Among the Enemy

Chapter Eight

Matthias was so stunned, it took him a few minutes even to wonder how he could see the floor moving. There was a light. Under the floor. He blinked a few times, and the sight before him began to make sense. He'd found the latch for a trapdoor, leading, to an underground room.

Matthias slid over to the trapdoor opening — for it was i actually just a small square that had moved, not the entire 'floor — and peered down. A ladder led down to a tidy room illuminated by one dim lantern. A row of cots stood at one end of the room, and he could just barely make out a sink at the other end. Cots. A sink.

"I think I just found us a place to stay for the night," he said aloud to Percy and Alia. 'And then you'll both be fine in the morning. Okay?"

His voice sounded strange and croaky in the dark night. Neither of his friends answered.

He pulled Alia toward him and began struggling to carry her down the ladder. He laid her as gently as he could on one of the cots and covered her with a blanket he found on the floor.

"I'll try to find some food for you as soon as I take care of Percy," he told her.

Her only response was a moan. The bandage Percy had fashioned for her had fallen off somewhere in the woods, so the wound on her head was exposed, all seepy and puffy-looking. A few strands of her hair were plastered to the wound, and Matthias felt faint at the thought of hav-ing to pull them away, hurting her even more.

"I'll be right back," he promised her. n He went back up the ladder. He tried carrying Percy down the same way he had Alia: over his shoulder. But Percy was nearly as tall and heavy as Matthias himself, and Matthias couldn't work out the proper arrangement of arms and legs. Halfway down the ladder, Matthias fell, and Percy landed right on top of him on the packed-dirt floor. Percy let out a roar of agony.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," Matthias apologized, but even the fall didn't awaken Percy.

Matthias struggled to his feet. Ignoring the pain in his own legs and spine, he dragged Percy over to a cot near Alia's. Percy left a trail of blood behind him.

How much blood can somebody lose and still live? Matthias wondered.

"I'll stop the bleeding now," he promised Percy. "Right after I shut the trapdoor. When the trapdoor's shut, no one can find us down here. We're safe. I think there's some food down here — oh, yes! I see some bread over there on a shelf. I'll soak that in water and feed it to you and Alia. And I can tear up some of these blankets for bandages…."

He wanted so badly for one of his friends to finish his list of blessings for him with And God loves us. Then he would be able to believe that the underground room was a safe place, that nobody would find them there, that his friends' wounds would heal. But his voice trailed off into silence, and no one answered him, no one at all.