The sun sank low and washed over the chessboard, staining it blood orange. Fritzsch hadn’t invited an audience, so we were alone. I attempted to focus on the game instead of him, and, when I moved a bishop, a little sound hummed in his throat. Impressed, or simply mocking me, I wasn’t certain.

“You play well for a child,” he said. “Who was your instructor?”

The query elicited recollections of home. Countless evenings playing chess against my father. His patience, guiding me from the most basic strategy to the most advanced. His fingers developing pieces across the board, eyes bright each time I begged for one more game.

His body, pale and glistening with raindrops, piled among dozens in the back of a truck.

The familiar clatter of a chess piece struck the board, never failing to seize my attention. Fritzsch held another at the ready. Before he let it fall, I hastily provided the answer to his question.

“My father.” The words sounded too shrill. I drew a shaky breath and made a second attempt. “He taught me how to play.”

Fritzsch nodded and selected a knight. “When we met on the arrival platform, you were looking for your family. Was your father with them?”

He hadn’t dropped a chess piece, but I flinched as if he had.

I shifted in my chair, attempting to disguise my reaction, and played my nearest pawn. One he easily captured.

“I hope you managed to find them.”

His words wrapped around my throat, preventing my response. Fritzsch held the captured pawn between his fingers, evaluating me with an intrigued gaze, the same one that had sent me to registration. The look that indicated something more, a deeper intention and purpose.

I closed my hand into a fist, though I didn’t have my pawn from Tata to grip this time. Why now? Why ask of my family now? He controlled everything—my name, my punishment, my life, each move intentional, calculated. Fighting tremulous breaths, I dissected every word and glance as if studying a grand master. Something about my family had excited him. But what?

Then it hit me. His game. This game. He enjoyed seeing me react, seeing me remember. He knew something more than I, and this was his way of telling me: Your move, Prisoner 16671.

Could there be more to their deaths? Perhaps I hadn’t considered the possibility because it had been easier to assume that their fates had been the same as countless others’. Now the possibility was before me. I peered at him, certainty filling my lungs. His words were a chess piece too easy for me to capture, baiting me, luring me into my next move. The only way to uncover the truth—to reveal what he knew—was to find someone in this camp who had witnessed my family’s execution.

My strategy for our game forgotten, I made another rash play. This time he placed me in checkmate.