Free The Enemy by Charlie Higson

was surprised at the number of hands going up in support of Maeve. Once again Ol ie counted. But it wasn’t enough. The vote had gone Arran’s way.
    “That’s it, then,” he said. “It’s decided.” He hauled himself up out of his chair and walked over to Blue.
    “What do you reckon?” he asked. “You coming with us, or do you need to take a vote as wel ?”
    “We don’t need no vote. We ain’t no democracy, man. I’m in charge. End of story.”
    “And?”
    Blue stood up and looked Arran in the eye.
    “We’re coming.”
    They gripped each other’s hands. It felt good to be doing something for themselves. Then Blue turned to Jester and the light went out of his eyes.
    “If you are lying to us, though, Magic Man , you are dead.”

    S mal Sam wasn’t dead. That thought was firmly lodged in the back of his mind. He wasn’t dead. When they’d put him in the sack he’d thought that that was it. Al over. He’d fainted, and when he’d woken up he was being jostled along on one of the grown-ups’ shoulders. The grown-up stank, but the sack smel ed worse. Of grease and rotting meat and poop. Sam didn’t like it in the sack. He couldn’t see anything. He’d wet himself.
    They’d brought him to this place and dumped him on the floor. He had no idea where it was. He was stil in the sack. It had taken them about ten minutes to get here. They’d carried him up stairs. Lots of stairs. They must be somewhere high.
    At first, whenever he moved, one of the grown-ups would kick him, and if he whimpered they’d kick him again. Then someone had sat on him for a while, but once he’d stopped struggling, they got off him. He’d lain very stil after that, as stil as if he’d been dead, and they final y left him alone.
    So he was stil alive. For now. He knew, though, that unless he was very lucky he probably wouldn’t make it through the night. He had no doubt at al that the grown-ups were planning to eat him. That’s what they did to the kids they captured. The only reason they hadn’t already eaten him was that they were too ful .
    While he’d been lying there in the sack, quiet as a mouse, stil as a corpse, he’d heard them eating. They must have caught another kid before him.
    The grown-ups moaned with delight as they fed. Chewing loudly, slurping and belching. Sometimes there was a crunch, or one of them would spit.
    Once there had been some sort of fight.
    Sam was glad that they had something else to eat, but felt awful that it was another kid.
    And he was glad, so glad, that he couldn’t see anything. The smel of blood was bad enough. It made him want to throw up.
    It was quiet now. He could almost imagine that he was alone.
    He’d been so scared, more scared than he’d ever been before in his life, and although his life had so far been quite short, there had been a lot of scary moments in it. Like when his mom and dad had left him. It had happened one night. His mom had come into the room he shared with his little sister, El a. Mom had looked bad. Tired and sweaty and il , with yel ow skin and big black rings under her eyes. Gray lumps around her nose. Zits like a teenager.
    She had been shaking, her teeth chattering so loudly he could hear them, rattle, rattle, rattle. She’d woken him up and hugged him, and he’d felt her tears on his neck. She’d told him that she and Dad were going away. She said there was nothing she could do to help him and his sister, and if she stayed it would be dangerous for them.
    Mom had told him to look after El a, and he had tried. He had real y tried. But he was only smal . And now he’d left El a al alone. She would be sad without him there. He hoped his mom and dad would understand. The thing was, though, he was too smal to look after anyone, real y. He was only nine.
    At least he hadn’t seen his mom and dad die. Sometimes, when he felt sad and lonely, he would picture them alive. Happy. He saw them on a sunny island, like when they’d gone to the Canary