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found the secret room anyway—and probably the safe with all the fake I.D.'s. The rebels had protected that room and that safe with their lives.
    Was it worth it? Matthias wanted to know. , He went out and looked at the pile of bodies the Population Police had made. With the dusting of snow on their clothes and faces, the bodies didn't look like real people anymore. They looked like statues or sculptures, somebody's twisted idea of art. The sign saying E NEMIES OF THE P EOPLE flapped in the breeze on a post beside the bodies.
Matthias had seen dead people before. He'd seen plenty of awful scenes when he'd lived in the city: children beaten by their parents, starving people screaming for food. But he'd had Samuel to protect him then—Samuel to protect him, and Percy and Alia to cuddle with at night. His life had been cozy in the midst of death and horror.
    Now all that had been ripped away. The dead bodies seemed to stare at him, their tortured expressions seemed to whisper, Percy will be joining us soon. Alia will be joining us soon. . . .
"No!" Matthias screamed.
He whirled around and ran back into the cabin. He tore through it, ceiling to floor. He even searched between the cracks in the floor, in case some stray pills had fallen there. But the cabin contained no medicine. He had no way to help Percy and Alia. Not here.
"We'll leave, then," he muttered, lying on his stomach on the floor after searching the last crack. "We'll go somewhere else for help."
But he couldn't carry both of his friends at once. He'd barely managed to drag the two of them down the hill the night before.
He let his head fall, defeated, against the wood floor. His cheek rested against a bloodstain. Some people prayed this way, he remembered, their bodies absolutely flat on the ground. But Matthias wasn't praying. He was coming to terms with an awful truth.
    I have to go away to get help for Percy and Alia , he thought. I have to.
    But I have to leave them behind.

    Chapter Ten

    Matthias fed his friends before he left. He changed the makeshift bandages over their wounds—Percy's was soaked with blood, Alia's with yellowish pus. He tried to shake each of them awake, in turn, so he could explain what he was doing.
"It's too cold out there for the two of you," he choked out, trying to sound matter-of-fact. Trying to sound cheerful. "You get to stay in this nice, warm room and sleep all you want. Isn't that nice? I cut up some food and left it right here beside your beds. So you won't have to get up when you're hungry. And I'll leave the lantern burning. There's plenty of oil. Don't worry about anything—I'll be back soon. Very soon. With help."
Alia winced as if the sound of his voice pained her. Percy stared up glassy-eyed, then let his eyelids slip slowly down. Matthias couldn't be sure that either of them understood what he'd told them, but he didn't have time to wait around and try to explain some more. He didn't have the voice for it either. A huge lump seemed to have grown in his throat. He could barely breathe, let alone speak.
He ripped off a square section of a sheet, wrapped some of the remaining food in it, tied the corners together, and slung it over his shoulder. He climbed the ladder on unsteady legs. He carefully latched the trapdoor behind him, pausing only to admire the way the planks of the trapdoor fit perfectly into the rest of the floor. Invisibly.
Nobody could know the room is down there, he told himself. It was just luck that I found it. Nobody will find Percy and Alia.
He meant to run as soon as he got out of the door of the cabin, but he couldn't make himself hurry past the pile of dead bodies. The rattle of the ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE sign against its post was too hypnotic and sad.
"You weren't enemies of the people, were you?" he whispered. The dead bodies stared back at him.
After a few seconds, Matthias jerked the sign down. He turned it over and went back into the cabin to get a pen. On the back of the sign, he wrote in big