Among the Free (4 page)

He was just beginning to drift off to sleep when he heard the gunfire start up again.

T
he gunshots didn't sound nearby, but there were so many of them. When he'd been running away from Chiutza, he'd heard a
pop! pop! pop!
 . . . Three or four shots. That had been frightening enough, and maybe in his fear and desperation he'd miscounted or misheard.

This gunfire was even more terrifying, because it sounded like dozens of guns all firing at once, and firing again and again and again.

War,
Luke thought, straining again to remember a concept he'd studied in school and never expected to encounter for real.
Lots of people fighting.

Luke's first instinct was to curl up more tightly in the safety of his cave, his knees against his chin, his body protected by thick rock from any and every bullet. He was willing to slide on into sleep, just so he wouldn't have to hear the sounds of anyone else's struggle.

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?”

T
he 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.