Among the Betrayed

CHAPTER TEN

Nina stumbled back into her jail cell to find the other three huddled around a burning candle. 'Alia got scared," Matthias explained. "She thought you might have been… you know."

Nina glanced over her shoulder, afraid that the guard might see the candle and take it away. But he was already slamming the door, locking it. He hadn't even looked into the cell.

"You were… worried about me?" Nina asked.

Matthias only shrugged, but Alia nodded, her eyes huge and solemn in her skinny face. Nina suddenly felt hor-rible that she hadn't snatched any rolls for the other kids.

"What did they want?" Percy asked.

"They just asked some questions."

"They did that to us, too, when we first came," Alia said. "They took us away, one at a time. But none of us said any-thing dangerous. Sa — I mean, we knew just what to say."

Nina heard that one slip of the tongue, "Sa—," and because the candle was still burning, she saw Matthias dig his elbow into Alia's side. To warn her? To silence her?

What had she almost said? "Sa—" Was it the beginning of someone's name?

Nina struggled to keep from showing the others how curious she was about that one little syllable, "Sa—".

"How did you know what to say, and what not to say?" Nina asked, hoping to make it sound like she just wanted to be able to avoid problems herself. "Did someone tell you?"

"Oh, we just knew," Alia said. "We're all pretty smart. Like, say you're a shadow child. lust pretend. If you're a shadow child, you're safe as long as you never ever tell the Population Police your real name."

"Of course," Nina said. "If I were a shadow child, and I had a fake I.D., I sure wouldn't tell anybody my real name. Besides my family, I mean."

But she had. She could remember one night when Jason had kissed her under the trees. He'd whispered in her ear, "You're so beautiful, and I don't even know who you really are. . " And the words had slipped out: "Elodie. . I'm Elodie…." It was her gift to him.

And look what he had done with it.

"Did you tell the Population Police anything about us?" Percy was asking. His question brought Nina back to the present, back to the cold, dripping jail cell and the six eyes staring at her and the horrible choice she was going to have to make.

"Just that you were hungry and cold down here," Nina said. It really wasn't even a lie. 'And I told the man who was asking questions that you all thought they were liS' tening to everything we said down here. He laughed and said that was ridiculous."

"Why did you say that?" Matthias asked furiously. "If they know we know, now we can't say anything to trick them."

Nina was getting confused, but she thought she knew what he meant.

"Well, it hasn't done any good so far, has it?" she chal-lenged. "You're still stuck down here, and they haven't fed you, and they haven't even given you soap to wash your face!"

"They haven't killed us, either," Alia said softly. Nina stared at the younger girl.

When I was six, I wouldn't have known to say something like that, she thought.

I was still a baby, playing with dolls and dressing up in the aunties' old clothes, pretending to be a princess. And I had four old ladies treating me like a princess.

"I'm sorry," Nina said. "I didn't mean to do anything wrong."

But she'd let the hating man think she was going to spy for him. She'd eaten his food, and that was like… like tak' ing blood money or something. She hadn't refused anything. She hadn't screamed and hollered and told him that the Population Police were wrong. She hadn't demanded that he set Matthias and Percy and Alia — and herself — free.

Nina bent her head down, too ashamed to look at the others.

A scraping sound behind her saved her from having to say anything else.

"Food!" Alia said delightedly.

The guard was opening the door. He tossed in a dark bundle, then shut the door and retreated.

Alia reached the bundle first. She grabbed it up and took it over to the boys. Matthias held the candle so they could all see in.

"Ooh, Nina, look!" Alia squealed. "There's one, two, three, four, five. . eight slices of bread! They've never brought more than six before!"

"There's one more of us now, silly," Percy said. "We still get two each."

"Oh," Alia said.

Nina moved over with the other kids, feeling like she'd crossed some invisible line. She squatted down with them and peered into the bag. It held the same kind of hard black bread she'd had for her first meal in prison. There wasn't even any butter or apples to go with it. After her feast with the hating man she couldn't pretend to want this bread.

"You know what?" she said with studied casualness. "I'm not really hungry. Why don't you all take my slices, too?"

They all stared at her.

'Are you sure?" Alia asked. "I don't think they feed us every day."

"That's okay. You take it," Nina said.

They didn't need any extra urging. In seconds the three kids had gobbled up all the bread. Nina did notice, though, that Matthias had a strange way of dividing up Nina's share of the food: Alia got a whole slice, and Matthias and Percy split the other one. Nina's full stomach ached, watching the others eat so hungrily.

When they were done, they searched for any dropped crumbs and ate those as well. Nina hovered beside them, pretending to look for crumbs, too. Then they all sat back, happily sated. Nina sat down beside Alia, and Alia leaned over and gave her a big hug.

"Thanks, Nina. I hope you don't get hungry later. I think that was the best meal I ever had."

Nina could have brought Alia fresh, beautiful rolls, but she hadn't. Instead, she'd let the little girl have old, moldy, practically inedible black bread just because Nina herself was too full of the Population Police's fine meal to pretend to want it. And now Alia was thanking her.

Nina felt guiltier than ever.