Free Revive by Tracey Martin Page A

say?”
    â€œWe can start with why you changed your mind about me calling my dad after I told you what I was doing at RTC.”
    â€œI already explained that.”
    â€œYou were lying.”
    He opens his mouth to protest but fumbles for words. It doesn’t matter. Over his shoulder, I see something far more concerning than Kyle’s behavior.
    The men from South Station have found me.

Chapter Five
    Eleven Weeks Ago
    The bleachers shake, a lurching sea of blue sweatshirts. Then a single boy emerges from the mass and collapses on the floor. More screams follow. I strain to see around the girl in front of me as a crowd gathers around the boy.
    â€œDavid! David, can you hear me?” someone yells, kneeling next to him.
    The other person pulls David’s hands away from his face, and I hold my breath. At first glance, his skin appears red, a normal reaction to the AnChlor. But then I see what’s really going on. That red isn’t his skin. It’s blood, and it’s leaking from his eyes and nose. He lies on the floor, unresponsive.
    I grip the railing, frozen.
    â€œEverybody, get them out of here.” One of the faculty members is yelling at the staff, and someone else is already on the phone, calling for an ambulance.
    Behind me, crying students, most probably unaware of what’s happening below, are pushing past, lost in their own discomfort and desperate for fresher air.
    I’m also lost. I can’t move, and I’m shoved and bumped as the others hurry to leave.
    This wasn’t supposed to happen. The AnChlor is supposed to be safe. My plan was good. Yet David’s body remains still and bleeding, and I’m also still, and inside I feel like I’m bleeding too.
    X’s life is important, far more important than most people’s lives. I know this. Rationally. Logically. I know. And yet, how is this right or fair? How do I tell myself this is okay?
    Sometimes we must make trade-offs—two-hundred-eighteen variations thereof.
    I’ve made tradeoffs before. I believe that occasionally some people must die for the good of others. But those some people? They’ve never been good in the first place. They’re not innocent. Their deaths do the world a favor.
    This student, on the other hand, is innocent. He’s someone like Audrey or Kyle or Chase. Someone like Sophia. He’s not supposed to be a trade-off. This wasn’t supposed to happen, and I can’t rationalize away the idea that the bleeding body on the gym floor could have been one of the people I’d been laughing with earlier at dinner. Nor can I ignore the irony that I came here to save one innocent person’s life, and what if I just took another innocent life in the process?
    X is more important, I remind myself. But thinking it and feeling it are two different things, and I’m not feeling it at all. The only thing I’m feeling is sick.
    I turn my head away from David as I shuffle down the bleachers. This is weakness, and I hope I’ll snap out of it. In the meantime, no more AnChlor. I’m glad I got rid of the rest. I have time, after all. My next attempt to find X will be done differently.
    Screw efficiency. Some things are more important.

Chapter Six
    Ten Weeks Ago
    As anticipated, the AnChlor dissipated before it could be detected. Engineers and a hazmat team have inspected every inch of the building and deemed it safe. No one is sure what caused the problem, but only I’m certain it won’t happen again. That’s because I made it clear in my last report that I’m not making a second go at it.
    Since I failed to collect any useful information with the first attempt, I don’t expect much pushback, and so far none has come. But I need to put my slow, tedious backup plan into action soon or it will.
    Rain splatters against the dorm’s main doors while I wait for Audrey. We’re supposed to be heading to physics recitation, which is on the