The Art of Saving the World

by Corinne Duyvis

  Red stumbled along, trying to yank herself loose. It didn’t work. The agent—was that Valk?—held her tightly and pulled her forward. She even had one hand clamped over Red’s mouth.

  Red made angry muffled sounds. Her hand clawed futilely at the agent’s.

  I was still trying to process the sight when a familiar voice—mine—called across the lawn. “Hey! Let her go?” It had to be Four. Her voice hitched. “What’re you doing?”

  The agents and Red stopped at one of the vans near the ambulance. The agent not holding Red opened the doors to the back.

  “Let her go!” Four cried. “Where are you taking her?”

  “We’re trying to evacuate, kid,” the agent holding the doors said, “and we can’t waste time babysitting someone who’s getting in the way. She needs to be out of everyone’s hair, so she’s leaving early.”

  “You won’t even let us talk—”

  “You’re lucky we’re not taking you with us, too,” he said sharply. “For all I know, you were both in on this.”

  In on what? What was he talking about? I wanted to burst across the lawn to back up Four, but if she wasn’t getting results, I wouldn’t, either. And I didn’t want to give away my location.

  Valk stepped into the van. Red kicked at the doors, but Valk pulled her inside effortlessly. She said something to Red too low for us to hear—an apology, a warning?—then turned toward Four. “We’re just trying to make everything go smoother.” Her voice was tense. “We won’t hurt her.”

  “But—!”

  “Talk to Director Facet.” The other agent slammed the doors shut. Within moments, the van pulled away.

  “Four,” I said, my voice low.

  She looked surprised, then came jogging. “Did you see—? I don’t know where they’re taking Red—I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, we—”

  “What are you sorry for? You tried to stop them.” I inched farther into the shadows until my back was to the barn. Long grass wafted around our legs.

  “That’s not it.” Four’s cheeks were vivid red, probably from both cold and distress. “Red didn’t want to go find Dr. Torrance like we were supposed to. At least, not right away. Red thought—Well, it’s like she said. The chaos of the evacuation gave us a real shot at sneaking in. We could get information or free Neven. We’d lose that opportunity otherwise.”

  I let my head rest against the barn, the wall cool against my scalp. “Oh, no.”

  “I know! I know.” Four shrugged helplessly. “You said it wasn’t a good idea, but Red thought . . . She seemed so sure . . .” Her eyes shone. “I’m sorry.”

  I recognized the shame all too well, and, damn it, I couldn’t even be mad. Not at Red, who’d only tried to take initiative where I’d failed to. Not at Four, who was simply too damn sweet to tell Red no.

  “She found something,” Four said quietly. “I don’t know what. Red went into one of the empty offices. While she looked around, I distracted Dr. Torrance. An agent showed up. He said Dr. Torrance was supposed to be on the next van out. She went to the office to grab some things. The agent came along. I tried to stall them, but it didn’t work. When Dr. Torrance opened the door, Red was hunched over one of the computers. I think she only saw Dr. Torrance at first, because she went, ‘Did you know?’ She sounded spooked. When she saw me, she tried to say something else. It all happened really fast. All of a sudden, the agent pushed me aside to get into the office. Red said something like, ‘They think they can—’ I’m not sure what else. The agent was grabbing her by then. Maybe she said ‘rift’? I really don’t know. I’m sorry.”

  I chewed on my lower lip. I’d been against sneaking around—and for good reason: The MGA had caught Red within minutes—but if Red really had found something to do with the rift, it might’ve been the right call.

  “Whatever Red discovered,” I said, “they don’t want us to know. There are plenty of ways to keep her out of their hair. Instead, they covered her mouth and took her away. Why would they cover her mouth? They’re hiding something.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you think Dr. Torrance knows what Red saw?”

  “I doubt it. It wasn’t her computer, and she seemed freaked out when that agent grabbed Red—she was yelling at him to let her go. She told me she’d look into what was going on.”

  Damn it, even if I retrieved my knife before the MGA found me, what was the point? I doubted I could evade the evacuation, let alone free Neven, find Red, learn what Red found, and act on it, without the MGA noticing I was gone and hunting me down.

  I peered back at the medical research barn.

  There was one way the MGA wouldn’t hunt me down:

  If they thought they already had me.

  “Four,” I said tensely, “didn’t Mr. Ávila say we could wake up Alpha if we needed to? We just needed to take out the IV?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “If you can, buy me time.”

  I was gone before she could respond.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  I took the long way around, crossing behind the medical research barn in order to stay out of sight from the researchers and agents evacuating across the lawn. Once I reached the makeshift parking lot, I slipped between the ambulance and the van beside it.

  I’d known the MGA would search me for the knife; I’d known they’d search the other Hazels; I’d known they might even search Mr. Ávila and Torrance. I’d hoped they’d be too busy to search every inch of the ambulance, though.

  I crouched and reached under the vehicle with one hand. I felt around, wincing at the cold metal on my skin, until my fingers hit slick Scotch tape. Underneath it was the familiar handle of my knife. I tugged it free.

  Yelling erupted from near the rift barn—overlapping voices, panicky shouts—but nothing close by. I edged toward the front of the ambulance. Four stood a couple dozen feet away, cowering in front of an agent.

  Worry flared inside me. I hoped she was simply buying me time, as I’d asked. I had to trust that Four could manage this.

  The agent wasn’t looking in my direction. I chanced it, sprinting the few feet toward the barn. I ignored the main door and turned a corner. If I cut through the door lock with my knife, anyone would know the barn had been broken into.

  They weren’t likely to check the windows, though. I went over a mental map of the barn, situating myself outside of what had to be Alpha’s room. The window was milky glass, with thick metal wire running through it. I slid my knife under the bottom of the frame, sliced through the lock, then pulled it up. Easy.

  I peered inside. Alpha lay unmoving in a bed against the wall, dressed in a beige sweatsuit and half covered under a thin blanket. An IV was taped to her hand.

  Nervously, I checked behind me. The lawn stretched out a couple dozen feet between the barn and fence, which had been shredded in multiple places. Behind that, the woods.

  Off to my left stood the vans and ambulance, which blocked me from view of the rest of the grounds. I still felt exposed. I climbed into the room, quietly lowering the window behind me.

  The room was dim—the light from the milky window just enough to see by—and silent, aside from Alpha’s breathing. No beeping machines, no footsteps down the hall, no distant voices.

  They hadn’t evacuated Alpha yet. A treatment room like this was safer than an ambulance. They were probably leaving her for last. Hopefully, we could make the swap on time. A glance at the clock told me we’d passed Facet’s fifteen-minute mark.

  At least the IV in Alpha’s hand looked familiar; the MGA had hooked me up to a couple IVs over the years for tests, so I knew precisely how to take one out.

  Once the needle was removed, I leaned over Alpha, watching for any changes. Her hair lay in tangled curls on the pillow. Her face looked relaxed, like she was simply asleep and could wake up any moment if I was too loud.

  Elsewhere in the barn, a door slammed. Agitated voices drifted down the hall.

  My head snapped up.

  The do
or had a window at its center. Anyone in the hall would be able to spot me.

  I fumbled to rest the IV on Alpha’s hand, sticking the tape on without reinserting the needle, then shot over to the wall beside the door.

  Right in time. Footsteps stopped just outside the room. I pressed myself against the wall. If they came inside, I was screwed. In a room this small, there was no place to hide.

  “. . . the other girls out before that dragon gets even more upset,” a muffled male voice was saying. “I want this one evacuated separately. Don’t let her near the others.”

  A moan came from Alpha’s bed. She stirred.

  No no no, I mouthed. If she woke up now—if they saw—

  “Yessir.” The footsteps resumed, then faded.

  I bolted back to the bed. Alpha had turned her head, pressing it into her pillow. Her hand shifted. The movement tugged at the tape I’d hastily reattached.

  “Hazel?” I whispered as I removed the tape. She wouldn’t identify with “Alpha” any more than I identified with “Prime.”

  Her eyes opened. She recoiled at the light, as dim as it was.

  “Hazel, it’s OK. Everything is fine.” That was the biggest lie I’d told in my life—we’d failed at saving the world, and were about to fail again—but after a day and night of being comatose, she’d probably be disoriented. Best to wake her up calmly. I hoped the coma meant she’d at least recovered from her sleepless nights around the trolls.

  “Hhhnggh.”

  “Give it a few minutes,” I said.

  She blinked blearily.

  “You’ve been out for a while. It’ll take time to—”

  “Where?” she slurred.

  I hesitated.

  “What . . . happen . . .?” Alpha licked her lips, then tried to push herself up with one arm.

  “The Powers That Be wanted us to kill you. To break the connection between you and the trolls.”

  She squinted. I couldn’t tell whether she remembered.

  “We put you in a coma instead.” I ran a hand through my hair. “It worked. The trolls instantly got weaker.”

  “Where?” Alpha repeated.

  “West Asherton. We’re in one of the barns. I woke you up because . . .” I was figuring out how to phrase my explanation when her hand shot out. It thwacked against the side of my face. Not hard enough to hurt, but—

  Did Alpha just hit me?

  “Home?” The word was half shouted, half rasped. “You brought me back to them?”

  “Shh!” I looked over my shoulder at the door.

  Her hand hit my face again. I hissed. I couldn’t tell whether she’d gone for a punch or a slap, but this one hurt.

  Alpha pushed herself up, trying to get a grip on the sheets. She nearly tumbled off the bed. I caught her in time, one hand holding her shoulder, the other gripping her waist, but she shoved me off. The movement sent her into a coughing fit.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to bring you here,” I babbled, “we just—They had doctors, and you needed to stay comatose, and we wanted you to be safe.”

  Alpha glared up at me. “You knew. And you brought me back.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said again. “Please be quiet. They might hear you.”

  She tried to stand, but sank to her knees instantly. I held her up. This time, she only half-heartedly pushed me away.

  “The agency is evacuating the farm.” My voice was soft and urgent. “The rift is in downtown Philadelphia. It’s about to expand by an awful lot. This might be our last chance to close it. Red learned something we weren’t supposed to know, but agents took her before she could tell us. We need her. And we need Neven—the dragon.”

  Alpha coughed again. This time, she muffled the sound in her arm and peered at the door as though making sure no one was about to burst in.

  When she looked back to me, her glare had lost its venom. “I don’t . . .”

  I was tossing too much information at her. I should get to the point. “You need to take my place with the other Hazels,” I told her. “If you impersonate me during the evacuation, it’ll buy me time to free the dragon and Red.”

  “Bad plan.” Alpha stumbled across the room. Her legs wobbled with every step. Once she reached the sink, she bent over, opened the tap, and eagerly lapped from the stream of water.

  “I know. I’d love to hear a better plan, but if you don’t have one . . . Please.” I checked the clock.

  Alpha turned. Her hands gripped the counter behind her. “Maybe I should stay.”

  “They’ll put you back into a coma.”

  “Maybe they should. There are still trolls; I can feel them. If they reproduce . . .”

  If she felt them, Alpha’s coma hadn’t severed the connection. It’d simply suppressed it. Silently, I cursed. “It doesn’t matter. The rift is the bigger danger now.”

  Alpha looked me up and down for several long seconds. “You’re right. Let’s try. Scissors?”

  “Um—?”

  “My hair is longer than yours,” she said impatiently. She opened drawers and rifled through them.

  “Oh. I have this knife?” I held it up.

  “A hunting knife?”

  She’d recognized the type far too quickly. “Please tell me you don’t hunt,” I said.

  “Of course not.” Alpha took the knife and positioned herself in front of a mirror over the sink. “Dad hunts. I just skin what he brings back.”

  I was so glad the others hadn’t heard her say that.

  Without looking over her shoulder, she added, “And start taking your clothes off.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  “They’ll be looking for me by now. So once they spot you, they’ll grab you straightaway.” I hoisted myself into the beige sweater and sweatpants Alpha had been wearing. “They’ll want to know why you—I?—weren’t at the vans on time.”

  “I’ll think of something.” Alpha squinted at the milky glass of the window. “Don’t see any movement. I’m heading out.”

  Even without my glasses—Alpha was wearing them along with my clothes—I could see her fingers prying at the window frame.

  “Are you sure?” I blurted out. Worries kept nagging at me, popping up every time I thought I’d argued with and quieted them. What if people saw her come out the window? What if they saw through her act? What if they caught me and thought I really was Alpha and put me right in a coma—

  Alpha looked incredulous. “We don’t have time for certainty. And not just because of the damn evacuation. The trolls are getting closer. They’re probably sensing me the same way I’m sensing them. They might be only minutes away. I need to be gone before then.”

  I cringed. “You’re right. You’re right.” It still didn’t feel like either of us was ready for this. Alpha looked the part, sure, and based on her easy movements, she’d either recovered swiftly from that coma or she was damn good at faking it, but I couldn’t tell whether that’d be enough. I’d filled her in on as much as I could while we swapped clothes—she needed to know about the past days to impersonate me convincingly—but what if I’d missed something?

  Alpha inched the window open. Distant, agitated yells drifted into the room.

  There were a hundred more things to say, and no time to say them. I settled on this: “You’re shorter than the rest of us. Try not to stand so close to the other Hazels that anyone’ll notice.”

  “Poor nutrition is a bitch.” She yanked the window open. “Good luck.”

  “You too.”

  She climbed out, quietly lowering the window behind her. I stood immobile. Any moment, people would come bursting through the door. Any moment, I’d hear yells outside, agents rushing toward the window to intercept Alpha . . .

  Outside, Alpha turned right and disappeared from my view.

  Now what?

  I ought to escape the room, but the moment agents went to evacuate Alpha only to find an empty bed, they’d sound the alarm, look around, and notice the cleanly sliced-through lock on the wind
ow. From there, it was an easy link to me and my knife. They’d interrogate Alpha-posing-as-me and catch on right away.

  Unless the clean slice wasn’t the only thing to see.

  Unless there was a more likely suspect to blame.

  I took my knife from my sweatpants. Crouching by the side of the bed, I made minor cuts in the bed frame and sliced through the IV. Next, I placed a nearby lamp on the ground as though it’d gotten knocked over.

  For a couple seconds’ work, it looked convincing enough.

  I jogged to the window in my socks—Alpha had taken my shoes—and made several cuts on the sill. Through the glass, I looked for movement. Nothing. I chanced it, wrenching the window open and slipping through.

  I hissed as my feet hit wet, cold grass. The window almost slammed shut behind me—I caught it in time. A frantic look around showed no signs of life. Just the woods behind me, the vans to my side, an empty lawn, and a scorched camera dangling uselessly overhead.

  I took my knife and got to work.

  When the trolls had taken over Damford, they’d left their mark. Deep gouges had been carved into brick houses; razor-sharp claws had left scratches around windows and locks.

  I slashed at the window frame, keeping the cuts shallow and lining them up side by side to look like clawed hands were responsible. Then I cut slashes in the brick below the window, like the trolls had needed to climb up along the barn wall. Next, I sliced into the glass itself, cutting through the metal wire in several places; in other places, I only nipped at the metal with the tip of my knife, weakening the wire without severing it.

  Still no sign of people nearby. I strained my ears. People were calling out from farther across the lawn, but whatever was going on, they sounded less agitated than they had a couple of minutes before.

  I sheathed the knife, flipped it, and slammed the hilt into the window with full force.

  The glass shattered. Several of the metal wires bent inward, snapping where I’d nicked them. I flinched at the noise. Dropping to my knees, I grabbed a handful of dirt from a scorched spot near my feet and tossed it through the cracked-open window. The earth sprayed along the floor.