Among the Betrayed

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Nina blindly poked keys into the keyhole, searching for the right one. The only light in the hallway was a dim, dirty bulb, several yards away, so she had trouble just keeping track of which keys she'd already tried and which keys she hadn't. It was also hard trying to keep the rest of the key ring from banging on the metal door while she was turning each individual key. She was sure she had to work silently. But why? Surely the hating man was already upstairs, hovering over the poisoned Mack. And he'd said there were no other prisoners down here. Except Percy, Matthias, and Alia, of course.

Percy, Matthias, and Alia.

It was strange, but Nina had not thought about them even once since that first moment her fingers closed around the guard's key ring. She'd forgotten they existed. All she'd thought about were the keys, the keyholes, her own life.

Percy, Matthias, and Alia.

Thinking about them now made Nina drop the whole ring of keys. It clattered to the stone floor and slid several inches. The sound seemed to bounce all around in Nina's ears, as though she'd dropped a thousand keys on a thousand floors. She half wished one of the three kids — Percy, Matthias, or Alia — would pound on their cell door, yell out, "Hey! What's going on out there?"

Because then Nina would have to talk to them, have to face them, have to look into their eyes while she decided, Should I ask them to come with me?

But none of them pounded on the door, none of them called out to her. She shouldn't have expected them to. If they had even heard the noise of the keys through the heavy wood door, they probably just assumed it was a guard making a little more racket than usual. Whether they heard the noise or not, they would have stayed cowering together in their little corner of the cell. In prison it was foolish to call attention to yourself.

In prison it was foolish to think about anyone but yourself.

Nina still didn't bend over to pick up the keys. Not yet.

Ever since the hating man had told her, days ago, "Here's the deal," she'd been avoiding any decisions. She'd lain down in filth, she'd stumbled along behind the guard, she'd sat with her head bowed while the hating man harangued her. But she hadn't done anything to harm Percy, Matthias, and Alia. She hadn't exactly done anything to help them, either — she'd sat precisely in the middle of a perfectly balanced scale.

But now it was time to tip the scale. She had to choose.

If Nina left on her own, without a single look back, she'd be sending Percy, Matthias, and Alia to their death. Hadn't the hating man said he was going to kill them all if he didn't get the information he needed by ten o'clock the next night? In her heart of hearts Nina knew that that "if" helped only her — if Percy, Matthias, and Alia were still in their jail cell tomorrow, he'd kill them.

But I don't have that much food, Nina thought.

It'd be harder for four kids to hide out, traveling to safety, than just one. And Alia's so little. She probably can't walk very fast at all, and I need to walk as far as possible tonight, before anyone discovers I'm gone. One way or another, those kids are going to die. Taking them with me would just mean that I die, too.

Nina thought about lason betraying her, about all her friends just staring when the Population Police came to arrest her.

Nobody helped me! she wanted to yell at that small, stubborn part of herself that refused just to pick up the keys and go. But then she thought about Gran, Aunty Zenka, Aunty Lystra, and Aunty Rhoda, four old ladies who could have enjoyed the few small luxuries they could afford on their old-age pensions. They'd kept working instead, at mindless, drudgery-filled jobs, and diapered and coddled a small child in their off hours. She thought about her own mother, a woman she'd barely met, hiding her pregnancy, traveling secretly to Gran's house, sending money whenever she could. It would have been easier for everyone if they'd gotten rid of Nina right from the start.

But it would have been wrong.

Nina sighed, letting out all the damp, unhealthy prison air she'd been breathing. Then she bent down and scooped up the keys. She turned around and walked to a different door, fumbled for a different key. Amazingly, she found this one on the first try. The solid wood door creaked open.

'Alia? Percy? Matthias?" she called. "Come on. Let's get out of here."