Chapter 3
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 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
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,
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.
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
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
Cepan 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?”
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.
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