Shadows of Sherwood (11 page)

“We should go,” Laurel said. She made a snaking motion with her hand, as if to indicate sneaking through the crowd.
There's always a way out if you're small
, she'd told Robyn. Well, Robyn wasn't quite as small.

“The MPs are everywhere,” Robyn whispered back.

Mallet barked an order, Robyn caught the word “fugitive”—and the MPs around her leaped into action.

“Uh-oh,” Laurel said. She gripped Robyn's hand tighter as two MPs began charging through the crowd, headed straight toward them.

 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Sheriff of Sherwood

Robyn was sure the MPs were about to carry her and Laurel away. Many people stood in the way—at first. As MPs smacked more and more people aside, the crowd naturally parted to let the officers storm through. Robyn knew: they were goners for sure.

The big man froze behind them. Robyn felt his breath through the back of her T-shirt as he ducked his head behind her. His hand disappeared from her waist. Robyn and Laurel wobbled, stumbling off the large pack as the MPs swirled a vortex around them.

“No,” Laurel wailed.

But the MPs converged behind them and grabbed the large man instead. His eyes displayed a mix of fear and resignation as they yanked him forward. Twisting backward, he stared directly at Robyn, catching her eye. Then he dropped his gaze meaningfully to the backpack, and looked back at her. When he repeated the glance a
second time, Robyn felt herself nod. Yes, she would keep it for him.

The MPs carried the scared man toward the stage. The gap in the crowd eased shut, but Robyn had to see what was happening. At the risk of exposing herself, she pushed through after him. “Watch the bag,” she called to Laurel over her shoulder.

Onstage, Mallet called up yet another wanted poster. “Fugitive Floyd Bridger!” she declared. “Fugitive no more.”

The MPs held him in front of the stage.
What had he done for the rebellion?
Robyn wondered.

“You should be ashamed,” Mallet told Bridger. “Using children as a shield.”

The MPs prepared to chain the large man's hands and feet together with a collection of restraints shaped like the letter
I
. They held him by the shoulders and kicked him in the back of the knees until they bent. He refused to bow his head. Robyn felt like he was looking directly at her, still.

Robyn burst forward. “What are you doing to him?” she blurted out, much to her own surprise.

“Run, girl,” Bridger cried, as the MPs tightened their grip on him.

But Robyn could not run. The fear and resignation in his face called out to her.

Robyn raced toward the MPs. She grabbed two of them by the arms and threw her weight against them. Startled, they released Bridger. The other two still held him, but Robyn's
disruption proved enough to weaken their grip. Bridger seized the moment and broke free. He stumbled forward, plunging headlong into the crowd.

Mallet spoke in that eerie, low-but-projected tone. “Stop him! The safety and security of Sherwood depends on all of us working together.”

The people did not stop him. Instead, a low hiss rose up from somewhere in the crowd, from different corners, like an echo.

It must have come from multiple people, because it was loud enough to hear across the park. But it wasn't everyone. Someone somewhere was trying to rile up the crowd.

“Grab the girl. Find the others,” Mallet ordered. “Break it up.” Then she marched offstage. Robyn sprinted off in the opposite direction. She bent, dodging people, trying to find her way back to Laurel.

The MPs moved in from the edge of the crowd. As the people began to disperse, Robyn watched closely as everyone threaded out through the surrounding streets. Could they ever get out unnoticed?

“Robyn,” Laurel breathed, appearing through a gap in the jostling bodies.

In a surprising show of strength, the small girl hefted the enormous bag over her shoulders, clutching the much-too-wide straps against her chest. Laurel valiantly struggled beneath the weight of the pack, but her pace slowed with each step.

“Robyn,” her small voice echoed, uncertain.

“Here,” Robyn cried, racing to catch up. The huge backpack appeared to be darting along on its own. Robyn caught occasional glimpses of a bare heel, but that was it. “I'm here.”

Robyn jammed herself up against Laurel's shoulder and slipped her arm through the outside strap, lifting part of the weight.

Laurel dropped her arm and locked it around Robyn's waist so they wore the backpack as if they were one person. They hurried onward with matching stride: middle feet forward in unison, then the two outside.

“Three-legged race,” Robyn muttered, having a flashback to Field Day at her school each spring.

“What's that?” Laurel asked. The girl seemed barely out of breath from the exertion. For not knowing what a three-legged race was, Laurel was doing a pretty perfect job of running one. The two of them had no trouble staying on rhythm together.

Laurel took Robyn's arm. “This way,” she said, pulling Robyn toward the stage. “No running.”

“Um . . . ,” Robyn protested. The thickest cordon of MPs remained in the vicinity of the stage. Maybe Laurel was too short to see them.

But the girls walked right past that line of MPs, who looked over their heads, searching the crowd attentively.
Hidden in plain sight
, Robyn thought, as they ducked behind the stage and took off running down a virtually empty street. Laurel was brilliant.

Bridger's massive pack weighed them down with each step. “Let's rest,” Robyn said, when she didn't think she could run anymore. “Is it safe?”

Laurel's skeptical expression told the truth: there was no such thing as safe. Not in Sherwood. Not today . . . or any day soon, it now seemed.

Laurel sighed. “That was close.”

“It could just as easily have been us they dragged up there,” Robyn agreed. They unshouldered the backpack, with relief.

Laurel studied it like an adversary; the thing stood almost as tall as she was. “What should we do about his stuff?”

“We have to keep it,” Robyn said. “I promised.” The look she had exchanged with Bridger meant something. But who knew if they could ever find him again? Or how long it might take? “Do you think Bridger is part of the rebellion?” she said.

Robyn felt a strange tug deep in her gut, a strong desire to find Bridger, as if following him could actually lead her home. She remembered the woman, Nyna Campbell, and the words she had shouted out.
Breath, blood, bone.
The same words etched on Dad's hologram sphere.

“Earlier, you said we would disappear if we didn't escape,” Robyn said. “Where did you think we would disappear to?”

“Rumor is, there are many jails and facilities around the city. Different security levels. Sherwood Jail is a temporary holding cell. Low security.” She grinned. “Obviously.”

“So, they must be taking Nyna Campbell to one of these places.” To be disappeared, perhaps. Disappeared, like Robyn's parents? The tugging feeling grew deeper—the sense these things must all be connected. Were her parents a part of this new rebellion?

Laurel shrugged. “Possibly.”

The afternoon light was waning quickly. Robyn worried about what might happen when the sun went down. “It's getting late. We should get . . .” the word that came to mind again was
home
. Suddenly the crowds and the MPs and even jail seemed less scary than the great unknown.

“Where can we go? Where do you live?” she asked Laurel, although it seemed like the girl might be homeless.

“Oh, there's tons of places to sleep when the weather is nice,” Laurel said.

“We can't stay in Sherwood,” Robyn said.

“There's nowhere else to go,” Laurel said.

“We're wanted in Sherwood. Maybe our best bet is to go back to Castle District. Maybe”—she put all of her hope into her voice—“my parents have returned, and they can help us. Maybe it's all a misunderstanding.” Laurel looked skeptical, but Robyn couldn't think what else to do, except try to get home.

“Go through the woods?” Laurel asked. “Are you serious? You know they're patrolling all the paths, right?”

“I'm going home,” Robyn said, in a burst of desperation. “You can come, or not.” Robyn liked having Laurel with her. She didn't want to make the long journey alone again. She
added, “Either my parents will be back and everything will be fine, or . . . or the house will be empty. There's food and clothes and beds and everything. We can just stay there.”

Laurel's eyes brightened over Robyn's offer, but she chewed her lip. “The woods are too dangerous.”

A pair of MPs strolled past the mouth of the alley. The girls froze, hoping to go unnoticed. As they passed, Robyn said, “It's looking pretty dangerous here, too.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Hope

Nyna Campbell dragged herself to a sitting position on the bandstand. “Why don't you just kill me now?” the prisoner managed to say. Her teeth stayed clenched in pain.

Sheriff Mallet smiled. A smile so slick it almost passed for friendly. “I'm not going to kill you, Nyna.”

The prisoner shivered at the sound of her name on the enemy's lips. “I don't believe you.”

“Death is quick. And finite,” Mallet said. “After all you've done, how can I let you go so easily?”

The prisoner's eyes narrowed. Each breath, a valiant struggle. She radiated a despicable sort of courage. Defiant, in and through her suffering.
How noble.

“You're going to live, Nyna,” Mallet promised. “And every few months we'll bring you out and show you to people. They'll never move on. They'll never forget.” She paused for a slow breath. “Your friends will waste time searching for you. Waste energy worrying about what has become of you.”

The prisoner's gaze flickered out over the crowd. Missing someone, perhaps. Or imagining being missed.

“Preserving hope where there is no hope is draining,” Mallet informed her. “The rebellion will wither and die. Unlike you.”