They were looking to me for answers. I felt all knotted up inside. Part of me wanted to back away into the library to escape their questioning eyes.
The Power’s voice echoed in my mind. Don’t let them screw around further. The faster she wraps this up, the better our shot of closing the rift.
“Alpha might . . .” I struggled to put together the right words. “She says she’ll die anyway. The trolls will turn on her. If they do, they’ll have a replacement alpha ready. But if she dies before then and the trolls lose their alpha without warning, then it’ll, um”—I recalled the stuttering repeats on the television—“it’ll confuse and weaken them. At least temporarily. I’m not saying we should do it, just that that’s . . . That’s why . . .”
“It’s a mental connection.” Torrance leaned against the desk Tara was sitting on, head down. She stared at the phone in her hand with unfocused eyes. Her glasses rested on the tip of her nose. I couldn’t tell whether she’d been listening.
“Sorry?” Four said.
“If only the trolls in the house responded to Alpha’s moods, they could be picking up on her body language or pheromones—but trolls across the entire region were suddenly more agitated, all at the precise same moment. It’s a mental connection. Killing her would sever that connection.”
Red cocked her head. “Could we sever it another way?”
“With time and proper equipment, we could experiment and perhaps find a sophisticated means of suppressing the mechanism. But I’m thinking of a cruder approach.” Torrance tore her eyes away from her phone. She looked almost excited. “What about an artificial coma?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“I have everything we need to safely—”
A yell from the main hall interrupted Torrance. “They’re crossing the hedge!”
Other yells and footsteps followed, then a screeching sound and the clatter of metal.
“Gotta go.” Tara slipped off the table and toward the doorway. Two books dropped to the floor in her wake. She walked with a limp—no doubt from the fight earlier—but I hadn’t heard her so much as whimper. “Hector? Hector! Has anyone seen my brother?” Her voice faded into the ruckus.
Four knelt to pick up the books, casting a worried look at the hall.
“I’m going to see what’s happening,” Torrance said.
“Me too.” I pushed the last of my sandwich into my mouth and stepped closer. I doubted I could help; if the trolls were nearby enough for me to use my knife, we had bigger problems than I’d thought. But I refused to twiddle my thumbs waiting for Torrance’s return. Her idea could work, and I needed to know more.
“The rest of you should stay back,” Torrance said. “People here don’t really know what to make of you.”
In the main library hall, a large group—the non-fighters, based on the number of children—was gathering near the office we’d just left, like they were trying to stay out of the way.
Everyone else was mobilizing. The sheriff and two women leaned over a table, sorting through potential weapons—“We really need that extra steel to arrive already,” Torrance said—while others were pulling bookcases into place to block the doors.
“You mean it about the coma, right?” I asked. “It’s not a way to get us to help you kill her?”
“What? No! Jesus.” She shook her head vigorously. “If the coma doesn’t work, I’ll have to report in, but trust me: I want it to work.”
I let the words sink in as I studied people who were double-checking the boards safeguarding the windows. I wanted to trust Torrance. Knowing just how much the MGA had lied, though, I felt like I should be smarter, more skeptical. I didn’t want to be that eager, naive girl the Powers and Neven thought I was.
“Think of it this way,” Torrance said. “To make this work, we’ll need to get up close and risk Tara’s life. If I wanted to kill Alpha, there’d be easier ways.”
I’d never heard something so ominous meant as comfort. I couldn’t argue with the logic, though.
Torrance lightly touched my shoulder. “Let’s give it a try.”
I nodded.
“I need to find Tara’s dad. He’s a nurse; we’ll need the expertise to deal with Alpha safely.” We reached the weaponry table, and the sheriff waved us over.
“You’re the expert, right?” The sheriff took a bent golf club from the table and eyed Torrance. “You know why those creatures’re doing this?”
“Doing what? Attacking?”
“Attacking the library. So far they’ve only shown interest when they’ve seen people going inside, and they’d get distracted soon after. Right now, they’re coming from all directions, like this is an organized attack—how smart are they, really? They communicating using goddamn Bluetooth?”
If the trolls were determined to get in, the library wouldn’t hold. Trolls rose back up every time someone took them down; the humans on our end would stay dead.
Why did they want to get in? Did they know I was here? I hadn’t thought they held grudges. Alpha might be less inclined to forgive and forget, though. Even if she wasn’t consciously sending trolls after me, there seemed to be enough simmering rage or fear for them to pick up on.
A couple of children were crying nearby, near a wall littered with posters and announcements—an author reading, volunteer tutoring, superheroes proclaiming the power of books, and more. Tara sat right below a poster announcing some sort of Dickens festival. She crouched beside a young boy, running her hand soothingly through his hair. Had to be her little brother.
I jogged over. “Hey. I’m the one from the shed.”
She nodded. “Don’t you still have that phone?”
I took it from my pocket and handed it to her. Her index finger grazed mine. I noticed that more than I probably should’ve. “How’s your ankle?” I asked.
“Swollen. But it’s nothing serious.” She peered at me through her eyelashes, the same inquisitive look she’d had in the shed. “You’re the one from this dimension, right?”
I nodded, trying to think of a light-yet-funny response.
Tara was already continuing. “Two other versions of you, dating two other
