“Fail-safe,” I echoed. “Once the Chosen One dies, there’s no need to keep the rift open.”
“Yes.”
“Is this the solution you meant, right before we left Damford? When you said I could still save the world?”
“Yes.”
“You convinced the Power to give me a second chance.”
“Yes.”
“You wanted me to die?”
“Wanted?” Neven said. “No.”
“But it’s what you meant.”
“Yes.”
I looked at the shards of glass around me. I felt like grabbing one of those chunks. I felt like flinging it against the wall. I felt like screaming at Neven.
I felt like crying.
Slowly, slowly, I said: “So, I die. The rift closes. And—as per the deal—the Power sends the others back.”
“Not necessarily.”
My head snapped back to Neven. “There’s another way?”
Her silhouette jerked. “I’m sorry. No. I meant . . . The Power will only send the others back if its hero succeeds.”
“In this case, success means my death.”
“Yes, but—” She cut herself off. “People are coming.”
I watched her, the words not processing, until I heard the tinny sound of footsteps bouncing off the walls. Right as I turned, someone called, “Found her!”
Agents sprinted down the hall toward me. The emergency lighting cast them in a wan glow.
There wasn’t time to free Neven before the agents reached me. I no longer really needed to, though, did I? I no longer needed to get Neven out, no longer needed to find Red, no longer needed to wonder what secret Red had discovered on those MGA computers. The MGA must’ve figured out the same solution I had. It was the logical answer. The only reason it’d taken me so long to find was because I’d already ruled it out.
I’d gotten what I’d wanted. I knew the answer, finally.
I needed to die.
Methodically, I sheathed my knife, then stuck it in a pocket of Alpha’s muddy sweats. I raised my hands, palms out, and waited for the agents to reach me.
“Hazel?” Agent Sanghani stepped into the room, her voice and movements cautious.
“It’s OK,” I said. “I won’t run.”
Her eyes flicked to the damaged glass wall behind me.
“Oh, shit,” a second agent muttered. It took me a second to recognize him as Agent Emerson, who’d often been stationed by the gate.
“You all right?” Sanghani asked me. I didn’t know how to answer that question. “Why did you swap places? We’re only trying to keep you safe.”
“It’s OK,” I repeated.
She tugged her head toward the hallway. “Are you going to cooperate with us?”
“There’s no need to evacuate.” My voice sounded far away. “I know.”
“What?”
“I know the solution. It’s OK. You can kill me.”
“What?” She looked aghast.
“My death will close the rift. Your researchers figured it out already. That’s why Red got taken. Right? She found the solution on their computers. I don’t know why no one’s tried it yet. Maybe they weren’t sure. But they’re right. It’ll work.”
The agents gave each other a sidelong glance. Even without my glasses, I could see Sanghani’s eyebrows scrunching together in a frown.
“Do you think that’s what they’re doing?” Emerson asked her.
“Shit,” Sanghani said. “Hazel, how are you so sure?”
Emerson went on: “Does it have to be you, Hazel? Would it work with the other girls?”
“Has to be me.” I sounded numb. My hands dropped to my sides. “Why do you ask? Are the others OK? What do you mean ‘what they’re doing’? Who?”
Both agents hesitated.
Fear slithered in like wind whistling through the cracks. “Are the others OK?” I repeated. “Tell me!”
I’d wondered why, if the MGA knew how to close the rift, they hadn’t tried to kill me yet. Maybe yet was the operative word. Maybe they wanted to try with the others. Maybe this was their plan for Red.
“We don’t know where they are,” Sanghani admitted. “Earlier, when we realized you and Alpha had switched places, we went to find her. A group of agents had just taken her and another one of the girls from the evacuation. Apparently, Director Facet had given them instructions for a last-ditch effort to fix the situation. We didn’t get any details. The other two girls stayed with the evacuation.”
I shook my head. My hair, heavy with dried mud, swung against my face and shoulders. “No. No, you have to call them!”
“We can’t,” Emerson said. “Our communication systems are fried. The rift disrupts all signals.”
“We have to—”
“We have to get you to the evac team, is what we have to do,” Sanghani said sharply. “We’ll talk there.”
“There’s no time. Where’d those agents go?”
Emerson took my wrist. “Let’s move.”
I tried to yank loose. “No! No!” Alpha and that other Hazel might already be dead. Would the researchers kill them straightaway? Why wouldn’t they?
I couldn’t accept that. Maybe the others had escaped. Maybe I had time.
“Neven!” I yelled. “How long would it take the rift to close once I die?”
Her low voice rumbled behind us. The agents started. “As large as it is now? Ten minutes at minimum.”
Even if I sacrificed my life right here, right now, even if I fixed everything . . . the agents who’d taken those two Hazels might not know in time.
They might still kill them.
“Go,” Neven said. “Save them.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
I tried to scramble past the agents. Pain flared as Emerson’s grip on my wrist tightened. I yanked again, uselessly.
Neven climbed to her feet. Her distorted form behind the glass lurched, then—slam. She threw herself against the wall. The room trembled.
“The car!” Sanghani’s head whipped around to me and Emerson. “Go!”
I reached for my knife, but Sanghani beat me to it. The sheath brushed past my fingers as she snatched it away. Then I was stumbling along, one agent in front and one behind.
I tried to stall—to pull free, to scrape to a halt, to yell at them—but nothing worked. Behind us, Neven was still flinging her weight into the glass. The thudding faded the farther away we got. Under normal circumstances, she’d easily break through that weakened wall—but those drugs in her system slowed her down.
If I was
