Among the Enemy

Chapter Thirty-Three

Nina saw plenty of holes in Matthias's plan, but she didn't shoot it down entirely.

"Maybe we can work with that," she said thoughtfully.

They were hiding in a walk-in freezer at the back of the giant kitchen. It was the middle of the night, and Matthias had told the guards outside his room that he needed a midnight snack. He didn't know what excuse Nina had used, but he wished it were one that involved a warmer location.

"Can I go with you when you explain the idea to everyone else?" Matthias asked as he tried to hold back his shivers.

Nina frowned. In the ghostly light of the freezer, this cast ghoulish shadows across her face.

"It's not like I'm going to call a meeting," Nina said. "I'll pass a note to — well, my contact. My contact will pass a note to his contact. And so on."

"But who'll make the final decision?" Matthias asked.

"It's safer if I don't tell you," Nina said. "Safer for you, safer for us."

The shadows of Nina's eye sockets frightened Matthias. The chill of the freezer reminded him of running through snowy fields in search of help for Percy and Alia. An act of desperate hope that he now knew had been all for nothing.

"Nina," he began, but the words he wanted to say were frozen inside him. He couldn't tell her how badly he wanted this plan to succeed, because everything else he'd tried to do had failed.

"I'll get back to you as soon as I can," she said, her hand already on the door latch. "It might be a day or two."

"A day or two?" Matthias repeated incredulously. "The ceremony's next Friday."

"All this passing notes takes a while," Nina said, and she slipped out the door.

Matthias went back to bed, but he couldn't sleep. He stared into the darkness, missing Percy, missing Alia, missing Samuel.

Can I trust Nina? he wanted to ask them. Am I doing the right thing?

The next few days seemed unbearalby long. Matthias haunted the cafeteria, but Nina looked straight through him as she handed him nothing but bowls and plates. He forced himself to listen to the headphones as much as possible, but all the commander’s planning seemed to be finished; Matthias heard little but the scratching of pen on paper, the soft rustle of papers being shifted from side to side.

What if all the interesting conversations are taking place when I'm not listening? Matthias tortured himself wondering. What if they've finished Project Exchange early and the ceremony's this week and we don't even know?

The commander visited Matthias every night, right before bedtime, and it was all Matthias could do not to blurt out, I hear there's some big ceremony coming up soon. When is it? What's it for? But it was safer to act dumb, to pretend there was nothing on his mind except grief.

"How are your studies coming along?" the commander asked one evening as he sat on the edge of Matthias's bed.

"Huh?" Matthias said.

The commander pointed to the headphones and tape recorder on the bedside table.

"Your classes? Remember?"

"Oh." Matthias thought fast. "I try to listen, but I start thinking about Tiddy and then I miss half the tape so I have to start it all over again."

The commander touched Matthias's cheek.

"I understand," he said sorrowfully.

Matthias lowered his eyes and mumbled, "I'll try harder."

The next morning he did slip a cassette into the recorder, but it started out, 'All our country's problems can be traced to the evil of the third children, those who harbor this scourge, and those who provide fake identification to encourage their prodigal ways…."

Matthias couldn’t bear to listen to any more. He clicked off the recorder and went down to breakfast.

And this time when Nina handed him a bowl of Cream of Wheat, he felt a thin edge of paper under the rim. It was so hard not to drop the bowl and read the note, right there in front of the entire cafeteria. He managed to walk to his table with studied carelessness, but once there he couldn't help unfolding the paper in his lap, glancing down quickly: When you get back to your room, you'll find your weapon on your bed.

"Hey, little buddy, mind if I sit with you?"

It was Tiddy's friend Mike. Quickly, Matthias crammed Nina's note into his pocket.

"S-Sure," Matthias stammered, but inside he was thinking, Did Mike see the note? He couldn't have, he's on the other side of the table. But what if he did? What if he knows all about me and the plan? Then, Weapon? WEAPON? Would Samuel approve of me using a weapon?

"Haven't seen you around much," Mike was saying. "I've been out on patrol a lot. Man, it's cold out there. It'll be nice when spring gets here…."

"Uh-huh," Matthias said, and "You're right," but he wasn't really listening as Mike rambled on.

Then Mike said, "I see you've got your eye on one of the serving girls. Cute one, huh?"

"What?" Matthias asked, suddenly panicked. He realized he had been looking toward Nina, but he hadn't meant to. "I'm not — I mean—"

Mike laughed.

"Hey, didn't mean to embarrass you. You're blushing. It's okay, she's not bad-looking. But I'll warn you: I've seen her passing love notes to other guys. Slips it into their, hands with their soup bowls. Very clever. She passing love notes to you yet?"

Matthias froze. How much did Mike know? How could Matthias possibly answer that question?

Oh, please, God, help me, Matthias prayed silently as beads of sweat broke out on his forehead.

Suddenly Matthias knew what to say.

"Is she passing love notes to you?" he challenged Mike. "Did you come over here to warn me away from your girl' friend?"

"I wish," Mike said, laughing again. And then he changed the subject.

Matthias finished breakfast as quickly as he could. He wanted to warn Nina that Mike had seen her passing notes, but he didn’t how he could do it without attracting more attention. And he was worried about having a weapon lying out on his bed. He raced up the stairs and burst into his room. A large orange sphere sat in the middle of his comforter.

His "weapon" was a basketball.