Taken (Erin Bowman)

age. His head hangs forward a little, but his eyes are narrowed defiantly. “Elijah Brewster” it reads beneath his maybe-drawing. “Rebel.” Emma runs her finger over the word.
    “I heard Harvey is gathering followers—Rebels—outside the city,” I tell her. “He’s working with them to leak information to AmWest.”
    “Why would people want to help Harvey?” Emma asks, her lips curling in disgust.
    “Here. Look.” I point to a paragraph within Elijah’s records.
    Brewster suspected to be one of the first to start the Rebellion. Subject took to the woods after the burning of his father’s business. Sister was taken for questioning, but deemed useless. Exact whereabouts of Brewster unknown. Believed to be manning Rebel troops from hideouts within the Great Forest. Brewster is to be shot on sight.
    “That’s odd,” I say, thinking aloud. “Frank made it sound like Harvey started the Rebellion. But here . . . it sounds like Elijah did.”
    Below the paragraph, Elijah’s family is listed, his mother as deceased , his father and sister as executed . I shift uncomfortably in my chair.
    “Executed?” Emma repeats. “Does this mean Frank . . . the Order . . .”
    I look back at the words. Deceased would mean the mother simply died, but executed . . . “I think they killed them, his father and sister. I think Elijah did something bad and so they killed his family.”
    “Like the thief today?”
    “Maybe.”
    We look through the remaining papers. They show similar stories. Some of the people are marked as Rebels and Traitors. Others are marked as executed. But all have something in common: They are targets. Frank wants them all dead.
    Sometimes it is justified to execute someone, I suppose. In all the years of Claysoot, it happened only once. I read about it in the scrolls. A boy by the name of Jeq Warrows went mad with jealousy. He was just sixteen and infuriated that the girl he admired could not return his affection. She had eyes for someone else, continually arranged her slatings with that someone. Jeq snuck into that boy’s home one evening and attempted to slit his throat. He failed. Jeq was called to Council for attempted murder and was sentenced to climb the Wall. His body came back a day later; and in this sense, the people of Claysoot executed him.
    But this seems different from the stories filling the pages before me, where people are targeted for things not comparable to murder: for reading a certain book, for speaking in a public square, for teaching subjects deemed inappropriate. Elijah seems innocent. As do most of the people. Especially the ones marked executed. I felt conflicted about the thief’s fate earlier, but these records are indisputable. These people had done nothing wrong.
    “Gray, what do you think this means? These records?” Emma’s face has grown pale.
    I glance at the door and then back at the table. Frank knows about these executions. His signature is at the bottom of each page. Frank, who put his hand on my shoulder and talked to me like a father and wanted me to help him. And maybe I still need to help him. Harvey is the true enemy, but Frank feels less and less like an ally with each record we read.
    “I wonder if the Rebels are just victims,” I offer, trying to make sense of what I’ve read, “banding together, rebelling against Taem.” I drop my voice to a whisper. “And against Frank.”
    “But to join sides with Harvey? That’s disgusting.”
    “Maybe they think he’s the lesser of two evils. Frank is killing—no, executing—their friends and family. Harvey ran one experiment, on people they don’t even know. If they don’t have all the details, I can see why the Rebels chose to join Harvey. Or Elijah, I guess, based on these files.”
    Emma twists her fingers anxiously. “Gray? What if Frank’s not the good guy?”
    I think about that for a moment. I can’t say the thought hadn’t crossed my mind since reading the documents. “But then why did Frank even bother helping us? Why waste efforts saving us from the Outer Ring?”
    Emma keeps kneading her fingers, thumbs over knuckles. “Because he wants us to think he’s on our side. Maybe it’s all part of an act.”
    If I had any hesitations, Emma is watering that seed of doubt. The details in these records don’t match up with what I’ve been told. And even if Frank does manage to free Claysoot, is his world the kind I want to live in? One where a seemingly harmless act can