Later Matthias would remember very little about that l>«day of walking. He and Percy were city boys used to darting through crowds, navigating by the cracks in the pavement, surviving on other people's garbage. But they'd once had to spend several days in a wilderness, and that experience was evidently enough to help them move easily through this woods. Matthias sidestepped the poison ivy without even thinking about it; he ducked under low-hanging branches without breaking his stride.

That, at least, was good, because his mind was elsewhere.

Don't think about the truck, he kept telling himself. Don't think about the other children. You are rescuing Alia. You are taking her to safety.

His arms went numb from carrying her, but he refused to take breaks, he refused to let Percy try to carry her. He wasn't sure exactly how far it would be to Mr. Hendricks's house, but he didn't intend to stop until he got there.

Percy had other ideas. As dusk fell over the woods, Percy asked, 'Are you looking for shelter for the night yet?"

"Shelter?" Matthias repeated stupidly.

"If we can't find a hut or a shed, a cave would do. We've got to find someplace before it's too dark for walking."

Matthias's brain seemed to have gone as numb as his arms. He'd forgotten about darkness, forgotten they had no candles or lamps or flashlights. But he didn't like Percy's notion of huts or sheds, places where people would be — people who might turn them in to the Population Police.

"We slept outside before. With Nina," Matthias said. Nina was a friend of theirs who'd been with them during their other outdoors experience, when they'd been escape ing from a Population Police prison. In the beginning, Matthias hadn't known whether or not he could trust Nina. He hadn't known if she was good or bad.

Am I good or bad? Now that I've done something awful too. ..

He flinched, as if he could physically move away from that question. He forced himself to focus on what Percy was saying.