With the Enemy Read Online Free Page B

we’re both still laughing when a voice we’ve never heard before speaks.
    “Stand up and put your hands over your head or your friend gets it,” the voice says.
    And someone pushes Rosie, in a headlock, into the edge of the beam of light.

Chapter 3
    T his is bad. If I’d been holding a Least Likely to Be Caught in a Headlock contest, Rosie would have been hands-down winner. So whoever did this is good.
    Well trained.
    Professional.
    Or at least that is what I assume until the voice behind the flashlight says, “Who are you?”
    Because if they don’t know who we are, that means they aren’t Alliance agents sent to bring us back to CMS. But then —
    “Who are
you
?” I demand.
    “I asked you first,” the voice behind the flashlight snaps. Which is true, but not something a professional grown-up would say. “And we have your friend.”
    The beam moves slightly. For the first time I can see the person who’s holding Rosie. It’s a girl, and she looks unkempt and kind of wild, but not much older than we are.
    I squint and try to see the person holding the light. It’s a boy, maybe a year older than us, and it looks like he has a bandage covering one eye. My arms start to come down and he barks, “Keep them up. Believe me, you don’t want to mess with us.”
    Somehow, their just being kids and still managing to sneak up on Rosie is even more disturbing than if they were pros. I agree and clamp my hands over my ponytail. I say, “We’re runaways from an Alliance school.”
    “Don’t look like fliers,” the one-eyed boy says. “Which school? I know them all, so don’t think of lying.”
    I file that word, “fliers,” away.
    Louisa answers, “Country Manor School.”
    “Never heard of Country Manor School,” he says impatiently. “Where is it?”
    “We don’t know. It’s — in a secret place,” she falters.
    I step in. “North of here about two days.”
    “Sure.” One Eye gives a snort and the flashlight dips as he bends and picks up one of our backpacks. He spills the contents on the ground and starts kicking through them. He moves to the next pack, repeats the process. Only this time something interests him. He stops, bends sideways to grab it for a closer look.
    He stands up and says, “That’s it — get rid of their friend.”
    What?!
?
    “Troy, I’m not sure —” the girl says.
    “Look what they have,” he interrupts, tossing a jacket toward her. As the light catches it, I realize it’s one of the Alliance uniforms Drew and Rosie stole when we broke into the prison camp. “I told you they were Alliance.”
    This is not good.
    “No, we
stole
that,” I tell them. My voice sounds a little hysterical to my ears. “To escape from a prison camp.”
    “I thought you said you were at a school,” the girl says. Her tone is a lot cooler than it had been. Murderously cool.
    “We were, but while we were escaping we ended up in an Alliance prison, and in order to get out —” I stop trying to explain. The more I say, the more far-fetched it sounds. I have to try something else. “Look, you just dumped our packs. We don’t have any food, do we? If we worked for the Alliance, if we weren’t really runaways, we’d have food, right?”
    One Eye gives another snort. “You could have hidden it.”
    The girl with her arm around Rosie hasn’t moved. Now she says, “They don’t have badges, Troy, or ID bracelets. They might be telling the truth.”
    “Isn’t that what they would do? Send them without badges or IDs to make them look desperate?”
    “And they stuck to back paths,” she goes on.
    “That’s precisely how they would act. Undercover 101.”
    “You were following us?” I breathe out with disbelief. I’d been right! Someone
was
trailing us.
    “All day,” the boy called Troy answers. There’s a sneer in his voice as he adds, “And you didn’t even know it.”
    “If they are working undercover, they’re really bad at it,” the girl says