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to do anything except fumble. “I knew you would.” His friendly eyes smile into mine. “We’ll get together in the cafe tomorrow, sort out your Brotherhood ID.” He pulls a folder out of his crate.
    He has it with him. He knew I would say yes.
    â€œHere. This will tell you everything you need to know about the Brotherhood. Don’t let anyone see it. Keep it with you always. Oh, and don’t get a haircut.”
    â€œOK.” I take the folder.
    â€œHey.” He pulls me into a sudden bear hug. “You’re not alone. Not now.” He lets me go and laughs into my face. “Don’t look so solemn.”
    But I don’t feel solemn at all. I watch Oskar’s bike roar around the corner. I know I’ll see him again now that we’re working together. The guilt that has beengnawing at me since the bomb lifts, just like that, and a wave of peace fills me. I think of the little boy with the cupcakes. “I’m doing this for you,” I whisper.
    I run back to the halfway house with the folder clutched to my chest. For the first time ever, it feels like going home.

CHAPTER 5
    I STAND OUTSIDE the gate of the Institute, my finger pressing the buzzer. On the other side of the road, Oskar is watching me from the woods, which are dark in the dull afternoon light. Once I cross the threshold, there’s no turning back, just as there was no going back after I walked out of the halfway house without saying where I was going. I look at the graffiti scrawled over the low stone wall in front of the fence: Hoody Scum . . . Murderers . It wasn’t there when we drove past before.
    Nothing happens, nobody comes. I could still turn back, run across the road to the clearing up the hill where Oskar parked the car. I could tell him I’ve changed my mind. But am I such a coward as that? You might be able to prevent the deaths of innocent people. I made up my mind and I gave my word. I press the buzzer again.
    This time the gate swings open immediately, and before I have time to think again I walk in, pulling the new red suitcase Oskar gave me. The gate clangs shut behind me, and suddenly everything is different. I’m in a world controlled solely by the Brotherhood. My heart starts leaping about under my blouse.
    A high barbed-wire fence borders the drive, with another locked gate at the end, trapping me in, under scrutiny. Murderers . . . murderers . . . My feet walk to the beat of the words as I approach the second gate. Beyond it there’s a lodge, and behind that the stone mansion, with its leaded windows and crooked roof, squats solidly against the white wintry sky. Other old buildings sprawl around and behind it.
    I refuse to be afraid to walk into the Institute, even though my feet are sending me an urgent message: Turn around, go back! The cameras perched above the barbed wire swivel to track me. I feel the wool bag drag on my shoulder, and my pumps skid on the gravel of the drive. I don’t look like me, in this red-checked skirt that grabs my ankles as I walk and the floppy hat over my hair, still way too short for a Brotherhood girl. But I know that I’ll see Oskar in a week when we meet in the woods, so I make my feet keep walking.
    I won’t think about what Grandma would say if she could see me now, dressed as a Brotherhood girl, with a Brotherhood name, walking into a Brotherhood school. Because if Grandma could see me, I wouldn’t be doing this, would I?
    I stop when I reach the second gate and the caretaker’s lodge. On the wall I see the faded Gatesbrooke Council sign: One City, Two Ways . Above the sign, carved into the stone in weathered letters, is The Institute . It seems to mock the sign. I was here first , its crumbling stone says, before your State . Oskar’s Manual explained the period of Brotherhood rule hundreds of years ago before we won the first civil war: ourBloody Century, their Golden Hundred. I don’t want to walk