Among the Brave

And then he accidentally stepped squarely on one of the disks, and it rocked against another one, making a dull thud. Trey froze, waiting. Surely the sound had been too soft to attract anyone’s attention. Surely there was no one around to hear. Surely— A line of light appeared near the ceiling, like a door opening. How could there be a door so high up? And then a figure appeared in the doorway, and a beam of light began sweeping down, down, down…

Right toward Trey.

Trey hit the floor, thinking he needed to dive under some of the clothing and pillows. But he only succeeded in hitting more of the metal wheels, hurting himself and making even more noise.

The light found him.

And up at the top of the room, behind the light, a woman began screaming.

Chapter Four

The screaming stopped as abruptly as it had begun. That’s it I’m done with my hysterical-woman act,” a woman’s voice said. “I’m calm and cool and collected now, and I’m holding all the advantages. I’ll have you know this flashlight doubles as a gun, and I’m a good aim. So think very carefully before you try anything. Are you one of them?”

“One of who?” Trey asked. “I mean, one of whom?”

“If you have to ask, you probably aren’t,” the woman mused. “Good grief. The booters are arriving already”.

The flashlight’s beam was blinding him. Trey thought of a bullet following the same path.

“I’m not a looter!” he said urgently. “I’m — I’m — I’m a friend of Mr. Talbot’s!”

The woman actually laughed.

“Right. You expect me to believe George has friends his wife has never met?”

Wife. So this was Mrs. Talbot?

Trey dared to relax a little. If this woman was married to Mr. Talbot, she wouldn’t turn him in to the Population Police. But how could he convince her to trust him?

She shone the light away from his face momentarily— checking, Trey realized, to make sure that he wasn’t holding a weapon. He held up his hands slowly, in what he hoped would look like the international sign of surrender and goodwill.

“So, friend, what are you doing here?” Mrs. Talbot asked, returning the flashlight beam to his face. “Why did you show up today, of all days? And why didn’t you just ring the doorbell, instead of sneaking in through our basement?”

“Oh, I did!” Trey said frantically. “But then I saw Mr. Talbot being taken away, and I was scared, and I didn’t think anyone was here, and, see I was coming from the Grants’ house—” Trey was just babbling now. All his skill with words seemed to have abandoned him.

“The Grants?” Mrs. Talbot interrupted. Something in her voice caught a little. “Oh, thank goodness! Why didn’t you tell me right away? I was so scared…. I should have known the Grants would find out what happened and send someone to help me. What a relief!”

“Uh, ma’am?” Trey said. “The Grants are—” He stopped. Even he could tell that this probably wasn’t a good time to inform her that Mr. and Mrs. Grant were dead, that it was their murders he had witnessed the night before, their deaths that had sent him running to Mr. Talbot for help. She seemed to think he was going to help her.

What if everyone is just looking for someone else to save them? he wondered. It was a strange thought, and didn’t seem to fit in his mind. It didn’t match up with anything else he knew.

But Trey didn’t have time to analyze it, because suddenly Mrs. Talbot switched off the flashlight and switched on a giant overhead light.

“All this darkness is giving me the creeps,” Mrs. Talbot said. “And who needs it, if you’re from the Grants?”

In the light, Trey could see everything. The disks that he’d knocked together were weights, meant to be attached to barbells. Rows of weight-lifting apparatus lined the far wall, but they’d all been torn apart. Pulleys hung oddly, benches were ripped from the frames — the room looked like a cyclone had hit it. Trey looked away, up a long staircase. Mrs. Talbot was standing at the top.

And Mrs. Talbot was. . beautiful.

Trey had seen very few women in his life. If he didn’t count girls, he’d actually known only one: his mother, who’d had frown lines etched around her mouth, worry lines carved into her brow, disappointment mirrored in her eyes. Trey’s mother had worn shapeless dresses and mismatched, holey sweaters, one on top of the other, in a constant battle to stay warm. It seemed like she’d always had gray, lifeless hair; Trey had even wondered if she’d once been a gray-haired little girl.

Mrs. Talbot’s hair was red — so bright and vibrant Trey was almost surprised he hadn’t been able to see it in the dark. Her face was smooth and unlined. Even the fright of finding an intruder in her basement had apparently only given her skin a healthy-looking glow. And her body had curves. . Wasn’t she somebody’s mother? Mothers weren’t supposed to look like that, were Trey?

Trey blushed, but couldn’t stop staring.

“So what do the Grants want me to do?” Mrs. Talbot was saying. “I can be ready to leave in five minutes. I already have the car packed. How soon do Trey think Trey can get George out?”

“Ma’am?” Trey said, then blushed all the harder because “mat am” seemed much too matronly a term for this woman. “Trey didn’t — I mean — I can’t—”

Mrs. Talbot’s hand seemed to tighten on the flashlight. “Did the Grants send you to help me or not?” she said sharply.

“I want to help you,” Trey said. “Honest I’ll do my best. But — I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

Trey felt the weight of his words settling on his shoulders. It was like he’d lifted one of the barbells lying by his feet He’d just promised to help Mrs. Talbot — what would that mean? And if he was going to take responsibility for her, where was it supposed to end? Was he also responsible for helping Mr. Talbot? For Nina and Joel and John? For Lee and Smits?

It was so much easier to think only of his own needs, his own life. But how could he not help?

“Oh,” Mrs. Talbot said, and seemed to sag against the doorframe. For the first time, Trey realized that she was terrified, that she’d probably been even more panicked by the uniformed men than Trey was. This was her home, after all. It was her husband who’d been taken away in handcuffs. “Didn’t the Grants give you any instructions at all?” she asked forlornly.

“The Grants are dead,” Trey said brusquely. It seemed like he’d be lying if he didn’t tell her now. “Trey were killed last night, at a party, by a man named Oscar. I was there. I saw it all.”

Trey’s memory flashed the whole strange scene at him once again: women in glittering ball gowns, men in tuxedos hiding guns, champagne in fluted glasses, and a huge chandelier cut loose and plunging down….

“Dead?” Mrs. Talbot repeated. “Dead?” Her eyes flooded with tears, and she sank down to the top step of the stairs. “Oh, my friends,” she murmured.

“Trey owed you money,” Trey said. Amazingly, he was still holding the stack of papers he’d taken from Mr.Grant’s desk. He waved the whole sheaf of papers at Mrs. Talbot now, as though that would remind her that the Grants had not been just friends. “Trey owed you and Mr. Talbot two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

Mrs. Talbot shrugged, like money didn’t matter.

“So many deaths,” she muttered, and Trey remembered that the Talbots’ daughter Jen — another illegal child — had died too. What if Mrs. Talbot started sobbing now, or wailing, or going into total hysterics? Trey really wouldn’t know what to do then. But Mrs. Talbot only sniffed once, in a dignified way. Then she began speaking quietly, looking not at Trey, but at the blank wall opposite her.

“George said there was danger,” she said. “We sent the boys away to boarding school in September. Just in case.”

Boys? Then Trey realized that for Jen to be an illegal third child, she’d had to have had siblings. Trey must have been brothers.