She slammed into the ground.
I got jolted off. Smacked into the asphalt.
Neven slid along the street, half on her side, half on her belly, her legs squished beneath her. The net dragged along behind her, hooked around a back paw. A parked car brought her to an abrupt stop. Metal crunched.
“On,” Neven groaned.
I pushed myself up. Slow. Slowww. My ears were ringing. Everything felt far off.
“On!” Neven pulled herself from the dented wreck of the car, shaking the net from her foot. “Get. On. My. Back.”
Neven limped toward me and another Hazel who’d fallen off and was sitting on the street a few feet ahead of me. She looked around in a daze. Her cheek was scraped open.
The remaining two Hazels sat on Neven’s back, looking shaken.
My coat was ripped. My glasses lay by my feet, bent but miraculously intact. I took them. Stuck them in my coat pocket. My head thumped. Everything still seemed hazy, but—I only had to reach Neven. I could do that.
Agents were running at us. A couple had stayed outside the building with the vans and must’ve seen us fall.
Like they cared.
They were the ones who’d dropped the net on us.
“Hazel.” Neven nodded at the ground near me. “Your knife.”
It lay on the asphalt, the sheath still attached. It must’ve come loose from my wrist. I obeyed without thinking, and I walked toward Neven with unsteady, clumsy legs. I climbed onto her back just as the first agents reached us, yelling my name.
Neven ran down the street, stumbled, pushed off—and we were gone.
When we landed—what, half an hour later?—my body still ached. Neven had managed to shake the helicopters coming after us and slid onto the fourth floor of an airport parking garage, hidden from anyone watching from the skies.
We climbed off her back and collapsed onto the cold concrete.
I took my glasses from my pocket, bending the bows straight as best I could and putting them back on. The world sharpened.
In front of me, one Hazel pulled up her pant leg and grimaced at a bloody scrape on her knee. Either Four or Red. I checked her forehead. Sweat pasted thick locks to her skin, obscuring where Four’s zits or Red’s lack of zits would be.
“I’m Red,” she said.
I looked away, embarrassed.
Red and I weren’t the only ones injured. All of us had scrapes from the net or Neven’s rough scales.
Neven sank into a sitting position. She kept one paw off the ground. Between her toes were red cracks where the net had sliced into her flesh. One thick claw had broken off. Blood covered the entire toe.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
Her eyes flicked to meet mine. “This was not your doing.”
“I didn’t cut the net in time.” And it was my world that’d done this to her. My agents. My Director Facet.
“At least you cut it,” Red said. “If not for that—”
“We’d be blots on the pavement,” Rainbow finished.
“Are you all right?” Four asked Neven.
Neven exhaled sharply. “I’m in significant pain. My pride is injured. I feel vexed at those responsible. I hope that summary is sufficient, because I won’t expand on it. Clear?”
Four looked like someone had slapped her. “Clear,” she whispered.
“Appreciated.” Neven slumped to the floor. She rested her head on her uninjured paw. “Please carry on.”
We stared until Red broke the silence. “How did you cut the net?” she asked me. “Neven couldn’t. We couldn’t.”
“I guess my knife is kinda sharp.” I said it lightly, but I’d wondered the same thing during the flight here. I took the knife from my back pocket. The movement made pain shoot through my arm. I tried to hide it—the others probably had it worse.
I removed the sheath. There was no mistaking it: The blade gleamed white.
When I’d used the knife before, I’d assumed it reflected the surrounding light. Van headlights, living room lamps, the sun. Now, though, we were in a dusky parking garage. The only light came from fifty yards away.
Even with nothing to reflect, the metal was so bright its edges seemed to glow.
“You’ve found your weapon,” Neven said.
The words coming to mind were ridiculous, but no more so than everything else in my life. “The knife is magic?”
Neven rolled onto her side. “Chosen Ones always have magical weapons. Swords. Shields. Bows.”
“Magic?” I repeated. “Magic exists?”
“Hazel, I am a literal dragon.”
“That could be science in some way,” I said, though it sounded weak. “So I was meant to have a . . . weirdly shaped magic knife? And I just happened to find it inside a canoe from another dimension? I might never have seen it! I might’ve just left it there! What if I’d decided to threaten the agents with a—a broken branch instead?”
“In that case, you would’ve had a magic broken branch. Your wielding the knife in a moment of courage is what gave it magic. It’d have been preferable to discover its abilities sooner, given our situation just now, but . . . You have your weapon.” Neven flashed a toothless, reptile smile. “Congratulations.”
“A moment of courage,” I repeated. The blade had been dark when I’d first seen it. It’d only started glowing when I’d pointed it at the agents. “I threatened people who were trying to help me.”
“Protecting a loved one is courage.”
I twisted my lips into a smile I didn’t feel. Had that been courage? Perhaps the knife knew better than I did.
Red gave up on inspecting her injured knee. “What exactly is magical about the knife?”
“It cuts things really well?” I glanced at Neven for confirmation.
She blinked back impassively.
One way to check. I bit my lip—(so I did bite my lip like Four did)—and carefully placed the tip of the blade to the smooth concrete floor. The knife cut through it like it was foam. I let out a slight gasp. It sank into the floor all the way up to the hilt.
“Whoa,” Four said.
The handle jutted out from the concrete. “I barely even pushed.”
The others looked awed. Even Neven shifted her head for a better look.
Something occurred to me. “Why doesn’t it cut through the sheath?”
“Same reason you haven’t already sliced off your fingers despite the way you’ve been wielding that thing,” Neven remarked. “Magic.”
“Well,” Rainbow said, “I guess that’ll help with that saving-the-world, staying-out-of-government-hands thing.”
“I suppose I could cut up one of the MGA’s helicopters.” I cocked my head. A sword would’ve been better, but still. I had a magic knife. “Cool.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Part of me wanted to keep experimenting with the knife, but I tucked it away.
Of all the things clouding my mind—the knife, the fall, Director Facet’s voice, that troll creature in Lina’s apartment—only one really mattered.
I looked to Neven. “Trolls?” I asked.
“Yes! Good point,” Rainbow said. “Did we really just fight a troll? What kinds of bizarre dimensions is this rift linked to?”
Neven kept her eyes on me.
“Trolls?” I pressed again.
“You’ll have to ask a more specific question.”
I asked, enunciating every syllable clearly: “Are trolls the threat we’re supposed to save the world from?”
“Wait, what?” Four said.
Neven showed no reaction. “Why do you think they might be?”
“They keep popping up.” I already regretted asking, but I kept going. “Red saw them on the street. They’re in the news. Towns where the rift’s never been claim to have infestations. If one somehow reached the ninth floor of Lina’s building, they must be all over. The agents seemed to consider even one troll a threat; if there’s a lot of them, and if they get back up whenever you kill them
, they could be seriously dangerous. Those agents also said they’d been dealing with the trolls for two days. That’s before my birthday knocked the rift out of control. So . . . the trolls are different. They’re a separate threat.” I wanted to leave it there, but I couldn’t help but add in a smaller voice, “Right?”
“It seems that way,” Neven agreed.
“Can you just answer yes or no? Please?”
“Rules,” she said. “I’m not meant to influence your major decisions.”
“But.” I balled my fists, released them. I couldn’t be mad at her. Not after what she’d just gone through to rescue us.
“That’s not fair,” Red said quietly.
“Did you know about the knife?” I asked Neven. “You could’ve told me to use it on the balcony. We’d have been free within seconds of that net dropping.”
“True.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Rules,” she said impassively.
I felt queasy. “That’s not fair to you, either,” I whispered. She’d almost died for those rules. “These Powers That Be seem like assholes.”
“It’s not my job to cast those judgments,” Neven said, her words deliberate. “I will not argue, either.”
I tried to smile, for her sake.
“If we think it’s trolls,” Red said, “let’s see what I can find online. My phone doesn’t have service, but there are open Wi-Fi networks nearby.”
I nodded. “Neven . . . you can break the rules, though.” I’d meant to sound straightforward, but it came across accusatory. “You said yesterday you couldn’t help anyone in West Asherton, but then you rescued Dad from the water.”
“Ahh.” She lifted her head from her paw until we were around eye height. “That was different. You asked me to help you.”
“At the farm, I asked you to help the agents.”
“Precisely.” She pushed herself up to a half-sitting position. “You asked if I could help them. I cannot. Not by myself. Not unless you decide to act.” She raised her unhurt paw and flicked a nail at my sternum. “I can help you help them. You’re the hero, Hazel.”
Chosen One—special—destiny—now hero? I stepped back, rubbing my chest, although it wasn’t like the nail flick had hurt. “That’s semantics.”
“You can’t sit and wait for others to take action. You must be proactive. You must make decisions. You must move forward. Look what happens when you don’t.”
As cold as I’d been when flying on Neven’s back earlier, I now had to unzip my coat to let the wind blow through. It was too hot. “What do you mean?”
Neven watched me, as though waiting for more. It didn’t come. “Since we last saw each other, you’ve showered, slept, changed clothes, pet a cat, attempted groceries—”
“That was Red!” I regretted saying it even before I saw Red recoil. I didn’t have time to apologize. Neven kept going.
“Collective you! You had breakfast, you discussed the news—”
“How do you even know that?” Rainbow interrupted. Then, gentler: “I mean, you weren’t there.”
“I’m given the information I need to do my job. Hazel, had you even thought about what to do if the agency found you? Had you even considered leaving the apartment before they forced you out? And this, after I tell you that you must discover your destiny? This, after I tell you the world is in danger?” Neven’s voice edged dangerously close to anger.
I stepped back unwillingly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know where to start. I was . . .”
“Exhausted. I know.” She exhaled abruptly. Hot air formed puffs over her nose. “I forget how fragile humans are sometimes. I only mean to say that the day is not won by sitting and waiting.” She masked a twitch of pain as she rested her head on her paw again. “I cannot give you the answers.”
“I thought that’s why you’re here. Right? You said you’d offer answers.”
“Not about what’s next. I can merely help you find your own answers.”
So I knew just as little as before. “Trolls,” I said quietly, helplessly.
Red held up her phone to get our attention. “I found blurry photos that look like—well, like trolls, though not everyone calls them that. A couple towns up north say they’re practically under siege. Wellsboro, Damford, Mansfield . . . It’s just not getting attention because of what’s happening in Philly.”
“Damford?” Rainbow held out her hand. “Can I see that?”
Were we wasting time? The more I thought about it, the more it felt like I was missing something.
“If it’s not trolls,” I said aloud, sorting through our options, “I don’t know where else to look. Is whatever we need to fight even in Philadelphia? Pennsylvania? America? Is it new? Is it supernatural?” My mind raced, desperate to say something sensible. I hated the way Neven had chided me almost as much as I hated that she was right. “Um, is it the government? Is the MGA evil? That has to be it. Chosen Ones don’t fight evil just because; there’s always a personal connection. I was chosen for a reason. Right? It can’t be to fight trolls. It can’t be that”—I sounded so desperate I almost choked on the words—“that random. Right?”
“You’re still looking to me for answers,” Neven said quietly.
I swallowed a lump. For those few seconds, I’d thought I was onto something. It wasn’t that I thought I could take down Director Facet, or even wanted to; I’d simply hoped to have a place to start. Knowing about the MGA was the one thing that set me apart from the other Hazels, the one reason the Powers might choose me over anyone else on this planet.
When it came to trolls, I had nothing to offer.
“Um, guys?” Rainbow’s eyes were glued to the phone.
“What is it?” I asked.
Wordlessly, Rainbow passed me the phone. The screen was cracked like a spiderweb. She’d found a photo of a street; a gray blur in the left corner was circled. It looked like a small figure running across the road. Probably a troll. “Yeah, that looks like what we fought. Proportions fit.”
“Look.” Rainbow zoomed in on a house in the background. The sun hit a second-story window just right, lighting up the person peering behind it. Although small and blurry, I recognized her in the space of a breath.
“Another Hazel.” My head snapped up. “Five?”
“And she somehow ended up in Damford, the town worst hit by trolls,” Rainbow said.
Could that be a coincidence?
“That can’t be a coincidence,” Red said.
I passed the phone. “Five Hazels seems like overkill.”
Neven huffed. “Agreed.”
“Maybe the troll in Lina’s apartment wasn’t a coincidence, either,” Red mused. “There could be a link. Something could be drawing the trolls to us.”
“One way to find out,” I said with determination I hardly felt. I breathed in deep. “Let’s go to Damford.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
We were going to Damford—
Once Neven had time to catch her breath. We insisted. It would take hours to fly to Damford, and she’d just fallen from a damn balcony.
Neven had given in surprisingly quickly. She now lay curled up in a corner of the parking garage while the rest of us sat near some motorcycle spots farther down. There were plenty of cars in the garage, but we hadn’t seen any signs of life. The airport must’ve closed the moment the rift started ravaging the city.
I wondered what the rift was doing right now. I’d never been so far away from it. Rainbow was scanning the news using Red’s phone, but had only given us a bare-bones update about the chaos in the city.
The memory of those crowded streets last night made my head spin. It’d just been—too much. I hadn’t seen so many people in one place ever. Not immaculately dressed agents on my front lawn. Not patient parents tolerating their kids’ excitement over mini-golf. Not familiar West Asher-ton faces gobbling down burgers at Franny’s.
They’d been people, strangers, living lives far beyond West Asherton.
<
br /> Strangers.
Of course. That was why Philadelphia freaked me out. I’d never been around so many strangers.
“Can I see the knife again?” Red sat cross-legged with her elbows propped on her knees. The fall had beaten her up plenty, but I couldn’t tell from her casual pose. The rest of us were still grimacing with every movement. Maybe Red had taken her painkillers; maybe the rest of us just weren’t used to pain like she was.
I placed the knife on the ground between us, careful to keep the blade away from any limbs. Neven had suggested it wouldn’t harm me, but that might not apply to the others.
“Can I try?” Red waited for me to nod before cautiously taking the knife. She slid it across the floor and—KRRRT—
We all jolted at the sound. The knife scraped across the concrete rather than slice through it. Red tried again, to the same result.
“Let me try,” Rainbow said.
Same thing.
They passed the knife around. A twitchy, uncomfortable feeling settled in my stomach. By the time the knife got back to me, they were all watching expectantly. I put the blade to the floor. The knife sank through the concrete easily.
“I’m not doing anything special,” I said apologetically.
“I guess you’re special,” Red suggested. “I mean that in a good way.”
I laughed a little too loudly. “Then that’s how I’ll take it. Thanks? What do you say to that?” With everyone’s eyes on me, I almost regretted finding the knife. It only grew their expectations. If they expected special, they were going to be seriously disappointed.
“Hey, try this.” Rainbow dug around in her backpack and pulled out the claw hammer she’d brought from Lina’s apartment. “Can you cut through metal?”
I took the hammer, grateful for the distraction, and touched the blade to a corner of the head. After slight resistance, a chunk of metal fell from the hammer. It hit the ground with a ting.
“Wow.” Red looked impressed.
The Art of Saving the World Page 10