Among the Enemy

Chapter Forty-One

For a moment, all any of them could do was stare at each other, then Percy and Alia ran to Matthias and fell on him with hugs and shouts of joy.

"We thought you were dead!" Alia exclaimed, and Matthias shouted back, "I thought you were dead!" and somehow it was funny now, so they all had to laugh for a long time before anyone could explain.

"I saw you get into the car with the Population Police officer — was he taking you hostage?" Mrs. Talbot asked. 'And then we heard a gunshot, and we just thought—"

"He shot a bird. Not me," Matthias said. "But he went back later and burned down everything for miles around the cabin, so I thought—"

"He did?" Mrs. Talbot asked. "Just recently, you mean?"

"No, that same day."

"No," Mrs. Talbot said, shaking her head firmly. "The cabin burned down, but that's all. And Percy and Alia and I were in the rebels' cave hideout, just up the hill from there, so we were safe. And then the rebels brought us back here, and we've been fine ever since."

Matthias stared at Mrs. Talbot in confusion. He still couldn't quite understand that she was real, that the friends he'd been mourning for months had been alive all along.

"But Tiddy said—," Matthias began. Then he remembered Tiddy telling the commander he'd been attacked by forty rebels, when there'd probably been only one. He remembered Tiddy claiming the Population Police hadn't killed the seventeen rebels at the cabin. "Oh," he breathed out. "Tiddy lied about the fire, too."

Why hadn't Matthias thought of that sooner? Why hadn't Matthias hung on to every last hope that his friends had survived?

It was being in Population Police headquarters, he thought. It was so hard to believe in anything good there.

And watching Tiddy die, right after he'd described the fire — that had seemed to confirm all Matthias's worst fears, made him believe the world was full of death and despair and there was no reason for hope.

And yet he'd escaped. And here were Percy and Alia, whole and healthy and grinning from ear to ear.

Matthias fell asleep that night in the same room as his friends. There were beds, but the three of them ended up huddled together on the floor, under cozy blankets, hold-ing hands.

"I missed you so much," Alia murmured. "But we're together now."

'And we're safe here," Percy said.

'And the grown-ups will take care of us," Alia added.

'And God loves us," Percy finished.

Matthias woke the next morning long before the other two. In the dim winter light filtering in through the win-dows, he studied his friends' faces. Even in his sleep, Percy's expression was solemn. Matthias hoped he didn't still have nightmares about being shot.

Alia's face was harder to see because her hair covered her eyes. Matthias brushed back the golden strands and gently traced the scar on her forehead.

"My fault," he murmured.

Matthias slipped out from under the blankets and left the room. He found Mike and Mr. Talbot drinking coffee in the kitchen. He fixed himself a bowl of cereal and sat down with the grown-ups.

"Is your real name Nedley?" he asked Mike, because it was an easier question than all the others swirling around in his brain.

Mike threw his head back and laughed.

"It's the one I was using the last time I visited this cottage," Mike said. "But I've used lots of different names over the years. I'm not sure I even remember my real one."

"You were Nedley when you helped save my life," Mr. Talbot said. "You'll always be Nedley to me."

Matthias had the feeling Mike and Mr. Talbot could have told him a long story just then, but he already had enough to think about.

"I'm so happy that Percy and Alia — and Mrs. Talbot— are alive after all and that I found them again so they're not worrying about me," he began. "But why do I still feel. ."

'Anxious?" Mr. Talbot offered.

"Troubled?" Mike said.

Matthias nodded, even though neither of those words exactly fit.

"It's not enough, is it?" he said. "Just to be with people you love, who love you. Not when there's so much evil in the world. I think it's like… God expects more of me."

He understood better now why Samuel had felt he had to go to the rally, why Mrs. Talbot had risked her life to rescue Percy and Alia. He was afraid that Mike and Mr. Talbot might make fun of him for mentioning God. But they were both gazing back at him with grave expressions.

"There's an old saying," Mr. Talbot said heavily. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.' I've been thinking about that a lot myself lately. Because I've been doing nothing, these past few months."

"You were recovering from life-threatening injuries," Mike said.

'And now I'm recovered," Mr. Talbot said simply. "It's time to get back to work."

"Good," Mike said. "I'm glad to hear it."

The two of them shook hands as if they were making a solemn agreement. Matthias knew he'd just witnessed something important, but he was too caught up in his own dilemma to take much note of it.

"I never want to leave Percy and Alia again," he said. "If I go anywhere to fight the Population Police again, I'd want them to go with me."

Mr. Talbot frowned.

"They're little children, Matthias," he said quietly. "And they've already been through a lot."

Matthias wanted to ask, What about me? Haven't I been through a lot? Aren't I a child too? But the words died in his throat. He wasn't like Percy and Alia anymore. He'd crossed some line when he was apart from them. In the beginning, he'd been desperate to get back to them because he was lost without them; he didn't know who he was if he wasn't part of their cozy threesome. But now he knew just what Mr. Talbot meant. Percy and Alia were so young, so innocent — all he wanted to do was protect them.

"I'm thirteen," he choked out. "They're six and nine."

The ages were arbitrary numbers, little more than guesses. And claiming to be thirteen had been a stretch back in November when Tiddy had asked his age. But it sounded right now.

Mr. Talbot nodded solemnly.

"Yes," he said. "Thirteen is very different from six and nine."

"So then—," Mike said, as if expecting Matthias to announce eternal devotion to the cause now that he understood about Percy and Alia. Mike even had his hand half thrust out, as if he was ready to shake Matthias's hand too.

But Matthias was thinking about how hard it was to do anything good in a country run by the Population Police. He thought about how many times he'd messed up, hurting innocent children, endangering Percy and Alia, risking Nina's life when he protested her plan.

Oh, Samuel, he thought. When you said to stay out of politics, you meant that it's easier to make sure you're doing good when you stay completely away from evil. You were a holy man. But even you had to go out into the world. You couldn't stand by when the Population Police were killing children.

Then he thought about how even Mike, who was working for a good cause, had forgotten about the guard left behind in the warehouse and had kind of hoped that the commander would be killed.

Can I keep working with someone like that? Matthias thought. But he'd been the one who'd saved the guard. What if he hadn't been there?

Matthias sighed.

"I can't leave Percy and Alia now," he said. "Not when I just got here. But later on, if you need me…"

Mike nodded and clapped his hand on Matthias's shoulder.

"We'll need you," Mike said. "We'll need everyone who's capable of helping."

Matthias swallowed hard.

"Would I have to go back to Population Police headquarters?" he asked.

"I don't know," Mike said. "We need to figure out our next plan."

Matthias opened his mouth — then shut it again. He couldn't know exactly what he was signing on to. He couldn't know what choices he'd face, what agonizing options he'd have to decide between. But he knew he was doing the right thing.

Mr. Talbot put his hand on Matthias's other shoulder then and gave it a gentle squeeze. The three of them— Mike, Mr. Talbot, and Matthias — were linked in a little circle around the kitchen table, as if they were holding some sacred ceremony. But Matthias knew the circle of people working for good extended far beyond that kitchen table: to Nina, Trey, Lee and all the "others" she'd mentioned back at Population Police headquarters, to Mr. Hendricks and Mrs. Talbot elsewhere in the house, maybe even to Percy and Alia someday if the fight continued that long.

Matthias thought about what Mike had said most people would do if they'd been in Matthias's place at Population Police headquarters; he thought about the frightened people who'd taken their food back to the Population Police after the warehouse was destroyed. Most people, he realized, could see only the Population Police's power. But he knew the force for good was even stronger.

Even if I have to go back to Population Police headquarters, he thought, even if I have to live among the enemy for years and years and years — even then, I will never be alone.

He reached up and put one arm around Mike's shoulder and one arm around Mr. Talbot's, and that was like his part of the ceremony, his sacred pact.

We will keep fighting this evil, he was saying.

We will win.