Among the Betrayed by Margaret Peterson Haddix Read Free Book Online

as far from you as possible. Doesn’t exactly sound like you’ve all been palling around together.”
    â€œThey’re all friends together,” Nina protested. “They knew one another before they were arrested. I’m just a stranger to them.”
    â€œWell, get unstrange, then,” the man said. “Don’t you want to live?”
    Nina gulped.
    â€œThey’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 hopeless!”
    The man clicked his tongue in disapproval.
    â€œI thought you were smarter than that,” he said, shaking his head. “You have to make them tell you things. You work for the Population Police now. Act like it!”

CHAPTER TEN
    N ina stumbled back into her jail cell to find the other three huddled around a burning candle.
    â€œAlia 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.
    â€œYou were . . . worried about me?” Nina asked.
    Matthias only shrugged, but Alia nodded, her eyes huge and solemn in her skinny face. Nina suddenly felt horrible that she hadn’t snatched any rolls for the other kids.
    â€œWhat did they want?” Percy asked.
    â€œThey just asked some questions.”
    â€œThey did that to us, too, when we first came,” Alia said. “They took us away, one at a time. But none of us said anything 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—”.
    â€œHow 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?”
    â€œOh, we just knew,” Alia said. “We’re all pretty smart. Like, say you’re a shadow child. Just pretend. If you’re a shadow child, you’re safe as long as you never ever tell the Population Police your real name.”
    â€œOf 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.
    â€œDid 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.
    â€œJust that you were hungry and cold down here,” Nina said. It really wasn’t even a lie. “And I told the man whowas asking questions that you all thought they were listening to everything we said down here. He laughed and said that was ridiculous.”
    â€œWhy 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