The Power of Six

sorry, Six.”

“I was just waiting and praying for my Legacies to finally develop so I could get the hell out of there. And then one day, the first one finally did. It was after breakfast. I looked down and my left hand just wasn’t there. Of course, I freaked out, but then I realized I could still feel my hand. I tried to pick up my spoon, and sure enough, I could. And that’s when I understood what was happening-and invisibility was the thing I needed in order to escape.”

How it started for Six wasn’t all that different from how it had started for me, when my hand began to glow in the middle of my first class at Paradise High.

Two days later Six had been able to make herself completely invisible, and when dinner rolled around that day, and the slot on the door was slid open and her meal pushed through, the Mogadorian guard saw an empty cell. He’d looked wildly around and then hit an alarm that sent a piercing wail through the cave. The iron door had been flung open and four Mogs charged in. While they stood there, dumbfounded as to how she’d escaped, she slid by and rushed out the door and down the tunnel, seeing the cave for the very first time.

It had been a massive labyrinthine network of long, interconnected tunnels that were dark and drafty. There were cameras everywhere. She’d passed thick glass windows revealing chambers that looked like scientific labs, clean and brightly lit. The Mogadorians inside had worn white plastic suits and goggles, but she’d raced by so swiftly she couldn’t tell what they were doing. A sprawling room housed a thousand or so computer screens with a Mogadorian sitting in front of each, and Six assumed they were looking for signs of us. Just like Henri, I thought. One tunnel was lined with heavy steel doors she had been sure held other prisoners. But she sped on, knowing her Legacy was far from developed and terrified she wouldn’t stay invisible for very long. The siren had continued to wail. And then she reached the heart of the mountain, a great, cavernous hall a half mile wide and so dark and murky she could hardly see to its other side.

The air had been stifling and Six was already sweating. The walls and ceiling were lined with huge wooden trellises to keep the cave from collapsing, and narrow ledges chiseled into the rock face connected the tunnels dotting the dark walls. Above her, several long arches had been carved from the mountain itself to bridge the great divide from one side to the other.

She had pressed herself against a rocky crag, her eyes darting back and forth for a way out. The number of passageways had been endless. She’d stood there overwhelmed, her eyes sweeping across the hollow darkness, seeing nothing at all that looked promising. But then she did-far across the ravine, a pale pinprick of natural light at the end of a wider tunnel. Just before she climbed the wooden trellis to reach the stone bridge that led to it, something else caught her eye: the Mogadorian who had killed Katarina. She couldn’t let him get away. She followed him.

He entered the room where he had killed Katarina.

“I went straight to his desk and took the sharpest razor I saw, then grabbed him from behind and slit his throat. And as I watched the blood gush and spread across the floor, followed by him bursting into ash, I found myself wishing that it would have been possible to kill him a little more slowly. Or to kill him again.”

“What did you do when you finally got out?” I ask.

“I hiked up the opposite mountain, and when I got up there I stared down at the cave for an hour, trying to remember every little detail I could. Once I was satisfied with that, I took note of everything I passed on the five- mile run to the nearest road, and from there I jumped on the back of a slow pickup truck. When it stopped a few miles down the road to get gas, I stole his map, a notepad, and a couple of pens from the cab. Oh, and a bag of potato chips.”

“Niiiiice. What kind of chips?” Sam asks.

“Dude,” I say.

“What?”

“They were barbecue, Sam. I marked the cave’s location on the map I showed you guys back at the motel, and in the notepad I drew a diagram of everything I remembered, like a chart that would lead whoever read it straight to its entrance. I kind of panicked and hid the diagram not far from the town but kept the map, then I stole a car and drove straight to Arkansas; but of course by then my Chest had long since been taken.”

“I’m so sorry, Six.”

“Me, too,” she says. “But they can’t open it without me anyway. Maybe I’ll get it back someday.”

“At least we still have mine,” I reply.

“You should open it soon,” she says, and I know she’s right. I should have opened it already. Whatever’s in that Chest, whatever secrets it holds, Henri had wanted me to know them. The secrets. The Chest. He had said as much in his final breaths. I feel stupid for having put it off this long; but whatever’s in the Chest, I have a feeling it’s going to set the four of us on a long, uphill journey.

“I will,” I say. “Let’s just get off this train and find a safe place first.”

Chapter Nine

I’M THE FIRST ONE OUT OF BED WHEN THE MORNING bell rings. I always am. It’s not necessarily because I’m a morning person but because I prefer being in and out of the bathroom before anyone else.

I rush through making my bed, which I’ve gotten very good at over time. The key is getting the sheet, blanket, and comforter tucked deeply in at the foot. From there it’s just a matter of pulling the rest to the head, tucking the sides, and adding pillows to give it that clean, a-quarter-could-be-bounced-off-it finish.

By the time I’m done, across the room in the bed nearest to the door, Ella, the girl who arrived on Sunday, is the only other one up. Like the previous two mornings, she’s trying to emulate the way I make my bed, though she’s struggling with it. Her problem is that she’s trying to work from the top down instead of the bottom up. While Sister Katherine has been lenient with Ella, her rotation ends today and Sister Dora’s weeklong shift begins tonight. I know she won’t allow Ella to skimp on perfection, regardless of how new she is or what she’s going through.

“Would you like help?” I ask, crossing the room.

She looks at me with sad eyes. I can see she doesn’t care about the bed. I imagine she doesn’t care about much of anything right now, and I can’t blame her, given the death of her parents. I’d like to tell her not to worry, that unlike those of us who are “lifers,” she’ll be out of this place within the month, two at the most. But what consolation can that be to her now?

I bend down at the foot of the bed and pull the sheet and blanket until there’s enough to tuck them both beneath the mattress, then I stretch her comforter over them both.

“Want to grab that side?” I ask, nodding to the left of the bed while I go to the right. Together we give the whole bed the same tight, clean look as my own.

“Perfect,” I say.

“Thank you,” she replies in her soft, timid voice. I look down into her big brown eyes and can’t help but like her and feel some need to look after her.

“I’m sorry to hear about your parents,” I say.

Ella looks away. I think I’ve overstepped my boundaries, but then she offers me a slight smile. “Thank you. I miss them a lot.”

“I’m sure they miss you, too.”

We leave the room together, and I notice she walks on the balls of her feet so as not to make a sound.

At the bathroom sink, Ella grips her toothbrush near the top, almost touching the bristles with her small fingers, making the toothbrush appear larger than it really is. When I catch her staring at me in the mirror, I grin. She grins back, showing two rows of tiny teeth. Toothpaste pours from her mouth and runs down her arm, dripping from her elbow. I watch it, thinking the S pattern it creates is familiar, and I let my mind wander.

A hot summer day in June. Clouds drift in the blue sky. Cool waters ripple in the sun. The fresh air carries hints of pine. I breathe it in and let the stress of Santa Teresa melt away into nothingness.

Though I believe my second Legacy developed shortly after the first, I didn’t discover it until almost a full year later. It was an accident I discovered it at all, which makes me wonder if I have other Legacies waiting to be