Free Among the Brave by Margaret Peterson Haddix

illegal yet too, have they?” Hobart practically whined.
    “They will if your wife starts telling the soldiers what to do,” Mark said.
    Hobart laughed, and Trey was surprised. Hobart and Mark had seemed to be on the verge of an argument, but suddenly it was like they were best friends sharing a private joke.
    “Tell you what, boy,” Hobart said. “You don’t tell no one you seen me, I won’t tell no one I seen you.”
    “Deal,” Mark said.
    “Okay, then,” Hobart said. But he didn’t drive away yet. He peered straight at Mark and Trey, and for a second Trey was certain that the old man’s glittering eyes had taken in the contrast between Trey’s flannel shirt and his stiff servant pants. Trey even feared that the old man could see through the dusty seat to the papers Trey had taken from the Grants’ and the Talbots’ houses.
    “I don’t know what you two are up to,” Hobart said. “But you be careful now, you hear? Don’t do nothing I wouldn’t do.”
    “Well now, that don’t restrict us much, does it?” Mark teased back.
    Hobart chuckled and began rolling his window up. Slowly, he drove on.
    Trey let out a deep breath. He felt dizzy—now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure he’d let himself breathe the whole time Mark had been talking to Hobart.
    Mark was rolling up his window now, too, and expertly shifting gears to get the truck going faster and faster.
    “Can we trust Hobart?” Trey asked in a small voice that seemed to get lost in the sound of the truck’s engine. He
     
    was trying to decide if the question was worth repeating, when Mark answered.
     
    “Hobart’s terrible about cheating at cards," Mark said. "But if he says he won’t tell nobody about us, he won’t."
    And Trey wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. If Hobart had insisted on telling Mark’s parents—maybe even dragged Mark and Trey straight back to Mark’s house—their dangerous journey would be over practically before it started. Trey could have said, “Oh, well, we tried,” and given up with a clear conscience.
    But the way it was now, he felt guilty for wanting to quit.
    And he was still heading straight into danger.
     

     
    Chapter Thirteen
    The Grants’ house was on the outskirts of a huge city miles and miles away from the Talbots’ mansion and Mark’s family’s farm. That meant Trey had hours of sitting in the pickup truck, regretting every revolution of the wheels beneath him.
     
    Mark provided no conversation to distract him. Trey wondered if the fear was catching up with Mark as well, because his face seemed to grow paler and paler the farther Trey went his skin seemed to stretch tighter and tighter across the bones of his face.
    At least Trey saw no other vehicles after Hobart’s. Indeed, the landscapes Trey traveled through seemed utterly deserted, utterly devoid of any signs of life. Trey wondered if Hobart’s tales of soldiers everywhere were mere figments of his imagination; he wondered if the news reports of riots were lies as well. Riots required people, and there appeared to be no people anywhere.
    Finally, when Trey had lost all track of time, and all sense of how long Trey’d been traveling and how much farther Trey had to go, Mark suddenly veered off the road.
     
    “Wha—Mark! Wake up! You’re driving crazy!” Trey screamed, convinced that Mark had fallen into a trance of sorts as well.
    “I’m going this way on purpose, stupid,” Mark hissed through clenched teeth as he steered the truck down a steep dirt slope. A river lay directly ahead.
    Trey clutched the dashboard and squeezed his eyes shut. This wasn’t the way he’d expected to die.
    The truck stopped suddenly Trey hadn’t felt any dramatic leap over the riverbank, and he felt no water lapping at his feet, so he dared to look again.
    They’d stopped in a small woods. All he could see through the windshield now were thick branches and leaves, jarringly red and orange and yellow.
    “Has there