“This isn’t fair.” Red’s voice hitched.
“No. It isn’t.”
“There’s got to be another way.”
“Stop,” I said. “You’re making it harder. If I do this, you’ll all get to go home. I can fix everything.”
The knife wasn’t long. It’d be long enough to do the job, though. Would it be fast? Painless? Maybe I should ask Red to look it up online. A sobbing laugh escaped me.
I should just step off the roof.
That’d be simplest.
I climbed onto the ledge.
“Stop!” Red screamed. “This isn’t fair! Why are we even here? We’re supposed to help! Let us help!”
“Don’t do this.” Alpha’s voice was tight. “Don’t.”
I crouched on the ledge, my hands clinging to the stone to steady me against the wind. I resisted the urge to turn. I needed to keep my focus. I’d made the decision, just like Rainbow had said. Tiny decisions, tiny steps. I could be exactly the kind of person I wanted to be. The kind of person who saved her friends and family and everyone else.
All I needed was to let go.
The world below was so vibrant, and the world above so white. I could barely make out the buildings around us. They were faded, overexposed lines and angles. The air felt charged. It crackled on my skin. The hairs on my arms and neck pricked upright. I heard the air, too.
Rumbling. Humming.
We were close, now. I should have stepped off this ledge already.
I wondered whether the Power was watching.
I wondered whether Mom and Dad and Caro—
No, I couldn’t think about them. They’d make me step back instead of forward.
“Not fair,” one of the others slurred. “You coulda let Torrance . . . me . . .”
I looked back.
Four was awake. She lay in the same pose as before, her face twisted in pain.
Red immediately crouched by her side. Four didn’t lose eye contact with me.
“No,” I said quietly. “You deserve better.”
I should have stepped off this ledge already.
“If we deserve better, then so do you.” I didn’t know which one of them said it.
I squinted my eyes shut, trapping tears between my eyelashes. At least I knew that Four had told me the truth in the hospital: The others didn’t blame me. Even knowing that if I jumped, they’d get to go home, they were still trying to stop me—and I understood, I did. I would do the same for them.
I had done the same for them. I’d spared Alpha even when killing her seemed the only option. I’d pleaded to trade my life for Four’s.
Even now—preparing to take my last step—I was doing the same for them. They deserved to go home and kiss their girlfriends and attend their classmates’ birthday parties like I never could—
—I never would—
I should have stepped off this ledge already.
If the Power was watching, I hoped it realized . . .
“Are you watching?” I asked.
I lifted my chin at the glare of the world.
“You’re here. Aren’t you?”
Nothing.
It didn’t want to spoil the moment, I bet. It was watching, rooting for me to move forward, to meet my fate.
I stepped off the ledge.
Backward.
Back onto the roof.
Behind me, I heard a relieved sob. I stood still, catching my breath, not yet turning to face them.
“Neven,” I asked, “can we still escape the rift if we leave now?”
“Our odds are decent. I can take you to the airport the agents were evacuating you to. Hazel, what . . .?”
“Power? I want to talk to you.” I strengthened my voice even as the white seemed to steal it from my lungs. “I want to talk to you about my fate.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
The world thinned around us.
I waited. I pictured myself climbing onto that ledge again, leaping before it was too late—
I was wasting my one chance—
I waited.
The Power appeared on the ledge. It still looked like me, but it no longer glowed. Instead, it looked transparent—faded. I suspected that if I turned, the others would look the same. I probably looked the same.
“This is highly unorthodox,” the Power said crankily.
“You need me to do this.”
It looked down at me balefully.
“You,” I repeated, “need me.”
“I can mold your world with a snap of my fingers. While you’re a child whose biggest talent is to seriously disappoint me.”
I flinched. “Yes. And you need me.”
It glared.
“I don’t know if what you’re doing is a higher calling, a bet, a job, or a game. But I know you want to succeed. And I know you’re not supposed to cheat.” I waited for an answer, then realized that I didn’t need one. “No one said anything about me cheating.”
“You can’t cheat the rift,” the Power snapped. “Just throw yourself off this rooftop so we can all move on.”
“I don’t mean cheating the rift, either.” I swallowed, my mouth dry, my body brittle.
I had to hurry, or I wouldn’t be here to cheat anyone. The rift would kill me and snap itself shut in the process. Forget bringing the others home; I’d have killed them myself.
“You need me,” I said as the Power threw up its hands in frustration, “to win.”
“I’m beginning to think losing would be worth it to watch your pathetic world wrecked.”
“That’ll happen any minute now. The rift will flood into the streets and swallow up the city. If I try to stop it and can’t, I’m a failed hero. That’s fine, right? You already accepted that back in Damford. All this was simply a last-ditch effort to turn things around. No harm, no foul.”
It fell silent, perhaps waiting to see where I was going with this.
“But what if I don’t even try? What if I sit safely on Neven’s back and watch it from afar?” I was shaking. I couldn’t tell if I was scared or angry, or whether the rift was weakening me the same way it weakened the world. “Then I won’t be the one failing. You will be. Try explaining that at home.”
The Power hadn’t moved much before, but now it froze like a still frame in a movie.
I hadn’t been sure.
Now I
