A LOW WHISPER FINDS ME. THE VOICE IS COLD. I can’t seem to move but I listen intently.
I’m not asleep anymore, but I’m not awake either. I’m paralyzed, and as the whispers increase, my eyes are whisked away through the impenetrable darkness of my motel room. The electricity I feel as the vision breaks above my bed reminds me of when my first Legacy, Lumen, lit up my palms in Paradise, Ohio. Back when Henri was still here, still alive. But Henri’s gone now. He’s not coming back. Even in this state I can’t escape that reality.
I completely enter the vision above me, blazing through its darkness with my hands turned on, but the glow is swallowed by the shadows. And then I snap to a halt. Everything falls silent. I lift my hands in front of me but touch nothing, my feet off the ground, floating in a great void.
More whispering in a language I don’t recognize, but somehow still understand. The words burst forth anxiously. The darkness fades, and the world I’m in turns a shade of gray on its way to a white so bright I have to squint to see. A mist drifts in front of me and filters away, revealing a large open room with candles lining the walls.
“I—I don’t know what went wrong,” a voice says, clearly shaken.
The room is long and wide, the size of a football field. The acrid smell of sulfur burns my nostrils, makes my eyes water. The air is hot and stuffy. And then I see them at the far end of the room: two figures shrouded in shadows, one much bigger than the other, and menacing even from a distance.
“They got away. Somehow they got away. I don’t know how. . . .”
I move forward. I feel the sort of calm that sometimes comes in dreams when you’re aware you’re asleep and that nothing can really hurt you. Step by step, nearing the growing shadows.
“All of them, all of them killed. Along with three piken and two krauls,” the smaller of the two says, standing with fidgeting hands beside the larger man.
“We had them. We were about to—,” comes the voice, but the other cuts him off. He scans the air to see what he’s already sensed. I stop, stand motionless, and hold my breath. And then he finds me. A shudder runs up my spine.
“John,” somebody says, the voice a distant echo.
The larger figure comes towards me. He towers over me, twenty feet tall, muscular, a chiseled jaw. His hair isn’t long like the others’, but cut short instead. His skin is tan. Our eyes stay locked as he slowly approaches. Thirty feet away, then twenty. He stops ten feet short. My pendant grows heavy and the chain cuts into my neck. Around his throat, like a collar, I notice a grotesque, purplish scar.
“I’ve been expecting you,” he says, his voice level and calm. He lifts his right arm and pulls a sword from the sheath on his back. It comes alive at once, keeping its shape while the metal turns nearly liquid. The wound in my shoulder, from the soldier’s dagger during the battle in Ohio, screams with pain as though I’m being stabbed all over again. I fall to my knees.
“It’s been a very long time,” he says.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say in a language I’ve never spoken before.
I want to leave immediately, wherever this place is. I try to rise, but it’s as if I’m suddenly stuck to the ground.
“Don’t you?” he asks.
“John,” I hear again from somewhere on the periphery. The Mogadorian doesn’t seem to notice, and there’s something about his gaze that holds my own. I can’t look away.
“I’m not supposed to be here,” I say. My voice sounds watery. Everything dims until it’s just the two of us and nothing else.
“I can make you disappear if that’s what you want,” he says, slashing a figure eight with the sword, leaving a stark white streak hanging in the air where the blade passes through. And then he charges, his sword held high and cracking with power. He swings, and it comes down like a bullet, aimed for my throat, and I know that there’s nothing I can do to stop the blow from decapitating me.
“John!” the voice screams again.
My eyes whip open. Two hands grip me hard by the shoulders. I’m covered in sweat and out of breath. I focus first on Sam standing over me, then on Six, with her stark hazel eyes that sometimes look blue and sometimes green, kneeling beside me, appearing tired and worn as though I just woke her, which I probably did.
“What was that all about?” Sam asks.
I shake my head, letting the vision dissipate, and I take in my surroundings. The room is dark with the curtains drawn, and I’m lying in the same bed I’ve spent the last week and a half in, healing from the battle wounds. Six has been recovering beside me, and neither she nor I have left this place since we arrived, relying on Sam to head out for food and supplies. A shabby motel room with two full beds off the main street in Trucksville, North Carolina. To rent the room, Sam had used one of the seventeen driver’s licenses Henri created for me before he was killed, and luckily the old man at the front desk was too busy watching TV to study the photograph. Situated on the northwestern edge of the state, the motel is a fifteen-minute drive from both Virginia and Tennessee, a location chosen mainly because we had traveled as far as we could go given the extent of our injuries. But our wounds have slowly healed, and our strength is finally returning.
“You were talking in a foreign language I’ve never heard before,” Sam says. “I think you made it up, dude.”
“No, he was talking in Mogadorian,” Six corrects him. “And even a little Loric.”
“Really?” I ask. “That’s totally weird.”
Six walks to the window and pulls back the right side of the curtains. “What were you dreaming about?”
I shake my head. “I’m not really sure. I was dreaming, but I wasn’t dreaming, you know. Having visions, I guess, and they were about them. We were about to have a battle; but I was, I don’t know, too weak or confused or something.” I look up at Sam, who is frowning and looking at the TV. “What?”
“Bad news.” He sighs, shaking his head.
“What?” I sit up, wipe the sleep from my eyes.
Sam nods to the front of the room, and I turn to the glow of the television. My face takes up the entire left half of the screen, while an artist’s rendering of Henri’s is on the right. The drawing looks nothing like him: his face seems sharp and haggard to the point of emaciation, giving him the appearance of being twenty years older than he really is. Or was.
“As if being called a threat to national security or a terrorist wasn’t bad enough,” Sam says. “They’re now offering a reward.”
“For me?” I ask.
“For you and Henri. A hundred thousand dollars for any information leading to your and Henri’s capture, and two hundred and fifty thousand if somebody brings either of you in on their own,” Sam says.
“I’ve been on the run all of my life,” I say, rubbing my eyes. “What difference does it make?”
“Yeah, well, I haven’t and they’re offering a reward for me, too,” Sam says. “A measly twenty-five grand, if you can believe that. And I don’t know how good of a fugitive I am. I’ve never done this before.”
I gingerly scoot up the bed, still a little stiff. Sam sits on the other bed and places his head in his palms.
“You’re with us, though, Sam. We have your back,” I say.
“I’m not worried,” he says into his chest.
I chew on the insides of my cheeks, thinking about how I’m going to keep him safe, and me and Six alive, without Henri. I turn to face Sam, who is stressed enough to be picking a hole in his black NASA T-shirt. “Listen, Sam. I wish Henri was here. I can’t even tell you how much I wish he was here, for so many reasons. Not only did he keep me safe when we were running from one state to the next, but he also had all this knowledge about Lorien and my family, and he had this amazing calming way about him that’s kept us out of trouble for so long. I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to do what he did to keep us safe. I bet if he were alive today, he wouldn’t have let you come with us. There’s just no way he would have put you in this kind of danger. But, listen, you’re here and that’s that, and I promise that I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“I want to be here,” Sam says. “This is the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me.” There is a pause, and then he looks me in the eyes. “Plus you’re my best friend, and I’ve never had a best friend.”
“Neither have I,” I say.
“Just hug already,” Six says. Sam and I laugh.
My face is still on the screen. The photo on the TV is the one Sarah took on my very first day of school, the day I’d met her; and I have an awkward, uncomfortable look on my face. The right side of the screen is now filled with smaller photos of the five people we’re being accused of killing: three teachers, the men’s basketball coach, the school janitor. And then the screen changes yet again to images of the wrecked school—and it really is wrecked; the entire right side of the building is nothing more than a heap of rubble. Next come various interviews with Paradise residents, the last being Sam’s mom. When she comes on screen she’s crying, and looking straight into the camera she desperately pleads with the “kidnappers” to “please please please return my baby safely to me.” When Sam sees this interview, I can tell something inside of him shifts.
Scenes from the past week’s funerals and candlelight vigils come next. Sarah’s face flashes on the screen, and she’s holding a candle as tears stream down her cheeks. A lump forms in my throat. I’d give anything to hear her voice. It kills me to imagine what she must be dealing with. The video of us escaping Mark’s burning house—which is what started all of this—has blown up on the internet, and while I was blamed for starting that blaze as well, Mark stepped in and swore up and down that I had no part in it, even though using me as a scapegoat would have let him off the hook completely.
When we had left Ohio, the damage to the school had first been attributed to an out-of-season tornado; but then rescue crews filtered through the rubble, and in no time all five bodies had been found lying equal distances from each other—without a single mark on them—in a room untouched by the battle. Autopsies reported that they had died of natural causes, with no trace of drugs or trauma. Who knows how it really happened. When one of the reporters had heard the story of me jumping through the principal’s window and running away from the school, and then when Henri and I couldn’t be found, he’d run a story blaming us for everything; and the rest had been quick to follow. With the recent discovery of Henri’s forgery tools, along with a few of the fake documents he had left at the house, the public outrage has grown.
“We’re going to have to be very careful now,” Six says, sitting against the wall.
“More careful than staying inside a crummy motel room with the curtains drawn?” I ask.
Six goes back to the window and pulls aside one of the curtains to peer out. A sliver of sunlight cuts across the floor. “The sun will set in three hours. Let’s leave as soon as it’s dark.”
“Thank God,” Sam says. “There’s a meteor shower tonight we can see if we drive south. Plus if I have to spend one more minute inside this crappy room, I’m going to go nuts.”
“Sam, you’ve been nuts since the first time I met you,” I kid. He throws a pillow at me, which I deflect without lifting a hand. I twist the pillow over and over in the air with my telekenisis and then send it like a rocket at the television, shutting it off.
I know Six is right that we should keep moving, but I’m frustrated. It seems like there’s no end in sight, no place where we’ll be safe. At the foot of the bed, keeping my feet warm, is Bernie Kosar, who’s hardly left my side since Ohio. He opens his eyes and yawns and stretches. He peers up at me, and through my telepathy communicates that he’s also feeling better. Most of the small scabs that covered his body are gone, and the larger ones are healing nicely. He’s still wearing the makeshift splint on his broken front leg, and he’ll limp for a few more weeks; but he almost looks like his old self. He offers a subtle wag and paws at my leg. I reach down and pull him up to my lap and scratch his tummy.
“How about you, buddy? You ready to get out of this dump?”
Bernie Kosar thumps his tail against the bed.
“So where to, guys?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Six says. “Preferably somewhere warm to ride out the winter. I’m pretty sick of this snow. Though I’m even more sick of not knowing where the others are.”
“For now it’s just us three. Four plus Six plus Sam.”
“I love algebra,” Sam says. “Sam equals x. Variable x.”
“Such a nerd, dude,” I say.
Six enters the bathroom and then exits a second later with a handful of toiletries. “If there’s any consolation in what happened, at least the other Garde know John not only survived his first battle, but that he won it. Maybe they’ll find a bit of hope in it. Our biggest priority now is finding the others. And training together in the meantime.”
“We will,” I say, then look at Sam. “It’s not too late to go back and put things straight, Sam. You can make up any story about us you want. Tell them we kidnapped you and held you against your will, and that you escaped the first chance you got. You’ll be considered a hero. Girls will be all over you.”
Sam bites his lower lip and shakes his head. “I don’t want to be a hero. And girls are already all over me.”
Six and I roll our eyes, but I also see Six blush. Or maybe I imagine it.
“I mean it,” he says. “I’m not leaving.”
I shrug. “I guess that’s settled. Sam equals x in this equation.”
Sam watches Six walk to her small duffel bag beside the TV, and his attraction to her is painted all over his face. She’s wearing black cotton shorts and a white tank top with her hair pulled back. A few strands fall loose around her face. A purple scar is prominent on the front of her left thigh, and the stitch marks around it are a tender pink, still scabbed over. Stitches she not only sewed herself, but also removed. When Six looks up, Sam shyly diverts his gaze. Clearly there’s another reason Sam wants to stick around.
Six bends down and reaches into her bag, removing a folded map. She opens it on the foot of the bed.
“Right here,” she says, pointing to Trucksville, “is where we are. And here,” she continues, moving her finger from North Carolina to a tiny red star made in ink close to the center of West Virginia, “is where the Mogadorians’ cave is, the one I know of, anyhow.”
I look where she’s pointing. Even on the map it’s obvious the location is very isolated; there doesn’t appear to be any sort of main road within five miles, nor any town within ten.
“How do you even know where the cave is?”
“That’s a long story,” she says. “Probably one better left for the road.”
Her finger takes up a new route on the map, heading southwest from West Virginia, traversing Tennessee, and coming to rest on a point in Arkansas near the Mississippi River.
“What’s there?” I ask.
She puffs her cheeks and releases a deep breath, undoubtedly remembering something that happened. Her face takes on a special look when deep in concentration.
“This is where my Chest was,” she says. “And some of the stuff Katarina brought from Lorien. This is where we hid it.”
“What do you mean, where it was?”
She shakes her head.
“It’s not there anymore?”
“No. They were tracking us, and we couldn’t risk them getting it. It was no longer safe with us, so we stowed it and Katarina’s artifacts in Arkansas and fled as fast as we could, thinking we could stay ahead of them . . .” She trails off.
“They caught up to you, didn’t they?” I ask, knowing her Cêpan Katarina died three years ago.
She sighs. “That’s another story better left for the road.”
It takes minutes to throw my clothes into my duffel bag, and as I’m doing it I realize the last time this bag was packed, Sarah had done it. Only a week and a half has passed, but it feels like a year and a half. I wonder if she’s been interrogated by police, or singled out at school. Where is she even going to school since the high school was destroyed? I’m certain she can hold her own, but still, it can’t be easy on her, especially since she has no idea where I am, or even if I’m okay. I wish I could contact her without putting us both in danger.
Sam turns the TV back on the old-fashioned way—with the remote—and he watches the news while Six goes invisible to check on the truck. We assume Sam’s mom noticed it missing, which surely means the police are keeping an eye out for it. Earlier in the week Sam stole the front license plate off another truck. It might help us until we get to where we’re going.
I finish packing and set my bag beside the door. Sam smiles when his picture pops up on the television screen, again on the same news cycle, and I know he’s enjoying his small bit of celebrity even at the risk of being considered a fugitive. Then they show my picture again, which means they also show Henri’s. It rips me apart to see him, even though the sketch looks nothing like him. Now isn’t the time for guilt or misery, but I miss him so much. It’s my fault he’s dead.
Fifteen minutes later Six walks in carrying a white plastic bag.
She holds up the bag and shakes it at us. “I bought you guys something.”
“Yeah, what is it?” I ask.
She reaches in and pulls out a pair of hair clippers. “I think it’s time for a haircut for you and Sam.”
“Oh come on, my head’s too small. It’s going to make me look like a turtle,” Sam objects. I laugh and try to picture him without his shaggy hair. He has a long, skinny neck, and I think he might be right.
“You’ll be incognito,” Six replies.
“Well, I don’t want to be incognito. I’m Variable x.”
“Stop being a wuss,” Six says.
He scowls. I try to be upbeat. “Yeah, Sam,” I say, peeling off my shirt. Six follows me into the bathroom, ripping the packaging away from the clippers as I bend over the tub. Her fingers are a little cold, and goose bumps sprinkle down my spine. I wish it was Sarah who was holding my shoulder steady and giving me a makeover. Sam watches from the doorway, sighing loudly, making his displeasure known.
Six finishes, and I wipe away the loose hair with a towel, then stand and look in the mirror. My head is whiter than the rest of my face, but only because it’s never seen the sun. I think that a few days in the Florida Keys, where Henri and I lived before coming to Ohio, would fix the problem in no time.
“See, John looks tough and rugged like that. I’m going to look like a turd,” Sam groans.
“I am tough and rugged, Sam,” I reply.
He rolls his eyes while Six cleans the clippers. “Down,” she says.
Sam obeys, dropping to his knees and bending over the tub. When she’s done, Sam stands and flashes me a pleading look.
“How bad is it?”
“You look good, buddy,” I say. “You look like a fugitive.”
Sam rubs his head a few times and finally looks in the mirror. He cringes. “I look like an alien!” he exclaims in mock disgust, then glances at me over his shoulder. “No offense,” he adds lamely.
Six collects all the hair from the tub and drops it in the toilet, careful to flush every strand. She coils the cord of the clippers into a neat, tight loop, then slips it back into its bag.
“No time like the present,” she says.
We strap our bags across her shoulders and she grabs them both with her hands, then makes herself invisible, causing the bags to disappear as well. She rushes out the door to take them to the truck without being seen. While she’s gone I reach up into the far right corner of the closet, toss aside a few towels, and grab the Loric Chest.
“You ever going to open that thing or what?” Sam asks. He’s been excited to see what’s inside ever since I told him about it.
“Yeah, I will,” I say. “As soon as I feel safe.”
The motel door opens, then closes. Six reappears and glances at the Chest.
“I won’t be able to make you and Sam disappear and that. Only what I hold in my hands. I’ll run it back to the truck first.”
“No, that’s okay. Take Sam with you, and I’ll follow behind.”
“That’s stupid, John. How are you going to follow behind?”
I pull on my hat and jacket, then zip it and pull the hood over my head so that only my face shows.
“I’ll be fine. I have advanced hearing, like you,” I say.
She eyes me skeptically and shakes her head. I grab Bernie Kosar’s leash and clip it to his collar.
“Only until we get to the truck,” I tell him, since he hates walking on a leash. On second thought, I lean down to carry him since his leg is still healing, but he tells me he’d rather walk himself.
“Ready when you are,” I say.
“All right, let’s do this,” Six says.
Sam offers his hand to her a little too enthusiastically. I stifle a laugh.
“What?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Nothing. I’ll follow you as best I can, but don’t get too far ahead.”
“Just cough if you can’t follow and we’ll stop. The truck is only a few minutes’ walk from here, behind the abandoned barn,” Six says. “Can’t miss it.”
As the door flings open, Sam and Six disappear.
“That’s our cue, BK. Just the two of us now.”
He follows me out, trotting happily with his tongue dangling. Aside from quick bathroom trips to the small plot of grass beside the motel, Bernie Kosar’s been cooped up like the rest of us.
The night air is cool and fresh, carrying a scent of pine, and the wind on my face brings me instantly back to life. As I walk I close my eyes and try to sense Six by combing the air with my mind, reaching out and feeling the landscape with telekinesis, the same way I was able to stop the speeding bullet in Athens by grabbing everything in the air. I feel them, a few feet ahead of me and slightly to the right. I give Six a nudge and she startles, her breath catching in her throat. Three seconds later she shoulders into me, nearly causing me to fall. I laugh. And so does she.
“What are you guys doing?” Sam asks. He’s annoyed with our little game. “We’re supposed to be quiet, remember?”
We make it to the truck, which is parked behind a dilapidated old barn that looks as though it’s ready to collapse. Six releases Sam’s hand and he climbs into the middle of the cab. Six jumps behind the wheel, and I slide in next to Sam with BK at my feet.
“Holy crap, dude, what happened to your hair?” I goad Sam.
“Shut up.”
Six starts the truck and I smile as she steers us onto the road, flicking on the headlights when the wheels touch the asphalt.
“What?” Sam asks.
“I was just thinking that, out of the four of us, three are aliens, two are fugitives with terrorist ties, and not a single one of us has a valid driver’s license. Something tells me things might get interesting.”
Even Six can’t help but smile at this.