Among the Brave by Margaret Peterson Haddix

“Luke said he’d still be here when I got home. So why’d he go off again so quick?”
    There was pain in Mark’s voice. He turned his face toward the shadows like he didn’t want Trey or Smits to see the pain in his expression.
     
    Maybe even this tough-guy Mark cried when Lee left, Trey thought. Nobody ever cried over me.
     
    “Reckon that driver guy tricked Luke?” Mark said fiercely, like he was determined to turn all his pain into anger. “Thicked him into thinking he had to go, no matter what?”
    “Yes,” Trey whispered.
    His whisper seemed to echo in the silent barn. The lantern flickered, making the shadows dance even more eerily along the walls.
    “Luke went back to the Grants’ house,” Mark said, his voice as hard as rock, and about as likely to betray any emotion.
    “He did?” Smits said. “I didn’t know that.”
    Trey saw a full play of sorrow and fear in the younger boy’s face.
    “I heard Mother and Dad talking,” Mark admitted. “They didn’t know I was listening. Why...” He paused, steadying his voice. “Why do you reckon Luke would want to go back there?”
    “I don’t know,” Trey said. “He wouldn’t. We’d just come from there.”
     
    And we’d seen people die there. We didn’t know if we could trust anyone there, Trey thought, but didn’t say.
     
    “The chauffeur was badl” Smits said, his voice edging into hysteria. “What if he hurts Lee? What if he took him away to kill him?”
    “Calm down,” Trey said, trying to quell his own panic as much as Smits’s. “We don’t know anything about the chauffeur’s intentions. If the chauffeur was going to hurt Lee or the others, he could have done it before he brought all of us here.”
    “You were in the car then,” Smits said, pouting. “You were helping protect us.”
    Trey was so stunned by Smits’s interpretation that he couldn’t speak.
     
    Protecting you? He wanted to say. I was more terrified than anyone. During the whole trip from the Grants’ house to the Talbots Trey had buried his nose in the Grants’ financial records. All those numbers had seemed like Trey’s only lifeline to sanity. Had Smits actually been fooled into thinking that Trey wasn’t drowning in fear? That Trey might actually have been capable of taking care of someone else?
     
    Had the chauffeur been fooled?
    Mark narrowed his eyes and peered at Trey. Mark didn’t look like he thought Trey would be much of a bodyguard.
    “Seems like, if this driver was a good guy, if he had good reasons for taking my brother away, he wouldn’t have left you behind,” Mark said slowly
    Yes, Trey thought. Exactly. He liked Mark a little better for saying that
    “And the chauffeur went away before all the men in uniforms showed up,” Trey said. “So he wasn’t scared about his own safety. He left me behind on purpose.” It hurt just to speak those words, but Trey forced them out It was like he actually had some hope that Mark could help.
    “So this dangerous man took Luke away and left you behind, and we don’t know why,” Mark said. He kicked the toe of his boot at the packed-dirt floor of the barn. “And did you hear that the Population Police are in control of everything now? Mother and Dad are inside listening to the radio right now, shaking in their shoes, scared to death. It’s like the whole world’s ending, but it hasn’t quite ended yet way out here. And what they’re most scared of is that something bad’s going to happen to Luke, and Trey won’t even know.” He kicked the dirt once more, then looked up. “Let’s go get him.”
    “Huh?” Trey said. He’d gotten lost in Mark’s reasoning after that first kick in the dirt
    “You heard me,” Mark said. “I said let’s go get him. We’ll go to the Grants’ house and bring Luke back and everything will be okay.”
    Trey’s jaw dropped in disbelief. He’d always thought Lee was insanely brave. Now he knew Lee’s brother was even crazier.
    “We don’t have