Reena sighs. “Yeah. Of course I know that. But then what . . . ?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Are you freaking kidding me?”
“You don’t want me to lie to you, fine. But I can’t tell you. It’s complicated and . . . can you just trust me for now?”
Unexpectedly, Reena pulls Sarah into a hug. “I wish you could just tell me what’s going on with you.”
Sarah buries her face in her friend’s shoulder and blinks back tears. “Yeah. Me too.”
Reena steps back, all business again. “Whatever it is, you better not dump Christopher before the formal. I’ve spent way too long planning this double date.”
“The . . . formal?”
Reena rolls her eyes. “The spring formal? Only the most important event of the year? The dance we bought dresses for six months ago? The dance that’s this Friday? Even you couldn’t forget—”
“No,” Sarah says quickly. “Of course not.” She doesn’t like that: Even you. As if Reena’s expectations have sunk so low. And maybe they should have, because of course she’s right.
Sarah did forget.
“It’s going to be an amazing night,” she promises her best friend. “I swear.”
Reena talks to Christopher for her, and whatever she says works. He agrees to cut class and meet her under the bleachers that afternoon.
Neither of them has ever cut class before. They’re good kids; they follow the rules.
Sarah is so tired of rules.
“I’m sorry,” she tells him again, curled up in his arms on the dewy grass. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.”
“You said that already,” he says. “And I said I forgive you. And I trust you. Can we get back to the kissing now?”
“And I’m going to make it up to you—”
“On Friday, at the formal. I know. You said that too. Multiple times.”
“I just want to make sure you know that I would never . . .”
“Sarah.” He cups her chin in his warm hands. Their eyes meet. “I do know. Sometimes I just feel like . . .”
“What?”
“Like you’re so far away. Like even when you’re here with me, you’re really somewhere else. Or you wish you were.”
He’s partly right—she is somewhere else. These days she’s always somewhere else. When she’s with Christopher, she’s thinking about fighting moves or ancient Cahokian mythology; when she’s with her trainers, she’s thinking about Christopher.
“I don’t wish I were anywhere else but here with you,” she tells him, and it’s the truest thing she’s said in a long time.
When she gets home that afternoon, her parents are both in the kitchen, waiting for her. They have an elderly woman with them, her weathered face covered in scars. Sarah recognizes her as one of the council elders: Juliana, a former Player herself.
Sarah wonders at the scars, where they came from, and whether when she grows up her face will bear similar marks. She’s never thought of herself as a superficial person, but she doesn’t like the idea that her Playing will permanently mark her for all the world to see.
She’s already had to explain away bruises and sprains—more lies for Christopher—but at least those heal and fade.
Every time she looks at Tate, she’s reminded that some wounds don’t.
She can’t remember the last time a council member visited their home. Whatever this is about, it can’t be good.
“What’s going on?” she asks.
“Sit down, honey,” her father says.
She shakes her head. “Tell me what’s going on first.”
Juliana points to a chair and says, with the imperious confidence of someone who’s used to having her commands followed, “Sit.”
She sits.
“This is the situation,” Juliana says. “We’ve received troubling reports of your progress, or lack thereof. We wish you to withdraw from school and focus solely on your training. You will come with me back to Illinois and we will provide a suitable—”
“What? No!” Sarah cries. She looks at her parents. “Are you just going to sit there? You think that’s a good idea?”
“Sarah, your training is important. The stronger you get, the more likely you are to . . .”
Sarah knows how to fill in that blank.
The more likely you are to survive.
She tries not to think about Endgame, and what it would mean. She doesn’t even like to think about the trials of pain and strength and endurance that she knows to be in her future, as every Player must meet them. It was a pain trial that destroyed Tate, and he was so much stronger than she is, than she could ever be.
“I won’t do it,” Sarah says.
Juliana looks untroubled by the argument. “But you must.”
She doesn’t make an ultimatum. She doesn’t say, If you want to Play, because they both know there is no if. Sarah swore the ancient oath. She agreed to do this, and that means doing whatever the council deems right. No matter how wrong they might be.
“There must be something else I can do,” Sarah insists. “Something to prove I don’t need to throw away my entire life and go with you.”
Training in Illinois, away from her family, away from her friends, away from Christopher. No school, no future, no love. Just fighting and working and Playing.
She doesn’t think she could survive it.
“There is perhaps one thing,” Juliana says, and something about the way she says it makes Sarah wonder whether this hasn’t been the point of the visit all along. “Your first trial. The trial of the wolves. I understand you’ve been putting it off.”
“She’s not ready,” her mother says loyally.
“There’s no hurry,” her father says.
The trial of the wolves is, traditionally, the first of the many trials the Cahokian Player must undergo. The Player spends the night alone in the woods, at the heart of a wolf pack’s territory—and either survives or doesn’t. Tate did it when he was nine. He needed 102 stitches when it was over, a fact that he never got tired of bragging about.
Sarah doesn’t want to do it.
Sarah is afraid.
“You’ll do it Friday,” Juliana says.
“But—”
She can’t do it, and she certainly can’t do it on Friday. She can’t miss the formal, not after everything she’s screwed up. But she also can’t exactly tell Juliana that a junior high school dance is more important than the council’s wishes.
“You’ll do it in three days’ time, and prove to me that you’re committed to this task, this life. Or you will fail to do so, and you will come away with me.”
“You’re telling me those are my only two options?” Sarah says.
“I am.”
But there is only one option. She can’t leave Christopher. She can’t leave her family, or school, or her life.
Sarah takes a deep breath. “Then I’ll do it. Whatever I have to do.”
Upstairs, safe in her room, she cries.
She can’t seem to stop crying.
She doesn’t know whether she’s more afraid that her friends will be mad or that the wolves will tear her to shreds; maybe she’s just afraid that she can’t do this, have everything she wants and needs. She’s terrified that she’s going to have to choose.
“Would you stop being such a damn baby?” Tate throws her door open, then slams it shut behind him. It’s the first time he’s come to her room since the day of the bees. It’s the one time she doesn’t want him there. But still, for just a moment, her heart leaps at the sight of him. She keeps forgetting that he’s not the old Tate anymore, the one she could always count on.
“You don’t understand,” she says, wiping at her dripping nose. “The council says—”
“I know what the council says, and it’s your job to do whatever it is, don’t you think? Isn’t that what being the Player is all about?” His lips twist cruelly, and she knows what he’s thinking. That the council said he couldn?
??t be the Player anymore, and like a good Player, he obeyed.
“You have nothing to cry about,” he snaps. “You have no idea. And if you can’t hack this, you should admit it now, and save everyone a lot of trouble.”
“Do you think I can’t hack it? That I’m not as good as you? As strong?” She knows what he thinks, but she wants to hear him say it out loud, to her face.
“They picked me, not you. That’s all I’m saying.”
“They picked both of us.”
“Yeah, well, they make mistakes. And if you think your sad little ‘relationship’ is more important than the fate of the world, maybe they did.”
“Screw you, Tate.” It pops out before she can stop herself. He looks as surprised as she is. For so long, everyone in the family has been tiptoeing around him, trying to be kind, give him time and space, let him bite their heads off. But she can’t handle it anymore.
“Why did you even say yes, anyway?” he asks. “You act like you don’t have a choice. I’m the one who has no choice.”
“Maybe that’s why I said yes.”
“For me?” he sneers. “What, to carry on the family legacy? Don’t do me any favors.”
“No.” She wishes that were why. It would make sense, then; it would be easier. She loves Tate, would do anything for him, and if she thought Playing would fix him, would make him happy again, then she would Play forever. But it’s not fixing him. Sometimes it seems like nothing will fix him. And what she can’t admit, what maybe neither of them can admit, is that her Endgame has nothing to do with him anymore.
“What, then? You just want to prove that you’re better than big brother? Got sick of me getting all the attention?”
“No!” she cries. “Stop it!”
“You don’t even know why you’re doing it, do you?” He shakes his head. “Bad move, little sister. You can’t Play without a reason to Play. That’s a good way to end up dead.”
“How can you . . .” She’s crying again now, too hard to talk. How can he say it like he doesn’t care?
“Stop crying!” he shouts.
She does, abruptly, not because he told her to, but because she’s suddenly angry. Too angry to cry—too angry to not finally say exactly what she thinks. “You’re not the only person allowed to have emotions, Tate. You’re not the only one in the world with problems.”
“No, but I’m the only person in this room with problems,” he says. “One of us has an amazing chance to be the savior of her people, to pledge her life to the survival of the Cahokians, to be a hero—and is throwing a sulk because it might mean missing a stupid school dance? The other of us has nothing, do you get that?” He’s shouting now, angrier than she’s ever seen him. “Nothing.”
“That’s your choice,” Sarah says, not sure whether her heart is breaking for him or for herself. If he won’t leave her room, then she’ll leave, and leave him here alone, which is what he deserves. “You choose to have nothing. I hope you enjoy it.”
Tate’s right about one thing. She doesn’t know why she agreed to Play.
But she did agree. That’s what matters now . . . isn’t it?
Her relationship isn’t more important than saving the world. She can’t let it be. If it’s true that she can’t have both, that she has to choose one life or another, it’s no choice at all.
She texts Reena and Christopher, tells them both that she’s sick and can’t go to the formal after all. Then she takes a hammer to her phone and throws the pieces in the trash.
She doesn’t go to school the next day, or the one after that. She doesn’t talk to Tate. She doesn’t think about Christopher.
She trains.
She meditates.
She studies the wolves.
And when Friday comes and the sun dips below the horizon, and all her friends are squeezing themselves into fancy dresses and straightening their hair, Sarah Alopay ventures into the woods.
Into the woods: There are no trails, no campgrounds, no safe havens for sweet young girls. There is only darkness, the whisper of wind through the leaves, the rustle of footsteps, the eyes blinking from the shadows.
Sarah builds a fire, as she’s been taught to do. She could spear a squirrel, roast it on a spit, tear its meat off its bones; she knows how to survive. But this is one night, and hunger is no concern. This night isn’t about survival skills, about lean-tos and water filtration or navigation by the stars.
This night is about the wolves.
The wolves, it is said, are a friend to the Cahokians.
The wolves, it is said, are drawn to the Player, by her power and her need. They know a test is in order, and so they offer it, a challenge red in tooth and claw.
Sarah doesn’t believe in such things.
At least, she doesn’t think she believes in such things.
But here’s what she knows: for generations, every Player has ventured into these woods for a night, and every time, the Player has met the wolves.
She knows there are creatures lurking in the shadows, watching her. She knows they will come for her, and she knows they will be hungry.
One hour passes, and another. Sarah stares into the fire, imagining the faces of the people she loves dancing in its flames. Imagining that her world is burning, will burn, unless she can stop it. She loses herself to the vision, can see the skies set aflame, buildings blazing, bodies falling. She can see Reena, older and even prettier, Reena in a graduation cap, Reena with cartoon shock on her face and her arm torn away above the elbow. She can see the dirt explode beneath Tate, crushing him against earth and stone. She can see Christopher’s body, lifeless and cold, blood pouring from a neat hole at the center of his forehead.
You don’t even know why you’re doing it, Tate accused her, and it was true. She’d agreed to be the Player because an inner voice had told her it was the right thing to do; she’d listened, she’d obeyed, but she hadn’t understood.
Now she does.
She can, in those endless moments of flickering fire, see Endgame, and she knows it is coming for her. Knows these things she sees are promises of what may come, if she can’t find the strength to stop it from happening.
She is the only one who can stop it from happening.
She has to Play, not just for her line, not just for her promise, but for the people she loves the most. She thought Playing was tearing her away from them, but now she sees that Playing will be the only thing that keeps them alive.
She knows, now, what is to come.
She knows she can never give up. That as much as she loves her friends and family, that’s how hard she will work to save them.
She knows this as well as she’s known anything, and then the certainty slips away as quickly as it came, as she blinks herself back to these woods, this night, and sees the wolves.
Five of them have come for her, surrounded her. Gray fur, black eyes, white fangs.
She feels like they’re judging her. Weighing whether or not she’s worthy.
“I don’t care what you think,” Sarah says. The wolves growl, and inch closer. “I don’t care what anyone thinks. I can do this. I will do this.” As she says it, she finally knows it to be true.
As she says it, the largest wolf leaps on her.
They drop to the ground together, a snarling tangle of slashing claws and wild limbs. Sarah slams her skull into the wolf’s nose, and as it howls in pain, she shoves her fist down its throat as far as she can, far enough that the wolf struggles to breathe. Fangs tear at her skin, and somewhere, deep in the back of her mind, there is pain. But she thinks only of the wolf, its gaze fixed on hers, its lungs heaving as it struggles to free itself of her fist, and as she ducks and dances past its lashing paws, Sarah curls her own fingers into claws, strikes at the wolf’s face, and rips its eyeball out of its socket.
A howl of pain and rage shakes the night, and Sarah howls along with it, all her pain and fear and fury unleashed into the dark, and with a mighty heave she flings the wolf’s shuddering, spa
sming body toward its pack.
“Go ahead,” she dares them. “Come at me.”
But the wolves whimper and lower their front legs, touch their noses to the ground in submission, then back away into the woods.
She’s covered in the beast’s blood as well as her own, she’s sliced and scratched and shivering with aftershock, but she’s smiling. Then, alone in the woods, wolves circling, blood dripping from a hundred painful wounds, she’s laughing.
She won.
Sarah sleeps soundly, flanked by three wolves, who guard her against the night. She can feel it, their desire to protect: they’ve judged her, and found her worthy.
She’s judged herself, and concluded the same.
When she hikes out to the rendezvous point, she expects Juliana to collect her, or maybe her parents. But instead, it’s Tate behind the wheel of his rusted Pontiac. He hasn’t driven since he lost his eye—she’s not even sure he should be driving. But she gets in without a word.
“Are you okay?” he asks, and she knows from the concern in his voice that she must look worse than she feels.
“Most of it’s not my blood,” she says, and they drive.
Tate concentrates on the road. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he says, without looking at her.
“Could’ve fooled me,” she mumbles.
“That council lady’s gone, in case you were wondering. She had some kind of dream, then said something about not wanting to argue with the wolves. You get to stay. That’s good news, right?”
“Just because I’m bleeding, you don’t have to pretend to care.”
“Sarah . . .”
He stops for a long time. Sarah fingers the stone pendant hanging from her neck. As always, it warms to her touch. The stone knew before she did. It belongs to her. Whether or not this is how it was supposed to be, this is how it is. What was Tate’s is now hers, and maybe neither of them likes it, but there’s no way back.
She can’t tell him that, though. He’s her big brother; he should be able to figure it out.
“I was jealous. Before. When I yelled at you. That’s why. I wasn’t mad. Just . . . jealous.” It’s like every word hurts him more.
She wants to tell him it doesn’t matter, that she loves him, that she forgives him, that he can do anything he wants if it will make him hurt less.