Among the Enemy

Chapter Thirteen

Where are they?" Mrs. Talbot asked, looking around. \- ', She didn't understand that they were missing. Matthias couldn't understand either. He whipped the flashlight all around, and its glow shot crazily from one side of the room to the other. Maybe Percy and Alia had crawled off their cots to go to the bathroom and then fainted before they could get back. . Maybe that might have happened to one of them, but both?

Neither of them was huddled anywhere on the secret room's dirt floor. They'd vanished completely.

Matthias raced back up the ladder. Maybe they were in the cabin itself….

He repeated his routine of flashing the light all around the room. The upturned chairs made shadows big enough to hide behind, so he kept getting glimmers of hope— hope that died instantly when he moved the chairs aside and saw nothing there. He scrambled to the door of the cabin.

"Percy? Alia?" he shouted hoarsely into the dark night. "Where are you?"

Mrs. Talbot grabbed his arm just as he started to step outside to search for them.

'Are you out of your mind?" she asked, her eyes blazing. 'Are you trying to find them or get us killed?"

If he couldn't find Percy and Alia, it would be like dying.

"They were here," he said furiously. "What could have happened to them? I never should have left them. This is all my fault. It's my fault Percy got shot — the Population Police must have heard him answering me. It's my fault Alia got hurt — oh, why didn't I think before I tried to stop that truck? Why didn't I—?"

"Stop it," Mrs. Talbot said, taking him by the shoulders and shaking him. "Hysteria never helped anyone. We can look for them, we can find them if you'll just calm down."

"Somebody took them away," Matthias moaned.

"Yes, probably," Mrs. Talbot agreed. "From your description of their injuries, I don't think they could have walked out of here on their own. We just need to figure out who took them and why…. I know. You go back down into the basement and see if there are any secret routes out that you missed before. I'll go outside and look for footprints."

Matthias had searched the underground room as thoroughly as possible the night before, so he didn't think much of Mrs. Talbot's suggestion. But he didn't say so. He sat numbly until she was out the door. Then he sneaked over and watched her.

She kept her flashlight trained on the ground for only a few moments. Then, when she reached the pile of dead bodies, she pointed the light straight at it.

She believes Percy and Alia might be dead, Matthias thought, so jarred by the thought that he staggered back-ward. She thinks someone just threw their bodies on the pile with the others.

He heard Mrs. Talbot gasp, and he ran outside to join her.

"Is it Percy? Alia?" he asked.

Mrs. Talbot glanced over at him like she'd forgotten who he was.

"No.. no," she murmured. "There aren't any children here. But it's. . someone I used to know. The man who sold us our daughter's fake identity card." She took Matthias's flashlight from him and switched it off. "This is too strange. Nothing makes sense. Let's go search the underground room together and wait until daylight before we look for footprints. These flashlights are too much like beacons in the dark."

"But—," Matthias started to object. He thought they'd find his friends fastest by following footprints.

"I insist," Mrs. Talbot said. "It's only about twenty minutes or so until sunrise."

Troubled, Matthias followed Mrs. Talbot back into the cabin and down the stairs. The two of them tapped on the walls and floors for what felt like hours, but no secret tunnels or hideaways appeared. Matthias showed her the safe that had contained all the false identity cards.

"Do you remember the combination?" Mrs. Talbot asked.

"Um, I think so," Matthias said. It took him a few tries, but he finally got the safe open.

It was empty too.

"So they took two injured children and dozens of fake I.D.'s," Mrs. Talbot said. "Hmm."

"What?" Matthias asked. "What do you think hap^ pened?"

"I don't know," Mrs. Talbot said. She gave him a shaky smile. "Got any guesses?"

Matthias wished he were as smart as Percy. Percy would have been able to look at the clues they had and come up with a solid answer: Oh, yes, they left with a man in a gray hat, and the serial number on his I.D. card ends in two-three, and we'll find them if we travel north by northeast for forty-five minutes.

Okay, maybe Percy wouldn't be able to figure out that much detail. But if it were Percy looking for Alia and me, not the other way around, Matthias thought, he'd know enough to tell for sure if the Population Police had come back and discovered the secret room and the fake I.D.'s and his friends. .. Oh, please, God, don't let it be the Population Police who found them.

Matthias gulped. "Let's go see if we can find any foot' prints," he told Mrs. Talbot.

She shrugged and followed him back up the ladder yet again. They closed the trapdoor behind them.

Dim light was filtering into the cabin from outdoors now. It only served to highlight the disarray. Mrs. Talbot stood at the splintered door and peeked outside.

"When it's dark out," she murmured, "I'm always terrified of what might be hiding in the shadows. But when the sun comes up, I wish for the darkness again to hide me."

Matthias brushed past her. It didn't do any good to speak of fear.

He took a few steps toward the road and then looked back. He'd left no footprints in the leaf-strewn, packed dirt. He shivered, but his chill had nothing to do with the brisk morning air.

Maybe whoever took Percy and Alia away was here yesterday when the ground thawed and then refroze, he told himself. So their footprints might still be there, encrusted in the ground, even though I can't see my own.

He peered around, his gaze taking in the sky and the woods as well as the ground.

And that was when he saw the man in the tree.