I spun Tara’s chair around so I could lean over her desk for another spoonful of soup. The bowl was surrounded by notebooks, a big sketchbook covered in stickers, and several pens in various shades of green. A couple of anime-style drawings hung on the wall.
I felt like an intruder. Being in Aunt Lina’s bedroom had been wild, but being in a stranger’s room was worse. Especially a stranger who was my girlfriend in another world. (A bra lay on one corner of Tara’s desk. Charcoal. Silver accents. I tried not to look.)
“This is good soup.” It was cooling off, though. We’d been at it longer than I’d thought. “Have you been cooking for yourself since coming here?”
“Who else is going to do it for me?” Alpha watched me warily.
I ducked my head, embarrassed. I could barely make myself lunch and breakfast. Even though Alpha was my age—down to the minute—she felt older than that. Like a senior, or even a college student.
My attempts at friendliness didn’t seem to relax her. The trolls scratching the outside of the bedroom door were hard to ignore. “Maybe you could focus better if you close your eyes.”
“Hell no,” Alpha said. “I’m not closing my eyes around these things.”
“I thought they didn’t hurt you?” Us?
Her jaw clenched. “I told you that trolls never have non-trolls as alphas for long. There’s a reason for that.”
“You think they’ll turn on you?”
“I’ve seen it happen. I doubt they’re impressed with my leadership. All I can do is keep them calm to minimize damage in the meantime.”
Slowly, I realized her meaning: Alpha expected to die.
She’d finally escaped captivity, only for the very creatures that destroyed her world to destroy her, too. How could she be so calm? Like she was simply waiting it out.
Then again, what choice did she have? She’d tried fleeing, but the trolls followed her. She’d never win a straight-up fight with trolls that refused to stay dead. While the MGA could protect her or fly her somewhere the trolls couldn’t follow, she’d never go with them willingly.
The only solution was to defeat the trolls before they turned on her, and we weren’t progressing on that front.
Alpha was going to die. And she just accepted that.
Even now—an exhausted ball of nerves in pajamas—Alpha was a thousand times tougher than me. The resemblance ended at our skin and our name.
She should’ve been the Chosen One.
Not me.
Alpha reached for her soup on Tara’s nightstand, belatedly realizing the bowl was already empty. She ended up wiping spilled soup from the nightstand, then straightening the pillow on the bed. Her eyes darted around the room, like she was looking for something else to keep busy with. She resorted to picking at her fingers in her lap. “This isn’t working. The trolls are only getting more agitated, not less. You should go.”
It was all a distraction. The cooking, the TV. Alpha had been occupying her mind in order to keep the trolls calm. And if she was hesitant to close her eyes around them, and they insisted on being by her side every minute of every day . . .
“Have you been sleeping?” I asked.
“Doesn’t matter.” The veins creeping into the whites of her eyes told me enough.
“You should . . .” I had no business telling her what to do, and her hard look made me think she agreed.
Alpha’s head snapped to the window. “Someone’s coming.”
Moments later, I heard the sound of a car, and the skittering, scratching sound of trolls moving through the house.
“No, no. Keep driving.” Alpha drew her legs onto the bed and held on to them tightly. “Don’t attack, don’t attack, don’t attack,” she murmured, staring at the troll, which was in turn staring at the window.
The sound of the car faded. A long breath escaped her.
Had this been her life the past days? I hesitated, then said, “What if sleeping helps calm the trolls down?”
She snorted. “Not the kind of sleep I have.”
“Nightmares?”
“Most of the time. Sometimes the opposite. I’ll dream about being back home with Tara and Dad. Sometimes Mom is there, too, alive again.”
I jerked at those words. In her world, Mom was—
God, that thought was chilling.
Alpha continued, either not noticing or not caring about my reaction. “Those dreams are nice. Until I get this itchy feeling that something’s wrong. Until I wake up and see I’m not back. Until I remember I might never go back. Until I realize that even if I do miraculously make it home, I might be returning to nothing at all. It’s been years. Who knows what might’ve happened to them.”
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
“My Tara draws, too,” Alpha said abruptly. She stared at the drawings on the desk.
I swallowed a lump. My thoughts were still stuck on what she’d just said. Still, I remembered Rainbow’s shining smile when she talked about Tara. This topic might distract Alpha.
“I think it’s fan art.” I attempted a smile. “I don’t recognize the characters, though.”
“My Tara carries a sketchbook everywhere. Not fan art. We don’t really have internet like you do in this world.” She studied the room. “It’s strange, seeing how my Tara would’ve lived.”
“How did you two meet?” I asked.
“My parents and her dad were in the same troop when I was eight. Troop—that’s a group of about half a dozen adults and older teens who scout ahead to make sure it’s safe. Even after we broke off from the troop, our families stayed friendly. When Tara’s dad died, we took her in.” A muscle twitched in her jaw. The troll on the bed tensed.
As much as I wanted to know more, this seemed like the wrong tack. Questions about Tara were too close to questions about Alpha’s home; either topic could upset her more. I ran a hand through my hair. “You said you wanted to go downstairs?”
Alpha shot up like she’d been waiting for the go-ahead. The second she opened the door, trolls surged around her. She stiffly descended the stairs. Trolls followed along on all sides of her.
By
