Among the Enemy

Chapter Twenty-Two

Matthias went numb. Too much had happened, and i w ft nothing made sense. He'd witnessed too many deaths to have any feelings left.

He stood still, clutching the bathroom doorframe while guards ran around, roping off the area by Tiddy's body. Tiddy lay right between two marble pillars, so they had something to tie the ropes to.

"What if it's biological?" someone asked, and then the words "germ warfare" whispered their way through the crowd that had gathered. People began panicking then; they ran.

Matthias kept clutching his doorframe.

The next group of people who came all wore masks over their faces and rubber gloves on their hands. They picked up Tiddy's body. They swabbed the floor with strong-smelling chemicals.

The word they whispered was "poison."

I told Nina she should put poison in the food, Matthias remembered. What if she was the one who killed Tiddy?

The thought didn't lead anywhere. It just fell into the huge pool of Matthias's sorrow and grief and guilt. Would Tiddy's death be my fault, then, too? he thought.

One of the masked men came over to Matthias. He peeled Matthias's fingers away from the doorframe.

"Come," he said.

It was the commander. His eyes were wet. He led Matthias by the hand, up the grand staircase, down the twisty halls. He tucked Matthias into a bed in a small room. He gave Matthias something to drink.

"Sleep," he said.

The world flickered out.

When Matthias came back to consciousness, it was daylight again, and the commander was sitting beside Matthias's bed.

"He was like a son to me," the commander said, and Matthias knew he meant Tiddy. "I always had to… try not to show it."

The commander stared into Matthias's eyes. Matthias had the feeling that the commander had been there all night, waiting.

"You saved him once," the commander said. "I did not thank you enough for that."

The weight of Matthias's bedding pressed down on him. He felt entombed.

"The scientists figured out what killed him," the commander said. "He'd confiscated some fake identity cards. They were coated with poison. Slow-acting poison, so the miscreants had time to get away. So Tiddy's friends got to witness his death." The commander was whispering now, each syllable like a dagger of pain. "I — never — should— have — sent — him — back — out — there."

He lowered his head and began sobbing.

So Nina had nothing to do with Tiddy's death, Matthias thought. Unless the poison I.D. cards were part of the secret project Nina wouldn't tell me about.

Matthias couldn't find it within himself to care one way or another. Not when Percy and Alia were already dead.

He felt the tears start in his own eyes. Wailing, the commander grasped Matthias's hand and buried his face in Matthias's blanket, and the two of them sobbed their hearts out together — the Population Police commander and the illegal boy. Both, in their own way, abandoned.