Among the Betrayed

CHAPTER EIGHT

All three faces stared resentfully back at Nina. She had never seen such filthy, ragged children in all her life. After two days in prison — with her dress torn and blood-soaked, her face streaked with tears and dirt, her braid ties lost — Nina knew she wasn't exactly a fashion plate herself. But these kids looked — and smelled, come to think of it— like they'd been born in one of Aunty Lystra's precious garbage dumps. They had dirt caked on their cheeks. They had smears of who knows what dribbled down their patched, baggy clothes. Their matted hair hung in ragged clumps into their eyes. It was impossible to tell if they were boys or girls. Nina wouldn't even have been surprised to discover that they were neither, but some sort of strange humanlike animal she'd never heard of.

Then they started talking.

"We're all older than five," the one in the middle said. "We're just small for our ages."

The smallest one nodded vigorously. "Matthias is ten, Percy is nine, and I'm six."

"And what's your name?" Nina asked gently.

"Alia," the child answered.

Alia. So the littlest one was a girl.

How can I betray a little girl?

Nina asked herself. When Nina was six, her aunties had taken turns holding her on their lap, teaching her to read. Gran herself was in charge of math lessons, and Aunty Rhoda taught her how to spell. Nina could still remember how it felt to snuggle so cozily in an aunty's lap, in the big armchair, with a book balanced on her knees. No matter how cold it got in their apartment, Nina always felt warm, when she was six.

And this six-year-old girl was huddled in a damp jail cell, waiting to die.

"If you don't mind," the biggest one — Matthias? — asked, "I think we'll put out the candle now. We only have the one. But we wanted to get a good look at you."

"Oh, go ahead," Nina said, though she longed for light. Two days in darkness had been much too long.

"My turn!" Alia said joyfully. She leaned over and blew. The flame vanished. Nina longed for it to come back.

But in the darkness I can trick them more easily. They won't be able to tell from my face when I am lying.

Was Nina going to lie to them? She couldn't decide.

"So. Who are you?" an unfamiliar voice — Percy's? — asked in the darkness.

And Nina was already lost. Which name should she say? Which names had they told her — real or fake? She had trouble imagining anyone wanting to name their kid Percy. So they were probably still pretending to be the people their fake I.D.'s said they were.

"You can call me Nina," she said cagily. "But my real name is—"

"No! Don't say it!" Alia screamed.

"We think they might be listening," Matthias explained in a whisper.

"So what?" Nina said recklessly. "They're going to kill us anyway."

Somehow Nina could feel the shocked silence on the other side of the room. Even in the dark she could picture those three grimy faces agape with horror.

"No, they're not," Alia said. "They're going to find out we're innocent, and then they're going to release us."

Alia's voice was buoyant with hope, calm and confident. Did she really believe what she was saying? Was she that stupid? Just from the way the three kids had huddled together, in the brief moments that the candle had been lit, Nina could tell that Matthias and Percy watched out for Alia. Maybe the boys, not wanting a hysterical six^year-old on their hands, had filled her head with lies: "Everything's okay. They won't hurt us. We'll get out soon."

Or was Alia acting, for the sake of the Population Police they thought were listening? Maybe one of the boys had told Alia, 'Act like you think we're innocent, and maybe they'll believe it." But could a six-year-old act so convinc-ingly?

Anyway, how could they possibly think the Population Police were listening? (Or know — if Nina told the Population Police everything, wasn't it like they were listening through Nina's ears?)

Nina rubbed her forehead. Everything was a muddle. How could she ever get these kids to trust her and spill all their secrets now? Did she really want them to tell her all their secrets?

I could find out their secrets and just not tell the Population Police, she told herself.

"How long have you been here?" she asked, trying to keep her voice casual, like she didn't really care but didn't have anything else to do but ask questions.

Nobody answered right away. Nina thought maybe they were whispering together on the other side of the room. Then Percy spoke up.

"We don't really know. It's hard to tell day from night down here."

"They've only brought us food three times," Alia said helpfully.

"How were you arrested?" Nina asked.

Again, it was a while before anyone answered. Nina wished so badly that she could see them.

"We were standing in line to buy cabbage. All three of us," Matthias finally said. "The Population Police came through the market, checking I.D.'s. They said ours were fake. So they arrested us—"

"But they're not fake!" Alia interrupted. "They're real, and the Population Police should know that. DO YOU HEAR ME?" Alia's voice was directed not at Nina, but at the door. Her words echoed so loudly, Nina could barely hear the two boys shushing her.

Nina decided to pretend she didn't notice.

"Why haven't your parents come to get you out?" Nina asked.

"Don't got any parents," Alia said.

Nina noticed the way she'd said that—"Don't got any," — not "Our parents are dead," or "We live with our grandparents," or "It'd be our aunt coming for us."

"Who takes care of you?" Nina asked cautiously.

"We take care of ourselves," Alia said hotly.

And this time Nina was sure the boys were whispering to Alia, telling her not to say anything else. A miserable lump filled Nina's throat. Filthy as they were, at least those three kids had one another. Nina wanted someone to huddle with, too.

If Jason were here—

No, not Jason. He was dead now, and anyway, he had betrayed her. How could she forget? Remembering his hugs made her skin crawl; thinking about his kisses made her wish she'd punched him in the nose instead of kissing back. Why hadn't she challenged him: "You keep saying we ought to do something about third children's rights, something like the famous Jen Talbot's rally. So why don't we?" Nina could have exposed him as a fake, right then and there. She could have been a hero, like Jen.

Instead, she was about to become a traitor.