Risked (The Missing ) by Margaret Peterson Haddix Read Free Book Online Page A

something you don’t know about, something that’s going to make this all work out.”
    Jonah expected her to say something like, Yeah, well, you don’t know anything, so how’s that going to help?
    Instead she cleared her throat. It almost sounded like she was embarrassed.
    “I guess you’re right,” she said. “It’s like, I shouldn’t have said that thing about being from the convent. I didn’t know it would get us in worse trouble. I just thought I was so smart because I read online about food deliveries from a nearby convent. . . .”
    Katherine’s admitting that I’m right and she was wrong? Jonah marveled. Does this mean miracles really are possible?
    Jonah didn’t get even a split second to gloat over this turn of events, because the door at the top of the stairs creaked open again.
    “The commander will see you now,” the guard announced.
    The man was so high above them at the top of the stairs that Jonah could see only boots silhouetted in the doorway. None of that light trickled down to him and Katherine, so Jonah couldn’t see how his sister reacted.
    “Should we hide down here and make them come and find us?” Jonah whispered.
    “There’s nowhere to hide,” Katherine said hopelessly. “I think that would just make them madder.”
    Jonah figured Katherine was right, but it was so hard to force himself to trudge toward the stairs.
    You can’t make Katherine be the first one to face that guard, Jonah told himself.
    He shuffled forward. Though he couldn’t see her yet, he heard Katherine beside him moving in the same direction. Even when they reached the bottom of the stairs, they still stood in pitch darkness. Jonah cupped his hand over his sister’s ear.
    “If there’s just that one guard who came for us, let’s try to overpower him,” Jonah whispered. “We’ll knock him out and run away.”
    Jonah felt, rather than saw, Katherine nodding. His heart pounded. It was a crazy plan, but just having something to hope for gave him the courage to start climbing.
    First step. Second. Third . . .
    Unlike Katherine, Jonah didn’t think he’d broken anything falling down the stairs. But climbing back up them made his muscles scream out about how sore his whole body was. He was hardly in peak fighting condition, and Katherine probably did have a broken arm. And no matter how fierce she was, she wouldn’t come up any higher on the guard than his elbow, and—
    Eighth. Ninth. Tenth.
    Jonah kept climbing.
    We are going to fight that guard if he’s alone, Jonah told himself. We’re going to fight him and we’re going to win.
    Jonah was on the fifteenth step and peering grimly up to the top when suddenly a hand grabbed him from behind. Jonah teetered, almost falling over backward.
    “Do you want me to land on you again and break your other arm?” he muttered, whirling around to confront Katherine. “Focus!”
    It annoyed him that he couldn’t see his sister well enough to glare at her. Even this close to the doorway, the pool of darkness behind him seemed so complete he could barely make out Katherine’s shape. It was like she was just an outline.
    “I mean it,” he scolded her. “We’ve got to be ready to fight!”
    “Look at me!” Katherine whispered back. “Look at yourself!”
    Jonah looked.
    Outline . . . Katherine’s just an outline. . . . And me? Hey, look at that, there’s a little bit of that light coming in from the door and it’s . . . it’s flowing right through me. I’m see-through! Someone made us invisible!
    Jonah made a triumphant fist pump in the air. Behind him he could see Katherine grinning up at him. He knew he was the only one who could see it—when time travelers became invisible, people native to that time could see nothing of them. But other time travelers could make outtheir invisible colleagues as translucent figures, as if they were made of glass.
    Now that he wasn’t expecting Katherine to appear as anything more than a see-through