With the Enemy (12 page)

R
osie marches up to one of the security men and punches him in the stomach.

He doesn’t even flinch.

She looks at him, like this doesn’t make any sense, and tries it again.

This time he bends down to grab her, and while he’s like that, I take the largest book from Maddie’s trolley and bring it down on his head.

He staggers forward and falls on his face.

“Reading is hard,” Rosie says.

“Knowledge is power,” I answer.

These are
not
approved Phoenix Recitations.

The girl with the dark hair is blowing her whistle even louder.

“Someone needs to take that thing away from her,” Rosie comments. But before any of us can get to her, Jonah’s lifted her up, turned her upside down, and shaken her until the whistle slips from around her neck into the unlit furnace.

“I might have to change my opinion of that guy,” Rosie says.

We turn in time to see Ryan run full speed at a second guard, head-butting him. The guard takes a step backward — tripping right over Louisa’s waiting leg. The third guard has got one meaty hand clamped on Maddie’s shoulder, but as he turns to look at his colleague floundering on the ground, his grip loosens for a split second. Maddie scrambles away and when he lunges to recapture her, Ivan drives the book trolley into his stomach, stopping him cold.

“Move, now,” Ivan shouts and takes off in the direction opposite the one through which we entered, with Maddie, Rosie, Louisa, Ryan, Jonah, and me on his heels.

He swerves to activate a fire alarm, then continues on. Sprinklers start dumping water over the boilers and
lights begin to flash. A loudspeaker bleats “Fire containment system activated. Proceed to nearest exit.”

“Now we only have ninety seconds to get away,” I yell over the noise. “I thought you said chaos wouldn’t work.”

“It won’t,” Ivan yells back. “But chaos plus the Resistance’s secret tunnel might.”

Our feet slosh through puddles. “You didn’t tell us you had a secret tunnel.”

“You didn’t tell me who your friend really was.” Ivan’s eyes are moving over the wall alongside us as we run. Finally he smiles like he’s found what he was looking for. All I see is a solid wall with a fire alarm on it.

“What are we —”

Ivan pulls the fire alarm but this time no alarm goes off. Instead the wall shifts soundlessly to create a narrow doorway.

He shepherds all of us through and flips a switch. A line of flickering bulbs mounted in the ceiling quiver to life. We’re standing in a square room, with five hallways leading off of it. They have all been painted an unfortunate shade of green but the paint is peeling in spots.

“The Resistance built this?” I ask a little nervously. I’m not sure this speaks well of their engineering prowess or decorative schemes.

“Nope, it’s part of the original building. I found it when I was studying the old blueprints looking for ways to sneak in,” Ivan explains. “I don’t think the Alliance knows it’s here.”

“You don’t
think
?” Ryan asks nervously.

“I’m pretty sure. Unfortunately, it’s not hard to find and there’s no lock. But that one there” — Ivan points to the second tunnel on the right — “is a direct shot to the street. Go straight down to the end of the corridor. The door there leads —”

Rosie holds up her palm. “We’re not going without you.”

Ivan puts a hand on her shoulder, like a big brother just having a chat with his kid sister. “It’s only a matter of time before the guards get through. I’ll stay here and make them chase me down the wrong hallway.”

“Not a chance.” Rosie shakes the hand off. “Your cover is blown and you’re the only link I have to my sister.”

Ivan looks at me. “This is more important than you realize. You have to get Madeleine Frye out of here.”

“I’ll stay and stand guard,” Jonah volunteers.

Maddie looks stricken. “But if this is an Alliance place, you can’t stay, either. You have to come with us.” She turns to us, desperate. “He has to come. Jonah saved my life when I first got here.”

“Cadet Frye, I order you to go,” Jonah tells her. “Just watch. I bet you anything I’ll make it.”

“You better,” Maddie says. She touches the corner of her eye and Jonah does the same.

We hear the distinct sound of footsteps on the other side of the thick wall and someone saying, “I could have sworn it was right here.”

“Time to move,” Ivan says.

We do. Ivan leads the way, and we follow. The hallway we run down ends in a door with a small painted-over window above it. Ivan uses a key on his belt to unlock the door. He pushes on it; it doesn’t budge. There’s something blocking it from opening on the other side.

We’re trapped.

Behind us the sound of footsteps echoes eerily off the hallway. It’s impossible to know if they are close or far away.

“Lift me up,” Maddie orders, eyeing the window. “If I can get out, I can clear away whatever’s on the other side of the door.”

The mere thought of her going through the window makes my palms clammy and ties my stomach in a knot, but I don’t say anything.

Ryan and Ivan each take a foot and together they get Maddie to the level of the window clasp. She fiddles with it and finally gets it to turn, but the paint on the window has created a strong seal.

The footsteps are definitely getting closer.

“Loop your whistle over the clasp,” Louisa suggests. Without missing a beat, Maddie does it. Louisa leaps up like an ace athlete, grabs the whistle, and dangles from it. The window makes a sound like a sigh, and creaks open.

Maddie smiles down at her. “Nice work, sis.”

Louisa shrugs. “We’re a good team.”

“Yeah,” Maddie agrees. She hesitates. “I’m sorry about before. Everything I said. I just — I was —”

Louisa touches the corner of her eye. “No problem.”

Rosie gives Maddie a knowing look. “Oh, don’t worry; we are so making you pay for how you acted later.”

“I figured,” Maddie says. “I mean, that’s what friends are for, right?” She smiles, waves, and, as though it’s no big deal, drops through the window.

Nothing happens.

Behind us I hear the sound of footsteps running.

“Maddie?” Louisa calls, leaning her ear next to the door. “Rosie was just kidding about making you pay.”

Nothing.

I swear I can hear the clicking of the handcuffs on the guards’ belts now as they rush toward us.

Then the door swings open from outside.

“Come on!” Maddie says.

We are in some kind of walled-in yard filled with the office furniture they’d pulled out of the library. Maddie
is scaling a mound of desks and chairs, with Louisa and Ryan after her and me and Rosie after them. I assume Ivan is right behind me but as I get to the top and look back, I see the guards burst through the door and get him by the neck of his jacket.

He wriggles out of it, evading their grasp. Then he turns and hits them with these insane karate-type moves, knocking them both out. The Resistance must have a very good gym because he leaps like a panther onto the pile of furniture and clambers up it.

He, Rosie, and I all drop from the wall at the same time.

We land in an alley behind the library. There are Dumpsters and two delivery vans, one of them with the window rolled down. Ryan reaches in and unlocks the door and opens it.

“We don’t have time for —” Rosie is just starting to say as the engine roars to life.

“Hop in,” Ryan says.

I can’t believe it. “Nice job!”

Ryan turns a little red and whispers, “Don’t tell Rosie but the keys were in it.”

Louisa goes around to the passenger side and Ivan is in the back wrenching the door open. Maddie and Rosie climb in and I’m about to when Maddie pokes her head back out.

“Where’s Jonah? I don’t want to go without him.”

“Get in,” Ivan orders.

“But —”

At that moment Jonah vaults over the wall, with the two guards Ivan had put out of business right on his tail. One of the guards points at Ivan, yells, “That one! Get him!” and they swerve away from Jonah and toward Ivan.

Jonah jumps into the van. Ivan is one second behind him.

Rosie reaches out her hand for him. “Hurry! Get in.”

One of the guards lunges for Ivan’s leg.

“
Come on!
” Rosie urges.

Ivan leaps and flies through the air, fingers scrambling to grasp the edge of the van. Rosie and I each grab
one of his wrists to try to haul him in. Behind him, the two guards latch on to his legs.

“Go!” I scream at Ryan.

“You have to get this to the Hornet,” Ivan pants.

“Hold on,” Rosie says. “You’re coming with us.”

“The Hornet,” Ivan repeats. His face is bathed in sweat. “The Hornet is Madeleine Frye’s mother. Make sure she gets —”

Ryan hits the gas and Ivan lets go. A tiny, light-colored object bounces into the back of the van.

As Rosie and I claw to close the flapping rear doors, we get a last glimpse of Ivan, a guard on each side of him, being dragged backward down the alley. He sees us, too, and yells, “Wren is with her. Find Madeleine’s mother and you’ll find Wren.”

Then the tires squeal and Ryan spins around a corner and the doors of the van slam closed.

“Wren is with the Hornet,” Rosie repeats in a daze.

“The Hornet is a woman,” I say. “She’s … she’s Maddie’s mother.”

Maddie looks the most surprised of all. “What does that mean? That my mother is a hornet?”

In the front seat Louisa turns around. Rosie and I both stare at Maddie and I realize she really doesn’t know.

“
The
Hornet,” I say. “It means that your mother is the leader of the Resistance.”

Jonah’s mouth falls open.

For a moment I can’t tell if Maddie is going to laugh or cry, and I’m not sure Maddie can tell, either.

“My
mom
?” she repeats.
“My
mom?” She stares into space. I’m starting to wonder if any of us knows our parents as well as we think we do.

“Maddie?” Louisa touches her best friend’s shoulder. “Maddie, are you okay?”

Now Maddie covers her face with her hands, and lets out a stream of words. “All the times I yelled at her because I felt like she wasn’t paying enough attention to me. Because she worked even when she was home on leave. All the times I asked why someone else’s parents couldn’t go instead of her. Why she couldn’t stay with me.” Maddie looks up at Louisa, who is draped over the back of the
seat. “I didn’t tell you this but right before she left the last time she and I had this big fight. I yelled at her and asked why she and my dad couldn’t be more like your parents. She said one day I would understand and I told her I did; I understood she didn’t love me. Instead of getting mad she just begged me to be patient, but when she left —”

Maddie is crying too hard to keep talking. Louisa climbs over the seat and sits next to her, stretching the sleeve of her sweatshirt over her hand and using it to wipe the tears from Maddie’s cheeks.

“Shhh, it’s okay,” Louisa says.

Maddie, eyes down, shakes her head. “When my mom left, she went to kiss me on the forehead and I pulled away. How could I do that? She is out there trying to save us and I was so selfish I pulled away.”

Rosie and I move closer to Maddie and Louisa puts her arms around her. “You didn’t know,” Louisa says. “You couldn’t.”

Maddie shudders and wipes her face on her sleeve. “I guess. But I should have.” She frowns at Louisa. “I should have known something was going on. I mean, you’ve
eaten my mother’s cooking. How could I ever have believed she was an army mess cook?”

Louisa nods solemnly. “That’s true. Your mom is the worst cook
ever
. She can’t even make a protein shake.”

And without warning, Maddie starts to laugh. And then we’re all laughing. Laughing the way you can only with your best friends. Laughing because no matter what happens, we’re together.

“Stop it,” Rosie wails. “I have a stomach cramp.” By the time the laughing has calmed down to random giggles, we all do.

“Okay seriously,” Maddie says, trying to make a stern face. “I can’t believe it. I just … My mom. My mom is —”

“— probably the most important person in the country,” I finish for her.

She lets out a long breath. As that sinks in, something changes in Maddie. I don’t know if she actually sits up straighter, but she seems to. She nods to herself and says, “Right. Leader of the Resistance. Most important person in the country. Okay.” Her head goes from side to side. “Where is that little box the scout supervisor who
isn’t a scout supervisor threw into the van? The one he said I have to give to my mom?”

Rosie, Louisa, and I feel around beneath us. There’s a coil of rope but otherwise it’s empty and there’s no sign of—

Jonah’s been so quiet I’d almost forgotten he was there until he pipes up, “Got it!” He pulls a small, yellowish-white thing from beneath his leg.

Maddie takes it and holds it between two fingers, examining it from all sides. It’s a small rectangle of what looks like alabaster, intricately worked in an elaborate pattern of hexagons.

There’s something familiar about it. “It’s a honeycomb,” I say. “But it looks man-made, not like something real bees would make.”

“Or hornets,” Rosie supplies.

I feel a chill of excitement. “Maybe this is how the Resistance communicates. Maybe it’s a message, like a code.”

Maddie shakes it near her ear. “It sounds like there’s something inside. It could be a box. But I don’t see any
way to open it.” She puts it on the palm of her hand and raises it to the level of her eyes. “What are you?” she asks. “And how will we find my mother to deliver you?”

“We found you, didn’t we?” I tell her. “We’ll find your mother.” I turn to Rosie. “And Wren. We’ll find her, too.”

“I know,” she says to me, putting her arm around me. “We can do anything. Especially with your big brain.”

We bump along in the back of the van and I feel an odd warm glow. She’s right. We can do anything.

The road is getting rougher, so Louisa climbs back into her seat in the front, and Rosie and I brace ourselves along the side of the van, opposite Maddie and Jonah.