“I wish,” Four said glumly.
We spent the next few hours getting carted around Philadelphia and surroundings. Researchers no longer placed bets on where the rift would open next. They compared readings from drones and tensely discussed potential weak spots.
More than once, I ended up hunched over my phone in one of the vans, feverishly reading forum discussions and articles from people who claimed to know what they were talking about. I kept a small notebook I’d brought from home, filled with scribbled brainstorming about the rift and ways to close or block it.
Sometimes us four Hazels were together, sometimes apart. Sometimes out in the wind, huddling near one another for warmth, and sometimes inside a van where they’d take blood, fingerprints, and measurements.
“That was the last one.” A doctor I’d never met before rolled up the measuring tape he’d used to check Red’s height.
She went from standing ramrod straight to slumping.
“Most of you are five eight, give or take a quarter inch,” the doctor informed us. “Only the other girl, Alpha—that’s what you called her, right?—is two inches shorter.”
“How does any of this help close the rift?” Red asked. “Don’t we only have days left? Hours?”
I sipped my tea. It was just the three of us inside the van.
“More information can never hurt,” he said. “These tests will tell us just how similar the five of you are. Like identical quintuplets? Does it go further? Does anything about the alternate Hazels set them apart from people native to this dimension, especially our own Hazel?” He nodded at me. “If there is a difference, is it tied to the rift? Learning about your connection to the rift in turn tells us more about the rift itself.”
“I don’t think there still is a connection,” I told him honestly.
“Of course there is.” He leaned against the counter that ran along the side of the van. “They’re still running analyses. There’s something, that’s for sure, even if they can’t pinpoint what or whether it’s useful. It’s why they’re still bothering with this research.”
After leaving the van, I questioned every researcher I could find about those analyses and that connection. Some researchers I’d already known for years, some I’d only met yesterday. Several looked at my presence like an annoyance. I supposed it was. What good could I do here? I got a B+ in science on a good day. I didn’t know how the Power expected me to be more successful at closing the rift than a team of experts working on a limitless budget.
All the while, the rift pulsed in the air. Sometimes close, sometimes far.
I knew what it was now.
I knew why it did what it did.
I’d seen more of the rift in the past days than I had all of the sixteen years I’d lived alongside it, tied to it like a dog on a leash, and it confounded me now more than ever.
By the time we returned home, evening had fallen.
I stalked across the lawn, my hands jammed into my pockets. The way the researchers grew curter by the hour, the way the agents were constantly talking into their earpieces, we couldn’t have much time left. Maybe we needed to flee. Give up on this shitty plan of mine and escape the continent. It’d only be a matter of time before the rift’s destruction spread to the rest of the world, though.
Red was on my heels. I slowed and studied the lawn. The barn that held Director Facet’s office wasn’t far. Perhaps I could impress on him how badly we needed the MGA’s data. Or perhaps . . .
My eyes lingered on the rift barn.
That morning, the doors had been open. It’d jumped out at me instantly. Now, they were closed. Irregular tire prints streaked the mud in front of the doors. I didn’t remember seeing those, either.
The MGA had brought something heavy into the barn while we were gone. Maybe something too large to fit into the others.
I looked up. The sky was a solid stretch of gray. For the first time since our return, it was quiet. No movement. No whirring sounds.
“No more choppers,” I said softly.
“What . . .?” Red said.
I leveled a steady look at her. “They caught Neven.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
“We have to free her,” Rainbow said.
“How?” I huddled near the tree line with the other Hazels, all of us squished under two umbrellas. Rain splattered down on us, and the wind was biting cold—but we couldn’t talk about this in the house. The MGA could be listening in.
“I dunno.” Rainbow frowned. “If you had your knife, we could distract the MGA while you free her. We’re the reason Neven got caught. It’s not right.”
An engine roared in the distance. A van tore out of the gate and down the driveway. The lawn was busy: agents jogging to and fro, cars parked indiscriminately on the lawn. Several researchers were in a heated discussion.
I could hazard a guess what they were talking about: The world steadily fraying. The imminent rift expansion. Time wasted on me with nothing to show for it. A pissed-off dragon they didn’t know what to do with.
“It isn’t right,” Red agreed, “and besides, we need her.”
I shook my head. “I want Neven out, too, but if we sneak around or go up against the MGA—if we’re anything other than cooperative—they will catch us.”
“A lot of cameras got damaged the night we arrived,” Red said. “We might have a shot. Especially with everyone focusing more on the rift than on security.”
“Focusing on the rift means focusing on us. We’re their biggest clue. They can’t afford to lose us.” Some busted cameras didn’t turn this place into a free-for-all.
“So we leave Neven there?” Four bit her lip as she looked toward the rift barn.
“We don’t have time,” I stressed. “We need to fix the rift.”
“We’re not exactly making progress,” Rainbow said sourly.
“All
