Among the Hidden

As Luke sits up and massages his arm, the girl says he’s lying—and then smiles and says Luke is “another one,” and his code word is great. She’ll use it for the rally. Seeing Luke’s confused look, the girl asks if Luke is another shadow child. When this doesn’t clear anything up, the girl says she thought “shadow child” was a universal term. In any case, she says, Luke is an illegal third child. She tries to get Luke to say that he’s a third child and insists that it’s nothing to be ashamed of—and then she leaps up, remembering the alarm system.

The girl races down the hall to a closet, opens it, and starts pushing buttons. She then picks up a phone, shocking Luke (Mother and Dad have told him the Government can identify people who shouldn’t exist by tracing phone calls). The girl tells her dad to call the security company and reminds him that people found guilty of harboring a shadow child are fined five million dollars—or they’re executed. She rolls her eyes as she listens. When she finally hangs up, Luke reminds her that the Government can find her now. But the girl laughs and says the Government isn’t competent enough to do that sort of thing.

Unconvinced that he’s actually safe, Luke confirms that there was an alarm, and that the girl does have security guards. The girl initially scoffs that everyone has security guards, but then noticing Luke’s worn clothes, admits that’s maybe not true. Then, she explains that her family does employ security guards, but the guards don’t know she’s here. Still, she likes to set off the alarm sometimes for fun. She’s not afraid of the guards, and her past antics definitely helped today—her dad didn’t ask any questions as to why the security system needed to be shut off.

Luke is so confused. He just wants to get home safely, and then he'll stay there forever and never complain. Maybe this girl is just trying to distract him until the Population Police arrive. Seeing how anxious he is, the girl suggests they start over. Luke introduces himself, and she introduces herself as Jen. She says she’s actually a Jennifer, but she confuses Luke by asking if she really looks like a Jennifer. Luke studies her sweatshirt and messy, short hair, but he doesn’t understand what she means. He says he only knows Matthew, Mark, Mother, and Dad—and then silently wonders if he should’ve kept his family members’ names secret. For the first time, he realizes people have all sorts of names he’s never heard of. Jen explains that Jennifers are supposed to be “girly and prissy.”

Jen asks if Luke has never met anyone except for his immediate family members. Luke says that as a third child, Jen certainly hasn’t met anyone else either—but she says she has. Suddenly, Luke wants to cry. Why does Jen get to go out and do things and he doesn’t? Have his parents been lying to him? He asks if Jen has to hide, and she says she does, but her parents are also good at bribing people. She asks Luke to explain how he found her. Luke starts from the beginning, with the woods coming down. Jen asks lots of questions and looks very concerned when Luke talks about seeing her face in the window. But she says that Luke found the right person. She’s his ticket out of hiding.