Among the Imposters

Thirty Three

Luke stared at the phone. He’d tried so hard. It wasn’t fair that he didn’t even know if he’d succeeded or not.

No. He knew. He’d failed.

He’d heard the careless tone in Mr. Talbot’s voice. Luke couldn’t fool himself into thinking it was all an act, with each word carrying double meaning. It was three in the morning. He’d awakened Mr. Talbot out of a dead sleep. How could he possibly have understood what Luke needed?

Luke dropped the phone and put his face down on Ms. Hawkins’s desk. The file he’d been holding on his lap spilled onto the floor, dumping out papers filled with lies. He didn’t care. He didn’t care that anyone walking by would catch him where he wasn’t supposed to be. He was past caring about anything.

Had Jen ever reached this point, planning the rally?

Luke remembered the last time he’d seen her, the night she’d left for the capital. She’d seemed almost unearthly, as if she’d already passed out of the realm she shared with Luke. And she had. He was still in hiding, and she was about to risk her life to be free.

It was simpler for you, Luke accused silently. You weren’t confused. .

It was hard having a dead hero for a best friend.

I just can’t live up to you, len, he thought. I’m not you. .

He wasn’t Lee Grant, either. Slowly, just to get rid of them, he began picking up the faked papers and stuffing them back into the file. Moving like someone in a dream, he put the phone back on the desk and the file back in the filing cabinet, and shut the drawer. He walked out of the office and pulled the door closed behind him, making no effort whatsoever to hide the broken glass.

H&d have to run away, that’s all there was to it. He could take the other four with him. They’d just have to take their chances. They could head to the city.

Luke had lost all track of time, now. Before he woke the others and terrified them out of their wits, he decided, he’d peek outside and see how much time they had left before daylight.

He went to the door they always used, the one that led to the woods and had once led to his garden. He tried to turn the knob, but his hand must have been weak with exhaustion. His fingers slipped right off. He gripped the knob again, and tried harder.

The door was locked. Locked from the outside.

Panicked, Luke ran to the front door, the one he’d come through with Mr. Talbot that first day.

It was locked, too.

What kind of a school kept its students locked in, at night?

No school. Just prisons.

Luke rushed around trying every door he could find, but it was hopeless. They were all locked. And none of them had glass panels for him to break.

Finally he sank to the floor outside his history classroom.

We’re trapped, he thought. Trapped like rats in a hole. .

Luke was not the least bit surprised when he heard footsteps coming down the hall. He hardly dared look up. But it wasn’t Jason or someone from the Population Police standing over him. It was his history teacher, Mr. Dirk.

“Back to bed, young man,” Mr. Dirk said. “I appreciate your dedication to history, but studying through the night is strictly prohibited. I’m afraid I’ll have to give you—”

“I know, I know,” Luke said. “Thro demerits.”

Under Mr. Dirk’s stern gaze, Luke resignedly trudged back upstairs.