The Deceivers

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  “Mom? Grandma?” Natalie whispered, pushing back on both of them so she could lift her head. A lock of her hair swung down into her face and she brushed it away. It was so sticky. . . . Natalie pulled her hand away from her face and looked at it.

  Her hand was covered in blood.

  Sixty-Two

  Finn, Right After the Gunfire

  Finn scooped up the tiny microphone Chess had dropped and took off running behind his brother. Emma raced alongside him, her backpack thudding up and down. But Finn had barely wedged himself back into the Judge’s closet before Chess was out of sight, far ahead around the next corner in the secret passageway.

  “Chess is really worried about Natalie,” Finn whispered.

  “Aren’t we all?” Emma muttered back. She grabbed the hand where Finn clutched the microphone, flicked it on, and called into it: “Natalie! Other-Natalie! We’re coming to help!”

  Finn stuffed the device into his shirt pocket to keep it safe. He swung his arms to run faster—it was hard just keeping up with Emma, let alone catching up with Chess. He couldn’t even outrun his own thoughts. He wanted to ask Emma, “Who do you think was shooting a gun? And why?” But maybe she didn’t know.

  Maybe Finn didn’t actually want to know the answer, either.

  So ask her something she does know, so I don’t have to keep thinking those questions, Finn told himself.

  Other questions he’d been avoiding flooded back into his mind now, too.

  “Do you know what a limb nation is?” he asked.

  “A what?” Emma asked, panting a little because she was still running. “Limbs are on trees or, like, arms and legs on people. And you know what a nation is. A country.”

  “Maybe I’m not saying it right,” Finn said. “Maybe it’s e-limb-nation?”

  “You mean, elimination?” Emma asked. She slowed down, almost stopping. “That’s getting rid of something. Finn, where did you see that word?”

  Suddenly Finn didn’t want to talk about this either. Especially not when they were both running toward gunfire.

  “Never mind,” Finn said. He faked a smile and tried to turn it into a joke. “It’s too big a word for me. Maybe I didn’t read it right. Like I told Mom the last time she helped me read—there shouldn’t even be words longer than three syllables. I said, ‘Maybe Emma and Chess want to read four-syllable words, but I don’t!’”

  “Four syllables . . . ,” Emma repeated in a strange voice. “Finn, that’s the key! You had the answer to Mom’s second code all along! I should have asked for your help from the very beginning!”

  And then, to Finn’s surprise, she stopped running completely, dropped her backpack to the floor, and yanked out her computer.

  “Sustainable,” she muttered. “Usually. Substantially. Annihilate . . .”

  “Emma, what are you doing?” Finn asked, tugging on her arm. “We’ve got to save Natalie! And Ms. Morales and Mom and Joe . . .”

  “And this is how we’re going to get enough help to do it,” Emma murmured.

  Finn angled his body so he could see the laptop screen—Emma was deleting shorter words from a long list and lining up other words, then highlighting the first letter of each word that remained. All of the remaining words had four syllables. It took Emma only a few minutes before she snapped the laptop shut, stuffed it back in her backpack, and grabbed Finn’s arm to take off running again.

  “You’re done now?” Finn asked.

  Emma seemed to be running faster than ever.

  “It was an easy code, once you gave me the key,” Emma said, huffing and puffing a little. “It said, ‘Susanna Will Help in M-M House. Just Tell Her the Truth.’ Finn, it’s not Mayor Mayhew who’s secretly on our side. It’s the Judge!”

  Sixty-Three

  Emma

  Emma wanted to shout into the secret passageway ahead of her, “Chess! Don’t trust the Mayor! Wait for us so we can tell you who you can trust!”

  But she didn’t know who else might be listening, who else might be hiding in the passageways. Instead, she leaned toward Finn’s shirt pocket and called, “Natalie! Other-Natalie! We can trust the Judge! Could you . . . could you pass that on to Chess? He’ll know what you mean!”

  But Chess was the only Greystone wearing earbuds connected to the two Natalies’ microphones. So she had no way of knowing if they’d gotten the message.

  She and Finn would just have to run as fast as they could.

  They reached the secret stairs to the lower level, sped down them, then raced through an open doorway.

  We’re close enough behind Chess that it must have been him who left it open, right? Emma thought. Not anyone we don’t want to see?

  Through the walls, she could hear the crowd noise outside, the screams dwindling, replaced by a still-anxious buzz, people trying to reassure themselves: “Mayor Mayhew says we’re safe. . . .” “They already captured the gunman. . . .” “The Mayor has everything under control. . . .”

  It’s all the Mayor? Emma thought. Nothing about the Judge?

  She and Finn sprinted down a seemingly endless passageway, then turned a corner into another one. As they came to the next turn, she suddenly realized where they were.

  “Finn! This is leading back to the basement closet!” she hissed, whipping around the corner.

  “And there’s Chess!” Finn whispered back.

  Chess was on the other side of the wooden panel, with the closet door open. And he was facing Mayor Mayhew.

  Emma had no choice.

  “Chess! Don’t trust him!” she called. Would Chess believe her? Would he believe her quickly enough to act?

  Chess turned toward Emma. The Mayor reached into the closet and grabbed Chess by his backpack straps. It looked like he planned to pull Chess out and punch him.

  “Stop!” Emma cried. Her foot struck something hard and she almost fell. Oh—it was the flashlight she’d dropped the last time she’d stood in this closet.

  Emma picked up the flashlight and swung it at the Mayor.

  Sixty-Four

  Chess

  Emma kept slamming the flashlight against the Mayor’s arm, and Finn used his fists. Chess joined in by shoving the Mayor’s chest.

  But the Mayor only laughed.

  “You’re just kids!” he said, stepping back to dodge the blows. “You really think you can hurt me? Me?” He turned toward the Ace Security guard still clutching the unconscious Ms. Morales. “Why aren’t you helping? Tie these kids up and get rid of them. Then we’ll continue our plan.”

  Bafflement spread over the guard’s face. He looked down at Ms. Morales’s unconscious form, over at the cleaner knocked out on the ground, then back to the Mayor.

  “But—” the guard began.

  The Mayor puffed out his chest and squared his shoulders in his tuxedo jacket. He seemed calm and in control again. He put his hand on the guard’s shoulder.

  “Do I need to remind you who hired you?” the Mayor asked.

  Why would the guard believe us over him? Chess thought, his heart sinking. Mr. Ace Security was from the better world, but he still believed that this was Natalie’s dad, the man who’d hired him. And as long as the Mayor was there, the three Greystones wouldn’t be able to convince the guard otherwise. They were just kids, and flashlights and an eight-year-old’s fists were no match for a rich man in a tuxedo, who could hire anyone he wanted. He could even get people to run around with syringes and . . .

  Syringes, Chess thought.

  Chess stepped forward and snatched up the syringe that the guard had kicked away when the cleaner fell. It could be a weapon, too.

  But instantly the Mayor grabbed it from Chess’s hands.

  “Give. Up,” the Mayor roared. “Nobody who challenges me survives!”

  He held the syringe high in the air like a trophy, like a taunt that he had power and the Greystone kids didn’t.

  But then he began to cough.

  “Is he allergic to syringes?” Finn whispered.
r />   “No, garlic and onions, which . . . were all over Chess’s hands,” Emma said. “Chess! Could you—”

  There wasn’t time for Emma to tell her idea. There wasn’t time for Chess to think and ponder and agonize about what would or wouldn’t work.

  There was only time for the Mayor to swipe the paper with Finn’s crookedly drawn heart from Chess’s hands.

  And Chess let him.

  Wait for it, Chess told himself. Wait . . .

  Chess was good at waiting. He waited until the Mayor lifted the paper toward his face, then Chess grabbed it back, sending a swirl of garlicky stench through the air. Chess’s hands had sweated all over the paper. He hadn’t meant to sweat. He didn’t have any brilliant plans. But he had a little hope now.

  Maybe one of the things I thought made me weak and useless can actually help. Maybe the Mayor will go into a coughing fit, and then . . .

  Chess didn’t have the “and then” part completely figured out, but he didn’t need to. Not yet.

  “We never give up!” he yelled at the Mayor.

  “Neither”—cough—“do—I . . . ,” the Mayor replied.

  But then the Mayor slumped forward, coughing and coughing and coughing.

  Chess joined hands with Emma, and Emma with Finn. Chess scooped up the lever still lying on the floor, and all three of them took off running for the velvet curtain.

  Sixty-Five

  Natalie, a Few Minutes Earlier, Immediately After the Gunfire

  “My girls are injured!” Mayor Mayhew wailed, peering down at Natalie, half buried under the Judge and Almost-Grandma. “All my girls are injured! Soldiers! Move them where they’ll be safe!”

  Natalie felt hands sliding under her shoulders and grabbing her ankles. Hadn’t she learned in first aid in sixth grade that you weren’t supposed to move injured people until you knew where they were hurt? She was still confused by the blood she’d felt on her face. Where had it come from? Was it hers—or Almost-Grandma’s or the Judge’s?

  “Mom? Grandma?” she moaned as whoever was carrying her laid her down on the floor again, back by the velvet curtain. Her ears rang from all the shouts still echoing through the room, the hundreds of people in the crowd screaming in fear and confusion. She couldn’t hear her mother or grandmother answer.

  “Shh, shh.” A woman’s face hovered over Natalie, haloed by the ceiling lights. “I’m a doctor. They called us right away. You’ve been badly hurt. Lie still.”

  “You came . . . fast,” Natalie said.

  But she felt her face again. Nothing hurt there or anywhere else.

  “You’re in shock,” the doctor said, gently pressing Natalie’s arm down again. “But the pain’s going to hit with a vengeance later on if we don’t give you something to deal with it now.” Someone handed the doctor a syringe, and she lifted it toward the light to tap out the air bubbles. Natalie pretended to lie still and calm and trusting, but her mind was racing.

  This doctor was already here, ready and waiting, and she hasn’t even looked for any wound. . . . I don’t think she’s really a doctor.

  The doctor angled the needle toward Natalie’s arm. But Natalie rolled away. She knocked the syringe out of the doctor’s hand, then sprang to her feet, shouting, “Mom! Grandma! Don’t let them give you anything!”

  Sixty-Six

  Emma

  Emma whipped past the curtain to come upon an odd scene. Natalie seemed to be fighting with a woman wearing scrubs and a large badge that said “Dr. Smith.” Beside them, other medical personnel were bent over the Judge and Other-Natalie’s grandma, both prone on the floor. The grandma, the Judge, and Natalie all seemed to have blood splattered down their orange dresses.

  Even as Emma watched, the Judge rose from the floor and shoved away the nearest medical personnel.

  “Don’t touch me!” the Judge screamed. “Or my mother or daughter!”

  “Chess, Emma, Finn—help us!” Natalie screamed.

  “Wait—who are they?” the Judge asked, whipping her head back and forth as if ready to fight off everyone at once.

  “I know you’re good!” Emma shouted at her. “I know, because my mom—”

  She couldn’t say everything out loud, because the medical personnel were all around. And beyond them, Emma got a quick glimpse of chandeliers, uniformed soldiers, a glittering glass ceiling—and partygoers in tuxedoes and ball gowns cowering on what looked like a marble floor. Emma had to settle for hissing at Chess, “Finn and me, we solved the rest of Mom’s code, and it’s the Judge. . . . You have to trust me on this. . . .”

  She looked back at the Judge, and the woman’s face had changed somehow. Even in a torn ball gown, with blood streaked across her forehead, she looked more like the real Ms. Morales—the kind one—than she ever had before.

  Emma raced to the Judge’s side. The Judge made no move to fend her off. Emma reached into her pocket and touched the heart drawing Finn had given her, but she didn’t pull it out. She didn’t need to. Mom’s second coded message had said, “Just Tell Her the Truth,” so Emma stood on her tiptoes and whispered in the Judge’s ear, “We’re Kate Greystone’s kids. We’ve come to rescue her and Joe.”

  It was such a relief to say those words, even in a whisper. It was such a relief not to need codes or symbols, lies or pretense. It was such a relief to reveal what Emma wanted most, what had been driving her all along.

  No matter what happened next, no matter what else she still didn’t understand, Emma knew that truth.

  Emma touched her heels to the floor again. The Judge tilted her head, considering. Then she reached into a slash in the side of her dress—a pocket?—and pulled out a single key.

  “For the cages,” she whispered. “And—”

  “Watch out!” Natalie screamed.

  The Judge threw an elbow to the side, knocking away a man in scrubs who’d been reaching for her arm and the key. He stumbled backward.

  “Take my daughter with you,” the Judge whispered, locking her gaze back on Emma’s face. “And my mother. She . . . she’s hurt. And I don’t know what they’re trying to give her. I think Natalie and I are fine, but—”

  “Isn’t there anyone here you trust?” Emma asked.

  “My mother. My daughter. A handful of soldiers and guards and two or three other employees . . . ,” the Judge murmured, her face a mask of sorrow. Or maybe the sorrow was real, and the change in her face that came next was the mask. She looked cruel again, and totally in control. “Jorge! Alain! Sherise! Break ranks and come to my aid!”

  Emma lifted her head and saw her mother and Joe in the two scapegoat cages. Mom was screaming, “Kids! Run! Save yourselves!”

  Beyond the scapegoat cages, a line of soldiers stood in solidarity, their backs turned so they were facing the crowd—and blocking the crowd from seeing whatever the medical personnel had been doing to the Judge, Natalie, and the grandmother. Now three of the soldiers broke away and ran back toward the Judge.

  “Take these ‘medical personnel’ away,” the Judge commanded.

  Emma stopped watching the soldiers. She took the key and ran to Mom’s cage.

  “Mom! Mom! Mom!” Emma cried.

  Mom was still wearing her old familiar jeans and a sweatshirt, but the clothes only hung on her. Her face looked hollow and haunted. Her hand trembled as she reached through the bars to touch Emma’s face.

  “Am I dreaming?” Mom whispered. “Emma? You found me? You figured out how to set me free?”

  “We’re real,” Emma assured her, working the key into the padlock on the cage. The door creaked open. “And we worked together. Chess, Finn, Natalie, and me. It took all four of us, and . . .”

  She wanted to say, “Other-Natalie and the Judge helped, too,” but maybe that wasn’t safe with the soldiers so close by. Emma couldn’t stop staring at Mom’s face, but she slipped the key into Chess’s hand so he could unlock Joe’s cage, too.

  Mom stumbled out of the cage and threw her arms around Emma and Finn. Emma cou
ld have gotten lost in that hug. It could have lasted forever and that would have been fine with her. But in no time at all, the Judge was there, tugging on Mom’s arm and whispering, “I only have a minute or two before I’ll have to yell that you’re escaping. I’ll have to pretend again that you’re my enemy, or someone will be arresting me. . . .”

  “Susanna, I—” Mom began, her eyes flooding with tears. “You come, too. Where you’ll be safe.”

  “If I stay here, I can keep you and your kids safe,” the Judge whispered back. “And Mother. And Natalie.”

  “But not any of the citizens of this regime,” Mom countered. And it wasn’t quite as though she and the Judge were arguing—it was more as though they were both very sad.

  But the Judge had stopped looking at Mom. She seemed not to even hear Mom’s words. She had her gaze locked on one man in the line of soldiers standing over the crowd—a soldier who’d turned his head to peer back at the Judge and Mom.

  “You!” the Judge screamed, making all the soldiers flinch. “Are you the traitor in our midst?”

  She stormed toward the soldiers even as she held a hand behind her back gesturing toward Emma, Mom, and Finn as if to say, Go! Go! Go!

  Emma, Mom, and Finn all turned to run, catching up to Chess, Joe, and Natalie, who were huddled over Other-Natalie’s grandma. Joe reached down and scooped her into his arms. The whole pack of them had barely made it to the velvet curtain when Emma heard the Judge scream, “Soldiers! The prisoners are escaping!”

  Sixty-Seven

  Chess

  “I’ve got the lever!” Chess screamed, racing away from the soldiers and the crowd. “We just need to grab Ms. Morales, and then—” Would Ms. Morales still be lying on the floor behind the curtain? “Natalie, we tried . . . but the Mayor . . .”