Thirty-Two

Emma

Only Finn, Emma thought.

He was so innocent, he was the only one who could have calmed Lana down. The only one who could have made her feel like part of the team.

Emma could still think of reasons someone could have coins and not be on the same team.

For all we know, there are different kinds of coins, Emma thought. Good coins and bad ones. Or Lana could have stolen these from good people, and . . .

But Natalie had trusted Lana.

And Emma trusted Natalie.

“Where?” Lana was asking, peering frantically around at all of the kids. “Where did you get your coins?”

It would make sense to give a vague answer, to protect the coins. To try to pry information out of Lana before giving away any of their own.

But maybe sometimes Emma needed to act more like Finn.

“In the other world,” Emma said. She pointed to her wrist, so Lana could see she had coins, too. “We’re all carrying coins.”

Lana’s face lit up. It was like seeing fireworks burst to life in a dark sky. She was every bit as jubilant as Mom had been when she saw Mrs. Gustano’s coin back in the other world.

“So you found them,” Lana murmured. “In the other world. You’re from the other world! Our plans worked! All our hard work, all the risks we took—it all paid off! You found the coins and you came here! And here I thought it was all too late. . . .”

“Uh, yeah,” Finn said. “That’s right. I mean, not all of that. It’s a little confusing to say which world we’re from exactly—well, for everyone but Rocky. He’s definitely from the other world. The rest of us are kind of . . . connected to both. Anyhow, it’s not too late. I don’t think. What do you mean, talking about your plans? What have you been doing with the coins? Are you one of the people who’s been sending them to the other world?”

Emma was glad Finn was smart enough to ask those questions. Lana would probably take them better from him than Emma.

But a shadow crossed Lana’s face.

“Don’t you know?” she asked. “You say you found the coins, but you don’t know the plan? Didn’t you come here to save us?”

Emma tried to signal the others with a glance. She wanted to say, Be careful! I think we’re going to have to bargain for information! Don’t give anything away until Lana tells us more!

But Chess, of all people, was already answering.

“We’d like to help you,” he said. “But we don’t know how.”

“How can that be, if you found the coins?” Lana moaned. “Didn’t the coins tell you what to do?”

“The coins we have weren’t meant for us,” Kona said. “I mean, two of them are kind of mysteries—we don’t know who they were meant for, or why they showed up. They just appeared. But the one Rocky has actually belongs to his mother. And the ones Chess and Finn brought, those were sent from this world’s version of Natalie to the other world’s version. Or from this world’s version of her mom—the Judge—to the Ms. Morales in the other world.”

“But that Natalie and that Ms. Morales—they didn’t bother coming here?” Lana sounded even more heartbroken now. “They didn’t care about helping their doubles, even after they heard what the coins had to say?”

Emma had so many questions she wanted to ask right now. But Lana seemed to be in such anguish.

Emma answered Lana instead of asking more.

“Natalie and her mom both wanted to help their doubles,” she assured the other girl. “I’m pretty sure they wanted to listen to all the coins and find out what they said. But . . . there wasn’t time. Because the Mayor attacked the other world. I guess you thought you were going to get help from the other world but . . . now people there need help, too.”

The color drained from Lana’s face, making her already-pale skin deathly white.

“That’s what we feared the most,” she said. “If Mayor Mayhew is already in the other world, then, then . . . He’s winning. Maybe he’s already won.”

She peered all around. The air was still crystal clear around them. Birds chirped in the distance, and a soft breeze whispered through the trees down the hill. Emma loved how peaceful everything seemed.

But Lana acted like she was gazing at a battle—maybe even at one of the scenes the TV had shown.

What did she see that Emma was missing?

“Come on,” Lana said, grabbing up the last of her coins and scrambling to her feet. “We’ve got to tell Natalie! My Natalie, that is!” She whirled toward the broken, silent house behind them.

“Natalie’s not there,” Chess said. “I mean, we didn’t search every room, because we kept running into these horrible TVs we could barely get away from, but . . .”

Emma wondered how they could possibly explain the pull the TVs had had over them. But apparently they didn’t have to: Lana gasped and pressed a hand to her face.

“The mind-control TVs are even in Natalie’s house now?” she groaned. “Even there?” She aimed a fearful glance back at the giant house, her gaze lingering on the broken windows and torn drapes. It didn’t seem possible, but her face turned even paler. She spun away from the house. “That’s it! We’re in so much danger here. We’ve got to get to safety.”

She began racing down the hill. When nobody else moved, she called back over her shoulder, “Come with me!”

Emma exchanged glances with Chess, Finn, Kona, and Rocky. All of them seemed to decide as one: They started running, too.

Maybe Lana will take us someplace the lever will work, Emma thought as she tried to catch up. And if she’s with us, she can give good answers if any guard tries to stop us. . . .

The dash down the hill went quickly. But the swath of trees at the bottom of the hill was wider and denser than it had looked from above. Emma was glad the trees hid them better than the open lawn had, but it hurt to fight her way through brambles and lashing branches.

And . . . is that poison ivy? Emma wondered, dodging a suspicious-looking vine.

“The Judge and the Mayor were in charge of everything,” Finn muttered behind Emma. “Couldn’t they have made a path?”

“This is like an extra security system,” Lana explained as the woods made her slow down, too. “If the guards and security cameras and the wall didn’t stop people, the thorns and thistles would. But Natalie showed me a good route.”

She did seem better than anyone else at avoiding the branches catching at their sleeves and shorts and skin. Emma wished she’d had time to change out of the T-shirt and gym shorts she’d slept in the night before into something a little sturdier, a little more protective.

Like, maybe, armor, she thought ruefully.

But she followed Lana, and the route became a little easier.

“When you visited Natalie normally, didn’t you just use her sidewalk?” Chess asked, pulling away briars caught in his hair. “You were on the approved guest list for the party. People saw you together. You were allowed to be friends, right?”

“We didn’t always want others to know we were meeting,” Lana said. “Especially not this past week, when . . . oh, never mind. I’ll explain when we get to safety.”

They reached the wall, and Emma began to wonder how they were going to scale it, especially carrying Kafi. The wall was smooth and gray and about twice as tall as Chess. It didn’t seem to have any divots for holding on.

But Lana put her hand against the wall and a small section slid to the side.

“Keep this secret,” Lana said, glancing around once again. “I . . . I’m trusting you.”

After the wall, they had another swath of trees and bushes to scramble through. And then they faced a row of large houses.

“Do any of those look like the ones by Ms. Morales’s house back in our world?” Kona asked softly, as though trying not to let Lana hear. “Would they be places the lever might work?”

“I . . . don’t know,” Emma said. She hadn’t memorized all the houses in Ms. Morales’s neighborhood. These houses were grand enough to fit in there. But here they were all sectioned off with chain-link fences topped by razor wire. It made them look scary and strange. Did everyone in this world need walls and fences? Was every neighborhood dangerous?

“These are officials’ houses,” Lana explained. “Just not officials as high up and important as the Mayor and the Judge.”

She reached down for a handful of pebbles, and threw them up in the air. Emma caught a glimpse of movement in the nearest trees.

“Are there motion-activated cameras up there?” she asked Lana. “And you’re confusing them with gravel?”

“You got it—run!” Lana cried.

All of the kids dashed across the street, following Lana to one of the larger houses. They ducked in past a tall metal gate that had been left open. Then they wound down a long driveway to the house. Lana pressed a finger into a scanner beside the front door, and the door swung open. Everyone rushed inside and Lana shoved the door shut behind them.

And that was when Emma saw the people sitting in rows of chairs in the grand entryway.

No—the people tied to their chairs in the grand entryway.

Emma scrambled back toward the door.

“You tricked us!” she gasped. “This is a trap!”