Margaret Haddix: Among the Betrayed

Nina looked around to make sure no one was watching, then loudly blew her nose.

Nina ate the bread, too. She was disgusted with herself, that she could gobble up every crumb and eat the wormy apple down to its seeds. She should be pining for Jason, sobbing endlessly like some poor spurned hero-ine in one of Aunty Zenka's books. But Nina wasn't heartbroken anymore. She was mad. The food just gave her more energy for fury.

"I was a Ninny Idiot," she muttered to herself. "I deserve my name."

How could he? How could Jason have stood there in the moonlight, night after night, gazing into her eyes so lovingly, then turn around and do this? Had he been planning to betray her even a month ago, the first time he'd whispered in her ear, "Why don't we let the others go on back? We still have a few more minutes, just for us"? And then he'd held her hand and nuzzled her neck, and Nina had felt weak clear down to her toes. Even now she could still feel the sensation of his hand against hers, the pressure of his lips on hers. She had relived every kiss, every touch, so many times. Her ears could still bring back the sound of his voice, whispering, "I love you."

But he hadn't loved her. He'd told the Population Police she'd done something evil, and they were going to kill her for it.

Nina spit out an apple seed with such force that it bounced across the floor.

She'd made a total fool of herself over Jason. She could remember all those meetings they'd held out in the woods, when she'd stared at him adoringly and said stupid things. Flirting. She could remember one time when a new boy, Lee Grant, had started coming outside, too. Jason was telling Lee about the rally that Jen Talbot had held, to demonstrate for the rights of third children. And Nina hadn't contributed a thing to the conversation except to echo Jason, "The rally. ." She wasn't capable of saying anything intelligent, because she wasn't really listening to the conversation, just watching the dim light on Jason's face, admiring his strong profile. Studying the perfect slope of his nose.

Idiotic.

Even before that, before the first time she and Jason kissed, she'd flirted in a different way, acting big, making fun of males. "Well, isn't that just like a boy!" she'd said probably a hundred times, with a simpering, stupid look on her face. She'd felt like she was acting in one of Aunty Zenka's TV dramas. All she needed was a ball gown and one of those dainty little fold-up fans to wave in front of her face whenever she said something particularly precious.

Ridiculous. That's how she'd really looked — ridiculous. How had she forgotten? She was a gawky thirteen-year-old with thin braids hanging down on either side of her face. Even if she'd had the ball gown and the fold-up fan, they would only have made her look sillier.

No wonder Jason had betrayed her. No wonder Sally and Bonner had inched away from her in the woods, like they didn't want to be seen with her.

Nina wanted to cry again, but the tears didn't come. Her heart felt like a rock inside her chest. Everything around her was cold and hard and merciless: the concrete walls, the cement floor, the iron bars of her door. She had thought she could wrap herself in her memories of being loved — by Jason, by her friends at Harlow, by Gran and the aunties. But Jason's love was fake. Her friends hadn't defended her. And Gran and the aunties seemed so far away and long ago that it seemed like it was some other little girl they had loved. Some little Elodie that Nina could barely remember.

Nina fell asleep, dry-eyed and hard-hearted, just one more cold thing in the jail.

"There's the deal," the man said.

• •It was the middle of the night again, Nina thought, blinking stupidly and trying to wake up. The overhead light was blinding again. She felt dizzy from lack of food. Two crusts of bread and one small apple — in what, a day and a half? — did almost nothing to stave off hunger.

"We think you can be useful to us," the man was saying smoothly. He was holding out his hand to her. Nina blinked a few more times and made her eyes focus. What the man had in his hand was too incredible to be believed: a sandwich. And it wasn't black bread and moldy cheese, the kind of sandwich Nina was used to, but a towering bun, thick and golden brown, with pale pink curls of — was that ham? — ham overflowing the sides. Nina had seen such a thing only on TV, on the forbidden channels that showed life before the famines.

"Here. Take it," the man said, waving the sandwich care-lessly before Nina's eyes.

Nina had half the sandwich shoved in her mouth before she was even conscious of reaching for it.

"I see nobody ever bothered to teach you manners," the man said in disgust.

Nina ignored him. The sandwich was divine. The bun was light and airy and hid a slice of pungent cheese along with the ham. There were other flavors, too — the words from an ancient commercial flowed through Nina's mind: "Lettuce, tomato, pickle, onion…" Nina wasn't sure if that was actually what she was eating, but the sandwich was wonderful, absolutely perfect. She slowed down her chew-ing, just to savor it longer.

"That's better," the man said huffily. Nina had almost forgotten he was there. He handed her a bottle to drink from, and the liquid it contained was delicious, too, sweet and lemony. Nina drank deeply, thinking of nothing but her thirst.

When the sandwich was gone and the bottle was empty, she finally looked back at the man.

"A… a deal?" she said hesitantly.

"By law, we could have executed you the day we arrested you," the man said. "But sometimes even the Population Police can benefit from ignoring certain aspects of the law."

Nina waited, frozen in her spot.

"Oh, not that we would break the law," the man said. "Given the importance of our mission, there are loopholes written specifically for us. Say we have a criminal in front of us who might be rejuvenated to serve our needs. What purpose is there in executing her?"

"What," Nina asked through clenched teeth, "do you want me to do?"

The man shrugged. "Nothing that you and your buddy Jason weren't pretending to do anyway."

The words flew out of Nina's mouth before she could stop them: "Would Jason help me?"

"Jason, alas, did not seem as useful as you," the man said with an even more careless shrug.

"So he's—"

"Dead? Of course," the man said. "Swift and efficient justice, that's our motto."

Nina felt like everything was falling apart inside her. Her lips trembled.

"Now, now," the man said. "Don't give me any of that fake grief. He betrayed you, remember? Didn't hesitate an instant to stab you in the back when he thought it would save his own neck. Which it didn't, naturally. But I guess someone who would betray his own country wouldn't care in the least about betraying a mere girl."

Nina tried not to listen, but it was impossible. Jason had betrayed her. She remembered his voice on the tape, cold and calculating. She felt her anger coming back, and it was a relief, something to hold on to.

"Why did you think I could be useful and not him?" she asked, doing her best to hold her voice steady.

"I dunno. Maybe I can't see a little girl with braids as a hardened criminal," the man said carelessly. "Maybe I think the ones you need to trick would be more likely to trust a girl. Maybe I just didn't like Jason."

Nina longed to defend Jason, to yell and scream at this man that he was a fine one to be calling Jason unlikable. But it was impossible to defend Jason. Surely he had known that betraying Nina would lead to her death.

Why had he done it? Why had he tried to trick the Population Police himself?