Enemy of Gideon (9 page)

I sit up in my seat.
What is he doing?

Helping,
a voice in my head answers.

I return my attention to Chief Penski. “I know I won’t be able to see her on her last day. Please let me say good-bye.”

I intended my plea to be an act, but I force back burning tears.
Petra might not make it out alive
.

“She’s a good kid, Chief,” Mr. Guzman says. “There’s no harm in letting her in.”

Penski purses his lips. “Come at four o’clock on the day before her sentence is carried out.”

Arkin smiles at me, flooding the hope back into my heart.
Things might turn out okay.

►▼◄

The meetings with Arkin become my reason for getting up each morning. I can’t deny my attraction to his good looks and personality, but I drink his encouragement like cool water on my thirsty tongue. During the day, we talk about school and Mom, careful not to bring up anything against Code. In the evenings, he shares verses from the Bible with me, promising God has a plan for me and for Petra.

“But you have to be prepared,” he says in the brisk quiet of our meeting place. “If anything goes wrong, you have to believe Petra will be fine.”

“How could she be fine? She’ll be dead,” I say, remembering Mom’s words from my childhood and the frigid darkness of nonexistence.

“She’ll be in Heaven,” he says, “in God’s presence.”

“But she hasn’t given sacrifices to God or followed all of those Old Testament laws,” I say, remembering the long list of commands I browsed through while learning about the Israelites.

“I think you’re ready to hear about how God fulfilled the Law through the Messiah,” he says.

“You mean, the Messiah came?” I ask.

“This is the best part,” he says, not withholding his excitement.

He thumbs through his Bible and starts reading the Book of Matthew aloud. I sit in wonder, hanging on every word.

“I can’t believe it,” I say, shaking my head as I see the sleeping infant in my mind’s eye. “God became like us?”

He nods, his eyes shining in the candlelight. “You have to read the rest of Matthew to see what He does.”

I can’t wait to get home and keep reading.

I stand. “It’s getting late.”

“Your meeting with Petra is one week away. We have to prepare for her escape,” he says. “I want to take you to my home.”

“To Philippi?”

He nods. “There are some people I want you to meet.”

My imagination runs wild with images of the people from the outskirts: gaunt and filthy with rags for clothing. Despite my friendship with Arkin, the images remain.

He hands me a slip of paper. “Meet me at this location tomorrow morning at eight.”

“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” I say, tucking the paper into her coat pocket. “I don’t know what to tell my mom.”

“Tell her I want to spend time with you. Doesn’t she know we’re together?”

He winks at me, and my nerves unravel. I manage a self-conscious smile.

“Okay, I’ll tell her,” I say, “but isn’t that a lie?”

He laughs. Then, to my shock, he leans in and presses his warm lips against my cold cheek.

“Good night, Raissa,” he whispers.

I freeze as he slips out of the building and disappears into the night.

CHAPTER NINE

T
he morning sun breaks through my bedroom window, sneaking into my eyelids. I sit up with a jolt and check my wristband—seven o’clock. I’m not late for my appointment with Arkin at the unfamiliar address on the slip of paper. How I awoke so early, I don’t know. I spent much of the night reading the Book of Matthew, growing more and more astounded by the one called Jesus.

My heart ached when the people punished Jesus, the gentle, peaceful Savior, for doing nothing wrong. It sounded like Petra. She wouldn’t hurt a fly, and yet now she faces death. The very thought burned me up inside as I read about Jesus’ painful death on a wooden cross. How could they kill God in the form of a man?

By the end of Matthew, I stared at the page in a daze. Jesus rose from the dead.
How could that be possible?
Jesus’ last words in the book echo in my mind:
“And surely
I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Could it be true? Could the Bible be a real record of history? Arkin believes this and so does Petra. But can I believe it too?

I shake off my questions and slip into a fresh coverall from my closet. In the living room, Mom throws on her coat. Her complexion looks brighter, and she doesn’t have her hair tossed up but brushed over her shoulders.

“I’m meeting a co-worker for breakfast and going to the market,” she says.

“You look nice,” I say, crossing my arms and cocking my head.

“Thank you,” she says. “I’m finally accepting what’s happened to Petra.”

My arms drop to my sides. “Accepting it?”

“It’s the Code. As loyal citizens, we must accept what’s happening and recognize that Petra has broken the Code. She’s an enemy of Gideon, and she must be punished.”

Mom’s words make me light-headed. She sounds mechanical, like the automated voice on my wristband.
Is she losing her mind?
Now, more than ever, I know Petra has to escape.

“I’m going to meet a friend,” I say, slipping my boots on.

“I’m guessing not Ogden,” she says.

“Arkin,” I say without thinking.

“The one you ate dinner with a while back?” She doesn’t disguise her surprise.

I shift on my feet and nod, remembering his kiss. “We’re kind of together.”

She smiles, the first one I’ve seen from her in weeks. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“It didn’t seem important,” I say.

Her face falls. “My bug is growing up.”

“I’ll be back for dinner,” I say, buttoning my coat.

I can feel her eyes burn my back as I exit the apartment.

Outside, Gideon’s streets swarm with activity. Saturdays and Sundays bring lighter foot traffic, but more horse-drawn carriages take up space on the cobblestone roads as citizens travel from one side of Gideon to the other for visits with family and friends on their days off. I pull the slip of paper from my pocket and examine the address. I map it near the southern edge of Gideon, not anywhere near the Blind Spot. Curiosity and a longing to see Arkin and the outskirts propel me through the crowds twelve blocks south of my home.

The city buildings shrink with each block I cover. More and more pines, oaks, and maples overwhelm the landscape. The cobblestone road fades away until clay dirt lay under my feet. I soon stop in front of my destination. A red, wooden sign reads the address on my paper and
Hollis and Sons Horse Farm and Taxi
Services
in gold lettering. Down a gravel path, I find a red stable surrounded by trees and enclosed in a wooden fence. Horses nibble at dead grass in the pasture, wearing blankets draped over their backs.

At two minutes before eight o’clock, Arkin pedals up to me on a red bicycle. He wears his backpack, low and bulging. I try not to stare at him. I still can’t believe such a guy kissed my cheek. Did I imagine the kiss? The warmth spreading over my cheeks in his presence answers the question.

“So what did your mom say?” he asks.

“She was fine with me meeting you,” I say, “but I don’t know what to do. She’s given up on Petra. She’s saying crazy things.”

He dismounts the bike and opens the gate.

“Like what?” he asks, pushing his bike through the fence.

“She says Petra’s an enemy and she deserves her punishment.”

He
turns to look at a camera halfway up a nearby light pole and frowns. “We should talk about this later.”

As we approach the stable, a woman wearing dirty coveralls steps out into the sunlight, leading a white and brown horse by the reins.
 

“Good morning,” Arkin says. “Is Sted here?”

“He's cleaning stalls in the back,” she says. “You can park your bike against that wall.”

He follows the woman's instructions, and we enter the stable.

The stench of horse sweat and dung fills my nostrils, and much to my disappointment, the building offers no relief from the dry, bitter cold outside. Without the sunlight touching it, the stable air chills me to the bone. My thoughts reflect back to the Book of Matthew.
Jesus was born in a place like this.

In an empty stall, we find the man named Sted spreading fresh hay on the floor. The thin man looks old enough to be a grandfather but strong enough to have many years of life left in him. Beyond his gray beard and deep forehead creases, stark blue eyes shimmer.

“Can I help you?” he asks.

“We need safe passage,” Arkin whispers.

He smirks. “Then you’ve come to the right place.”

Sted gestures for us to follow him to the stall across from the one he was cleaning. A black horse with a white patch on its muzzle waits with its head hanging over the door.

“I remember you,” Sted says to Arkin. “You arrived in January. Are you all settled in?”

He nods. “I’m anxious to see my family, though.”

“That’ll be nice,” Sted says.

“We plan to be back before sunset,” Arkin says.

Sted gives the black and white horse a gentle rub on its neck.

“This is Piper,” Sted says. “She’ll take you exactly where you need to go with the password. You remember it, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” Arkin says.

“Then I’ll get her saddled up for you. Meet me at the back of the pasture.”

While Sted walks toward the front of the building, we finish walking the length of the stable and step back into the warm sunshine.

“Do we have to ride a horse?” I ask.

“What’s wrong with horses?”

I cringe at the memory of a CE horse knocking me down in the crowded streets as a young girl.

“We don’t get along well,” I say.

“You’ll get along fine. Horses are wonderful creatures, and they don’t appreciate being disliked.”

“As long as you know how to control it,” I say, “I guess I’ll be okay.”

He smiles and shakes his head at my apprehension. His pace across the pasture slows, and his eyes search the scenery as his expression falls.

“Your mom sounds like she’s being manipulated,” he says. “Has she made any new friends lately?”

“She’s having breakfast with a co-worker right now,” I say. “That’s pretty unusual for her.”

“A plant. CE will put them in place to keep a close eye on the prisoner’s relatives and to persuade them to stay faithful to the Code.”

“It seems like she did a complete turn-around out of nowhere,” I say. “I wish I could tell her everything I know and make her understand.”

“You can’t. It’s too dangerous.”

The weight of the burden pulls me in two different directions. I long to run into CE headquarters in a passionate rage, demanding they free Petra. The other part of me wants to work in secret with Arkin and the other believers to save her. Then we could escape to the outskirts into a new life free of the Code.
But what kind of life would that be
?

A few minutes later, Sted rides across the pasture on saddled Piper.

“You’ll have to ride behind me,” Arkin says, “so I need you to put the backpack on.”

He slips it off and lugs it toward me. I struggle to keep my balance as I take the weight into my hands.

“What’s in this thing?” I ask, heaving the pack onto my shoulders.

“Food and other necessities for my family,” he says.

“They always run low on supplies this time of year,” Sted says. “It’ll be a real blessing right now.”

Arkin slips his foot into the stir-up and mounts the horse with ease, as if he’d done so fifty times before. I clamber on behind him with Sted’s assistance.

Sted points. “There’s a secret back gate about thirty yards into the woods straight back.”

Arkin turns the horse in the gate’s direction.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Sted asks.

He nods his head toward Arkin’s arm.

 Arkin gasps. “Thank God you remembered!”

 
Sted chuckles and shakes his head. “And they say old folks have short memories! Boy, if you rookies were in charge, we’d all be in a world of trouble.”

 
Sted reaches into his pocket and pulls out a silver key. Arkin removes the black glove from his hand and pulls his sleeve up to reveal his wristband. Sted reaches up and slides the key into a narrow hole at the bottom of the band. I then recognize the key, and my jaw drops. At the ID department, CE used the key when I needed a new wristband or a refitting. The keys are illegal in a citizen’s possession.

 
“How did you get one of those?” I ask.

 
“We have our ways,” Sted says, taking Arkin’s wristband into his hands. “Let me see yours.”

I allow Sted to remove the device. When I pull my bare wrist back up to my chest, the nimbleness of it amazes me. It’s so exposed, unlike my own arm.
 
Was I really so used to that thing?

 
“You know the password,” Sted says. “Godspeed, my friends.”

“Thank you, Sted,” Arkin says, and I echo his appreciation.

We watch Sted walk back to the stable.

 
“So he’s a believer too?” I ask.

 
“Yes,” Arkin says, leading the horse into the woods at a snail’s pace. “He and his wife send horses into the outskirts all the time. He used to live in Corinth before CE took his son.”

“They took his son?”

“They caught him on a mission a long time ago. He was in college back then, like Petra.”

I dread asking the question that crouches on my tongue, but curiosity forces it out. “They executed him, didn’t they?”

He hesitates. “Yes.”

Piper’s hooves crunch the frosty leaves. Her breath fills the air like steam from a hot kettle. In the early morning sunlight, the woods twinkle around us like a chandelier in a citizenship center dining hall. The sun’s rays can’t penetrate the cold gnawing at my fingers. My teeth chatter from the combination of bitter cold, excitement, and trepidation.

He stops the horse in front of the secret gate.

“Here,” he says, tossing a strip of white cloth behind his shoulder. “Tie this over your eyes.”

I take the cloth. “What?”

“It’s nothing personal, but you can’t know the way, not yet. Please. I have to protect my people.”

My brow drops. “You don’t trus—”

“I trust you, but you’re still a Gideonite.”

I snort, snatch the cloth, and tie it over my eyes, the forest blurring under a blanket of white.  

“Hold on tight,” he says. “Piper will take off once I give the word.”

I slip my arms around him with a knot the size of a grapefruit in my stomach. He leans to one side, and the gate creaks open.

“Tighter,” he says.

 I follow his command, the grapefruit reaching cantaloupe size.

The horse walks through the gate, which closes with a
smack
behind us. Arkin then leans forward and whispers something to the horse. In the next moment, Piper shifts from walking to dashing ahead, and the peace of the woods explodes into pounding chaos. My body and the backpack jostle from side to side, begging to be tossed off. I squeeze Arkin tighter, so tight I fear I might hurt him, but he doesn’t complain.

A dim sense of the uneven terrain comes through the horse’s swift legs. With every step, the beast moves up and down, pressing forward. The freezing air cascades over my hair and face. Arkin’s body heat gives me little comfort as we change directions, and the horse speeds up. Piper now moves more evenly along the ground with more stability. I release my grip on Arkin. He doesn’t shift at all.

 We ride through the outskirts now, the place the citizens tell scary stories about, the forbidden place. I wish I could see beyond the blindfold. My imagination runs wild with the details of the trees, dead leaves, and shrubs covered in frozen morning dew.

Panic clenches my throat.
What if the believers are dangerous? What if the blindfold is really meant to keep me from finding an escape route?
It would be so easy now for the enemies to kidnap me. I could be used for some kind of ransom or as a source of inside information. What if they intend to harm me? How would I escape?