Among the Free

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  But then, unbidden, another memory forced its way into his mind: Jen arguing with him the day before she died.

  You can be a coward and hope someone else changes the world for you. You can hide up in that attic of yours until someone knocks at your door and says, “Oh, yeah, they freed the hidden. Want to come out?” Is that what you want?

  She’d been trying to get him to come to the rally with her, the one protesting for third children’s rights. She’d yelled at him that if he didn’t play a role in seeking his own freedom, he’d always regret it: When you don’t have to hide anymore, even years from now, there’ll always be some small part of you whispering, “I don’t deserve this. I didn’t fight for it. I’m not worth it.” And you are, Luke, you are. . . .

  Substitute the word “cave” for “attic” and she might as well be arguing with him now. He shivered with the same kind of chills he would have felt if Jen’s ghost had appeared to him and urged, Get out of this cave this instant! Go and fight in that war!

  “Stop,” he muttered, pressing his hands over his ears, as if that could shut out a voice he heard only in his own mind. “Why should I listen to you? It’s not like your rally did any good. It only got you killed. Do you want me to die too?”

  But he couldn’t really argue that Jen’s rally had been useless. So much had happened since then. Luke himself would never have gotten his fake I.D. and left home if it hadn’t been for Jen and her rally. He never would have gone to Hendricks School or met any of his friends there. He never would have helped a boy named Smits come to terms with his brother’s death. He never would have infiltrated Population Police headquarters, never tried to make a difference in the world, never ended up here in this cave.

  And that’s supposed to convince me? he wondered.

  Still, he took his hands off his ears and crawled back toward the cave’s opening. Peeking out, he could see nothing but trees, a peaceful scene. But the sounds of gunfire were even louder. Maybe the battle wasn’t so far away, after all.

  I don’t know who’s fighting whom. I wouldn’t know which side to join. I don’t have a weapon—I’d be killed for sure.

  He was still arguing with Jen, and she’d been dead for nearly a year.

  Sighing, Luke slipped out of his cave and stood upright. He could just go see what was going on. He’d hide and watch. Surely it wouldn’t be dangerous if he didn’t get too close.

  He began walking toward the sounds of battle, but the noise echoed in the trees, confusing him. Twice he got turned around and found himself walking back toward the mountainside. Or maybe it was the mountain that curved around, hugging the woods on more than one side.

  He’d just started to feel confident that he was walking in the right direction when suddenly the shooting stopped. He froze, waiting, but the woods were silent again. And then he heard whoops and hollers off in the distance—off in the distance, but getting closer.

  Luke slid behind a tree and crouched down, trusting that the shadows would hide him.

  “Woo-hoo! We showed them, didn’t we?”

  “Did you see their faces right before they turned tail and ran?”

  The voices were barely close enough for Luke to make out the words. But he could hear the laughter, the trampling feet.

  One other time Luke had stood behind a tree in a shadowy wood, eavesdropping. That time he’d been brave enough to jump out and announce his presence, to lay down a challenge. But he’d witnessed a lot of awful things since then; he’d been betrayed as well as encouraged, tortured as well as rescued from torture.

  This time he stayed behind his tree.

  Eventually the voices and the laughter and the footsteps faded into the distance again. Luke waited in the shadows a while longer, wondering, What was that all about? Which side were those people on? Were they involved in the shootings? Who were they fighting against? Who ran away?

  Luke remembered his own desperate fleeing, and the same sick panic flowed over him once again. He tamped it down, trying to think logically. The voices couldn’t have been talking about him. He was just one person, not a “them.”

  But I was with other people—Officer Houk and the driver and the other boy. Luke had not let himself wonder what they’d done after he dropped the gun and ran. In his mind, the scene in the village of Chiutza had frozen the minute he left, like in some magical fairy tale. It was almost as if he believed he could wander back into the village now and still find the gun on the ground, the old lady standing straight and tall and defiant, the crowd with their mouths open in little circles of horror and disbelief, Officer Houk leaning against the jeep, holding the radio, his eyes popping out of his head. But of course that was wrong—something had happened after Luke ran away. Somebody had fired a gun, and a lot of somebodies had been firing a lot of guns since then. Luke couldn’t go back and cower in his cave again without finding out who and what and how and why.

  Grimacing, Luke stood up and began inching forward again. After a few paces, he could hear the voices again—not actual words, exactly, but he could catch the tone of triumph and glee. He turned and followed the voices at a distance, trying to tread as silently as possible. He didn’t think that occasional snapping twigs or rustling leaves would alert anyone, but each sound was enough to send him back into a panic anyway. It was all he could do to force himself to keep going.

  Jen, you were lucky, he thought, wanting to argue with a ghost again. You planned your actions; you were in charge; you didn’t have to deal with any mysteries.

  But of course that wasn’t true, because Jen hadn’t known what would happen at her rally. She hadn’t been able to control the other third children who were supposed to go to the rally with her. She’d had no second sight, no special knowledge to protect her. She’d had only her own courage, and her own hope, and her own faith that freedom, when it came, would be worth the risk.

  Luke reached the edge of the woods and was surprised to find himself on the outskirts of Chiutza. He hung back in the shadowy trees, listening to slamming doors and then silence. Everyone must have gone inside. All the houses were shut up against the cold—he could see smoke rising from chimneys and occasional shapes passing before windows, but no sound escaped.

  Maybe if he waited until dark he could creep right up against one of the houses, press his ear against a wall and hear something. But after darkness fell he probably wouldn’t be able to find his way back to his cave. He’d have no shelter, no protection against the long icy night.

  Luke was still trying to decide what to do, when he saw a figure creep out of a shed behind one of the bigger houses. The figure was wearing a cloak, and it seemed to turn its head to peer directly at Luke out of the depths of the cloak’s hood. Luke jerked behind the nearest tree, his heart pounding and the panic coursing through his body yet again. But when he dared to peek out a moment later, the figure was gone.

  I’m safe, after all. He didn’t see me. False alarm, Luke thought in relief.

  And then a hand clamped over his mouth, and an arm clutched across his chest. Luke struggled to free himself, to scream, “Stop!” But a voice hissed in his ear, “Don’t! Don’t make a sound. Do you want to get us both killed?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The hood of the cloak fell back and for the first time Luke could see the face of the person who’d attacked him.

  It was the boy who’d ridden out to Chiutza in the jeep with him, the one who’d stolen Luke’s cornbread and told him he stank.

  “What—” Luke tried to ask, but the boy still had his hand covering Luke’s mouth, his fingers holding Luke’s jaw shut.

  “This is my territory now,” the boy said, still whispering into Luke’s ear. “There’s not room here for both of us. You go find some other place.”

  He shoved Luke away, and Luke sprawled in the dead leaves. He rolled over and looked up at the other boy.

  “What are you talking about?” Luke asked. “What do you mean, ‘territory’?”

  Luke couldn’t
understand why the boy had attacked him and then shoved him away. He couldn’t understand why the boy wasn’t grabbing at him and shouting, I found him! Here’s the deserter! Officer Houk—over here! Instead, the boy had said, “Do you want to get us both killed?” as if he were in as much trouble as Luke. Why?

  “Shh,” the boy said, glancing around nervously.

  Understanding began to creep over Luke.

  “Did you desert too?” Luke whispered.

  The color drained from the boy’s face.

  “Don’t say that,” the boy hissed. “At least not if anyone from the Population Police comes back. They left me behind.” A crafty look slid over his face. “Of course, if someone from Chiutza asks, maybe I did desert. Just not in front of everyone like you did.”

  Luke scrambled back up to his feet. He was secretly pleased when the other boy took a step back, like he was afraid of Luke. Luke was taller than the other boy, and Luke had muscles from his months of shoveling horse manure.

  “So they left you behind,” Luke repeated, trying to put it all together. He couldn’t remember seeing the boy after those first few moments in Chiutza. Where had he been when Luke carried the old woman out of her house? Or when Officer Houk handed the gun to Luke?

  “Well, yeah,” the boy said. “After the villagers killed Officer Houk, do you think the driver waited around to make sure I was all right?”

  Luke shook his head, not quite believing what he’d heard.

  “What?” Luke said. “You mean, Officer Houk was—”

  He broke off as someone opened a door in one of the Chiutzan houses. A girl stepped into the street and poured out a bowl of some sort of liquid. Both Luke and the other boy ducked down and held their breath until the girl went back into the house and shut the door.

  “See? You almost gave us away. You have to leave,” the boy said.

  But this time Luke heard the fake bravado in the boy’s voice, the fear and uncertainty trembling just below the surface.

  “No,” Luke said. “You have to tell me everything you saw.”

  “Not here,” the boy said. “Someone will see us or hear us. And it’s too cold.”

  Luke looked around, frowning, still trying to make sense of the boy’s words. After the villagers killed Officer Houk . . . Luke saw the boy was beginning to inch away.

  “We can talk in that shed over there,” Luke said. “We’ll whisper.”

  “The shed’s mine!” the boy said, his voice arcing toward hysteria. “You can’t have it! It’s mine!”

  Luke reached out and grabbed the boy’s arm, to steady him and stop him from running away. Luke had to know what had happened.

  “I don’t want to take your shed away,” Luke said, trying to make his voice soothing. “I’ve got my own place to stay. I just want to know what’s going on.”

  “Where’s your place?” the boy asked.

  “Back there. In the woods,” Luke said impatiently.

  “Is it warm and dry? Do you have your own food supply?” the boy continued.

  “I—” Luke began. His stomach churned, as if on cue. He hadn’t thought about food at all since running away from Chiutza. He’d just thought about running and hiding and freedom and Jen. This made him wonder how clearly he’d been thinking all along, how sane any of his plans and actions had been. “Look,” he said now, trying to sound calm and reasonable. Trying to be calm and reasonable. “I just want you to tell me what happened in Chiutza after I left. Then I’ll leave you alone. I promise.”

  The other boy was staring at him warily, but when Luke gave a little tug on the boy’s arm, he began to move toward the shed.

  Twilight had fallen now, with long shadows extending from the woods into the village. It was no challenge for Luke and the other boy to creep along the edge of the woods, confident they were out of any villager’s sight. But at the doorway to the shed Luke hesitated, sudden panic overtaking him.

  What if this is all a trick? What if the boy was just pretending not to want me in the shed? What if Officer Houk and the driver are waiting there, with the gun? What if they plan to kill me on the spot for running away?

  The other boy stepped across the threshold, into darkness.

  “Coming?” he whispered, his voice taunting.

  This shed’s barely bigger than an outhouse, Luke told himself, fighting back the panic. If Officer Houk and the driver were hiding in there, they’d have me by now, no matter what.

  Luke stepped in behind the boy and pulled the door shut behind them. Now the shed was completely dark, except for a patch of light on the opposite wall, where a board was broken away.

  “This way,” the boy muttered. “In case someone comes.”

  He pulled Luke over behind a pile of burlap grain sacks. The burlap smelled old and moldy, but Luke’s stomach still grumbled at the thought of possible food within.

  “We have to make a deal,” the boy said.

  “Huh?” Luke asked, distracted by the grain sacks and the trouble he was having getting his eyes to focus in the dark.

  “A deal,” the boy repeated. “I have something you want—information. What are you going to give me for it?”

  Luke had nothing with him but the clothes on his back. And even those weren’t his—they were the standard-issue shirt, pants, and boots that belonged to the Population Police.

  “What do you want?” Luke asked, stalling for time.

  “Oh, a gourmet meal would be great,” the boy said. “That gun you were stupid enough to drop. Maybe a nice comfy bed so I don’t have to sleep on burlap tonight?”

  Somehow the boy’s sarcasm seemed nastier in the dark.

  I don’t have anything to give you, Luke wanted to say. What would it cost you just to tell me what I want to know for free? But then he remembered the way the boy had grabbed the packet of cornbread before Luke had a chance to touch it, the way the boy had sneered about Luke smelling like horse manure.

  “If you tell me what you saw after I ran out of Chiutza,” Luke began, “I won’t go knock on the door of that house over there. I won’t tell them, ‘Did you know there’s a boy hiding in your shed, eating all your grain?’ ”

  Luke wished so badly that he could see the boy’s face, see how he was taking this threat.

  “You wouldn’t do that,” the boy said finally, though his voice sounded thin and worried. “You’d be caught too.”

  “How do you know I wouldn’t do that?” Luke asked. “The villagers saw me refuse to shoot one of their friends. Maybe I think they’d treat me like a hero. Maybe I’m already counting on them feeding me that gourmet meal to celebrate. Maybe I’ve been on their side all along.”

  “If you were, you’d know these people don’t have any gourmet food,” the other boy sputtered. “They’re lucky to have grain, and that’s probably not going to last the winter.”

  “Especially not with you eating it,” Luke said, and somehow that came out sounding like the last word.

  The boy cleared his throat, nervously. And then he began to talk.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I was doing what Officer Houk told me to do,” the boy started defensively. “I knocked on every door I came to. I was just circling around to find out what street I was supposed to go to next, when I saw Officer Houk standing there in front of this big crowd, pointing a gun at a woman. I heard him say something about treason, and then I saw him hand the gun to you and tell you to shoot her. And then you dropped the gun and ran. Why didn’t you do what you were told? Why didn’t you obey?”

  Now Luke wished he hadn’t used such a heavy-handed bargaining technique. Why hadn’t he just agreed to trade stories with the boy?

  But that was a dangerous thought. Telling anything was risky.

  “I—I didn’t think the woman deserved to die,” Luke said, choosing his words carefully.

  “So?” the boy said. “Lots of people die who don’t deserve it.”

  Luke frowned, trying to think how he could explain.

  “I
didn’t want to be the one to shoot her,” he said finally.

  Luke thought maybe he could see the other boy shrugging in the darkness.

  “What did she do, anyway?” the boy asked.

  “She refused to come out to the meeting about the I.D.’s,” Luke said. “She said that after everything else that had happened, she didn’t care about identity cards.” Luke couldn’t quite see the other boy’s face, but he could feel the boy looking incredulously at him. Luke felt like his words hadn’t done the woman justice, hadn’t conveyed the dignity in her defiance. “She was very brave,” he added.

  “That’s brave?” the boy said. “Sounds stupid to me.”

  “You didn’t see her,” Luke said weakly.

  “I saw her being held at gunpoint, condemned to death,” the boy said. “If that’s where bravery gets you, no thanks.”

  Luke swallowed hard. He felt like he and the other boy were engaged in some sort of competition, and the other boy had just scored the first point.

  “But, after that,” Luke said, “who shot Officer Houk?”

  “I couldn’t see exactly,” the boy said. “A bunch of people rushed forward after you dropped the gun. Someone grabbed the gun and I could see it pointing at Officer Houk. Then there were a bunch of shots and Officer Houk fell over and stopped moving and the driver drove away . . . and I hid. I don’t think anybody remembered about me. Nobody came looking for me.”

  The boy sounded almost forlorn at having been forgotten.

  “And you’ve just been hiding out ever since?” Luke asked.

  “Yeah. So?”

  Luke remembered he hadn’t exactly done anything dramatic and decisive himself.

  “Are you going to try to get back to Population Police headquarters?” he asked.

  “What’s it to you? You scared I’ll turn you in? Scared I’ll say you disobeyed? Scared I’ll say it was all your fault Officer Houk died?”

  “No,” Luke said, and it dawned on him that that was the truth. Somehow he wasn’t afraid of that possibility. Population Police headquarters seemed very remote and far away now. “You don’t even know my name.”