Free With the Enemy by Eva Gray

edges of the city to move into central Chicago to save water and energy. I was not even ten when the relocation for security happened, so no one I knew ever lived out here.
    The trees begin to rustle and the swings in a playground we run through start to sway with low squeaks from their rusty joints. Eddies of leaves swirl around our feet.
    The wind is picking up. We’re close enough to Chicago to be in the band of the mini-typhoon that’s coming.
    Louisa looks up at the lowering sky. “Are you sure we shouldn’t just go to the police when we get to the city?”
    “You saw what happened back there,” I say. “Without ID bracelets, they’ll arrest us instantly.”
    “Maybe it will work better if we go right to the station,” Ryan suggests. “Then we could call our parents and they could explain it all —”
    “Some of us could,” Rosie cuts in.
    “Plus, how seriously do you really think they’d take us? Six kids with no IDs who claim their friend waskidnapped by Alliance agents in the middle of the United States? I mean, that sounds nuts even to
me
.” I tap myself on the chest. “And I was there.”
    Drew nods. “Evelyn is right. You can do what you want, but I’m not wasting time trying to explain things to the police and waiting for them to call my parents while Maddie is in the hands of her kidnappers. Finding Maddie is my number one priority.”
    “I agree,” Rosie says. “But we have to be smart about it. We’re too visible. We’ve got to take shelter. What we need to find is an abandoned building in the middle of the city with no nosy neighbors but solid construction and good drainage so it can withstand the storm.”
    “Oh, is that all? A completely habitable building that is uninhabited in the middle of the most overcrowded city in the US. No problem,” Drew says.
    “Yeah, while we’re at it, I’d like to request a full-service all-you-can-eat buffet, a slick set of wheels, and some volumizing shampoo.” Ryan pats his short hair. “I don’t think my hair is doing all it could be for me.”
    Rosie looks at Louisa and me and rolls her eyes.
    A few minutes later we pass a sign that reads, CHICAGO CITY LIMITS.
    The five skyscrapers still standing in downtown Chicago loom in front of us, reflecting the gathering green-gray storm clouds like immense windows into another world. I know Rosie is right; going straight there without setting up camp first would mean taking unnecessary risks. Still, I find the closer we get, the more homesick I feel. In my pocket I wrap my hand around my compass.
    All around us the empty houses show signs of having been struck by lightning storms. Those that are still standing are half-burned, dark husks with the occasional bathtub or dining table still inside. A piece of flowered wallpaper tumbles by us, carried on the wind.
    The emptiness feels ominous to me. Or maybe it is just because the closer we get to learning the truth about where Maddie is, the more afraid I feel.
    Louisa seems to get happier with every step. “We’re finally here,” she says, bouncing along next to me. “Wecould even have Maddie back by tonight, right? Tomorrow at the latest.”
    “Oh, completely,” I say, trying to match her enthusiasm. And we could.
    If she’s alive.
    But of course I don’t say that out loud. How could I? What would it do besides upset them?
    The first ribbons of lightning are beginning to mass on the horizon around the city, when it hits me that by not telling Louisa the whole story, by purposely shielding her from the truth, I’m doing what my parents do to me.
    And that’s when I realize: Maybe my parents don’t do it to leave me out or exclude me. Maybe they say those things because they desperately want to believe them, too. They are protecting me and protecting themselves, trying to weave a cocoon of hope around all of us.
    As the truth of this crashes over me, I miss my parents so much it makes me ache inside. I feel like for the firsttime I’m really