Chapter 32
THUNDER ROLLS, FOLLOWED BY BRILLIANT STREAKS of lightning,
and in their glare I see the clouds expand and drop. Rain
falls in heavy sheets, and the armored Mogadorian looks
down at me. He presses the cannon against my blue
pendant and says something I can’t understand. My wound
in my stomach has almost healed, and I hear Ella yell my
name over the thunder.
If I’m going to die, then I need to release Ella first. One of
us needs to live to tell the others. I cautiously lift my hands
and envision the trunk separating, when a bolt of lightning
cracks in the distance. Less than a second later, the bolt
strikes the Mogadorian standing over me, and he turns to
ash and is swept away in the wind.
I climb to my feet and see that I’ve opened the beech
tree’s trunk halfway. I continue to separate the tree as I run
towards it. “Ella? Are you okay?”
She spills out of the trunk and falls into my arms. “I
couldn’t see you,” she says, squeezing me. “I thought I lost
you.”
“Not yet,” I say, grabbing my Chest. “Come on.”
We turn to run, and see Crayton and Hector coming
towards us. Hector’s been hurt, and his arm is over
Crayton’s shoulders for support. The wind and rain are
raging. Behind them, the first wave of Mogadorians and
krauls are charging up the shore after them. When I see
this, I break away a large limb from a dead tree and hurl it
hard at the closest pack of krauls. It knocks down several,
but they’re back up again in no time. A Mogadorian soldier
throws a grenade that I intercept midair with my mind and
send right back into his stomach. It explodes, throwing
several Mogadorians and krauls to the ground in soggy bits
of ash. I send tree after tree, rock after rock, knocking many
to the ground, killing more.
“Help me!” Crayton yells.
I rush to take Hector from him. He has a bite wound in his
stomach and a bullet hole in his arm, and both are bleeding
badly.
“Come on, everyone!” Crayton yells, pulling bullets from
his coat pocket and quickly sliding them into his gun’s
empty clip. “We have to get to the dam!”
I open my mouth to respond, but an enormous lightning
bolt snaps over us. It spreads across the sky like the veins
of the gods, leaving the distinct taste of metal in the air. A
deafening clap of thunder reverberates off the mountains.
The wind and rain cease, and the clouds rotate around and
around in a massive maelstrom, until a dark, glowing eye
forms, staring at us from high over the mountaintops. The
Mogadorians are just as mesmerized as we are. The wind
kicks up again, and the dark clouds and the thunder and
lightning come with it, slow at first, but quickly gaining
speed, heading our way. A perfect storm, beautiful at its
cataclysmic heart, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. All
any of us can do is watch the thick clouds rolling towards us
with a deep growl.
“What’s happening?” I scream over the gale force winds.
“I don’t know!” Crayton replies. “We’re going to need to
find some cover!”
But he doesn’t move, and neither does anyone else.
Hector seems to have forgotten all about the pain of his
wounds as he watches, too.
“Go!” Crayton finally yells, and then he spins around and
fires on the Mogadorians to cover us as we run over a slight
hill and then down into a valley. I see the dam on my right,
which connects two lower mountains. It’s too far away to
realistically believe we’ll reach it. Hector’s face has turned
white and he’s fading fast, and I start looking for a place to
rest so I can heal him. Crayton’s gun falls silent. I look
behind me fearing the worst, but he’s merely out of ammo.
He chucks the gun over his shoulder and catches up to us.
“We’re not going to make it to the dam!” He yells. “Run to
the lake!”
The rain starts up again as the four of us change
direction. Bullets zip into our grassy footprints and ricochet
off boulders. The clouds shift over us with a roar. A second
later it’s as if we’ve gone under a bridge: the rain just stops.
I look over my shoulder and see that just a few paces back,
the rain still falls heavy and hard. The wind picks up
significantly, and suddenly the Mogadorians behind us are
stuck in the worst rainstorm I’ve ever seen. They completely
disappear in a blur.
Our shoes slip over the sand on the shore, and Ella and
Crayton dive into the water headfirst.
“I can’t do it, Marina,” Hector says, stopping before his
feet reach the water.
I drop my Chest and grab his arm and say, “I can fix you,
Hector. You can make it.”
“It wouldn’t make any difference. I don’t know how to
swim.”
“I’m Marina of the sea, Hector. Remember?” I allow the
iciness to spread from my fingertips to the bullet hole in his
arm. I watch it turn from black and gray and red to a tan
patch of wrinkled skin. I quickly concentrate on the bite
wound on his stomach beneath his shirt, and Hector
suddenly stands up straight with energy. I look into his eyes.
“As the Queen of the sea, I will swim with you.”
“But you have that,” Hector says, pointing at the Chest.
“You’ll have to hold it then,” I say, dropping it into his
arms.
We jog into the water until our feet no longer touch the
lake floor, and then I wrap my right arm around Hector’s
chest and paddle with my left. Hector hugs the Chest to his
stomach, and he floats on his back, his head just above
water. Ella and Crayton tread water in the middle of the
lake, and I pull Hector towards them.
The clouds overhead dissipate, shrinking into a hundred
wispy lines of gray in the sky. The advancing Mogadorians
are no longer a blur in a rainstorm, and the moment they
can see they charge at the lake with dozens of krauls
yipping in front of them.
A tiny black speck falls from above as the last cloud
disappears, and the closer the speck gets, the more it
appears to be a human.
Wearing a large blue pendant around her neck, she
lands on the shore, rippling the sand. It’s a strikingly
beautiful girl with raven-colored hair; and the second I see
her I know she’s the one I’ve been dreaming of, the one I
painted on the cave’s wall.
“She’s one of us!” I shout.
The girl looks around, we make eye contact, and then
she vanishes a moment later. I’m shocked, crushed,
believing I must have imagined her.
“Where’d she go?” Ella asks.
The moment I realize Ella saw her, too, that I hadn’t
imagined her, I watch as the two nearest krauls are
somehow yanked backwards in the air. They’re hovering,
yipping and snarling at something behind them, and then
they slam into each other until they fall limp. One kraul goes
sailing into the legs of two soldiers, and the other is swung
in the air, connecting with other krauls and soldiers.
“Invisibility. She has the Legacy of invisibility.” Crayton
breathes.
She’s invisible? I’m amazed and jealous at the same
time, but most of all I’m grateful. Every kraul that touches the
water is yanked backwards by an unseen hand and
slammed into the hard sand or a Mogadorian soldier. A
dropped cannon rises from the grass and starts firing in all
directions. Kraul after kraul is destroyed. Dozens of
Mogadorians burst into clouds of ash.
Cannon blasts come from the other side of the lake, and I
spin to see twenty or more Mogadorians wading in up to
their waists. Rays of light hit the water all around us,
creating enough steam that I can barely see Hector in front
of me.
“Ella?” I shout.
“Over here!” she yells from my left.
“Take Hector.”
She wraps her arm around Hector’s chest. “Why?”
“Because I’m not going to stay out here while that girl
fights all by herself. This is my war, too.”
Before anyone can stop me, I sink below the surface and
the water instantly tickles my lungs. I swim deeper until the
green-blue color of the lake becomes gray. I see the hulking
body of Olivia below me; she’s lying lifeless on the lake
floor, clouds of blood billowing from the hundreds of bite
wounds on her back.
I head towards the opposite shore and after a minute I
can see the legs of the Mogadorians. I swim next to the one
farthest on the left. I plant my feet in the muddy bottom and
launch myself out of the water. The Mogadorian doesn’t
have enough time to react as I toss him towards the middle
of the lake with my mind. I float his cannon into my hands,
shoot him, and never let go of the trigger. The Mogadorians
along the lake burst into ash, and when I’ve killed them all, I
aim towards the hundreds near the vehicles.
There’s movement in the water behind me and I’m too
slow; a kraul jumps and sinks its teeth into my side. The
pain is immediate and horrible, as if someone was holding
a hot branding iron to my ribs. The beast whips me
headfirst into the water and then against the sand of the
shore. I catch my breath and scream as it arcs me back
over and into the water again. I’m sure this is how I will die,
but suddenly the kraul’s mouth widens and releases me. I
fall onto my stomach on the shore and watch as the kraul’s
mouth continues to widen until I hear bones snapping. The
raven-haired girl materializes before my eyes, her hands on
the beast’s quivering lips. She looks back at me before
yanking the jaws completely vertical, killing the kraul.
“Are you okay?” the girl asks me.
I lift up my shirt and place a hand on my wound. “I will be
in a second.”
She ducks a blast from a cannon. “Good. What number
are you?”
“Seven.”
“I’m Six,” she says before vanishing.
The iciness spreads from my fingers over my body, but I
know I won’t be able to heal myself completely before the
oncoming wave of Mogadorian soldiers reaches me. I roll
into the lake and stay underwater. My wound is almost
healed when I rise above the surface.
Number Six is on top of one of the armored Humvees
with a glowing sword. She’s fighting several soldiers at
once: hacking off body parts, blocking cannon fire with her
blade, using telekinesis to aim a floating cannon high
above her so it blasts through dozens of Mogadorians on
the formation’s edge. She then hurls her sword into a
crowd, impaling three soldiers at once. Number Six grabs
the large gun mounted on top of the vehicle and mows
down dozens of Mogadorians in seconds.
There are only twenty or thirty soldiers left. Maybe four
krauls. Number Six holds one hand over her head while the
gun in the other shoots and destroys the Humvees along
the shore. Dark clouds form over the mountains and bolts of
lightning crack and split the ground near her. The
Mogadorians show fear for the first time, and I watch a few
drop their weapons and run towards the woods.
“Out of the water!” I yell, fearful of the lightning. Ella drags
Hector to the edge of the lake and Crayton follows.
I reach the shore near Number Six and pick up two
cannons. I struggle to keep my footing as I press both
triggers, turning more soldiers to ash, destroying two of the
krauls. An injured soldier hiding behind a wrecked Humvee
tosses a grenade at Number Six’s back, but I’m able to
shoot it in the air. The explosion rotates Number Six and
the mounted gun, and a moment later the injured soldier is
nothing but ash.
I can’t keep my eyes off of Number Six. Her strength is
mesmerizing. The blue pendant bounces around as the gun
in her one hand cuts down more and more soldiers. She
rotates to her left and blows a kraul into bits, and then she
rotates to her right and takes out several more
Mogadorians with a bolt of lightning.
The valley is bright and smoky. It’s damp and charred. I
look around me and can’t believe that victory will be ours in
just a matter of seconds. Crayton races over and I toss him
one of my guns, and instantly he’s killing soldiers retreating
into the woods. Hector runs with my Chest, and soon he
and Ella stand behind me. I nod towards Number Six and
smile at my friends, thinking that the worst is over; but that’s
when Ella raises her eyes over my head and her face turns
white.
“Pikens!” Ella yells.
Four of the horned monsters run down the mountainside
at full speed. Directly below them, Number Six is
preoccupied with the few remaining soldiers and the kraul. I
uproot as many silver firs as I can and send them like
rockets. Four hit the lead one and it falls backwards into the
path of the other three, and it’s crushed and killed in the
stampede.
“Number Six!” I shout. She hears me, and I point to the
pikens rumbling down into the valley. She spins with the gun
and blows the knees off the monster on the left. It tumbles
down faster than the other two can run, and Number Six
jumps from the Humvee a moment before the dead piken
flattens it with an echoing crunch.
Crayton and I shoot our cannons at the other two, but
they’re too fast, splitting up when they reach the valley floor.
The clouds roar when Number Six stands, and an
enormous bolt of lightning crashes into one of the pikens,
cutting off its arm. It bellows and falls to its knees, but
quickly regains its balance and charges ahead with blood
spurting from its side. The other piken dodges Crayton’s
fire and rushes in from the other direction. We all run
towards Number Six, but Hector is too slow with my Chest
in his arms. The piken closes in, and before I can help, the
one-armed monster reaches down and snatches Hector
and my Chest in its fist.
“No!” I scream. “Hector!”
I’m in such shock that when the piken throws a lifeless
Hector and my Chest into the lake, I don’t use my
telekinesis to stop either from sinking.
Number Six has killed the other piken. She turns towards
us now and holds both hands up to the sky. A lightning bolt
severs the monster’s head from its body.
For the first time all day, there is silence. I lean into
Number Six, look at Ella and Crayton and the fire and
destruction behind them, and I know that these quiet
moments are about to become rare in my life.
“Your Chest, Marina,” Crayton says. “You have to go get
it.”
I turn to Number Six and hug her. “Thank you. Thank you,
Number Six.”
“I’m sure we’ll get a chance to do it again sometime.”
She wraps her arms around my shoulders. “And just call me
Six.”
“I’m Marina. This is Crayton and Ella. She’s Number
Ten.”
Ella steps forward and shrinks to her seven-year-old
body. She extends her small hand towards Six, who has her
mouth open, speechless.
Crayton starts to explain Ella and the second ship to Six
as I walk into the lake. I feel its coolness for the first time. I
swim to the middle and dive, descending until the water is
devoid of any light and my feet touch the muddy floor. I
circle the bottom until I see my Chest. I rock it back and
forth to dislodge it from the mud’s suction. Swimming with
one arm, I start to ascend. When the water turns blue, I see
Hector’s body and wrap my other arm around his waist.
Ella and Crayton stand with Six on the shore. I drop the
Chest and slap my wet hands on Hector’s shin, arm, neck,
all around his crushed back, hoping and praying the icy
feeling will arrive in my fingers.
“He’s dead,” Crayton says, pulling on my shoulders.
I don’t give up. Hating myself for not trying the same thing
on Adelina, I touch Hector’s face. I run my hand through his
gray hair. I even levitate him a few centimeters off the sand
and try it all over again, but it’s true. He’s gone.
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