Among the Enemy

Chapter Twenty-One

Nobody could have survived that. . Nobody could have survived that. . The words seemed to whirl around Matthias, blocking out every other sound. Maybe Tiddy kept talking; maybe he just stood there waiting for Matthias to congratulate him.

Percy, Matthias thought. Alia. Mrs. Talbot. The man in the tree. Nobody.

There was no room for any hope now. No reason to try to move heaven and earth to get back to a certain cabin in a certain woods, the last place he'd seen his friends. The cabin was gone, the woods were gone.

His friends were gone.

Matthias gripped the doorframe because his legs seemed incapable of holding him up now. Matthias was surprised to find his hand could still hold on when his legs had failed: He wouldn't have thought it mattered if he stood or fell. He didn't care anymore if the Population Police found him out, learned of his true loyalties. He didn't care if they killed him.

Still, his hand held on.

"— so strange?" Tiddy was asking, and the words seemed to come at Matthias from across a great distance. They seemed to have traveled across a burning woods.

Matthias shrugged, because nothing mattered anymore. But his ears started working again. Tiddy repeated his question. It wasn't, Why are you acting so strange? It was, "Why do I feel so strange?"

"Tiddy?" Matthias said cautiously. He was surprised his voice worked. It came out thin and weak, like the birdcalls he and Percy and Alia had used as signals. Not Whip-poor-will! Whip-poor-will!" but What's wrong with Tiddy? What's wrong with Tiddy?

Tiddy was swaying back and forth, stumbling from side to side.

"My eyes—," he moaned. "I can't see!"

He balled up his fists and rubbed them into his eye sockets. He seemed to be trying to rub his eyes out.

"Don't! Stop!" he screamed.

He fell to the ground and thrashed around as if struggling with an invisible opponent. A few guards standing nearby came over and watched curiously.

"Hey, Tids, what's wrong?" the one asked.

The other yelled out, "Call a medic!"

"I — can't — breathe!" Tiddy gasped.

He clutched his throat and thrashed about even more violently.

And then he stopped moving. His hands loosened from his own throat. His head fell back against the marble floor.

And Matthias knew that Tiddy was dead.