“I’m sorry, Henri. I didn’t know this would happen.”
“I know you didn’t. I’m just happy you’re okay.” He says, “Come on, we have to get out of here. The whole damn school is surrounded.”
Sarah leads us to the safest room she can think of, which is the home economics kitchen down the hall. We lock the door behind us. Six moves three refrigerators in front of it to keep anything from entering while Henri rushes to the windows and pulls the blinds down. Sarah walks straight into the kitchen we normally use, opens the drawer, and removes the biggest butcher’s knife she can find. Mark watches her, and when he sees what she has done, he drops the Chest to the floor and grabs a knife of his own. He rifles through other drawers and removes a meat-tenderizer hammer and tucks it into the waistband of his pants.
“You guys okay?” Henri asks.
“Yes,” I say.
“Aside from the dagger in my arm, yes, I’m fine,” Six says.
I turn my lights on dimly and look at her arm. She wasn’t kidding. Where the biceps meets the shoulder a small dagger is sticking out. That was why I heard her gasp before she killed the scout. It had thrown a knife at her. Henri reaches up and pulls it free. She grunts.
“Thankfully it’s just a dagger,” she says, looking at me. “The soldiers will have swords that glow with different sorts of powers.”
I mean to ask what kind of powers, but Henri interrupts.
“Take this,” he says, and holds the shotgun out for Mark to take. He accepts it in his free hand without protest, staring in awe at everything he is witnessing around him. I wonder how much Henri has told him. I wonder why Henri brought him along in the first place. I look back at Six. Henri presses a rag to her arm and she holds it in place. He steps over and lifts the Chest and sets it on the nearest table.
“Here, John,” he says.
Without explanation I help him unlock it. He throws the top open, reaches in, removes a flat rock every bit as dark as the aura surrounding the Mogadorians. Six seems to know what the rock is for. She takes her shirt off. Beneath it she is wearing a black and gray rubber suit very similar to the silver and blue suit I saw my father wear in my flashbacks. She takes a deep breath, offers Henri her arm. Henri thrusts the rock against the gash, and Six, with her teeth clenched tightly, grunts and writhes in pain. Sweat beads across her forehead, her face bright red under the strain, tendons standing out on her neck. Henri holds it there for nearly a full minute. He pulls the stone away and Six bends over at the waist, taking deep breaths to compose herself. I look at her arm. Aside from a bit of blood still glistening, the cut is completely healed, no scars, nothing aside from the small tear in the suit.
“What is that?” I ask, nodding to the rock.
“It’s a healing stone,” says Henri.
“Stuff like that really exists?”
“On Lorien it does, but the pain of healing is double that of the original pain caused by whatever has happened, and the stone only works when the injury was done with the intent to harm or kill. And the healing stone has to be used right away.”
“Intent?” I ask. “So, the stone wouldn’t work if I tripped and cut my head by accident?”
“No,” Henri says. “That’s the whole point of Legacies. Defense and purity.”
“Would it work on Mark or Sarah?”
“I have no idea,” Henri says. “And I hope we don’t have to find out.”
Six catches her breath. She stands straight, feeling her arm. The red in her face begins to fade. Behind her, Bernie Kosar is running back and forth from the blocked door to the windows, which are placed too high off the ground for him to see out of, but he stands on his hind legs and tries anyway, growling at what he feels is out there.
“Did you get my phone today when you were at the school?” I ask Henri.
“No,” he says. “I didn’t grab anything.”
“It wasn’t there when I went back.”
“Well, it wouldn’t work here anyway. They’ve done something to our house and the school. The power is off, and no signals penetrate whatever sort of shield they’ve set up. All the clocks have stopped. Even the air seems dead.”
“We don’t have much time,” Six interrupts.
Henri nods. A slight grin appears while he looks at her, a look of pride, maybe even relief.
“I remember you,” he says.
“I remember you, too.”
Henri reaches out his hand and Six shakes it. “It’s shit good to see you again.”
“
“I’ve been looking for you guys for a while,” Six says.
“Where is Katarina?” Henri asks.
Six shakes her head. A mournful look crosses her face.
“She didn’t make it. She died three years ago. I’ve been looking for the others since, you guys included.”
“I’m sorry,” Henri says.
Six nods. She looks across the room at Bernie Kosar, who has just begun to growl ferociously. He seems to have grown tall enough so that his head is able to peek out the bottom of the window. Henri picks the shotgun up off the floor and walks to within five feet of the window.
“John, turn your lights off,” he says. I comply. “Now, on my word, pull the blinds.”
I walk to the side of the window and wrap the cord twice around my hand. I nod to Henri, and over his shoulder I see that Sarah has placed her palms against her ears in anticipation of the blast. He cocks the shotgun and aims it.
“It’s payback time,” he says, then, “Now!”
I pull the cord and the blind flies up. Henri fires the shotgun. The sound is deafening, echoing in my ears for seconds after. He cocks the gun again, keeps it aimed. I twist my body to look out. Two fallen scouts are lying in the grass, unmoving. One of them is reduced to ash with the same hollow thud as the one in the hallway. Henri shoots the other a second time and it does the same. Shadows seem to swarm around them.
“Six, bring a fridge over,” Henri says to her.
Mark and Sarah watch with amazement as the fridge floats in the air towards us and is positioned in front of the window to block the Mogadorians from entering or seeing into the room.
“Better than nothing,” Henri says. He turns to Six. “How much time do we have?”
“Time is short,” she says. “They have an outpost three hours from here, in a hollowed-out mountain in West Virginia.”
Henri snaps the gun open, slides in two new cartridges, snaps it shut.
“How many bullets does that hold?” I ask.
“Ten,” he says.
Sarah and Mark whisper to each other. I walk over to them.
“You guys okay?” I ask.
Sarah nods, Mark shrugs, neither really knowing quite what to say in the terror of the situation. I kiss Sarah on the cheek and take hold of her hand.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “We’ll get out of this.”
I turn to Six and Henri. “Why are they just out there waiting?” I ask. “Why don’t they break a window and rush in? They know they have us outnumbered.”
“They only want to keep us here, inside,” Six says. “They have us exactly where they want us, all together, confined to one place. Now they’re waiting for the others to arrive, the soldiers with the weapons, the ones who are skilled at killing. They’re desperate now because they know we’re developing our Legacies. They can’t afford to screw it up and risk us getting stronger. They know that some of us can now fight back.”
“We have to get out of here then,” Sarah pleads, her voice soft and shaky.
Six nods reassuringly to her. And then I remember something I had forgotten in all the excitement.
“Wait, your being here, us being together, that breaks the charm. All the others are fair game now,” I say. “They can kill us at will.”
I can see by the look of horror on Henri’s face that it had slipped his mind as well.
