“What are you doing up?”
I whip around. Divided equally on each side of the Virgin Mary, Gabby and Delfina stand under the statue’s left arm while La Gorda and a wiry Bonita, the champion of the dock game that almost got me killed at the lake, position themselves beneath the right arm.
I glance over my shoulder and see two small eyes peering down at us from the nook’s opening.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“I wanted to see what the little tattletale was up to, that’s all. You know, it’s funny because I saw you sneak out of the room and I thought that I would get up and finally see what it was you’re always looking at on the computer, but you weren’t there.” Gabby paints a sarcastic, confused look on her face. “You were in here, which is really weird.”
“Really weird. It’s really weird,” La Gorda says. To my relief, I don’t hear Ella dragging the Chest anymore.
“Why do you even care?” I say. “Seriously. All I ever do is keep to myself and keep my mouth shut.”
“I care a lot about you, Marina,” Gabby says, stepping forward. She flips her long dark hair. “In fact, I care so much that I worry about you hanging out with that loser drunk, Hector, all the time. Do you get drunk with him?” She pauses. “Do you drink from his bottle?”
I don’t know if it was because she called Hector a loser, or because she thought our friendship was anything more than just that, or because she is snooping on what I’m doing at the computer, but it just happens. I close my eyes and reach out with my mind, grabbing all four of them at once. La Gorda screams, while the other three whimper in shock. I pick them up off the ground-their bare feet kicking at the air, their shoulders smashed against each other’s-and thrust them all across the smooth floor until they bounce off the steps leading to the raised dais at the back of the nave.
La Gorda slaps the floor with her open palms and gets to her feet like an angry bull ready to charge the conquistador. I run to her instead, making up the ground in a matter of seconds. La Gorda swings a wild punch and I duck, only to spring up and jam my right fist into her chin. She falls backwards with a gasp, and her head thuds against the floor. She’s out cold.
Bonita jumps on my back and pulls at my hair. Someone punches me in the left cheek, and the other kicks me in the shin. Bonita slides down my back and hugs my upper arms so I can’t move. Delfina swings and I duck. The punch glances off Bonita’s mouth and she loosens her grip enough for me to twist away. I grab Bonita’s right arm in my hands and I drive her towards Gabby.
“You’re dead, Marina! You are so dead!” Bonita shrieks, and I pull her sideways and knee her in the gut, knocking the wind out of her. I shove her to the ground next to La Gorda.
Delfina’s confidence is broken. She looks for the door. “You ready to leave me alone?” I ask her.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m going to get you tomorrow,” she says. “Right when you’re not looking.”
“You’re going to wish you didn’t say that.” I fake right and lunge left, tackling her around the waist. Gabby tries to grab my hair but I whip Delfina around to block her. Then I pivot on my heels and release Delfina down the middle aisle of the nave. Her back hits the first step at the altar, and her groan echoes off the vaulted ceiling.
Gabby circles me. “I’m telling Sister Dora. You’re going to be in so much trouble.” I turn my body to keep my eyes on her. She stops right next to the column. I can tell she’s about to charge and I’m ready for it.
Suddenly I see a flash of white above Gabby’s head. It takes me a second to recognize that it’s Ella, and she’s jumped from the nook all the way down onto Gabby’s shoulders. Gabby flails around until she can get her hands on Ella; and when she does, she tosses her onto the floor with a horrible cracking sound.
“No!” I yell, and then I punch Gabby in the sternum as hard as I can. Her feet leave the ground and she hits the wall, knocking dust from the stone wall’s mortar.
Ella’s on her back, wailing, writhing in pain, but I notice she keeps her right leg completely still. I kneel beside her and pull up the bottom of her nightgown to see a sharp white bone sticking out of her skin just below the knee. I don’t know what to do. I put my hand on her shoulders to try to console her, but she’s in so much pain, she doesn’t feel it.
“I’m right here, Ella,” I say. “I’m here right beside you, and everything is going to be okay.”
Her eyes open and she gives me a pleading look. It’s then that I see the damage done to her right hand. Her tiny fist is mangled, crooked; blood seeps out between her index and middle fingers. Her talent.
“Oh my God, Ella. I’m sorry,” I cry. “I’m so, so sorry.”
She just cries. I feel myself begin to sweat. Never in my life have I felt so useless.
“Try not to move,” I say, knowing it’s a futile plea. The nearest hospital is a half-hour drive. She’ll pass out from the pain by then.
She starts to rock in a rhythm from side to side. I hover my shaking hands over the shard of bone sticking out of her leg, not knowing if I should apply pressure or try to push it back under the skin. I decide on applying pressure, and the second my fingers touch her skin, Ella stutters with a sharp intake of breath. An icy tingle inches up my spine, a feeling much like the times I’ve brought life back to the flower in the computer room, and the feeling spreads throughout the rest of me. Is it possible that my ability to heal plants applies to people as well? Ella stops crying and starts breathing rapidly, her tiny chest rising and falling, rising and falling. I can feel the iciness concentrate in my palms and circulate outward from my fingertips. “I think, I think I can fix you.”
Her chest continues to rise and fall at an abnormal speed, but her face takes on a look of peacefulness, of detachment. I’m afraid to, but I place my hands over the piece of bone that sticks out from her leg. I feel its pebbly, broken end; and soon it begins to retreat back under the skin. The puncture wound turns from red and white back to the color of her skin; and I can see the jagged contours of her broken bone move and shift within her leg, setting itself back in place. I’m amazed at what I’ve just done. This could be my most important Legacy yet.
“Keep still,” I say. “One more thing.”
I close my eyes and wrap my hands around her thin right wrist. The iciness flows again through my fingertips. I open my eyes to watch her palm rise and her fingers spread away from each other. The cut between her index and middle fingers closes, and I see two broken knuckles straighten and mend. Ella clenches her hand and relaxes it.
I’ve done what Lorien has intended me to do, and that’s to undo damage that’s been inflicted on those who don’t deserve it.
Ella turns her head to the right to look at my hands wrapped around her wrist. “You’re fine,” I say. “You’re better than fine.” She raises her head off the ground and props herself up onto her elbows. I pull her into my arms.
“We’re a team,” I whisper into her ear. “We take care of each other. Thanks for trying to help.”
She nods her head. I squeeze her and then pull away. I look around at the girls, all of them unconscious but breathing. Sticking out of the opening of the nave, I see the edge of the Chest.
“I’m so proud of you for finding the Chest. You have no idea,” I say. “Let’s get it tomorrow morning after we’ve had some rest.”
“Are you sure?” Ella asks. “I can climb back up and get it.”
“No, no. You go wash up in the bathroom, and I’ll be right there.”
When she’s finally out of my sight, I raise my eyes to the Chest. Concentrating, I float it silently down to my feet. Now I just need to get Adelina to open it with me.
Chapter Seventeen
AS I BURST THROUGH THE BURNING DOOR AND land on the melting brown carpet of the living room, several things race through my mind. Sam. Henri’s letter. The Chest. Henri’s ashes. I engulf myself purposefully in flames in order to move easily from room to room. “Sam?” I yell. “Where are you, Sam?�
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Past the living room, I see that the entire back wall of the house is burning. The house could collapse in a matter of a minute. I dart into the bedrooms calling Sam’s name. The bathroom door explodes with my kick. I check the kitchen, the dining room; and just when I’m about to try the living room again, I look out the window and see the Chest and a pile of our belongings, including the laptop, the coffee can of Henri’s ashes, and the unopened letter, on the lip of the pool. Something small bobs in the middle of the water; it’s Sam’s head. He sees me and waves his arms.
I crash through the window and knock over the grill. I dive into the pool, the flames surrounding me hissing into gray and black smoke. “You okay?”
“I, I think so,” he says. We pull ourselves out of the water and stand over everything Sam was able to save.
“What happened?”
“Dude, they’re here. They’re totally here. The Mogadorians.” The moment he says these words I feel sick to my stomach. My jaw quivers. Then Sam says, “I saw them in the front window and then, boom, the house is on fire. I grabbed what I could. . . .”
There’s movement on the roof. Between fissures of rising flames, I see a huge Mogadorian scout in a black trench coat, hat, and sunglasses marching down the decline, his feet sinking into the soft tiles with every step. He carries a long gleaming sword.
I kneel and grab ahold of the Chest’s lock, and it yields under my glowing grip. Brushing aside the crystals at the bottom of the Chest, I pick up the dagger with the diamond blade. Flames dancing from the house reflect in its sharp edge. To my surprise, the handle extends and wraps itself around my entire right hand. “Get back,” I say to Sam.
The scout reaches the metal eave of the collapsing roof, and he drops onto the patio below, his feet cracking the concrete when he lands. He slices the sword in the air in front of him and it leaves a glowing trail. I control my breath and go over the last week of training in my mind.
The moment my feet push me forward, the scout roars and rushes at me with his trench coat billowing behind him. I see myself in his sunglasses the second before his sword swings across my body. I lean back far enough for him to miss me; but when I right myself, I enter the glowing trail the sword left behind. Pain attaches itself to my neck and travels to my waist. I’m knocked backwards and into the pool.
When my head surfaces I see Sam squaring off with the scout. His bare hands are up and out; he bobs his shoulders left and right. The scout laughs and drops his sword to the concrete, and he then mimics Sam’s fighting stance. Before I can heave myself out of the pool to help, Sam drops his weight onto his left foot and circles his right behind him. His sopping right shoe comes back around and connects with the scout’s face with a force that staggers him back several feet.
The dazed scout picks up his gleaming sword. I’m up out of the pool before he can reach Sam, and I lift my dagger to block the plummeting sword. The blades meet, and there is a ball of light so bright I can’t see for an instant. When the light fades, the scout’s sword breaks at the exact spot my dagger collided with it. Not wasting the moment of surprise, I plunge the blade of my dagger into his chest and rip it downward. He turns to ash and it covers my feet.
The house finally collapses-beams of wood crack in different directions, windows pop and explode from the walls-the roof flattening over it all like a book with a broken spine. A storm cloud appears overhead and a lightning bolt slices through the sky, landing just on the other side of the house.
“We have to get to Six!” Sam shouts. He’s right; the proximity of the lightning can only mean she’s in the middle of a battle. Or finishing one. With my one free hand, I heft the Chest up and over the backyard’s brick wall after making sure the coast is clear. Sam tosses the rest up to me and I then pull him to the wall’s cement top. We jump and roll on the moist grass beyond the wall. Securing everything behind a thick bush, we run around to the front yard.
In the middle of the driveway, just feet from our SUV, Six has a scout in a headlock, the muscles in her arms pulsing in the squeeze. Two more scouts are approaching. One aims a long, cylindrical tube right at me and a green light blasts me backwards. I can’t breathe. I can’t see. I roll into the high grass and feel the heat from the house.
When I’m able to open my eyes, I see the scout with the tube standing above me. I slowly regain some feeling in my arms and legs; my breathing returns to normal. The handle of the dagger still encases my right hand. The scout adjusts a knob on the tube, perhaps going from stun to kill, and then he steps on my right wrist. I try swinging my legs up and over me, but they don’t react the way I want them to, still sluggish from the paralyzing blast I just endured. The barrel of the tube is set between my eyes, and I think about the gun Six turned on the drunk man just an hour ago. This is it, I think. The Mogadorians’ mission is a success. Number Four, check. On to Number Five.
I watch hundreds of lights in the tube spark to life, swirling until they become one; just as he puts his finger on the trigger, Bernie Kosar clamps down on his thigh. The scout wobbles above me for a second before his head is separated from his body by a bolt of lightning. It rolls in the grass right next to mine; our noses touch before the head crumbles into a pile of ash, and I do everything I can not to breathe it in. The body above me falls over and covers my jeans with ash.
“Get up already,” Six yells, suddenly in the exact spot the scout had been.
Sam appears above me, too, his face stern and dirty. “We have to leave right now, John.”
The sound of sirens pierces the night. A mile away, maybe less. Bernie Kosar licks my left temple and whimpers.
“What about the third one?” I whisper.
Six looks over at Sam and nods. “I got a hold of his sword and used it against him. Best moment of my life,” he says.
I’m draped over Six’s shoulder, and she dumps me into the backseat of the SUV. Bernie Kosar settles himself on my shins and licks my lifeless right hand. Sam takes the keys and gets behind the wheel while Six retrieves our stuff. As soon as we’re on the highway and I no longer hear sirens, I’m able to relax and concentrate on my right hand. The dagger’s handle transforms and retreats from my knuckles and wrist. I drop the dagger in the foot well.
Fifteen minutes later, Six tells Sam to pull over, and we screech into the lit parking lot of a closed diner. She jumps out before the car has come to a complete stop, leaving the door open.
“Help me,” she orders.
“Six, I don’t want to be a dick right now, but I can’t really move my arms and legs.”
“Dude, just really try. We have to get them off our tail,” she says. “If we don’t, then you’re dead. Think about it.”
I struggle into a seated position and feel blood circulate to my legs. I climb out of the car and waver there in my burned clothes, having no idea what she needs help with.
“Find the bug,” she says. “Sam, keep the car running.”
“Roger,” he says.
“Find the what?” I ask.
“They use bugs to track vehicles. Trust me. They did it with me and Katarina.”
“What does it look like?”
“I have no idea. But time is short, so look fast.”
I almost want to laugh. There isn’t a single thing in the world I think I could do fast right now. But nonetheless, Six goes racing around the SUV while I slowly drop to a knee and manage to crawl beneath it, flashing my hands on its undercarriage. Bernie Kosar gets to sniffing, starting at the bumper and moving his way forward. I spot it almost immediately, a small circular object no bigger than a quarter stuck to the plastic cover of the gas tank.
“Got it,” I yell, plucking it off. I pull myself out and hand the device to Six while remaining on my back. She briefly studies it, then drops it in her pocket.
“Aren’t you going to destroy it?”
“No,” she answers. “Check again. We have to make sure there isn’t a second, or a third.”
I crawl back under wi
th my hands blazing, scooting from the back of the SUV to the front. I don’t see anything.
“You’re sure?” she asks when I stand.
“Yes.”
We get back in and speed away. It’s two o’clock in the morning, and Sam heads west. With Six’s instructions, he keeps the SUV between eighty-five and ninety, and I can’t help but worry about police. After thirty miles, he jumps onto an interstate and drives south.
“We’re almost there,” she says. Two miles later she tells Sam to get off the interstate. “Stop! Right here, stop!” Sam slams the brakes beside an idling semi whose owner is pumping gas. Six goes invisible and steps out, leaving the door ajar.
“What’s she doing?” Sam asks.
“I don’t know.”
After a few seconds the open door slams shut. Six reappears and tells Sam to get us back onto the highway, this time heading north. She’s relaxed a bit, no longer holding a white-knuckled grip on the dashboard.
“Are you really going to make me ask what you just did?” I say.
She glances over. “That truck was on its way to Miami. I stuck the tracking device on the underside of its trailer. Hopefully they’ll lose a few hours trailing him south while we drive north.”
I shake my head. “Should be an interesting night for that trucker.”
Once we’re past the Ocala exits, Six tells Sam to get off and park behind a strip mall a few minutes from the interstate.
“We sleep here tonight,” Six says. “Actually, we’ll take turns sleeping.”
Sam opens his door and turns his body sideways to dangle his feet out of the SUV. “Um, guys? I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but well, I got cut pretty bad back there and it’s really starting to hurt and I think I’m about to pass out.”
“What?” I scramble out of the vehicle and stand in front of him. He pulls up the dirty right leg of his jeans to reveal a wound above the knee that’s slightly smaller than a credit card, though probably an inch deep. Dried and fresh blood cover his knee and shin.
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