"Nina Idi," a bored voice called.
Nina stumbled to her feet. She glanced around and saw that the other three had fallen asleep as well, in one giant heap. Alia was cuddled in Matthias's lap; Matthias's head was on Percy's shoulder. The light didn't seem to awaken any of them. Alia turned so her face was against Matthias's leg instead of his arm. But her eyes stayed shut.
Nina squinted back toward the light. The person holding it lowered it toward the floor, and Nina could see better without the glare directly in her eyes. It was a guard behind the light, in the shadows.
"Come on now," he said irritably.
Nina thought it might be the same guard as before, but it was hard to tell. Maybe all the guards looked and sounded alike, so grim in their dark uniforms. Nina took a step toward the door, her chains clanking against the stone floor. She turned around, and all three of the other kids were wide awake now.
Nina hated the sight of all those terrified, round eyes.
"You're wanted for questioning," the guard said.
Nina took another step forward, but she watched the other kids exchanging glances. As soon as I'm gone, she thought bitterly, Matthias is going to tell Alia, "See, that's why we can't tell her anything. She's not trustworthy."
Nina would have liked it if even one of the kids had mouthed a "Good luck" at her or flashed her a look of pity. But they all sat as still and silent as statues.
The guard grabbed Nina's arm and pulled her on out the door. But once the door was shut and they were down the hall a bit, the guard bent over and unlocked the chains from her ankles. When he straightened up, he took the cuffs off her wrists.
"You're setting me free?" Nina asked in disbelief.
The man snorted. 'Are you crazy?"
But he let her walk on her own, beside him, down the rest of the hall and up the stairs. He turned to the left at the top of the stairs and unlocked a metal door. On the other side of the door there was carpet and soft light and crearri'Colored walls. It seemed like a different universe than the rest of the prison. It seemed like a different universe than any place she'd ever been. Harlow School for Girls had been nice, especially compared with Gran's apartment. But there had still been cracks in the plaster walls, scuff marks on the tile floor. Here Nina couldn't see so much as a tuft of carpet that wasn't perfect.
The guard must have noticed her awestruck stares, because he snorted again. "Officers' suites," he explained. "Nothing but the best for the top brass."
He led her into a room with a long wooden table, beau' tifully carved with grapes and apples and other designs Nina couldn't even identify. Nina sat down in a chair, and it was a kind she would have expected the president to use.
"Your interrogator will be here shortly," the guard said, and left.
Nina kept gazing around, blinking in amazement. On each wall portraits hung in elegant gold frames. And at the front of the room two windows stared back at Nina like giant eyes.
Nina didn't know much about windows. Harlow hadn't had any, for some strange reason. And in the apartment with Gran and the aunties they'd had to keep the blinds pulled all the time, for fear that someone outside might see in and get a glimpse of Nina, then report her to the Population Police. ("We're not missing anything, believe me," Aunty Zenka had assured Nina once. "Those windows just look out on an alley and a trash Dumpster. You've done us a favor, actually. How much better it is to look at those blinds and pretend that beautiful scenes lie just beyond — flowing rivers and glorious mountains, rose gardens and towering forests--That's what I prefer to think is out there.")
But being seen presented no danger to Nina now. The Population Police had already caught her. Nothing worse could happen. Daringly, she stood up and walked over to one of the windows. Shrubs curled against the glass on the other side. It was bright daylight — something Nina had never seen for real, since it had been raining the day she traveled to Harlow and the day she left it. The sky was a deep, beautiful blue that made something ache in Nina's chest. Wispy white clouds sailed high overhead. And beyond the row of shrubs an expanse of grass sloped down to a lake and, just at the horizon's edge, a small woods.
It was a scene worthy of Aunty Zenka's imagination.
"Enjoying the view?" a voice said behind Nina.
Nina gasped and turned — it was the hating man. She stepped back from the window.
But the man didn't seem upset. He stepped forward and looked out, too.
"Not exactly what you'd expect near a prison, huh?" he mused. Nina wondered if he was just talking to himself. "You'd think, with a prison, there'd be high fences, lots of barbed wire, guards patrolling with guns. . And there are, back there, where all the prisoners are. But for this section, well, we officers like to see beauty occasionally. So much of our work is… brutal and ugly. You know?"
Nina didn't know if she was supposed to answer or not. After a moment the hating man moved away from the window. "Thank you," he said over his shoulder. He turned back to Nina. "Shall we dine?" he asked her.
Nina saw that while she'd been staring out the window, the guard had silently placed a tray on the table — a tray containing a feast. Roast chicken, platters of potatoes and peas, a basket of airy rolls. . The man pulled out a chair for Nina. Nina remembered suddenly how grimy she looked — not at all the sort of person who should have a chair pulled out for her. Self-consciously she pushed hair out of her eyes.
"Now, now," the man said. "I'm sure you're longing for a good, long shower, but we do need to keep you in char-acter."
Nina sat down. As if in a dream, she reached for a roll, ate the chicken the man placed on her plate, spooned peas into her mouth, swallowed rich, creamy milk. "This," she heard herself say, "is the best meal I've ever had."
"Well, there are perks to assisting the Population Police," the man replied with a chuckle.
Nina stopped eating.
"Full?" the man said.
"Um, kind of," Nina said, though it wasn't true. Nina could have eaten another huge serving of everything.
"Just a minute," the man said. He stood up and walked toward the door, and seemed to be conferring with the guard about something. Nina stared at the basket of rolls in front of her. The image of Alia's thin, hungry face swam before her eyes. She remembered Alia saying, bravely, "They've only brought us food three times." The man wasn't looking. What would it hurt if Nina swiped just a roll for Alia? She could grab three, even, one for each kid, and hide them in the sleeve of her dress. Nobody would know.
Nina remembered the way the three kids had stared at her when the guard came for her. She remembered how they hadn't said a single word of comfort or encouragement. She didn't reach for a roll.
Moments later the guard came in and took all the food away. The hating man settled into his chair across from Nina. He leaned back and put his feet on the table.
"Well," he said casually. "I understand that you haven't exactly been winning friends and influencing people. I'd wager that you don't have a single thing to tell me." "You've been listening!" Nina accused. The man gave a little snort of amusement. "Now, now. Mighty paranoid, aren't we? Of course we haven't been lis-tening. That's what you're in there for. I'm just interpreting body language. Mack — that's the guard; you weren't properly introduced, were you? — Mack tells me that when he came to get you, you were sleeping on one side of the cell, and the other three were huddled together as far from you as possible. Doesn't exactly sound like you've all been palling around together."
"They're all friends together," Nina protested. "They knew one another before they were arrested. I'm just a stranger to them."
"Well, get unstrange, then," the man said. "Don't you want to live?" Nina gulped.
"They're hungry and cold and terrified. They don't feel like talking," Nina said. Even to her own ears she sounded like a whiny child. 'And they do think you are listening. They won't talk about. . certain things because they think the Population Police can hear everything. It's hope-less!"
The
man clicked his tongue in disapproval.
"I thought you were smarter than that," he said, shak' ing his head. "You have to make them tell you things. You work for the Population Police now. Act like it!"
CHAPTER TEN
Nina stumbled back into her jail cell to find the other three huddled around a burning candle. 'Alia got scared," Matthias explained. "She thought you might have been… you know."
Nina glanced over her shoulder, afraid that the guard might see the candle and take it away. But he was already slamming the door, locking it. He hadn't even looked into the cell.
"You were… worried about me?" Nina asked.
Matthias only shrugged, but Alia nodded, her eyes huge and solemn in her skinny face. Nina suddenly felt hor-rible that she hadn't snatched any rolls for the other kids.
"What did they want?" Percy asked.
"They just asked some questions."
"They did that to us, too, when we first came," Alia said. "They took us away, one at a time. But none of us said any-thing dangerous. Sa — I mean, we knew just what to say."
Nina heard that one slip of the tongue, "Sa—," and because the candle was still burning, she saw Matthias dig his elbow into Alia's side. To warn her? To silence her?
What had she almost said? "Sa—" Was it the beginning of someone's name?
Nina struggled to keep from showing the others how curious she was about that one little syllable, "Sa—".
"How did you know what to say, and what not to say?" Nina asked, hoping to make it sound like she just wanted to be able to avoid problems herself. "Did someone tell you?"
"Oh, we just knew," Alia said. "We're all pretty smart. Like, say you're a shadow child. lust pretend. If you're a shadow child, you're safe as long as you never ever tell the Population Police your real name."
"Of course," Nina said. "If I were a shadow child, and I had a fake I.D., I sure wouldn't tell anybody my real name. Besides my family, I mean."
But she had. She could remember one night when Jason had kissed her under the trees. He'd whispered in her ear, "You're so beautiful, and I don't even know who you really are. . " And the words had slipped out: "Elodie. . I'm Elodie…." It was her gift to him.
And look what he had done with it.
"Did you tell the Population Police anything about us?" Percy was asking. His question brought Nina back to the present, back to the cold, dripping jail cell and the six eyes staring at her and the horrible choice she was going to have to make.
"Just that you were hungry and cold down here," Nina said. It really wasn't even a lie. 'And I told the man who was asking questions that you all thought they were liS' tening to everything we said down here. He laughed and said that was ridiculous."
"Why did you say that?" Matthias asked furiously. "If they know we know, now we can't say anything to trick them."
Nina was getting confused, but she thought she knew what he meant.
"Well, it hasn't done any good so far, has it?" she chal-lenged. "You're still stuck down here, and they haven't fed you, and they haven't even given you soap to wash your face!"
"They haven't killed us, either," Alia said softly. Nina stared at the younger girl.
When I was six, I wouldn't have known to say something like that, she thought.
I was still a baby, playing with dolls and dressing up in the aunties' old clothes, pretending to be a princess. And I had four old ladies treating me like a princess.
"I'm sorry," Nina said. "I didn't mean to do anything wrong."
But she'd let the hating man think she was going to spy for him. She'd eaten his food, and that was like… like tak' ing blood money or something. She hadn't refused anything. She hadn't screamed and hollered and told him that the Population Police were wrong. She hadn't demanded that he set Matthias and Percy and Alia — and herself — free.
Nina bent her head down, too ashamed to look at the others.
A scraping sound behind her saved her from having to say anything else.
"Food!" Alia said delightedly.
The guard was opening the door. He tossed in a dark bundle, then shut the door and retreated.
Alia reached the bundle first. She grabbed it up and took it over to the boys. Matthias held the candle so they could all see in.
"Ooh, Nina, look!" Alia squealed. "There's one, two, three, four, five. . eight slices of bread! They've never brought more than six before!"
"There's one more of us now, silly," Percy said. "We still get two each."
"Oh," Alia said.
Nina moved over with the other kids, feeling like she'd crossed some invisible line. She squatted down with them and peered into the bag. It held the same kind of hard black bread she'd had for her first meal in prison. There wasn't even any butter or apples to go with it. After her feast with the hating man she couldn't pretend to want this bread.
"You know what?" she said with studied casualness. "I'm not really hungry. Why don't you all take my slices, too?"
They all stared at her.
'Are you sure?" Alia asked. "I don't think they feed us every day."
"That's okay. You take it," Nina said.
They didn't need any extra urging. In seconds the three kids had gobbled up all the bread. Nina did notice, though, that Matthias had a strange way of dividing up Nina's share of the food: Alia got a whole slice, and Matthias and Percy split the other one. Nina's full stomach ached, watching the others eat so hungrily.
When they were done, they searched for any dropped crumbs and ate those as well. Nina hovered beside them, pretending to look for crumbs, too. Then they all sat back, happily sated. Nina sat down beside Alia, and Alia leaned over and gave her a big hug.
"Thanks, Nina. I hope you don't get hungry later. I think that was the best meal I ever had."
Nina could have brought Alia fresh, beautiful rolls, but she hadn't. Instead, she'd let the little girl have old, moldy, practically inedible black bread just because Nina herself was too full of the Population Police's fine meal to pretend to want it. And now Alia was thanking her.
Nina felt guiltier than ever.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Days passed. Nina had no idea how many, because nothing happened with any regularity. Sometimes the guard brought food; sometimes the guard pulled one of them out for questioning. Sometimes Matthias decided they could light the candle for a few minutes — but only for Alia, only when he thought she needed it.
Nobody knew when any of those things would happen.
Other than that, they could measure their time in the prison-cave only by how many times they got sleepy or thirsty or needed to go to the bathroom.
None of those needs were easily satisfied.
Their "bathroom" was just a corner of the cave they all avoided as much as they could. It stank mightily.
They had no bedding at all, not a single pillow or blan-ket Sleeping on wet rock only left Nina damp and stiff and more tired than ever.
And when they were thirsty, they had to go to the dampest part of the cave and lick the wall. The guard never brought water. Matthias got the idea to keep one of the cloth bags the food had come in, in order to soak up as much water as possible. (He told the guard they'd dropped the bag over in the bathroom corner. "He won't come in here and check," he argued in a barely audible whisper. And he was right.) Matthias put the bag at the bottom of the damp wall, where the water dripped constantly. When the bag was saturated, he carefully squeezed the water from the wet cloth into Alia's waiting mouth, and then Percy's, and then a few precious drops into Nina's. Nina choked and spit it out. "Yu-uck!" she screamed. "What?" Alia asked.
"It tastes terrible," Nina complained. The water was unpleasant enough licked straight from the wall — it tasted like rock and sulfur and, distantly, some kind of chemical Nina couldn't identify. But from the cloth bag the water tasted like rock and moldy bread and old, rot' ting, dirty bag. Maybe even somebody else's vomit as well.
"It's water," Matthias said. "It'll keep us alive." Nina
didn't say anything else. But after that, she went back to getting her water straight from the wall, a drop or two at a time, and let the others squeeze all the water from the cloth for themselves.
Nina suspected that the other three kids had had a much rougher life than she before they were captured by the Population Police. They didn't seem to mind the darkness like she did; they didn't seem to mind the lack of food. They didn't complain about the stench of the bathroom corner. (Well, they all smelled bad themselves anyway. So did Nina.)
Nina tried as much as possible to sit close to the other kids — for body warmth and to keep the guard from tattling on her again. And maybe to learn something. But several times she woke up from a deep sleep and found that they'd moved to another side of the room and were whispering together.
"There was a draft over there," Alia would say. "We got cold, but you looked comfortable. We didn't want to wake you."
It sounded so innocent. Maybe it was innocent. But it still made Nina mad.
I will betray them, she'd think.
That'll show them. And I won't care at all.
That was when she'd moan something like, "Oh, I miss my family so bad. Who do you miss?"
Even Alia wouldn't answer a question like that.
And later, facing the hating man, Nina would be glad for the other kids' silence. Because, with his piercing blue eyes glaring at her, she knew she wouldn't be able to keep any secrets. She felt like he knew she really was an exnay. She felt like, if he asked, she'd be forced to tell him Gran's full name and address. Whether she wanted to or not, she'd describe every single one of her aunties down to their last gray hair, and give their civil service ranks and departments.
Fortunately, he never asked about who had hidden her.
He just asked about Alia, about Percy, about Matthias.
"Give me more time," Nina would beg. "I don't know them yet." (Though, secretly, Nina thought she could spend centuries in the prison-cave with them and still not know anything about them. Percy was like a rock, hard and unyielding, revealing nothing. Matthias was no more talkative than a tree. Even Alia, who looked like the weak spot on their team of three, was quiet more and more, polite and nothing else.)
Among the Betrayed sc-3 Page 4