“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m fine. Please tell my mom I’m fine.”
A shadow glided over the surface of the water.
“Don’t shoot her! She won’t hurt anyone.”
“Unless you do shoot me,” Neven sang. “Then I might get peeved.”
The agents didn’t lower their guns.
But they didn’t fire, either.
Neven dove. She swooped inches overhead. One paw latched gently around Dad’s skull while another hooked into his coat. A back paw reached to grab his legs, keeping him more or less horizontal as she dragged him from the water.
A second later, her tail curled around me. I got snapped off my feet. Water churned below.
“Well done,” Neven said. “Hold on to that knife.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“The hospital!” I called at Neven once we’d picked up the other Hazels.
“Not yet.”
“The hospital!”
“I know what I’m doing.” She rose higher. The wind chilled my drenched body. Within moments, Neven reached the flat roof of a dollar store. She gently deposited Dad, then landed beside him with a heavy thud.
“Firstly,” she said, panting, “a dragon my size normally carries only one person. Three, if you absolutely must have a sidekick and a love interest. Five—one of them in my claws making me wildly off-balance—is overkill.”
I was shivering so much I could barely walk. I fell more than knelt by Dad’s side. He lay facedown in the gravel, not moving.
“Sheathe that knife,” Neven said. “Before you do anything else.”
The knife from the canoe was still dangling from my wrist. It hadn’t cut me during the flight, so I doubted it was sharp enough to do damage, but I listened anyway, my clumsy fingers working the blade into its sheath and removing the string from my wrist. I dropped it in the pouch of my I ♥ NJ hoodie.
“Now turn him over,” Neven advised.
“If he has a neck injury, I don’t think we’re supposed to move him,” Red said.
“I’m aware. I tried to keep him steady. Listen: He might have a neck injury. He does need resuscitation. On his back. Move his entire body in one go. Head, torso, hips.”
Red crouched and took Dad’s shoulders. I took his head. Carefully, we pulled him back.
Rainbow and Four stood nearby with wide, anxious eyes. Four’s face was bright red and streaked with tears. She was shivering as much as I was.
Blood trickled from a nasty cut on Dad’s forehead. The front of his coat was split open, showing the wet white fuzz inside.
“Is he breathing?” Red asked.
I placed my face near Dad’s. My hair dripped against him. “I’m—I’m not sure.” He was freezing cold. His normally tan skin was as pale as my own.
“Start CPR,” Neven instructed.
I looked up, frightened. I’m not sure I can, I wanted to say, but I knew her answer.
Don’t be a coward.
“I’ll walk you through it. Zip open his coat.”
With white-numb fingers, I fumbled with the zipper. Diluted red stains blotted the shirt underneath. I peeled it away. I saw precisely where the canoe had hit him; a big half-circle bruise beside his sternum.
“Now, lean in—”
“What if his ribs are fractured?” Dad had gotten hit in the chest hard enough that it seemed likely. “CPR might break them further. Or impale his lungs.”
“Too late. One lung may already be punctured. You need to restart his breathing, or he’ll die. Now listen!”
Red stabilized Dad’s neck as Neven walked me through the process. Hold his nose. Breathe into his mouth. Push against his chest. I was hyper-aware of the others’ eyes on me, of Dad’s icy skin under my hands. With every movement, water dripped from my soaking-wet clothes. It seemed to take forever.
When Dad jerked up and started coughing, then vomiting moments later, I almost sobbed with relief.
It took a groggy minute before he recovered enough to look at us.
“There’s four?” he croaked. “That’s.” He coughed again, his face contorted in pain. Water dribbled from his mouth. “That’s a lot of Hazels.”
“You’re OK?” I restrained myself from flinging my arms around him.
“Dad,” Four whimpered.
“You’re not supposed to move,” Red said hesitantly.
Dad’s gaze lingered first on Four—“You OK?”—then on me. “We were worried, Hazel.”
I wasn’t sure why I was so relieved that he recognized me as me. Of course he would: Between Rainbow’s hair and Four’s MGA-issued coat, that only left Red and me as lookalikes. Red wore braces, and her dress peeked out below her sweater. Dad knew I didn’t wear either of those.
“He still needs the hospital,” Neven said.
No kidding. Dad was wheezing. Judging from the way he balled his fists, every word hurt. He was shivering, too, even worse than I was.
Dad looked at Neven. “You really are helping them.”
I nodded. “She knows about the rift. About us. Everything.”
“You’ve gotta tell Facet.” Dad pushed himself up to a sitting position. “You’ve gotta go back. You’re too far from the rift.”
“It doesn’t matter. The rift is moving—and it’s not responding to me anymore. Plus, if we go back, the MGA might not let us go again.”
“Let you go to do what?”
Good question. To save the world? I wasn’t even convinced myself.
“Can you trust me?” I asked. “We can’t go back yet. We have to do something first. Then the others can go home to their worlds. And I’ll come home, too.”
Dad watched me for a long time—too long, we had to go—and I tried not to linger on the swelling wound on his head or his raspy, wheezing breathing. We shouldn’t wait any longer.
“You’re sure it’s the right decision?” Dad said.
No, I wanted to say, no, God, I’m never sure, and I got you hurt, and—
“Mostly.” A smile twitched on my lips. Nearby, sirens wailed. “We should go.”
Rainbow and I helped Dad stand upright. My feet squelched in my shoes. My too-tight jeans rubbed painfully against my skin.
“Where will you go?” Dad asked as we helped him take a cautious first step.
“You shouldn’t talk,” Rainbow said.
“Talking might distract from the pain.” Red trailed a few feet behind.
I didn’t know how to answer Dad, but I knew Four and I needed to dry up somewhere or we’d freeze. Where could we go? None of us had enough cash for a hotel room, even if we could get one at our age or without ID.
“The townhouse?” Dad suggested. “No, they’ll be watching it.”
“Townhouse?” Red echoed. The others looked just as confused.
Of course. In their worlds, Carolyn had never needed to move away. Their family hadn’t needed a separate city home like mine. “I’ll explain later,” I mumbled.
Dad took a rattling breath. “Try Aunt Lina’s place. She’s away for work. No one there but the cat. It’s at . . .”
“That building that used to be a hotel, right?” Rainbow said when Dad trailed off.
“On North Broad,” Red added. Dad nodded.
I’d known Aunt Lina lived in Philadelphia, but not where. How could these girls who’d arrived in this world only today know more about my family than I did?
Because they’re you, my mind whispered. They’re more you than you are. They were a Hazel Stanczak who knew her aunts and uncle, who could visit her grandparents, who knew exactly which shops in town she liked best.
I kept forgetting. We were too similar in other ways. Even now, the way Four looked at Dad in concern, the way Red bit her lip . . .
I was doing the same thing.
“How will we get in?” I asked.
“The building has a code lock,” Red said. “Aunt Lina’s gone so often, she got one on her own door as well, so friends can easily crash or feed Casper. I mean—right?”
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Dad coughed out a laugh, even though it obviously hurt. “Lina’s the same everywhere, sounds like.”
Once we reached Neven, Rainbow cautiously stepped away from Dad and showed him how best to sit on Neven’s back. Dad seemed more focused on Rainbow herself than her demonstration.
“Huh,” he murmured. “Huh.”
Rainbow ran a hand through her hair, offering a slight smile. “Dad—my dad, from my world, he wasn’t thrilled about it, either.”
“Sounds like a smart man,” Dad rasped. “We’d get along.”
“He’s OK with it now.”
“I have no plans for a dye job, Dad.” I smiled nervously. “You can relax.”
“Good. Good.” He sounded exhausted. I immediately regretted playing along. It was hard to reconcile strong, down-to-earth Dad with this soaked, shaky figure.
“I’ll take two of you to help him,” Neven said. “The fewer people, the faster I fly. I’ll pick up the others afterward. Fill in the new one, would you?” She nodded toward Four.
Red said, “Can I come?”
She and I climbed on, keeping Dad steady between us.
And then we were off.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Aunt Lina’s place was weird.
After dropping Dad off at Temple University Hospital, which had been such chaos that shouts about a dragon in the parking lot barely got any attention, Neven set us down a few blocks from Lina’s apartment building. We walked separately from there; any MGA agents on the streets would spot a group of four Hazels easily amid all the families rushing outside, evacuating with backpacks slung over their shoulders and animals yowling from pet carriers.
Four pushed open Lina’s door and walked right in. She didn’t gape at the exposed brick or arched windows, the same way she hadn’t gaped at the castle-like exterior, the luxurious lobby, or the massive neon letters on the roof. Visiting her aunt in the city had to be normal for her. Visiting another person’s house, period, had to be normal for her.
I tamped down a surge of unease.
My shoes squelched as I followed Four inside. On the couch armrest sat an orange cat who eyed us warily. Lina had left an empty juice container out on the kitchen counter, and some dirty dishes were piled in the sink even though the dishwasher stood open. A stack of mail lay on the dining table, which was covered with crumbs and coffee rings and a used toothpick. I recognized her Post-it–covered refrigerator, which I often saw in the background of our webcam chats.
In my peripheral vision, I caught Four staring at me. “You’re shaking,” she said softly. “You should—you should shower.”
“I’m not the only one,” I said. Four was hugging herself, her skin pale, her clothes soaked. “You go first. You got pulled under. You need it more.”
“It’s fine. I’ll, I’ll . . .” Her teeth were chattering. She backed into the hall without further objections.
I took off my drenched I ♥ NJ hoodie, kicked off soggy shoes and socks, and gratefully accepted the towel Four handed me before she closed the bathroom door. I patted my arms and head with it as I wandered the apartment, leaving puddles in my wake. By the window, I scanned the streets nine stories below for any sign of Rainbow and Red. Everywhere I looked, desperate-looking people had phones to their cheeks, parents dragged along their children, and police shepherded civilians around. Rainbow couldn’t be hard to spot. Not many people outside had hair like hers.
Or hair like Red’s, for that matter.
I’d always known West Ash wasn’t the height of ethnic diversity. I grew up with Dad and Carolyn, of course, and school had Imani and Humberto and others, but all of the school’s nonwhite students and teachers together wouldn’t even fill a classroom.
That’d stood out at me for two reasons: One, because I knew how isolated Caro and Imani always felt in West Ash, and two, because I had a whole contingent of MGA employees to contrast it with, and I’d bet almost half of them weren’t white. I always thought that, sheltered as I was, at least I knew what the country looked like.
Judging by what I’d seen of Philadelphia today alone, I hadn’t known a damn thing. “Almost half” wasn’t as impressive as I’d thought, either. If this was what Philadelphia looked like, TV had been lying to me.
“Too bad you can’t go onto the balcony,” a voice behind me said. I startled away from the window to find Rainbow in the living room, and Red crouching in the kitchen behind her.
I smiled nervously. “Sorry. Hadn’t heard you come in. What do you mean?”
“Old building.” Rainbow shrugged. “Balconies aren’t up to code.”
“They fixed that a few months ago,” Red said, looking up from her crouch. She held a tin of cat food in one hand.
“Not in my world, they didn’t.”
I crossed the few feet to the balcony and tested the door. It swung inward without a problem.
“Oh. Bizarre.” Rainbow blinked.
Red forked the cat food into a bowl. “C’mon, Casper,” she cooed. The cat stayed at a safe distance, unsure what to make of us.
The feeling was mutual. I barely ever saw cats.
Red stood. “Fine, I’ll let you eat in peace.” She seemed so comfortable I wondered whether she’d had a cat growing up. Maybe she still did.
“Hey, Prime?” Rainbow said. “Can I call you that? It’s weird calling you Hazel.”
“Heh. I’ve been calling you Rainbow in my head.”
She cracked a smile. “And the others?”
“Red and Four.”
“That works.” She nodded. “So, um, what did Dad mean earlier, about a townhouse in the city?”
“Oh. That.”
I pictured Rainbow and her—our?—parents and Carolyn all living in West Ash together. No fence, no rift, no Philadelphia townhouse.
I slung the towel around my shoulders. “The MGA has rules,” I eventually said. “Most barns are off-limits. Sometimes, as a safety precaution, the entire lawn is off-limits.”
My words came slow. I’d never had to—never been allowed to—explain anything about the MGA or the rift before. It felt like I was doing something bad. Like agents would burst in and cut me off.
“Even when she was young, Carolyn would ask the agents nonstop questions. They thought it was cute. Doesn’t mean they answered. They tried not to pry into our lives, and we weren’t supposed to pry into theirs.”
“That’s totally different,” Rainbow said.
I shrugged. They were only doing their jobs. “One night about two years ago, during a power outage, agents found Caro testing the doors on the rift barn. In the dark, they didn’t recognize her straightaway. The power outage had them so on edge they almost shot her as an intruder. It’s the only time I remember my parents and Director Facet really fighting. Dad said we only cooperated with the MGA because they’d promised to keep us safe, and Mom was yelling how incompetent Facet’s agents were to almost shoot a kid.
“After a while, Caro started crying. Said she only wanted to know more. Said it wasn’t fair that she couldn’t even invite friends over, and that . . .” I didn’t want to get into all the reasons she’d thought our lives weren’t fair. “Eventually, they decided it was best if Caro moved out. The MGA bought us a townhouse in Philadelphia. Caro lives there full-time. My parents alternate: One spends two weeks at the house with me, while the other spends two weeks in Philadelphia with Caro. Then they swap places. They overlap every other weekend, when Caro stays at the house.”
Rainbow looked horrified. “Mom and Dad don’t live together?”
“They spend time together while we’re at school. They miss each other, but are glad to have time away from the MGA. And it’s not far; we often have dinner at the house together.” I was probably convincing myself more than I was convincing Rainbow. “Caro’s happier in the city. She’s much less angry. She has friends and sleepovers. She joined the Asian-American Society at school. We don’t have that in West Ash.”
I always felt a blend of emotions when
I thought of Caro moving out. Guilt, because it was my shitty situation that separated our family. Relief, because Caro was happier now that I was no longer weighing her down. And loss, because I heard stories about sisters fighting or stealing each other’s stuff, but Caro and I had always gotten along. I missed her.
I offered Rainbow a Welp, what can you do? smile and turned before I could horrify her further. I admired Lina’s Blu-ray collection in a cabinet under the TV, then studied photos on her shelves. Mom and Lina as kids; my grandparents; Lina and Carolyn and me, grinning in a booth at Franny’s; people I didn’t know.
I stepped inside Lina’s bedroom next, where Red was sorting through clothes.
“Aunt Lina is, uh, bustier than us,” Red said, “but her clothes should fit.”
I was checking out the pile of clothes she’d tossed on the bed when Four entered the bedroom, wrapped in a thick bathrobe. SpongeBob pajama pants poked out underneath.
I hadn’t had a chance to study her before. Her hair was the same length as mine and Red’s. The style seemed different, but maybe her hair was just stringy from the shower. Aside from that, the only differences were twin zits on her forehead, red and angry.
The moment I noticed them, Four casually ran a hand through her hair, adjusting two locks on her forehead just so.
Except it wasn’t casual. She was too deliberate about covering the zits. It was so obvious. So . . . so fake.
The thought was unkind, but I couldn’t help it. I recognized the movement; I’d just never seen it from this angle.
“Bathroom’s all yours.”
A nervous smile flitted over Four’s face, revealing too-large front teeth. The smile reached her eyes, but in an awkward way, pushing at her cheeks and lower lids and forming an unflattering crease.
(Why was I noticing—)
“So, is this it?” Rainbow walked up from the hallway. “We’re going to be identical roommates in our aunt’s apartment and somehow save the world? No one thinks that’s weird?”
“Everyone thinks that’s weird.” I’d intended to be funny, but it came out sharp. I needed to stop talking. They’d hate me by morning, if they didn’t already.
The Art of Saving the World Page 7
