Death.
Another one is gone.
A swirling, reddish symbol has appeared on my leg above two similar ones. Three is dead. This red mark is likely the only kind of tombstone he or she will get. Another Garde sacrificed for the Lorien cause. Only one person rests between me and death now, if what Rey always told me was true about the order in which we had to be killed.
Number Four.
I stagger out of bed, wincing a bit every time I put weight down on my ankle. And it’s more weight than usual. After a year of meals served up in Ethan’s house any time of day I might be hungry, I look nothing like the sunburned, skinny kid from the island. I’m built like a tank now. Solid. Maybe a little on the chubby side. Definitely a lot pastier than I was a year ago. I’ve been focusing much more on my Legacies than keeping my body in shape.
The death of Three takes me completely by surprise. I haven’t necessarily forgotten about Lorien and the Garde, but without Rey constantly badgering me about them, all that has kind of lived in the back of my mind. I’ve spent so much time lately living things up with Ethan that the Garde have once again become stories. I’ve forgotten that they’re actual people. I’ve tried to ignore the fact that I may end up the next target on death’s numerical list.
One more way I tell lies, I guess. Only these are told to myself.
My mind is finally catching up with my body’s wakefulness, and I start to think of all the implications this new development might have. Maybe Four’s death isn’t that far away. There’s always the chance that Three and Four were together. I do always imagine the other Garde working together without me.
I walk around the room holding my breath, waiting for a new searing burn to take over my leg. But after a few minutes nothing comes. Still, if another scar does appear, it means I’m next. I’m the new big target.
Me, and anyone else I’m around.
I stop pacing.
I could leave right now. Ethan would never be any wiser to what’s actually going on. I could fly away to a different city. A different country. Finally up to Canada—just a while later than I’d planned.
But I don’t want to be on my own again. Maybe Ethan would want to go with me. For someone who doesn’t like big groups of people, the thought of not having one person to rely on scares me.
Even then, though, the Mogs might track me back to him. We haven’t necessarily been subtle with the use of my powers. I feel so stupid all of the sudden. As good as it felt displaying my superiority over people like that asshat at the coffee shop, I never should have let Ethan talk me into it.
I have to tell him about what’s happening. It’s the least I can do for how good he’s been to me.
As I slip out of my room, I can almost hear Rey’s voice in the back of my head. Tell no one who you are. Tell no one what you know. Secrecy is your greatest weapon. But Rey’s not actually here now, and the world hasn’t exactly been the labyrinth of fear and persecution that he always said it would be. I’ve been in Miami for over a year and I haven’t even heard so much as a whisper of the word “Lorien.” If Rey were still alive, we’d probably be fishing sea snails out of their shells with bamboo shoots while we sweated and half-starved on some tropic island.
No, I have to tell Ethan. Maybe he can help somehow. He’s smart and rich—maybe there’s some titanium-plated safe house he can take me to. Or weapons. Maybe he knows someone in the military who can nuke Mogadore.
Or something.
I slink through the dark house. Ethan’s bedroom door is cracked, but he’s not inside. No lights are on in the bathroom or closet. He’s not there.
Gone.
My heart skips a beat.
They’ve already come. They’ve taken him. It’s too late, and I’m fucked.
Then I notice Ethan’s bed. It’s still made. He hasn’t gone to sleep yet.
Maybe he’s still awake.
I make my way downstairs cautiously, looking for lights in the kitchen and den, but there are none. I’m about to go outside when I hear the faintest strains of music floating through the air from somewhere farther inside the house. One swelling measure, and then it’s gone.
Tiptoeing through the halls, I figure out where it’s coming from. The door to Ethan’s private study—the room that shall not be entered—is cracked open. There’s a sliver of light shining through.
No way.
I’ve been over every inch of this house for the past year and this is the only room my key card won’t open. I even tried to jimmy the lock with my telekinesis one day when Ethan was out, with no luck. It’s always been an impenetrable fortress.
Until now, I guess.
I push the door open just a little more and am surprised by how heavy it is. The thing must be made of metal or something. I peer in.
There’s a wall of bookshelves on one side, but most of the rest of the room is covered in charts and graphs. A big circular desk in the center of the floor has a map spread across it covered in pins and little flags. Ethan sits at his workstation. There are three—no, make that four—computer monitors hooked up to a couple of PC towers, and a laptop opened off to the side. Music pours out of speakers hidden around the room, the volume just above a whisper. Beethoven, I think, but I only know that because Ethan dragged me to a symphony once thinking I might take a liking to a bunch of violins or something.
Ethan’s back is to me, but I can hear him. He’s talking to someone. It looks like a video call. I can almost make out the person on the screen.
My body freezes. “Person” might be the wrong word.
The figure on the screen has black hair, slicked back, with some other black marks—birthmarks? Tattoos?—peeking out at the sides. His eyes are dark orbs. On the sides of his nose are shining little slivers of flesh, like monstrous gills standing out against his ashen skin.
I’ve seen faces like that before. Only once. In Canada.
A Mogadorian.
Before I can wrap my head around anything that’s going on, Ethan speaks.
“What about Four? Have you got a lock on him?”
My head pounds.
What’s going on?
“We have a few leads.” The Mog grins, exposing rows of gray teeth. “It shouldn’t be long now. It’s only a matter of waiting for him to slip up now that Number Three has been taken off the board. We’d had leads connecting him to Florida, but it seems like those were probably all pointing to your charge.”
No, no, no, none of this is right.
“More than likely.” Ethan nods. “None of our eyes in Miami have reported anything, at least.”
His charge. The Mog is talking about me. My heart leaps into my throat. They know where I am.
Is Ethan working for them? Is he one of them?
Nothing’s making sense. My thoughts race. The red mark on my calf burns.
“And Number Five?” the Mog bastard asks. “I trust his training continues as planned.”
My hands tremble.
“He remains well,” Ethan says. He cocks his head to the side just a bit. “In fact, he’s here right now.”
A little cry escapes through my lips.
“I’ll have to call you back,” Ethan says, tapping on the keyboard. The Mog disappears.
So do I.
I have to get out of this house. Whatever is happening, my cover’s been blown, and I can’t afford to stick around and try to figure things out.
I dart for the front door, but it’s locked. My key card is upstairs, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn’t do any good.
I head to the back door—the sliding one that opens up to the patio, the one that’s never locked—but it won’t budge. I pick up a nearby chair and slam it into the glass. It should be more than enough force to shatter it. Instead, the chair just bounces off.
This house suddenly seems like one big prison.
“Bulletproof,” Ethan says from behind me.
I whirl around, holding up my fists, ready to punch him or use my tele
kinesis against him. He just stands there unarmed with his hands out in front of him, the sleeves of his white dress shirt rolled up to his elbows.
“Explain yourself!” I shout with a fury I didn’t even know I had in me. I’m running on pure adrenaline now.
“Look, there’s no reason for us to fight. I don’t want to, and we both know there’s no way I could even attempt to match you if—” He takes a step forward and I blast him back, sending him toppling over a gray couch in the living room, crashing through a glass coffee table.
When he looks up, he seems oddly pleased.
“I deserved that.”
“Explain yourself,” I say again. Not as loud, but more earnestly.
What has he done? What have I done?
Ethan gets up slowly and sits on the edge of the couch. He pulls a piece of glass out of his palm, wincing slightly.
“All right,” he says. “Let’s be honest with each other for once.”
I nod. He takes a deep breath and then starts to talk.
“I am not a thief or playboy criminal or anything like that. Not originally, at least. That was just a persona that was created for me. We have so many ties to the people that run this city—both the criminals and the politicians—that it was easy to plant me here.”
“How did you even find me?” is all I can manage to sputter.
“You flew to shore last year. That sort of thing gets noticed. Maybe not by the media or the police, but people talk. And we were listening.”
“Who are you? You don’t look like a Mog.”
“Do you know about the Greeters?”
That word brings up memories of Rey talking. An image of us in Canada flashes in my mind, me tucked into bed and my Cêpan telling me about our escape from Lorien. Ethan just keeps on talking.
“The Greeters were humans who met the Cêpans when you first arrived on Earth. They helped the Garde transition into life here. That sort of thing.”
Garde. Cêpan. It’s so strange to hear these words coming out of Ethan’s mouth—words I’ve kept hidden for so long.
“Right,” I say. “So what does that have to do with you?”
“I was supposed to be one of them.”
“You’re a Greeter?”
“I was a part of this message board that a man named Malcolm . . . You know what, that part doesn’t matter. What matters is that I predicted the future. I know power—know potential—when I see it. That part of me is true. And I could see that there was no way that Lorien’s squad of children could ever hope to stand up to the Mogadorians. So when the Mogs came to Earth looking for you, I struck a deal with them. In exchange for my service, I will be spared. Earth’s future belongs to the Mogadorians, and when they take over they’ll remember that I was the one who helped them.” He slumps a little, and when he talks again it’s more to himself than to me. “I chose correctly too. The Greeters haven’t necessarily had a great life since then.”
“You sold me out so you could live,” I say quietly, backing up against the door. My eyes dart outside. Suddenly I realize what this means. “They’re here to kill me already, aren’t they?”
“Whoa, whoa,” Ethan says, raising his hands again, one of them bloody from the glass. “You misunderstand. I’m not helping them by handing you over to them so they can kill you. They don’t want to hurt you at all. I’m helping them by training you. You’re going to rule here, Cody. The Mogadorians want you to reign alongside them.”
My mouth drops open.
“What?” I ask again dumbly, but it’s the only word I can summon right now.
“The Garde are done for,” Ethan says. “You’ve got another scar, right? That leaves six of you. The Mogadorians have an entire army—hell, entire worlds at their disposal. Do you really think Lorien poses any threat? That Earth could stop them?”
I don’t answer, just stand there trying to make sense of everything that’s happening.
“Why me?”
“They have others. Number Nine is in their custody right now, but he’s not leadership material. I know, because I’ve met him. You’re the one that’s got what it takes. The power and the hunger. All this—this house, the staff, me teaching you—everything was put together for you. To make you stronger.”
“You have Nine?” My mind races. For so long the other Garde have just been stories and scars—it’s almost shocking to hear that Ethan’s actually met one of them.
“Oh yes,” Ethan says. “You wouldn’t like him. He’s arrogant and cocky. A pretty boy. And do you know where he and his Cêpan were while you were picking pockets on the beach to stay alive? In a giant apartment in Chicago. Living a life of luxury. The life you should have been leading—and have been leading since you’ve been in my care.”
The last year of my life has been a lie. No wonder I haven’t felt like I’ve been hunted while in Miami—I’ve been in their care the whole time.
“But . . .” I struggle for words. “Rey . . . my destiny . . .”
“Your destiny is whatever you make of it,” Ethan says. He pats at something in his pants pocket and I can hear a metallic click in the door behind me. “You’re free to go if you want. But think about what that would mean. Three have fallen. The rest will fall in time. You can die with them, for some fight that you inherited, a fight that was forced upon you, or you can live like a king. The Mogs will give you Earth. They’ll give you anything you want. You were raised to think of them as the enemy, but that’s just because it’s all you knew. It’s a weird form of brainwashing. Try to put things in perspective. The Mogs are not your enemy. They’re your only chance for survival.”
No.
Before Ethan can say anything else I’ve used my telekinesis to push open the back door and am soaring through the sky. I worry for a moment that something might shoot me down—that there are guns or lasers hidden in the trees around Ethan’s compound—but nothing stops me from going.
I fly out over the water, low enough that no one should be able to see me. The Garde. Ethan. The Mogs. My mind is a mess and I can’t think straight. It doesn’t help that I’m surrounded by nothing but ocean now, bringing back memories of Rey’s little sailboat and being lost out at sea, near death.
How is it possible that everything I’ve done has been so wrong?
I fly back to the mainland—miles and miles away from Ethan’s home—to try to calm down and think rationally. I land on the top of the tallest building in downtown Miami, perch on the edge of the roof. And there I sit, trying to make sense of it all.
Everything about my life after I crash-landed on the beach might have been arranged by the Mogs. Well, not everything. It would have taken a while for word to spread about me. Everything after meeting Ethan on the beach has probably been staged, but things before that might not have been.
Like Emma. Did she know about me? Was she just a plant to get me into Ethan’s sights? Part of the plan all along? For some reason, the answers to these questions nag at my brain. When she called me a monster, was it because she really thought I was one or because she was told to do so?
I take the little rubber ball from my pocket and roll it over the backs of my knuckles. It’s the only little piece of my past I have left. That and . . .
Shit.
My Loric Chest is back in my room at Ethan’s. Of course I forgot it. I’m such an idiot. Rey would be furious if he were alive to know I’d left it like I did during his fake Mog attack back on the island.
But Rey’s not here. It wasn’t even a Mogadorian that killed him. It was this planet. Or his own body.
Rey’s not here. No one is. It’s just me.
I’m alone again.
My thoughts flash to the other Garde. The Mogs have Nine. That means there are only five of us alive and free. Five of us against the world. Against several worlds.
I wonder if Ethan might be right. Maybe Lorien’s last-chance plan of enchanting a bunch of little kids and sending them to another planet never had any hope of success. We never
even got to question whether that was what we wanted to do or not. No one asked us if we wanted to be the chosen ones.
I’m suddenly reminded of a movie Emma and I saw together before everything went to hell—some horror flick we’d laughed our way through. There was an island inhabited by a cult and a man was stranded on it. He and the rest of the audience knew that the people in the cult were crazy, but they didn’t. They’d been a part of the cult their whole lives and just couldn’t see that they were the bad guys.
Was that my story too?
I wish Rey were here to make sense of things. Already he’s fading from my memory. And the things I do remember vividly are his rules, or his disappointment, or his failed training.
And his last words. Do whatever it takes to survive.
I stay on the roof all night. By morning, I still don’t know what my next move should be. And even though I know I shouldn’t—that it’s probably being watched—I go to the beach where I first met Emma.
I find the arepa stand where I bought us snacks.
It takes the owner a few moments to recognize me with a few extra pounds and close-cropped hair. When he finally does, he looks spooked.
“Have you seen Emma around?” I ask him.
He shakes his head a little.
“She’s gone.”
“What do you mean, she’s gone?” I ask. My heart races. If the Mogs killed her . . .
“Her family moved a few months ago. Her brother had been in the hospital for a while, but when he finally got out, they wanted to start over somewhere new. They hightailed it out of here.”
His face is going pale. At first I think the Mogs have shown up behind me or something, but then I realize it’s me. Emma must have told him, or the other locals, what she’d seen. About what a freak I was.
The man crosses his hand over his head and chest. He keeps talking, but I walk away.
I wander aimlessly, frustration growing inside me. Four other Garde are free, but hidden away. Probably living in high-rises or penthouses like Nine was. And here I am alone again. Forgotten. Having to start over.
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