Chapter 4
“I WAS THIRTEEN WHEN THEY CAUGHT UP TO us,” Six says when we
cross into Tennessee, fifteen minutes after leaving the Trucksville Motel
behind. I’d asked her to tell us about how she and Katarina were captured.
“We were in West Texas after fleeing Mexico because of a stupid mistake.
We had both been completely entranced by some stupid internet post that
Two had written, though we didn’t know it was by Two at the time, and we
responded. We were lonely in Mexico, living in some dusty town in the
middle of nowhere, and we just had to know if it really was a member of
the Garde.”
I nod, knowing what she’s talking about. Henri had also
seen the blog post while we were in Colorado. I had been
in a school spelling bee, and the scar had come while I was
onstage. I’d been rushed to the hospital and the doctor saw
the first scar, and the fresh burn all the way to the bone of
the second. When Henri arrived, they’d accused him of
child abuse, which was the catalyst behind our fleeing the
state and assuming new identities, another new start.
“‘Nine, now eight. Are the rest of you out there?’” I ask.
“That’s the one.”
“So you guys are the ones who responded,” I say. Henri
had taken screen shots of the post so I could see it. He had
tried furiously to hack the computer to delete it before the
damage could be done, but he hadn’t been quick enough.
Two was killed. Somebody else deleted the post right after.
We’d assumed it was the Mogadorians.
“Katarina did, simply writing ‘We are here’; and not a
minute later the scar appeared,” Six says, shaking her
head. “It was so stupid of Two to post that, knowing she
was next. I still can’t understand why she’d risk it.”
“Do you guys know where she was?” Sam asks.
I look at Six. “Do you? Henri thought it was England, but
he couldn’t say for sure.”
“No idea. All we knew was that if they’d gotten to her that
quickly, it wouldn’t take long for them to get to us.”
“But, how do you even know she posted it?” Sam asks.
Six glances at him.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know; you guys can’t even say for sure where she
was, so how do you know it was her?”
“Who else would it be?”
“Well, I mean, I watch the way you and John are so
cautious. I can’t imagine either of you doing something so
stupid like that if you knew you were next. Especially with
everything you know about the Mogadorians. I don’t think
you would have posted something to begin with.”
“True, Sam.”
“So maybe they had already captured Two and were
trying to draw some of you guys out before they killed her,
which could explain why she was killed seconds after you
responded. It could have been a bluff. Or maybe she knew
what they were doing, and she killed herself to warn you
guys away or something. Who knows. Those are just some
guesses, right?”
“Right,” I say. But they are good guesses. Ones I hadn’t
thought about. Ones I wonder if Henri had.
We ride in silence thinking about it. Six drives the speed
limit and a few cars cruise past us. The highway itself is
lined with overhead lights that make the rolling hills beyond
look spooky.
“She could have been scared and desperate,” I say.
“That could have led her to do something stupid, like write a
careless post on the internet.”
Sam shrugs. “Just seems kind of unlikely to me.”
“But they could have already killed her Cepan, and she
could have become frantic. She must have been twelve,
maybe thirteen. Imagine being thirteen and on your own,” I
say before I realize I’m describing Six’s exact scenario.
She glances at me, then turns back to the road.
“We never once thought it was a trick,” she says. “Though
it kind of makes sense. Back then we were just scared.
And my ankle was on fire. Kind of hard to think straight
when it feels as though your foot is being sawed off.”
I nod my head gravely.
“But even after the initial fear, we still didn’t consider that
angle. We replied, which is what put them on our tail. It was
ridiculous for us to do. Maybe you’re right, Sam. I can only
hope we’ve grown a little wiser, those of us still left.”
Her last sentence hangs in the air. There are only six of
us left. Six of us against any number of them. And no way of
knowing how we might possibly find one another. We’re the
only hope. Strength in numbers. The power of six. The
thought makes my heart pump at twice its normal speed.
“What?” Six asks.
“There’re six of us left.”
“I know there are. So what?”
“Six of us, and maybe some of the others still have their
Cepans; maybe they don’t. But six to fight who knows how
many Mogadorians? A thousand? A hundred thousand? A
million?”
“Hey, don’t forget about me,” Sam says. “And Bernie
Kosar.”
I nod. “Sorry, Sam; you’re right. Eight of us.” And then all
of a sudden I remember something else. “Six, do you know
about the second ship that left Lorien?”
“A ship aside from ours?”
“Yeah, it left after ours. Or, at least, I think it did. Loaded
with Chimaera. Fifteen or so, and three Cepan, and maybe
a baby. I had visions of it when Henri and I were training,
though he was skeptical. But so far all my visions have
proven true.”
“I had no idea.”
“It took off in an old rocket that kind of looked like a
NASA shuttle. You know, powered by fuel that left a trail of
smoke behind it.”
“Then it wouldn’t have made it here,” Six says.
“Yeah, that’s what Henri said.”
“Chimaera?” Sam asks. “The same kind of animal as
Bernie Kosar?” I nod. He perks up. “Maybe that’s how
Bernie made it here? Could you imagine if they all made
it? After seeing what Bernie did during the fight?”
“It’d be amazing,” I agree. “But I’m pretty sure old Bernie
here was on our ship.”
here was on our ship.”
I run my hand down the length of Bernie Kosar’s back
and can feel matted scabs still covering most of his body.
Sam sighs, leans back in his seat with a look of relief on his
face, probably imagining an army of Chimaera coming to
our aid at the last minute to defeat the Mogadorians. Six
looks into the rearview mirror, and the headlights from the
car behind us illuminate a band of light across her face.
She looks back to the road wearing the same introspective
gaze that Henri always did when driving.
“The Mogadorians,” she begins softly, swallowing as
Sam and I turn our attention to her. “They caught up to us
the day after we responded to Two’s post, in a desolate
town in West Texas. Katarina had driven fifteen straight
hours from Mexico, and it was getting late and we were
both exhausted because neither of us had slept. We
stopped at a motel off the highway, not all that different from
the one we just left. It was in a tiny town that looked like
something out of an old Western movie, full of cowboys and
ranchers. There were even hitching posts outside some of
the buildings so that the people could tie up their horses. It
was very weird, but we had just come from a dusty town in
Mexico, so we didn’t think twice about stopping.”
She pauses as a car cruises past us. She follows it with
her eyes and checks the speedometer before turning back
to the road.
“We went to get something to eat at a diner. About
halfway through our meal, a man entered and took a seat.
He was wearing a white shirt and tie, but it was a Western
tie and his clothes looked outdated. We ignored him, even
though I noticed the others in the diner staring at him, the
same way they were staring at us. At one point he turned
and gazed our way, but since everyone else had done the
same, I didn’t piece it together. I was only thirteen then, and
it was hard to think of anything at that point other than sleep
and food. So we finished eating and went back to our
room. Katarina jumped into the shower; and when she
stepped out, wrapped in a robe, there was a knock at the
door. We looked at each other. She asked who it was, and
the man answered that he was the motel manager and had
brought fresh towels and ice; and without thinking twice, I
walked to the door and opened it.”
“Oh no,” Sam says.
Six nods. “It was the man from the diner with the Western
tie. He walked straight into the room and shut the door. I
was wearing my pendant in plain view. He knew
immediately who I was, and Katarina and I knew
immediately who he was. In one fluid motion he pulled a
knife from the waistband of his trousers and swung for my
head. He was fast, and I had no time to react. I had no
Legacies yet, no defenses. I was dead. But then the
weirdest thing happened. As the knife dug into my skull, it
was his skull that split open. I didn’t feel a thing. I learned
later they had no idea how the charm worked, that he
couldn’t kill me until numbers one through five were dead.
He dropped to the ground and burst into ash.”
“Wicked,” Sam says.
“Wait,” I interrupt. “From what I’ve seen, Mogadorians are
pretty recognizable. Their skin is so white it looks bleached.
pretty recognizable. Their skin is so white it looks bleached.
And their teeth and eyes …” I trail off. “How could you not
have known it in the diner? Why’d you let him into the
room?”
“I’m pretty sure only the scouts and soldiers look like that.
They’re the Mogadorians’ version of the military. That’s
what Katarina said, anyway. The rest of them look as much
like normal humans as we do. The one who came into the
diner looked like an accountant, wearing wire-rimmed
glasses, black slacks, and a white short-sleeved dress shirt
and that tie. He even had a really dorky mustache. I
remember him being tan. We had no idea they had
followed us.”
“That’s reassuring,” I say sarcastically. I replay the image
of the knife plunging into Six’s skull and killing the
Mogadorian instead. If one of them tried the same thing
with a knife on me, right now, I would be killed. I push the
thought away and ask, “Do you think they’re still in
Paradise?”
She says nothing for a minute, and when she finally
speaks, I wish she had stayed silent instead. “I think they
might be.”
“So Sarah’s in danger?”
“Everyone’s in danger, John. Every person we know in
Paradise, every person we don’t know in Paradise.”
All of Paradise is probably under surveillance, and I know
it’s not safe to go within fifty miles of it. Or to call. Or even to
send a letter, or they’d learn the pull Sarah has on me, the
connection we have.
“Anyway,” Sam says, wanting to get back to the story.
“Anyway,” Sam says, wanting to get back to the story.
“The Mogadorian accountant falls to the floor and dies.
Then what?”
“Katarina threw the Chest to me and grabbed our
suitcase, and we sprinted out of the motel room, Katarina
still in her robe. The truck was unlocked, and we jumped
inside. Another Mog came charging out from behind the
motel. Kat was so flustered that she couldn’t find the keys.
She locked the doors, though, and the windows were rolled
up. But the guy wasted no time at all and punched straight
through the passenger-side glass and grabbed me by the
shirt. Katarina screamed, and some men nearby jumped
into action.
“Others poured out of the diner to see what was
happening. The Mogadorian had no choice but to let go of
me to face the men.
“‘The keys are in the motel room!’ Katarina yelled. She
looked at me with these big, huge, desperate eyes. She
was panicking. We both were. I jumped out of the truck and
sprinted back to our room for the keys. Those men in
Texas, they were the only reason we got away then; they
saved our lives. When I came out of the motel room with the
keys, one of the Texans was aiming a gun at the
Mogadorian.
“We have no idea what happened after that because
Katarina sped away and we didn’t look back. We hid the
Chest a few weeks later, right before they caught up to us
for good.”
“Don’t they already have the Chests from the first three?”
Sam asks.
Sam asks.
“I’m sure they do, but what use are they? The second we
die the Chest unlocks itself, and everything inside becomes
useless,” she says, and I nod, knowing that much from past
conversations with Henri.
“Not only are the objects worthless,” I say, “but they
completely disintegrate the same way the Mogadorians do
when they’re killed.”
“Wicked,” Sam says.
And then I remember the sticky note I found when saving
Henri in Athens, Ohio.
“Those guys Henri visited who ran the They Walk
Among Us magazine?”
“Yeah?”
“They had this source who apparently caught a
Mogadorian and tortured it for information, and he
supposedly knew that Number Seven was being trailed in
Spain and that Number Nine was somewhere in South
America.”
Six thinks about it a moment. She bites her lip and
glances in the rearview mirror. “I know for a fact that
Number Seven is a girl; I remember that much from the ride
in the ship.” The second this leaves her mouth, a siren
blares behind us.
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