“Do you want to practice again later?” I asked.
“No,” Alpha said. “I’ll wait it out.”
“And if you wait it out and”—get killed—“the trolls appoint a new alpha, will the rest of the world be any better off?”
“Probably not,” she conceded. She wrapped one arm around her legs, the other resting casually by her knife. She studied a troll by her feet. It looked up with feverishly eager eyes. “They’ll be more organized. They’ll be far more vicious with someone actually steering them instead of calming them.”
“Even more vicious?”
“Yeah. This is nothing. Right now, the trolls are protecting their territory, nothing more. They’re scattered and aimless. They’re not even merging.”
“Uh,” I said, “merging?”
“They can get huge. Sounds fun, doesn’t it?”
“So we need to defeat them soon. With you in charge, we have at least one advantage.”
“You can’t defeat them,” Alpha said, exasperated. “You can organize and ward them off. Or you can stay on the run and learn to avoid them. Eventually, there’ll be so many they’ll split into factions. They’ll be distracted fighting each other half the time. Listen. I can’t help. I’ve been trying for days. I’m not the solution.”
I tried to smile. “Thanks for trying.”
The TV showed shaky images of people getting pulled from a collapsing building. The rift had opened inside an apartment tower and ruptured a gas line.
Maybe the news wasn’t the best distraction, either.
Hell—what was? I could only guess at everything on Alpha’s mind. Exhaustion. Longing for home. Rage at the MGA. Fear of her fate. Guilt over the trolls’ rampage. And, if she had any sense, resentment toward me.
I didn’t have even half of that to deal with, and I couldn’t make my brain shut up. Why did I think half an hour of concentration exercises would do the trick for Alpha?
She was right; she wasn’t the solution.
On the screen, a firefighter carried a soot-stained child from the wreckage. The kid wasn’t moving.
“Can I . . .?” I held out my hand for the remote, then changed the channel. Rift. Rift. More rift. I settled on what looked like a harmless documentary. I needed to join the others at the library and figure out how the hell to defeat the trolls, but I couldn’t leave Alpha alone with those sights on the screen.
“. . . have to prepare for the worst. In any company, especially a start-up like this, losing a leader unexpectedly can be disastrous. The work floor is thrown into chaos. Teams fall apart. For a time, the company is extra vulnerable to takeovers and bankruptcy. If a leader dies, the whole organization may follow.”
An obnoxiously loud oatmeal ad came on. I switched to another channel.
“Thing is,” a sunburned guy said, gesturing at a pasture, “these sheep need leadership. As a flock, they’re strong. On their own, they get confused. And the wolves know that, so they go after the shepherd dogs, first. Eliminate the dog, and the flock is ripe for the taking.”
I frowned. Changed the channel again. Footage of a twentysomething guy in front of an empty office floor. “If a leader dies, the whole organization may follow.”
This wasn’t right. I glanced at Alpha, suddenly nervous. I wasn’t alone. The trolls around her feet were upright, claws twitching. I hit the off button on the remote. The channel changed. A sunburned sheep farmer filled the screen. “Eliminate the dog, and the flock is ripe for the taking.”
According to the information bar, this was a music channel.
I suddenly, vividly remembered what Neven had told us earlier. About the car alarm that alerted the trolls, and how the Powers might’ve triggered it. About how they dropped hints. Gave nudges.
A pair of trolls entered the room, mouths open to reveal stubby teeth.
“. . . thrown into chaos . . .”
Alpha had turned pale white. A troll leaped off the couch. It stalked at me, letting out a rasping snarl.
I stepped back. “No. No, we wouldn’t—”
“So I am the solution.” Alpha sounded hollow.
Several other trolls turned toward me, hatred in their eyes.
I had my answer. I knew what the Powers wanted us to do.
We needed to kill Alpha.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“I swear!” I stumbled into the kitchen. “We’re not going to—!”
A troll snapped at me. I flung the remote at its skull and yanked my knife from my pocket. I swung—I ran—I pleaded—but Alpha’s only answer came in the form of the trolls on my heels. One troll came barreling through the open kitchen window. Shit, this was freaking Alpha out so bad that surrounding trolls were flocking to her rescue.
I couldn’t blame her. What the Powers wanted—No, I had to be wrong. I could’ve misread the signs. It could’ve been a coincidence.
In no world could killing a teenage girl be considered heroic.
Getting mauled by trolls wasn’t heroic, either. Escaping came first.
I burst through the front door and sprinted across the front yard. Movement on my right. I swerved left. Cold wind gusted past me and I gasped for breath, determined to keep going. Behind me, the trolls’ nails tapped rapidly against the pavement, like hail pelting a window.
They’d reach me any second now. I was tempted to look over my shoulder. Instead I crashed down the street, wind tugging at my hair. The trolls’ patter was getting closer—and it wasn’t just coming from behind me.
In front of me, several trolls turned onto the street. They bolted straight at me, some on all fours, some skittering sideways.
I turned so abruptly I nearly lost my footing. Couldn’t go back, couldn’t move forward. I sucked in cool winter air with erratic gasps. At least a dozen trolls were barreling
