"Matt'Matt, go" Alia said, using the name she'd given him back when she was a baby, barely able to talk.
"Save yourself," Percy urged, his voice cracking. "You can't save us."
Matthias looked back and forth between his two closest friends. No—"friends" was much too shallow a word to describe his relationship with Percy and Alia. They were like a brother and a sister who, by some strange accident, happened not to have the same parents. They were as much a part of him as his own arms; he couldn't imagine living without them.
"No," he said. "We stick together. Always."
He slid back against the wooden wall and tucked the broken end of his belt behind his back, hiding his chance at freedom.
Then the truck lurched forward, and it was too late to change his mind.
Chapter Two
The wind whipped Matthias's hair into his face as the truck picked up speed. It would be easiest to close his eyes and lean back and let whatever was going to happen, happen. But he could feel Alia shivering beside him; he could feel the scrawny muscles in Percy's arm tensed with fear.
"Maybe it won't be so bad, where we're going," Matthias said.
"Maybe we can still escape," Percy whispered back. "Like last time."
They'd been picked up by the Population Police once before. Matthias still had nightmares about that awful time in their lives. Samuel, the kindly man who'd raised them, had been killed, and Matthias was suddenly in charge, even though he'd been only ten years old (give or take — none of them knew how old they really were). For weeks, Matthias had lived in fear that he would fail the other two, that they would starve or be hurt or killed. Or captured. He could still feel the hand of the Population Police officer on his shoulder, still hear the echo of the booming voice shouting out, "You're under arrest! Those I.D.'s are fake!"