Taken (Erin Bowman)

library.”
    She pauses. “Why?”
    I look over my shoulder. We are alone, but I lower my voice anyway. “Because no matter how many questions I ask, we’re not getting all the details. But libraries are full of details. This place is mountains larger than Claysoot, and even we had a building housing historical notes and facts. There have to be scrolls or books somewhere in Taem.”
    Emma says nothing but offers me her hand. I take it, and the search begins.
    When we get to the hallway Emma has started shaking again. I keep stealing glances over my shoulder, but no one has followed us. I don’t even bother trying my wrist at the door’s silver box. I know I won’t have access. Instead, I eye a unit on the wall that says, In Case of Fire, Pull. Whatever happens after will probably create some sort of distraction. I hesitate for a moment, wondering if there is another option. But Emma nods reassuringly and I figure the only way I’ve ever gotten answers is by following my gut, by taking risks and hunting down the truth myself. Before I can change my mind, I reach out and pull the small handle. A series of alarms ring through the corridor and water erupts from the ceilings.
    We are definitely going to get caught.
    A group of Order members bursts through the locked door, but miraculously, they don’t even look at us. They run for drier corridors, papers held over their heads for protection. Before the door slides shut behind them, Emma and I slip through unnoticed.
    Inside, the hall is poorly lit, long and narrow. The floor is a deep blue and with the water raining from the ceiling, it takes on an eerie, underwater feel. The alarm echoes endlessly. Emma, shivering, searches for my hand and lets her fingers fill the spaces between mine.
    We pass a series of offices and meeting rooms. Their doors are locked, but we can see chairs and tables through a window in each. There is a lone door at the end of the hallway, its windows frosted in a way that distorts everything behind them. We can make out one thing though, a figure moving on the other side. The shadow grows larger. It’s approaching us, about to burst into our hallway.
    I tug Emma’s hand and we skirt to the side, frantically trying offices. Just as the door at the end of the hall begins to open, I find a handle that twists, and Emma and I spill into a room. We press our backs against the wall, panting. I peer out the window of our door. A figure is racing up the hallway.
    I take a deep breath. “I think we’re okay.”
    Emma breathes a sigh of relief, and as the raining water shuts off in the hallway, we turn to explore the office. We are in a plain meeting room. There is one long table, surrounded by chairs and covered with odd-looking books. The page contents are not stitched into a spine, but merely resting within their pale covers. Emma grabs the top one, marked Operation Ferret, and flips it open. Inside is the same maybe-drawing that is plastered all over Taem. This version holds additional information.
    “Target: Harvey Maldoon,” it reads. “Age 55, Caucasian, height five foot eleven. Brown hair, brown eyes. Wears glasses; nearsighted.” Those must be the things surrounding his eyes and resting on his nose. I wonder if they improve his vision rather than serve as protection, like I originally thought. “Wanted alive.”
    We look at each other, and then pull up chairs hurriedly.
    Emma flips to the next page in the unbound book. It is a map. We had one in Claysoot, a bird’s-eye view of the town center and surrounding woodlands, drawn by Bo Chilton before he was Heisted. This map shows Taem, as well as an expansive batch of trees marked the Great Forest north of the city. Far within the forest, nearly at its most northern point, is a vast range of mountains, one of which is labeled Mount Martyr. Someone has circled it and scrawled “possible Rebel headquarters” in red. Several areas of the forest leading up to the mountains are marked with arrows.
    There are other pages as well, full of scouting reports and landmarks and areas where Harvey has allegedly been spotted. We don’t read them all; there are far too many.
    “I hope they capture him,” Emma says when she closes the record.
    “Me, too.”
    The rest of the records are thinner. Each houses several sheets of paper, urgent words pressed upon them, crisp and uniform, too precise to be handwriting.
    Emma holds out one of the pages for me to see. On it is an image of a boy, roughly my