I shouldn’t be judging them. They didn’t want to be here any more than I did. They’d lost their worlds and nearly fallen to their deaths and more, all because of me. And if that conversation in the parking garage was anything to go by, they were far braver than I was.
I breathed deep and headed their way. As I came within hearing range, they fell silent. Their eyes flicked at me. They’d been talking about something they didn’t want me to hear.
I couldn’t turn back now. “Got any more of those cereal bars?” I offered a cheerful smile, like nothing was wrong.
Was it cheerful? It could be that awkward smile I’d seen on them. Maybe they recognized it on me, too. The smile fell.
“We should get going,” I said abruptly. “Damford is half a mile away. We can eat while we walk.”
We’d made Neven rest back in Philadelphia, but I didn’t want to delay any further. I could nearly hear her say: And what did you do? You had a picnic. You did some stretching.
The others didn’t argue.
We left Neven behind—she’d stay out of sight and keep an ear out in case we needed her—and set out. There was a single main road to follow, and we trudged along beside it, devouring the little food we’d brought.
Several times, I almost broke the silence—I wanted to talk about something inane or ask questions about their lives and worlds. I stopped myself each time.
I didn’t know how to act. I felt see-through. Exposed.
“What do we think this fifth Hazel is doing out here?” Red wondered. “We spotted that photo by pure luck; we could’ve easily missed her.”
“Maybe she’s hiding from the MGA,” Rainbow said. “Same way we hid at Aunt Lina’s.”
All the way in Damford? I doubted it. Hazel Five’s presence had to be related to the trolls. There wasn’t much else here. While there were more signs of habitation the closer we got—a farmstead, a 24/7 diner that seemed curiously abandoned, signs pointing to a golf shop—for the most part it was a blur of field-hill-trees-barn-grass-road-trees, with faint mountains on the horizon.
I walked fast. My breath made little puffs in the air. The signs by the side of the road were increasing, advertising everything from a KFC to three different auto shops to the biggest used bookstore in the region. I glimpsed buildings above the trees ahead.
“Car,” Four reported from the back of the group. We took cover behind a copse of trees.
“So there is life out here,” Rainbow said.
“Look.” Red pointed. “It’s stopping.”
The car’s brake lights flared as it disappeared behind a curve in the road. A moment later, I heard the distant sound of car doors opening.
Instead of returning to the road where we might be spotted, we cut through the trees and climbed up a low hill. I brushed spiderwebs from our path, and prickly plants snagged at our pants.
“Oh, wow,” Four whispered.
A dead deer lay at the base of a tree, deep red slashes across its body. One eye was gouged out. Scratches covered its face.
“Looks like a fresh kill,” I said.
They looked at me in unison.
“I don’t hunt!”
Rainbow raised her eyebrows. “Sounds like something a secret hunter would say.”
Red crept closer. “It hasn’t been eaten. Maybe those trolls did this. Still, you’d think animals would scavenge the body.”
“Unless they’d been driven off.” I hadn’t heard any birds. Nothing flying up from the trees when Neven landed, no chipmunks or squirrels fleeing as we trudged through these woods . . .
I worried at my lip, then abruptly stopped when I realized what I was doing. “Let’s keep moving.”
As we walked, Rainbow unhooked her backpack and silently passed out the weapons. She took the claw hammer. Red got the baseball bat, and Four the carving knife. I still had my hunting knife.
As we reached the top of the hill, voices trickled through the trees. I crouched. The others did the same behind me. We peered through the trees down at the road.
The car that’d passed us—a silver sedan—had come to a crooked stop before a roadblock. Two men wearing baggy camo pants stood nearby. One carried a golf club. The other had what looked like a shotgun strapped over his shoulder. On the other side of the roadblock stood a battered pickup truck.
“. . . to turn back, all right?” Shotgun Guy was saying. “We’re just trying to keep people safe. The area’s had some nasty animal attacks.”
“Trolls,” Red whispered by my side.
“It’ll take ages to go around!” An older man—judging from his hair; I only saw his back—stood beside the sedan. “What’re you supposed to be, anyway? State police? Got any ID?”
“Concerned citizens.” Golf Club Guy smirked.
My chest felt suddenly tight with nerves. That smirk, the weapons, the abandoned roads . . . Those guys could get away with anything they wanted.
At home, the MGA protected me wherever I went. The rift might blow up and kill us all, sure, but I’d never had anything to fear from other people.
For the first time, I felt the agents’ absence sharply.
Even if these men meant well—and they probably did, if they were stopping people from going into troll-infested areas—the next people we met might not. How did anyone do this? Go out into the world every day and trust that none of the strangers you passed would hurt you? Knowing that if they did, help might not come in time? The thoughts raced through my head in the space of a second. My throat felt dry.
“Concerned citizens?” The sedan driver scoffed.
“Sheriff-appointed concerned citizens,” Shotgun Guy said. “We put up signs. If you missed ’em, that’s your fault. If you ignored ’em, that’s your fault, too. If you heard about our situation and came to snoop, well . . .”
“Situation?” the sedan driver said. “You mean the animals?”
“What could some animal do to us? We’re in a car!” a woman called from the passenger seat.
Golf Club Guy pushed himself away from the roadblock. “You heard about Philadelphia?”
“No,
