The scaffolding tore from the wall. Wooden platforms tumbled down. Metal poles collapsed and clanged and crashed into each other.
I made eye contact with Valk right as the construction clattered down between us.
“Nice.” Alpha took off her glasses. “Here. Your stupid glasses gave me a headache.”
I slipped them on. The world shifted into focus. We stood in a dusty courtyard filled with crates and dead plants, surrounded on all sides by aging buildings. The only ways out were through the buildings or the collapsed path behind us.
Alpha added, “I’m keeping your shoes, though.”
She must’ve said it as a joke, but I couldn’t imagine joking right now. I was panting. My legs trembled from exertion. “You need to get away.”
“We’re working on that.”
“Not we. You.” I licked my lips. “I found the secret to saving the world. My big destiny. Neven confirmed it: I need to die. Me. Not you or Four. You two should get out of here while you can, and I’ll—”
“Um,” Alpha interrupted. “Bullshit?”
“What?”
“You’re saying you can save the world?” She gestured at the sky, white and fragile. Like someone had taken an eraser to it. “Forget Valk’s nonsense. We fight, and we run.”
“It’s not only Valk saying it,” I stressed. “It’s the Powers That Be and Neven. It’s the truth.”
Alpha gripped my hand. “In Damford, I was willing to die to stop the trolls. I know what you’re feeling. But trolls are one thing; I knew how they worked. This rift—how could any of us fix that?”
“You were willing to die?”
“Of course.”
“But you fought when you realized what the Powers wanted.”
“No: The trolls fought. Just because I knew it was the right thing didn’t mean that part of me wasn’t begging for another option. That part of me wasn’t terrified. The trolls picked up on that.”
My voice was brittle. “I’m terrified, too.” This was the one thing that would fix all my failures, and I couldn’t run from it. “Please, for me, please, just escape while you can.”
“We can’t save the world. OK? We can only save ourselves.” Alpha yanked at my arm. Frustrated tears glinted in her eyes. “Come on!” Her hair glared white in the light, a blot devoid of texture. My stomach turned.
The rift was getting worse.
“If I do this,” I whispered, “you can go home.”
Alpha froze. “Home?”
“Just hide. Then I can draw away the agents.”
She was still staring, uncomprehending.
We didn’t have time. The agents had to be trying to reach us. I tugged my arm free, already turning toward the doors to our left. “Please,” I tried, one last time. Then I burst through the doors. A hazy glow hung in the air, painting the inside of the building in muted grays. A restaurant, based on the scattered tables and the bar along one wall. Where was the exit to the street—There, maybe around the corner—?
I slammed into Valk, then scrambled away. She made a grab for me. Fingers yanked at the back of my sweatshirt. She hauled me in with such force I almost fell.
“Get the other one,” Valk told the redheaded agent.
“No!” I yelled. “You have me. Just take me and go! I’m Prime—not Alpha—we swapped at the farm. Take me!”
The agent went around us, deeper into the restaurant—
Alpha stepped around the corner, gripping a dining chair with both hands. It slammed into his chest.
The agent grunted, stumbled.
She lifted the chair and hit him again, this time on the shoulders. He crashed sideways onto the ground. The gun in his hand dropped. A fraction of a second later, Alpha kicked it out of reach.
The agent tried to push himself upright.
The chair hit him on the back of his head. He dropped back to the floor, his body limp.
“Let her go,” Alpha growled at Valk.
Valk looked from Alpha to the agent on the floor. Her grip shifted, pinning my arms behind my back so tightly it was like I’d been cuffed. When she stepped back, I got pulled with her. “You’re being selfish,” she said, seething. “I’m trying to save people. I thought you understood.”
“Run,” I told Alpha. “Let her take me. This needs to happen.”
Alpha’s lips pressed together in grim determination. She stalked toward Valk and me, slipping in between chairs and around tables.
“Stay there!” Valk warned. She fumbled with her gun one-handed, still gripping me tight with the other, and aimed.
Alpha didn’t slow.
Valk fired. My shoulders snapped up to my ears. The sound bounced around my skull.
The bullet slammed into a table in front of Alpha. The surface cracked into splinters. For a moment Alpha froze, staring at the table as though letting her brain catch up.
Then her lips twisted in a sneer. She forged ahead, her gaze fixed on Valk, her hands around the chair flexing as though she were itching to slam it into someone else.
“Run,” I begged. “Please.”
“Cute,” Alpha said. “But no.”
She kept coming, lifting the chair higher. She’d nearly gotten shot and, somehow, she wasn’t scared.
Somehow, she wasn’t sc—
The second shot sent her blood spraying.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
If Alpha cried out, I didn’t hear it. My own shriek cut through every other sound.
The chair fell from Alpha’s hands. She crashed into the table behind her. It dragged across the floor with a metallic screech. She almost slid to the ground, but managed to keep herself propped up, one arm on the surface of the table. The other hand groped for her side. She pressed against the wound. Bright wet blood glimmered on her clothes and hand. She breathed fast, shallowly.
“Hn.” Pain flashed over her face. “Hnnn. Could be worse.”
“Are you— How bad is it?” I asked. Worry churned in my stomach. If she could talk, if she wasn’t panicking . . . Maybe it was just a scrape like in the movies. Alpha had to be OK. I’d come all this way to save her so she could finally go home, finally see her father and her Tara again—I couldn’t lose her now to a
