Traitors Among Us by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

Author:Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch [Skrypuch, Marsha Forchuk]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2021-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

I could tell that Galina was furious with both me and Krystia as she practically dragged me back to the holding room under the stairs. She opened the door, removed my handcuffs, then pushed me in.

I rubbed my wrists, trying to get the circulation back. Galina slammed the door and stomped away.

No one else was in the room. Where was Finn?

I leaned my back against the wall and took a deep shuddering breath. My whole body felt as if it were made out of jelly, and I slid down to the ground. I flopped onto my back and just lay there, staring at the light bulb overhead. Chill permeated my back from the floor, and I didn’t even mind: It was a sign that I was still alive. I tried to calm my pounding heart and tried to slow the thoughts that raced through my mind.

It was not a pleasant experience to stand in front of an execution squad, but there is a certain exhilaration that comes with surviving an execution.

And I had seen my sister! Krystia was dirty, disheveled, and thin, but she looked defiant. I was so relieved to know that she was alive! And now I also knew for sure that she was being held in the basement, just as Finn and I had suspected.

And I was so proud of her that she didn’t sign the confession. The Soviets were using that old technique of playing one family member off the other. Didn’t they realize we couldn’t be tricked like that? Krystia and I both knew that it was better to die than to betray more innocents. It was the only way to make the killing stop.

I lay on the floor for a very long time and counted my blessings:

Krystia was alive, and I knew where she was.

Galina put me here instead of back in the interrogation room. Did that mean the questioning would stop?

I had recently eaten potatoes and had some water.

I’d survived a mock execution!

And one more blessing: I was in a room with a toilet.

There was nothing I could do while I was locked up all alone in this cell, except to make sure that I was as strong and alert as possible for whatever might come next. That meant getting some sleep without freezing, so I got up from the floor and paced back and forth to warm up. Then I got back down on the floor, curled into a ball, and tried to get some sleep.

As I huddled on the floor with my eyes closed, thoughts raced through my mind. My situation seemed better than Krystia’s. For whatever reason, they were focusing on her and not me. I had only one room between me and the outside, but she had stairs and more rooms to get through. And even if we got out, what then? I had no idea where the border of this Soviet zone ended and no idea of how to get back to the Americans. It seemed impossible, but I wasn’t about to give up.

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