The city throbbed with life. Whites alternated with flickers of too-vibrant colors—trees with poison-green leaves and electric-orange trunks; cars with radiant shades of aqua and fluorescent pink. The air smelled of earth and fresh-cut grass.
I’d been so sure about what I needed to do, back at the farm and in the car and running down those Philadelphia streets. I hadn’t doubted it once. I’d been looking for the answer for days—for my whole life—and once I’d received that answer, I embraced it.
I could help. It was all I’d ever wanted.
But now, standing here, I couldn’t get my body to listen.
Coward, I thought quietly, and did not move.
A sound behind me. I turned. Through a haze, through endless white cotton, I saw Neven land near Four. The others climbed off.
“Facet’s with the van,” Rainbow told me. “He has the agents tied up in the back.”
She crouched by Four’s side. Alpha did the same. Neither seemed surprised; Neven must’ve filled them in.
Only Red hesitated. “You should get away from that ledge,” she said to me, her voice full of concern. “The rift is too close.”
She wasn’t wrong.
I watched the rift, mesmerized. A small climb, a tiny push forward, and I’d be tumbling down into it. An easy death. A fitting one. Perhaps a painless one.
“Four’s not waking up,” Alpha said.
“She’s sedated.” My voice was distant. My hands were on the ledge.
“Why?”
“So she wouldn’t struggle. So it wouldn’t hurt if the rift meant her death.”
“What are we doing?” Red craned her neck up and took in the white of the world. “It’s . . . It’s too late to do anything, isn’t it?”
It wasn’t. Not yet.
I simply had to jump.
So why hadn’t I already? It’d be even harder with the others watching me. If I’d jumped sooner, maybe they’d never have needed to know what happened to me—they’d just have found themselves transported home and thought each of us lived a happy ending.
I wished the agents had taken my offer. They could’ve sedated me like they had Four. If I had to die, I at least wanted it to be painless. I wanted a slight jab in my arm. I wanted my eyelids to flutter as I saw my last glimpses of life, then drift off and never know what happened next.
“Prime?” Red said. “We need to go. Four needs help.”
“That rift isn’t getting any smaller,” Alpha added.
Maybe I should ask Neven to take me to Torrance and the agent on that other rooftop. Surely they’d help me, surely they’d be grateful I offered myself up, right? They’d do the hard part. And—
And that wouldn’t be enough, I realized.
Neven had told me. She’d told me, right when I’d freed her back at the barns.
“Success requires more than my death,” I said aloud. I waited for Neven to confirm, tuning out the others’ gasps.
“What? No—”
“You’re not—”
“Listen, if Valk—She didn’t have all the information—”
I closed my eyes to block them out. “My death would save the world. But for the Power, success means its Chosen One saving the world . . .” A memory came to me; Neven’s words from when she’d explained the rift to us. “Through an act of heroism.”
Neven nodded silently.
I turned my head away. My breathing came hard and shallow and painful.
My death would close the rift no matter what. But for the Power to see it as a satisfying conclusion to our deal, for it to send the others home . . .
“Not all deaths count,” I whispered. “It needs me to do it myself.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
“No way. No!” Rainbow vigorously shook her head. “That’s not the solution!”
“Why you?” Alpha demanded. “How can you be sure?”
I stared at the rift below. “The rift is linked to me. My death will trigger it to close. A fail-safe.”
“If you’re connected, we might be, too,” Rainbow said. It sounded like her, at least. “It doesn’t have to be you. It might not even work.”
“It will. It already did back in Damford. I died. Remember? It worked then.” I looked over my shoulder. Realization dawned on their faces. “It has to be me. Your connection isn’t as strong as mine.”
I wouldn’t let you do this even if it was.
“But . . .” Red didn’t finish.
“I’m sorry,” Neven said.
“Yeah?” My voice was thick. “You’re the one who suggested it. You and the Power, making us think we could be heroes.” The word sounded so silly now, so immature and childish that I wanted to shake my old self by the shoulders and tell her she should’ve known better.
I could only be important by being a tool.
By dying.
Someone like me couldn’t do it any other way.
“What else could I have done?” Neven asked.
I hadn’t realized how angry I was until now. It was this heavy coil in my chest, fighting its way out. I wanted to tell Neven a dozen things she could’ve done—stand up to the Powers That Be; make them board up the world; tell me instead of letting me search and panic and hope—
But it wasn’t Neven I was angry at. Without her, the Power would’ve taken its leave already.
If she’d stood up to the Power, it might not have agreed to her proposal at all.
If she’d told me the solution, the Power wouldn’t have counted it, wouldn’t have agreed to send the others home. It’d wanted me to come to the realization myself.
“OK. OK. Fine. Fine. Fine.” I wasn’t sure what I was saying, all panicked garbled words. “Fine.” I peered over the ledge. Why wasn’t I jumping?
I could use my knife instead. I took it out. Its bright white shine melted into the background. The Power would probably give points for style; it seemed like the type.
“This can’t be it!” Rainbow shouted. “Neven, you have to stop this. The Power, it—it wants a happy ending! It wants her to win! This can’t be it!”
Neven sounded neutral. “The Power
