Without looking over her shoulder, she added, “And start taking your clothes off.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
“They’ll be looking for me by now. So once they spot you, they’ll grab you straightaway.” I hoisted myself into the beige sweater and sweatpants Alpha had been wearing. “They’ll want to know why you—I?—weren’t at the vans on time.”
“I’ll think of something.” Alpha squinted at the milky glass of the window. “Don’t see any movement. I’m heading out.”
Even without my glasses—Alpha was wearing them along with my clothes—I could see her fingers prying at the window frame.
“Are you sure?” I blurted out. Worries kept nagging at me, popping up every time I thought I’d argued with and quieted them. What if people saw her come out the window? What if they saw through her act? What if they caught me and thought I really was Alpha and put me right in a coma—
Alpha looked incredulous. “We don’t have time for certainty. And not just because of the damn evacuation. The trolls are getting closer. They’re probably sensing me the same way I’m sensing them. They might be only minutes away. I need to be gone before then.”
I cringed. “You’re right. You’re right.” It still didn’t feel like either of us was ready for this. Alpha looked the part, sure, and based on her easy movements, she’d either recovered swiftly from that coma or she was damn good at faking it, but I couldn’t tell whether that’d be enough. I’d filled her in on as much as I could while we swapped clothes—she needed to know about the past days to impersonate me convincingly—but what if I’d missed something?
Alpha inched the window open. Distant, agitated yells drifted into the room.
There were a hundred more things to say, and no time to say them. I settled on this: “You’re shorter than the rest of us. Try not to stand so close to the other Hazels that anyone’ll notice.”
“Poor nutrition is a bitch.” She yanked the window open. “Good luck.”
“You too.”
She climbed out, quietly lowering the window behind her. I stood immobile. Any moment, people would come bursting through the door. Any moment, I’d hear yells outside, agents rushing toward the window to intercept Alpha . . .
Outside, Alpha turned right and disappeared from my view.
Now what?
I ought to escape the room, but the moment agents went to evacuate Alpha only to find an empty bed, they’d sound the alarm, look around, and notice the cleanly sliced-through lock on the window. From there, it was an easy link to me and my knife. They’d interrogate Alpha-posing-as-me and catch on right away.
Unless the clean slice wasn’t the only thing to see.
Unless there was a more likely suspect to blame.
I took my knife from my sweatpants. Crouching by the side of the bed, I made minor cuts in the bed frame and sliced through the IV. Next, I placed a nearby lamp on the ground as though it’d gotten knocked over.
For a couple seconds’ work, it looked convincing enough.
I jogged to the window in my socks—Alpha had taken my shoes—and made several cuts on the sill. Through the glass, I looked for movement. Nothing. I chanced it, wrenching the window open and slipping through.
I hissed as my feet hit wet, cold grass. The window almost slammed shut behind me—I caught it in time. A frantic look around showed no signs of life. Just the woods behind me, the vans to my side, an empty lawn, and a scorched camera dangling uselessly overhead.
I took my knife and got to work.
When the trolls had taken over Damford, they’d left their mark. Deep gouges had been carved into brick houses; razor-sharp claws had left scratches around windows and locks.
I slashed at the window frame, keeping the cuts shallow and lining them up side by side to look like clawed hands were responsible. Then I cut slashes in the brick below the window, like the trolls had needed to climb up along the barn wall. Next, I sliced into the glass itself, cutting through the metal wire in several places; in other places, I only nipped at the metal with the tip of my knife, weakening the wire without severing it.
Still no sign of people nearby. I strained my ears. People were calling out from farther across the lawn, but whatever was going on, they sounded less agitated than they had a couple of minutes before.
I sheathed the knife, flipped it, and slammed the hilt into the window with full force.
The glass shattered. Several of the metal wires bent inward, snapping where I’d nicked them. I flinched at the noise. Dropping to my knees, I grabbed a handful of dirt from a scorched spot near my feet and tossed it through the cracked-open window. The earth sprayed along the floor.
Good enough.
With drenched socks and freezing cold feet I bolted across the grass. I slid between the ambulance and a van, hit the ground, and rolled under the ambulance.
From my position, I saw a narrow sliver of the lawn. In the far distance, a dozen or so people were moving around the barns. Some walked with determination. Others seemed frantic. No one was running my way; maybe no one had heard the window shatter.
Under other circumstances, that’d have been straight-up impossible. Then again, under other circumstances, I’d never have tried it.
Cold mud soaked into my sweatshirt and pants. Grass tickled at my face. Every second I lay flat and unmoving under this ambulance felt like wasted time.
I needed to wait until the grounds emptied out, though. There were too many people near the rift barn for me to have any shot at freeing Neven.
Nearby movement caught my eye. A group, visible only from the knees down, turned the corner. I squinted, wishing for my glasses. It took far too long to make out their clothing. I counted three agents (their slacks were easy to recognize), Mom (I knew those tan boots), an unfamiliar adult (a researcher?), and three Hazels (their
