Read Among the Brave for Free Online

about the Grants?”
    “Because I wasn’t,” Trey said frantically. “Because—why would I want to lie?”
    “I don’t know,” Mrs. Talbot said. “I don’t care.” She stood up abruptly, seeming to shake off her stupor. “I’m leaving. Good—bye.”
    She brushed past him. Trey felt like he was being abandoned all over again.
     
    It’s just like when Mom left me.... He shut out the thought immediately.
     
    “Wait!” he yelled after Mrs. Talbot “Where are you going?”
    “That’s none of your business,” she called back over her shoulder.
    “Can I—can I go with you?” It was humiliating even to ask. But no more humiliating than being abandoned in silence.
    “No,” Mrs. Talbot said. She paused in front of the door that led to the basement and on out to the garage. “But I will give you some advice. Don’t hang around here for long. When governments fall ... Well, Trey won’t leave this place empty. Spoils of war and all that” She looked around, as if noticing the mess for the first time. She reached out to a nearby shelf to touch a delicate crystal vase that had miraculously escaped destruction. Trey decided it must have some sentimental value. Maybe Mr. Talbot had given it to her years ago, and she couldn’t bear to leave it behind.
    Then Mrs. Talbot lifted the vase off the shelf and hurled it to the floor. It smashed instantly into dozens of tiny shards.
    “There,” Mrs. Talbot said grimly “They’re welcome to it. They’re welcome to it all.”
    She walked out the door and was gone.
     
     
    Chapter Six
    Trey hid.
    It wasn’t something he thought about. One minute he was standing by the door that Mrs. Talbot had just shut in his face, the next he was cowering in a kitchen cupboard. All the pots and pans from the cabinet had been thrown out on the floor; that’s why he’d noticed it. Otherwise he might have hidden in a closet or under a sofa or behind a bookcase....
     
    There wasn’t much room in the cupboard, and he’d begun shivering so hard—no, it was really shaking, shaking with fear—that he kept banging his elbows and knees against the hard wood around him. He could have moved to another hiding space, but that would have required more courage and will than he had after being abandoned and left in danger yet again.
     
    But she was so beautiful... , he thought vaguely, and then was irritated with himself. Why was it any different to be abandoned by a beautiful woman than by an ugly one?
    No, he corrected himself. Mom wasn’t ugly. She was just.., defeated.
     
    He had never thought of it that way before. Mom had lost Dad too, after all. She’d lost her husband, she’d lost all hope—what was there left for her to live for?
    Me, Trey thought fiercely, and it was like he was answering a question about himself, not his mother. It made him stop shaking, momentarily. It made him think that he might be feeling light-headed because of hunger, not just horror.
     
    I am in a kitchen, he reminded himself. There’s probably food mere inches away. All I have to do is open the door of this cupboard. How stupid and cowardly was he to sit there shaking and starving instead of eating?
     
    Trey pushed the door of the cupboard open a crack. In the dim light that filtered in from the TV room, he could see a refrigerator. He shoved out one foot and then the other, carefully avoiding all the pots and pans on the floor. He angled the rest of his body out of the cupboard. Crouching, he reached over and opened the refrigerator.
    The sudden bright light scared him, but he reached in and blindly grabbed garishly colored cartons and containers. Then, clutching the food, he dove back into the cupboard.
    There wasn’t room in the cupboard to eat with the door shut, so he risked leaving it open. That way, he could even see what he was eating. A paper carton yielded rice and mysterious vegetables in a spicy sauce, all of which he virtually inhaled. He’d also grabbed three plastic containers of