Meg Cabot - Sanctuary

I closed the door behind me, in case Kerchief-Head came looking for me. There was no light in the room, except the moonlight that came filtering in between the wooden boards that covered the windows—always a Martha Stewart "do," boarding up your windows, by the way.

"My name's Jess," I said, to Seth. "And we're going to get you out of here." But not through those windows, I now realized. "Are you hurt anywhere? Can you run?"

"I'm okay," Seth said. "Just my hand."

He held out his right hand. It wasn't hard to see, even in the moonlight, what was wrong with it. Somebody had burned a shape into it, between Seth's thumb and forefinger. The burn was red and blistered. And it was in the shape of a coiled snake.

Just like the shape that had been carved into Nate Thompkins's naked chest.

I knew now how they'd gotten Seth to tell them where to find the Torah.

And I wanted to kill them for it.

First things first, however.

"Six weeks hydro-therapy," I said to him, "that puppy'll be gone. Won't even leave a scar." I knew from my own third-degree burn, which had been roughly the same size, but which I'd received from a motorcycle exhaust pipe when I'd been around his own age. "Okay?"

Seth nodded. He wasn't crying anymore. "That policeman," he said. "The one they shot, back at the trailer. Is he okay?"

"He sure is," I lied. "Now listen, I've got to get back to the kitchen before they notice I'm missing. But I promise I'll be back for you just as soon as the shooting starts."

"Shooting?" Seth looked concerned. "Who's going to start shooting?"

"Friends of mine," I said. "They got the place surrounded." I hoped. "So you just hang in there, and I'll be back for you lickety-split. Got it?"

"I got it," Seth said. Then, as I started for the door, he went, "Hey, Jess?"

I turned. "Yeah?"

"What day is it?"

I told him. He nodded thoughtfully. "Today's my birthday," he said, seemingly to no one in particular. "I'm thirteen."

"Happy birthday," I said. Well, what else was I supposed to say?

I was just sauntering away from the newly relocked door when Kerchief-Head appeared.

"Where do you think you're going?" she demanded. One thing I had to say for the wives of the True Americans, they weren't very polite.

"Oh," I said, giving my ditziest giggle. "I got lost."

Kerchief-Head just glared at me. Then she thrust a huge bowl of something white and glutinous in my arms. Looking down, I realized it was mashed potatoes. Only the True Americans, unlike my dad, hadn't put any garlic in them, so the aroma they gave off was somewhat nondescript.

"Take this to the men," Kerchief-Head said.

"Can do," I told her, and headed out the door.

The big question, of course, was would it work. I mean, would Chick and his friends show up in time for us to get Seth out? And what about Dr. Krantz? Let's not forget about him. The Feds had a major tendency to mess things like surprise attacks up, big time. Would Chick be able to get around whatever idiot scheme Dr. Krantz was probably, at this very moment, cooking up?

I hoped so. Not for my own sake. I didn't much care what happened to me. It was Seth I was worried about. We had to get Seth out.

Oh, yeah. And kill every True American we possibly could.

I don't normally go around wanting to kill people, but when I'd seen that burn on Seth's hand, I'd felt something I'd never felt before. I am no stranger to rage, either. I get mad fast, and I get mad often. But I could never remember feeling the way I had when I'd seen that burn.

I'd felt like killing someone. Really killing them. Not breaking someone's nose, or kicking someone in the groin. I wanted him to pay for branding that kid, and I wanted him to pay with his life.

And I had a pretty good idea who that someone was.

When I got back into the barn, everyone had calmed down from Rob's little speech, and was busy chowing down again. Being the mashed potato girl, I was pretty popular. Guys kept on raising up their plates as I passed, holding them out for me to glop mashed potatoes onto. I obliged, since what else was I supposed to do? I got through it by pretending I was a prison guard, and all these guys were demented serial killers that I was mandated by the state to keep fed.

In the back of my mind, however, this mantra was playing over and over. It went, Hurry up, Chick. Hurry up, Chick. Hurry up, Chick. Hurry up, Chick .

When I reached Rob, I saw that he and Henderson were already well on their way to becoming best friends. Well, and why not? Rob would be a boon to any hate group. He was good-looking, great with his hands, and—though I hadn't been aware of this talent until very recently—he was obviously a passionate and lucid orator. I had a feeling that, given enough time, Rob would have been appointed Jim Henderson's right-hand man.

Too bad for the True Americans that it was all an act.

A good one, though. Claire Lippman would have been astounded by Rob's theatrical flair. As I leaned over his chair to lump potatoes onto his plate, he didn't even seem to notice me, he was so wound up in what he was saying … something about how the criminals in Washington were selling us out with something called GATT.

Wow. Rob had obviously been watching a lot more CNN than I had.

After piling some potatoes onto Jim Henderson's plate—only for a second did I fantasize about pretending to accidentally drop them into his lap—I moved on to the rest of the table, trying not to notice as I did so a disturbing thing. There were lots of disturbing things to notice in that barn, but the one that I kept coming back to was the men's hands. Each and every one of them had the same tattoo on the webbing between the thumb and forefinger of their right hand. And that was the coiled snake of the "Don't Tread On Me" flag. The same snake that had been on Nate's chest. The same snake that had been burned into Seth's hand. This was some fraternity, let me tell you.

It wasn't until my bowl was almost empty that I felt the cold, wet nudge on one hand. I looked down and saw Chigger, his big brown eyes rolling up at me appealingly. Gone was the menacing growl and raised back hairs. I had food, and Chigger wanted food. Therefore, if I gave Chigger food, I would be Chigger's friend.

I let Chigger lick what remained in the bowl.

I fully intended to go back to the ranch house kitchen and refill that bowl without rinsing it out first. In fact, I was headed toward the barn door to do just that when I noticed something that I didn't like … that I didn't like at all. And that was Kerchief-Head, over at Jim Henderson's table, leaning down to whisper something in his ear. As she whispered I saw Jim glance around the room, until at last his gaze found me. Those piercing blue eyes stayed on me, too, until Kerchief-Head finished whatever it was she'd had to say and straightened up.

Look, it could have been a lot of things. It could have been the thing with the roll. Heck, she could have seen me letting Chigger lick the bowl.

But I'm not stupid. I knew what it was. I knew what it was the minute Jim Henderson's gaze landed on me.

Kerchief-Head had told him about catching me in the hallway near where they were keeping Seth. That was all.

We were dead.

It took a little while for it to happen, though. Henderson whispered something back to Kerchief-Head, and she scuttled out of there like a water bug. For a little while, I thought maybe we were all right. You know, that maybe I'd made a mistake. Rob was going on about abominations of nature and how America would never be restored to the great nation it had once been until all Christians banded together, and Henderson seemed to be listening to him pretty intently.

But then I saw something that made my heart stop.

And that was Red Plaid Jacket with the end of his rifle pointed at the back of Seth Blumenthal's neck as he forced the boy to walk across the barn floor, right up to where Jim Henderson and Rob sat.