Children of Exile (21 page)

If he'd really wanted to help me, why didn't the missionary suggest that?
I wondered.
Instead of just giving me a book to read . . . or throw. . . .

Belatedly, something struck me about how the Bible had hit the floor. That little extra ping at the end—what was that?

Books don't ping,
I thought.
Not unless they have metal on them. Or in them.

I'd only held on to the book for a moment before flinging it across the prison cell. But that was long enough to know there'd been no metal edging on its corners, no metal-tipped bookmark tucked inside.

Maybe . . . ,
I thought.
Maybe . . .

I sat frozen, thinking hard. I waited the longest minutes of my life, until the lights suddenly blinked out. I waited until I was sitting in complete darkness.

And then I scurried over to the place where the book had landed. I felt around on the floor beside it. I felt under it. I felt between its thin, whispery pages.

And then, when my fingers finally brushed something slender and solid and spiky, I understood that the thing I'd barely dared to hope for was real:

The missionary hadn't just left me a Bible. He'd left me a Bible with a key hidden inside.

Freedom,
I thought.

I looked up at the dark corner of the room where the missionary had pointed out a video camera. During the instant when the book was flying through the air, was there any chance that the camera had captured a view of the key in the book? When the key landed, was the recording device strong enough to have heard the same ping that I did?

Nobody came. I could dare to hope that either the camera had caught nothing, or nobody had started watching and listening to the images and sounds it captured. I had time, but I didn't know how much.

I remembered what the missionary had told me, the information I'd barely paid attention to:
The Enforcers are also installing security cameras along the hallway that leads out of here. They're putting in video cameras to watch every part of this community, to make sure that no battle starts up again. It's too late in the day right now, but I've been told that
all those cameras will be up at first light tomorrow.

He'd said that so I would know I had to leave tonight. I couldn't hold on to the key for days, thinking and planning and figuring things out. Tonight was my only chance.

I tiptoed around the edges of my prison cell, feeling along the bars for the door and the padlock.

You have to do this quietly,
I told myself.
You don't know how carefully they're listening.

The padlock clanked against one of the bars when I finally reached it. The sound seemed to echo forever. If anyone was listening, there was no way they could miss hearing that.

Cover for it,
I thought.
Make them think there's some other explanation besides me escaping. . . . Maybe just me being upset?

“Awful, horrible, terrible bars and lock,” I moaned. “I give up! There's no way out!”

Maybe I had learned something about being sneaky. The key slipped easily into the lock while I was moaning. I twisted it and felt the lock click open even as I cried
I give up!
I pushed the door open as I finished
There's no way out!

I stood in the doorway of my unlocked prison cell. Somehow the air hitting my face felt cooler and fresher now.

But probably this was just the easy part of escaping.

Don't make any mistakes,
I told myself.
Pretend . . . pretend
this is a school assignment, and you want to get one hundred percent. A perfect grade.

Was there anything I needed to think of before I stepped out into the hall?

That Bible,
I thought.
You can't leave it or the key behind, or someone will figure out that the missionary helped you get out. You don't want to get him in trouble.

Weaving slightly, I retraced my steps in the darkness and picked up the book. I tucked it into my dress and made sure my belt held it in place before I headed back to the doorway. Then I eased the key out of the lock and dropped it into one of my pockets. I stopped to listen—no sound, anywhere. The silence was as thick and vast around me as the darkness.

Doesn't mean you're safe,
I told myself.
Doesn't mean you can take any chances.

I tiptoed toward the hallway where I'd seen the missionary leave. But my sense of direction was off—I bumped into a wall and scraped my chin on solid rock.

What's another scrape when you're already so beaten up?
I thought.
You've been beaten—but not defeated.

This near-rhyme amused me, and carried me through another series of steps forward. This time I had the sense to brush my fingers along the stone to keep myself from running into the wall again.

Five steps. Ten. Twenty. Had I missed a door in all this
darkness? Was there nothing
but
darkness left in the world?

Unbidden, the thought came back of all those fists raining down on me, all the punches and kicks. How could people who didn't even know me hate me so much for things that had happened before I was born?

How could I survive outside this prison when there were so many people who hated me for no good reason?

That thought made me falter. But the Bible jabbed against my stomach, reminding me that the missionary had taken risks to help me. That my parents had sent him to me. The least I could do was help myself.

I decided I would think about how to survive after I got out of this hallway.

I'm not sure how far I had gone—thirty steps? forty? a hundred?—when I saw the first glimmer of light both ahead and above me. Was the floor sloping upward?

A few steps more and I could see: I was in a tunnel, and the tunnel was about to come to an end. Evidently, my prison cage had been underground.

I tiptoed closer to the light and the tunnel's end, and I saw why this arrangement made sense: That meant there was only one exit to guard.

And this exit
was
guarded: A man sat at a desk, blocking the way out. I still stood in darkness, but I could see the profile of the man's head. It was framed in the light glowing
from a lamp on his desk. And, seeing that, I understood why it wouldn't do me any good to appeal to the Enforcers, why they wouldn't even listen to my explanations.

The man sitting at the desk was the whiskery-faced man who'd been so mean to me on the plane.

He'd come back.

I felt hopeless
all the way down to my toes. There was no way I could get past that man. No way he'd be kind enough to just let me go.

I heard footsteps coming from the other side of the man's desk. Was it someone planning to come down into the cave? Would I have to run all the way back to the cage to hide? And if I did that, would I ever make it this far again?

A chin came into my range of vision; apparently, a second man had stepped up alongside the desk.

Is that—?

I couldn't see well enough to tell who it was until I heard the man's voice.

“I came back to tell you . . . the Lord would forgive even someone like you,” the voice said.

It was the missionary.

“Go away,” the man at the desk snarled.

He looked back down at papers strewn across his desk,
and the missionary stretched his neck forward, gazing down toward me. I could see his whole face. Would it help if he could see me, too?

I thrust my hand into the lit-up area in front of me. I
waved
at the missionary, and hoped against hope that the whiskery Enforcer wouldn't choose that moment to glance back too.

The missionary gave a slight nod, as if he'd seen me. What was I supposed to do next?

All I could think to do was yank my hand back out of the light. The missionary didn't glance my way again.

“What I say is true,” the missionary told the whiskery man. “I swear. Want me to tell you the story of a jailer in the Bible? Of course, it took an earthquake to get him to believe. I've always kind of pictured the rocks of his prison as being a lot like the rocks hanging right over your head.”

Now the whiskery man glanced up. And then, before I had a chance to move, he glanced back toward me.

You're completely in darkness again,
I told myself.
You got your hand back out of the light in time. He can't see you! You're safe!

“Oh, sorry—am I making you nervous?” the missionary asked, and the whiskery man snapped his attention back that way. “I didn't mean to. Look, if you want, I can help you move your desk so it's not right
under
those rocks.”

And then, without waiting for the man to say yes or no, the missionary grabbed one side of the desk and yanked it toward him.

I saw what he was trying to do before it happened. The lamp on the desk tilted over and plummeted to the ground. It hit with a sound of breaking glass and shattering lightbulbs. I dared to hope for total darkness afterward, but there was still a dim glow coming from overhead, outside the tunnel. Was it that same bright moon that had guided Edwy and me the night before? Or some other lamp mounted in the rock over the guard's head?

I didn't have time even to guess. Because the guard stepped out from behind the desk and started swinging fists at the missionary.

“I told you to go away!” the guard screamed. “Now look what you've done!”

“Sorry, sorry—but if you punch me, aren't you violating the code you're sworn to uphold as an Enforcer?” the missionary asked, dancing away from the guard.

“Enforcers are allowed to use violence!” the guard yelled back at him. “We're the only ones who are!”

I hoped they kept screaming, because I needed noise to cover the sound of my running feet. I launched myself up the last few meters of the sloping tunnel.

Keep fighting,
I thought, as if I could control the
movements of the guard and the missionary.
Keep screaming, keep moving farther from the desk. . . .

I reached the opening of the tunnel just as the guard grabbed the missionary by the scruff of his neck and threw him into the darkness.

“And don't come back!” the guard hollered. “Ever! I just put an electronic tracker on you! Your movements will be monitored from now on!”

Was that true or just a bluff? Was that even possible?

All that fell out of my mind. Because I could see the guard shift his weight, ready to turn back to the desk, back toward
me.
Unless I moved instantly, I'd be in full view of the guard in mere seconds.

I couldn't tell what lay just beyond the opening of the tunnel. For all I knew, maybe I'd be in full view of the guard no matter which way I turned. But he would definitely see me if I stayed in the tunnel.

I squeezed through the space between the rock of the tunnel opening and the shoved-aside desk. I held my breath and leaped over the broken lamp and its broken glass. As soon as I landed, I whirled off to the side. I pressed against the side of a dark building and burrowed into the shadows lurking there.

The only light
was
from the moon. The overhang of this building's roof kept me out of its glare.

The guard walked toward me, but he was looking down, toward the lamp. He swore under his breath as he turned away. And then I heard him slide out a drawer. He spoke into some sort of intercom or walkie-talkie.

“Yeah, bring me a pack of lightbulbs as soon as you can get someone over here,” he growled. “And put missionaries on the list of people who aren't allowed to see prisoners.”

I eased back farther into the shadows, farther from him. My heart pounded furiously in my chest. I'd gotten away. Thanks to the missionary, I'd escaped the prison.

But if his every move was being monitored now, I couldn't expect any more help from him. I just had to hope that he would stay safe. It would be too dangerous to try to follow him home or to hide out at his church.

So what was I supposed to do now? Where could I possibly go?

To Bobo,
I thought, his name thrumming inside me just as it had ever since I'd awakened in the prison cell.

Wherever I went, whatever I did, whatever safety I managed to find, I couldn't leave Bobo behind. I couldn't let him think I'd abandoned him.

That told me where I had to go first. I could figure out the rest from there.

I edged silently along the dark building, still hidden in the shadows. My eyes were starting to adjust to the darkness. I could make out an expanse of uneven cobblestones; I could make out rows of abandoned, tipped-over sawhorses. And suddenly I knew where I was, what the prison faced: the marketplace.

It was deserted now, desolate in the moonlight. My feet skidded on something dark and wet.

Blood?
I thought in horror.
Was there so much blood left behind this afternoon that no one could wash it away? Did anyone even try?

I had to get Bobo away from this horrible town. The two
of us needed to run away—back to Fredtown, if we could. To anywhere else that was safe, if Fredtown wasn't possible.

There. I had a plan.

I reached the edge of the building with its wonderful low shadow-throwing roof. I glanced cautiously from side to side before leaping into the shadows alongside the next building. The marketplace looked different by moonlight, but I thought I was heading toward the creek.

I heard footsteps behind me.

Take off running and risk being heard?
I wondered.
Or just keep hiding and hope they don't come close?

My legs decided for me. They were trembling so much, I didn't trust them to hold me up if I tried to run. I pressed my body as tightly as I could against the building.