Forty-Five

Chess

“Everybody, stay calm!” Chess called.

His own heart pounded so hard he felt like his chest might explode. His brain felt like a bunch of tangled knots. He jerked his head back and forth, trying to watch out for everybody at once.

Gus—I need to go rescue Gus. . . . But the others need to stay here with the doors closed, and they wouldn’t do that, they’d chase after me. . . .

Finn was already too close to the open door. Lana had her fingers wrapped around her own door handle. Emma, Kona, and Rocky had all taken their seat belts off. Even Kafi was crawling over the other kids’ laps toward the door.

A loud voice boomed from the stadium, the sound coming in through the open door. The words were distinct now: “Your leaders have everything under control. All you have to do is trust your leaders.”

Oh, right, Chess thought. He felt himself starting to fall into the soothing drone of the voice. That is all we have to do. That’s how we stay calm.

He felt his pulse slow.

I don’t have to be in charge. I don’t have to be the big brother.

But he could see the strained look on Finn’s face as Finn reached past the steering wheel toward the open door. Finn was trying to fight against the power of the voice.

Or was Finn moving toward the door to follow Gus into the stadium?

“Emma!” Chess screamed. “Grab Finn’s hand!”

The voice from the stadium tried to take over his thoughts again. But he could hear another voice in his head, one that fit there more naturally: his mother’s, saying, “You’ll always have each other.”

I don’t have to be the big brother, Chess thought. I get to be that. I’m lucky. We’re a team.

“Emma! Hold Kona’s hand, too!” he shouted. “Everybody hold hands! We have to stick together!”

Chess grabbed Rocky’s hand and reached for Lana’s. Ahead of him, Emma grabbed Finn’s wrist.

And then Finn knelt on the driver’s seat and yanked Gus’s door shut.

The booming voice outside instantly became several decibels softer.

“That was close,” Rocky muttered, dropping Chess’s hand and drawing back from Lana.

Lana immediately opened the door beside her.

“Lana, no!” everyone screamed at once, even as the roar from the stadium grew again.

Unlike Gus, Lana didn’t take off running. She inched one foot out the door, but turned back and clutched Kafi as well. She moaned, “Please . . .”

“Oh no,” Kona exclaimed, grabbing Lana’s arm even as she protectively swung Kafi out of reach. “You are not going anywhere, and you are definitely not taking my sister with you!”

“I can’t—I can’t—”

Lana had tears rolling down her face. But both her feet were out the door now. She turned so she was on her stomach across the seat, sliding down.

“Lana, you can!” Chess yelled. “You’re the strongest person we’ve met here!”

“You’re Coin Girl!” Finn encouraged.

“You’re smart!”

“You’re brave!”

“You’re good!”

That was Emma, Kona, and Rocky, chiming in.

“But I’m alone,” Lana wailed. “I don’t have brothers and sisters like the rest of you. I don’t have parents who love me. Now I don’t even have Natalie anymore—I don’t know where she is. . . .”

“You are not alone!” Chess roared. “You’ve got us!”

He dived over the seat, reaching for Lana. Rocky must have done the same thing, because the two of them landed together on the seats that Emma and Kona had just abandoned. Oh. It was because Emma and Kona had already grabbed Lana, to pull her back into the SUV.

Except, somehow Lana was completely outside of the SUV now.

And a second later, so were Emma, Kona, and Kafi.

And Finn.

“We know what’s best for you,” the voice boomed from the stadium. “We know everything that you need. You don’t have to worry at all.”

Maybe . . . , Chess thought. Maybe . . .

He longed for that voice to be right. He wanted everything it said to be true.

But it wasn’t.

“No!” he screamed. “Rocky, help me! I can’t do this without you!”

“We have to get out of the SUV,” Rocky said.

Rocky was right—the two of them wouldn’t be able to reach the others without stepping down to the ground, too.

But this is how they catch us, Chess thought.

None of them were running toward the stadium, but they were going to end up there, anyhow. All of the kids were together—but that just meant that they were oozing toward the stadium in one big blob, like an amoeba.

But amoebas don’t have brains, Chess thought. We do. We’ve got seven of them.

Lana took a step away from the SUV, closer to the stadium.

And then she froze.

“I see everything now,” she cried. “I can see who’s in the stadium! I see rows and rows of people, all watching TV. . . .”

Without even thinking about it, Chess inched closer to her.

What Lana had seen—and what Chess could see now, too—was the giant screen at one end of the stadium. And the giant screen showed all the people inside the stadium. It was like an infinity loop, people watching themselves watch themselves.

A label stood at the top of the screen:

THESE ARE OUR ENEMIES. THE PEOPLE WHO COLLABORATED WITH THE OTHER WORLD THAT INVADED US.

“It’s everyone I ever knew who was brave and good!” Lana wailed. “There’s Natalie, there’s her mom. . . . What if all the people here . . . what if it’s everyone who ever tried to send a coin into the other world? And everyone who ever tried to smuggle an endangered person to safety? Everyone who ever worked against the government? What if they were all captured but me and Gus? Because we were never as important . . . The leaders knew all along what we were doing! They were just waiting for the right moment to punish us! And . . . now they’re using us all as scapegoats! And that’s what we deserve!”

“Lana! They’re tricking you to make you think that!” Emma screamed. “Wait, just . . .”

“But it’s true!” Lana screamed back. “We were collaborating with the other world! Or trying to! Oh no, oh no . . . what if we were the evil ones all along?”

“Lana, no!” Kona yelled. “What you were trying to do was good!”

Lana took another step toward the stadium. At the same time, she turned back to shout to the others, “It’s too late for me! But save yourselves! Find a way to go home. . . .”

Chess had so many voices in his head now. One said, Let her go. You don’t even know that girl.

One said, Go with her. This is your world, too. You have been a collaborator. The leaders of this world believe your whole family is evil. Maybe they’re right. What if your parents had just gone along with what their leaders wanted? Wouldn’t you have all been so happy then? Your dad would even still be alive.

One said, It doesn’t even matter what you do. You don’t matter. You’re worthless. Useless. Pointless.

But those were not the voices Chess listened to. The voice he heard loudest kept throbbing through his brain, in time with his pounding heart.

And it said, Keep trying. Keep trying.

“Lana,” he screamed. “This is not how your story ends!”

She didn’t move back toward the SUV.

But she also didn’t take another step toward the stadium.

Chess saw exactly what he needed to do.

“Rocky, hold on to the SUV!” he screamed. “Kona, hold on to Rocky! Emma, Finn, hold on to Kona and each other. . . .”

In seconds, they’d assembled themselves into a human chain, the way they would if they were trying to rescue someone lost in a blizzard. Rocky grabbed the sideview mirror of the SUV, the same one Gus had clutched earlier. Kona wrapped an arm around his waist and Emma’s, with Kafi clinging to them both. Finn took Emma’s hand and reached for Chess’s.

They trust me. Why do they trust me? I could be wrong, Chess thought, and he knew that thought wasn’t his. It didn’t really belong in his head.

If he was wrong, they’d just have to try something else. They’d always keep trying.

Lana stood absolutely still, not moving in either direction.

And then Chess reached out and wrapped her in a big hug, and everyone together pulled Lana back toward the SUV.