out? What did it mean that Alia flickered in and out of consciousness and seemed barely aware even when she was awake?
“They’ll both be fine tomorrow,” he told himself firmly. He managed to choke down a bit of bread and water himself, then blew out the lantern and curled up on a cot between his two friends.
He woke, hours later, to the sound of Alia crying. He lit the lantern and crouched by her cot.
“Shh,” he murmured. “I’m here.”
Alia stared up at him.
“Why doesn’t it stop hurting?” she asked. “It feels like my head cracked in half, and every time I move, it cracks open some more.” She flinched, as if just the act of talking was painful.
“Shh. Go back to sleep” was the best comfort Matthias could offer. He wished he had some aspirin, but maybe even that wouldn’t be enough for her.