Among the Brave Read online

  “Listen,” Mark hissed over his shoulder.

  A booming voice echoed through the woods. At first Trey couldn’t make out any words, but as he crept forward a little, the voice got louder: “There! And there! Faster!” it screamed in the distance.

  Trey looked at Mark, but his face was wrinkled up in puzzlement too.

  “Should we turn around?” Trey asked, sotto voce.

  Mark shook his head.

  “Just be very, very quiet,” he said, so softly that Trey practically had to lip-read.

  They inched forward at an excruciatingly slow pace. The voice was even louder now.

  “Come on, men! You think you’re going to get paid for such shoddy work? I’ve never seen such a bunch of lazy, good-for-nothing louts! Move it!”

  They could hear hammering, too, and grunts of pain or exertion. Trey couldn’t figure out why Mark thought they should be so quiet: Nobody would be able to hear a few boys creeping through the forest in the midst of all that racket.

  Trey saw the stone wall first. He was so relieved they wouldn’t have to creep past the voice and the hammerers that he couldn’t speak. He tugged at Mark’s sleeve and pointed.

  But Mark shook his head warningly. He led Trey along the wall, closer and closer to the noise.

  They rounded a curve in the wall, and Mark suddenly jerked Trey behind a big bush.

  “There,” he mouthed.

  Terrified, Trey peeked through the leaves. All along the stone fence ahead of them, a team of gray-uniformed men—forty? fifty? a hundred?—were driving stakes in the ground and nailing long strands of wire to the stakes.

  “Why,” Mark whispered, “would they need a stone fence and a barbed-wire fence too?”

  Trey shrugged, totally confused. Why would anyone build a new fence around the Grants’ house after Mr. and Mrs. Grant had died? Who had authorized it? Lee? The chauffeur?

  “Let’s just climb through the hole in the stone fence,” Trey begged. “Quick. Before they see us.”

  “Can’t,” Mark whispered back. “The hole’s over there.”

  And he pointed straight into the midst of the uniformed men.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  By silent agreement, Trey and Mark crept deeper into the woods to figure out what to do next. Trey was all for waiting until the team of workers left—maybe even rethinking the entire mission.

  “What if there’s a better way to help Lee than climbing through two fences?” he said. “Let’s both think for a while, talk it out …. Maybe we’ve been overlooking an obvious solution. Maybe we don’t even need to step foot on the Grants’ property at all.”

  The more he thought about it, the more the second fence spooked him. It just didn’t fit.

  “You want to sit around thinking and talking?” Mark asked incredulously. “Doing nothing? It could be hours before those men leave. And during those hours, my brother could be—”

  Trey didn’t want to hear how Mark finished that sentence.

  “So what do you want to do?” he challenged.

  “Let’s go around that way and see if there’s another way in,” he said, pointing in the opposite direction from the men assembling the barbed-wire fence. “Maybe the front gate’s open.”

  Trey couldn’t believe Mark thought they might be able to just stroll right in, in broad daylight. But Mark wasn’t waiting for Trey to continue the debate. He was already moving gingerly through the underbrush, away from Trey.

  Silently fuming, Trey followed.

  By the time they reached the edge of the woods, every muscle in Trey’s body ached. He just wasn’t used to lifting his feet so carefully, then placing them down again so precisely that no twigs cracked, no leaves rustled. Really, he wasn’t very accustomed to moving his feet at all. And it wasn’t just his feet and legs—his arms ached from shoving away branch after branch. His back ached from crouching. He’d scraped one hand on the rough stone of the wall, and the other on a thorny plant he hadn’t noticed until it scratched him. He was in such a fog of pain and exhaustion that he didn’t even mind seeing the patch of clear sky up ahead. What more could the horrible outdoors do to him?

  It was Mark who stopped him from stepping out into the clearing.

  “Wait,” he whispered, grabbing Trey’s arm. “Look.”

  Once again, Trey peered through leaves. He blinked twice, sure his eyes were fooling him. There, on the driveway leading to the gate of the Grant estate, stood hundreds of men and boys, lined up and waiting patiently for … what? And why hadn’t he and Mark heard them? How could so many people be so quiet?

  Then Trey noticed that none of them were talking. Or, no—a few were, but whispering, their heads bent close together, their voices low. It was like they were as scared of being overheard as he and Mark were.

  “What do you reckon they’re doing here?” Mark asked.

  Trey just shook his head. Mark looked disappointed, as if he’d thought this huge crowd was some city phenomenon that Trey would understand and explain instantly.

  ‘I’m going to go ask one of them,’ Mark said.

  “No!” Trey exploded. “They might—”

  “What?” Mark asked. “What’s the worst thing anyone could do to me, just for asking a question?”

  “Kill you,” Trey argued quietly.

  Mark rolled his eyes.

  “Help me,” he said. “Let’s pick the right person.”

  As far as Trey was concerned, one person standing in a line was pretty much the same as any other. But he obediently peered through the leaves again. Everyone in the line was dressed in ragged clothes; everyone was thin, with a gaunt face. But, looking closely, Trey could see some differences. Some of the boys were young—his age, maybe even younger—and they had the most hopeful expressions. Some of them even looked like they thought they might be embarking on an adventure. The oldest men in the crowd, though, had dead-looking eyes and vacant gazes. Some of them looked like they really might kill someone for asking a question. Or maybe they thought they were about to be killed themselves.

  “That one,” Mark said suddenly.

  He pointed at a boy about his age. Trey knew instantly why Mark had chosen him. He was wearing the same kind of flannel shirt as Mark and Trey.

  “You shouldn’t—you can’t—,” Trey sputtered.

  But Mark was already stepping out of the brush, walking toward the line.

  Trey peered fearfully after him. He clutched the trunk of the tree beside him so tightly that bark came off in his hands.

  Mark’s walk was almost a saunter. At first, no one from the line even glanced at him. Then, as he reached the edge of the blacktop, a few boys raised their eyes in his direction. One was the boy in the flannel shirt.

  “Hey,” Mark said. “What’s this line for?”

  Flannel-shirt boy looked around desperately, side to side, as if he was hoping that Mark was speaking to someone else—was drawing attention to someone else. But then he answered. Trey could see his mouth moving, even though Trey couldn’t hear a single word he said.

  Mark moved in closer to flannel-shirt boy. Mark had his back to Trey now, but Trey could tell by the way he turned his head that he was talking now too, just so softly that Trey couldn’t hear. Mark and flannel-shirt boy were having a regular conversation, back and forth and back and forth. They were both intense. Once, flannel-shirt boy frowned at something Mark said, then cupped his hand over Mark’s ear, whispering so no one else could hear.

  After a few minutes, Mark walked back into the woods.

  “What?” Trey asked as soon as Mark was close enough. “What are they doing?”

  “They’re waiting in line to join Population Police forces,” Mark said.

  “What?” Trey said. He looked again at the long, long line, and held back a shiver. “At the Grants’ house? What do the Grants have to do with the Population Police?”

  Mark was peering out at the line too. But his eyes didn’t seem to be focusing.

  “It’s not
the Grants’ house anymore,” he said. “It belongs to the Population Police now. In fact—it’s their new headquarters.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Trey jerked back, like he actually thought he could get away from this horrible news Mark had just revealed.

  “No,” he moaned.

  “Maybe that kid’s lying,” Mark said tonelessly. “But I don’t know. Why would he lie?”

  Trey realized he was trembling. He tried to stop, to regain control of his muscles, but it was useless. He was mere yards away from the headquarters of the Population Police, the people who had wanted to kill Trey ever since he was born. He had every right to tremble.

  Without thinking about it, he plunged his hand into his pants pocket and clutched the false identity card his mother had given him after his father died. He’d carried it with him ever since. It was his only protection against certain death.

  “Trey?” Mark said. “Maybe my brother’s not in there. Maybe he and his friends—your friends—maybe they escaped before the Population Police took over.”

  Mark thought Trey was trembling on Lee’s behalf. Mark thought Trey was only worried about his friends.

  “Maybe the chauffeur who took Lee was working for the Population Police the whole time,” Trey said, and was instantly ashamed. Why was he trying to upset Mark?

  “We’ve got to find him,” Mark said.

  But he didn’t suggest a plan, just stared dully out at the line of new recruits for the Population Police.

  Trey couldn’t help staring at the line too, even though it terrified him. He couldn’t see the line’s beginning or its end. It seemed to go on forever, all those men and boys.

  “That many people want to work for the Population Police?” Trey whimpered. “Do they all hate third children so much? Does everyone?”

  “No,” Mark said, finally looking away from the line. “They probably don’t know anything about third children. They’re just hungry.”

  “So what? Who isn’t?” Trey asked.

  Mark sighed.

  “Apparently the Population Police announced this morning that nobody can sell food now except the Population Police,” he said. “And nobody can buy food unless at least one person in the family works for the Population Police. So everybody’s joining up. So they don’t starve.”

  Trey closed his eyes, suddenly feeling dizzy with hunger himself. Or maybe it was just fear again. He’d been so terrified for so long, he would have thought he’d be numb to the emotion by now. But he wasn’t. Fear seemed to have taken control of every nerve ending in his body. He couldn’t quite make sense of what Mark had said. If the Population Police controlled the food supply … If everybody joined the Population Police …

  He was doomed. So was every other third child. So was the entire country.

  “Listen,” Mark was saying. “I—I told that kid I had food to sell. I told him he didn’t have to join the Population Police. I don’t know, I guess I went a little crazy. I was even telling him how to grow food….”

  Mark’s words took a while to sink in.

  “What?” Trey asked. “What if he turns you in? What if the Population Police are offering a big reward for turning in people who try to sell food illegally, just like they offer rewards for turning in third children?”

  Trey didn’t wait for Mark to answer. He grabbed Mark’s arm and began tugging.

  “We’ve got to hide!” Trey screamed frantically. “Now!”

  Blindly he crashed back through the woods, pulling Mark along with him.

  “Trey! Shh! You’re—someone’s going to hear us!” Mark hollered.

  Trey stopped with a jerk—not because of Mark’s protests, but because eight lines of barbed wire stretched directly in front of him. He’d thought he’d been running deeper and deeper into the woods, but in his panic he must have gone in circles. He was back at the dual fences surrounding the Grant estate.

  He and Mark stared in silence at the gleaming silver barbed wire. Then Mark whispered, “They’re gone now.”

  “Huh?” Trey said. He was a little mesmerized by the barbed wire. One barb was suspended mere inches from his right eye. What if he hadn’t seen it? What if he hadn’t stopped?

  “The workers,” Mark said impatiently. “They finished up and left. So …” He took one small step closer to the fence.

  Trey snapped out of his trance.

  “You still want to crawl through?” he hissed. “You’ve got to be kidding! It’s not safe! Not with the Population Police in there now. Look, Mark, I know you’re brave and all, but—you can’t save Lee!”

  “I have to try,” Mark said quietly.

  “You won’t even make it through the barbed wire,” Trey argued frantically.

  “Sure I will,” Mark said. “Don’t you know how many barbed-wire fences I’ve crawled through in my life? I’m practically the barbed-wire champion. Ain’t never—I mean, haven’t never—gotten a scratch since I was about three years old!”

  Trey didn’t bother telling him his grammar was atrocious, even without the “ain’t.” Mark wasn’t waiting for Trey’s approval anyway. He took another step forward, past Trey.

  “Just watch,” Mark said, a daredevil grin plastered across his face.

  He took off his knapsack and tossed it aside. Then he eased his right foot between two of the lowest lines of barbed wire. Neither wire touched his leg. Trey took a step back so he could see better as Mark crouched down and began moving the rest of his body through. With one hand, he reached for the wire above to hold it away from his head.

  “Aaahh!” Mark screamed. He dropped the wire, and it bounced against the entire length of his back. He jerked away, his voice cut off mid-scream. But he was still caught in the fence. His body sagged against the bottom wire.

  Without thinking, Trey grabbed a stick and poked at Mark’s body, knocking him off the wire. The stick brushed the fence, and Trey’s wrists and knuckles tingled strangely. He dropped the stick and jumped back, totally panicked. He’d been crazy to use a stick damp from the ground. Water conducted electricity. And the barbed-wire fence, he realized, had been electrified with dangerous amounts of voltage. He stared at Mark’s motionless body, sprawled on the other side of the fence. Trey wasn’t even sure that Mark was still alive.

  Above them, on the original stone fence, a light suddenly clicked on, flooding the entire area with an intense glow. Frantically, Trey scuttled backward, desperately searching for shadows to hide in. Seconds later, he heard the sound of marching feet, coming right toward him. He dove into a bush, breaking branches. Trembling, he reached back to steady the leaves, to hide all signs of his frantic dive.

  “Intruder discovered in second quadrant,” a man’s voice boomed nearby.

  Trey dared to peek out through the leaves. Four men in uniform were standing beside the barbed-wire fence, staring down at Mark.

  “Deactivate fence so we can retrieve the intruder,” the voice boomed again.

  There was a buzzing, and then Trey saw one of the men bend down and pull Mark’s body under the fence. The barbed wire caught on his clothes, but the man didn’t seem to care.

  “Retrieval finished. Reactivate,” the first man said. Trey saw that he was speaking into a walkie-talkie of sorts.

  One of the other men lifted Mark and tossed him over his shoulder, carrying him like a sack of potatoes. Mark’s eyelids fluttered—he was alive!

  But then the lights went out. The men marched away, and Trey was left alone once again.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Trey didn’t move for a long time. He couldn’t. He was paralyzed. It was like he believed that if he stood there long enough, everything would reverse itself before his eyes: The light would come back on. The men would march backward and unload Mark onto the ground. Mark would crawl backward through the barbed wire, safe and sound, his clothes magically repaired, his body untouched by electricity.

  Except Trey wanted the reversal to go further than that. He wanted Lee and Nina to b
e un-kidnapped, Mr. Talbot to be un-arrested, the Government to be unchanged. He wanted to be back at Hendricks—no, he wanted to be back at home.

  He wanted his father to be alive.

  Trey stopped there, in that cozy time when someone else made all his decisions for him, when someone else took care of him, when someone else told him what to do.

  He had nobody now. Nobody and nothing.

  Whimpering shamelessly, he wrapped his arms tightly across his chest. The papers he’d taken from the Grants’ and the Talbots’ rustled under his shirt. The fingers of his left hand brushed the top of his pants pocket and he reached on in and cradled his fake I.D. in his hand once again.

  Okay, he had nothing except papers and a fake identity card. So what?

  In the dimness of the woods, he staggered backward and almost tripped over the knapsack of food Mark had put down right before he climbed the fence. Even possessing food seemed pointless to Trey now. Bitterly, he kicked at the knapsack, and that actually felt good to him, as good as kicking a ball in a game back at Hendricks with Lee and the rest of his friends. He kicked the knapsack again, and it sailed so far away he didn’t know where it landed.

  He didn’t go looking for it, just collapsed in a helpless heap on the ground.

  Lee, I wanted to help you, he silently appealed to his friend—his friend he probably would never see again. I tried. But had he tried hard enough? Mark did. Mark did everything he possibly could. And Mark—I’m sorry I can’t save you, either.

  A familiar feeling seeped through Trey. Resignation. He felt the way he’d always felt playing chess with his father, back home. They’d be going along, Trey losing a few pieces, his father losing a piece or two—and then suddenly Trey would look at the board and realize he was trapped. Nothing he could do would prevent his father from winning. And then his father would chuckle—how Trey hated that chuckle!—and say, “It’s the endgame now.”

  Endgame. That’s exactly where Trey was. The Population Police had Lee and Nina. They had Mark. They had the entire country lined up and ready to serve them. It was only a matter of time before they had Trey. Before they killed him.