that the Mogs might open my Chest is just as urgent to me as whatever is going on in Spain.
“I need to know how to get to the cave,” I say.
“John! Get real. You’re really not going to come with me to Spain?” Six asks. “After reading all that, you’re going to let me and Sam go alone?”
“Guys, get this. Also out of Santa Teresa, there’s a woman reported to have been cured, out of the blue, of an incurable degenerative disease. Santa Teresa is, like, an epicenter of activity right now. I bet every member of the Garde are on their way,” Sam says.
“If that’s the case,” I say, “then I’m definitely not going. I’m getting my Chest back.”
“That’s insane,” Six says.
I scramble over the passenger seat and open the glove compartment. My fingers find the stone I’m looking for, and I drop it in Six’s lap before hiding in the footwell again.
She lifts the pale yellow stone above the wheel, turning it over in the sunlight, and laughs. “You had the Xitharis out?”
“I figured it might come in handy,” I say.
“These don’t last long, remember,” she says.
“How long?”
“An hour, maybe a little more.”
The news is discouraging, but it could still give me the advantage I need. “Can you charge it, please?”
When Six holds the Xitharis to her temple, I know she’s agreed to let me go after the Chests while she heads to Spain.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I DO IT WITHOUT EVEN THINKING. THE SECOND the man points at me from the edge of the hole in the roof, I send two metal bed frames rocketing towards him. The second one is a direct hit. He falls forward and into the sleeping quarters; and when he hits the stone floor, to my amazement, he turns into a pile of dirt or ash.
“Run!” Adelina screams.
We crash into the hallway, pushing against the flow of the other girls and Sisters heading to the south wing for safety. I take hold of Adelina’s hand and guide us to the nave and down the center aisle.
“Where are we going?” Adelina yells.
“We’re not leaving without the Chest!”
Another explosion rocks the foundation of the orphanage and my hip crashes into a pew.
“I’ll be right back,” I whisper, releasing her hand, floating towards the nook.
Six tells us we’re close to Washington, DC, and that makes sense. I am considered an armed and dangerous terrorist; no wonder I was taken to the nation’s capital for questioning.
“There’s a flight leaving Dulles International in less than an hour,” she says, turning the wheel. “I’m getting on that plane. Sam, are you with me or are you with John?”
Sam places his forehead on the backseat and closes his eyes.
“Sam?” Six asks.
“I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” he says. After a minute, he raises his head and looks right at me. “I’m going with John.”
I mouth
“It’ll be easier for me to get there alone, anyway,” Six says, but she sounds hurt.
“You’ll be fighting with more experienced Garde members,” I reassure her. “Plus, it’s probably going to take two of us to get both of our Chests out of there.”
Bernie Kosar barks from the front seat.
“Yeah, buddy,” I say. “You’re a part of this team, too.”
The Chest is gone. My entire body sweats with panic. I almost vomit. Did the Mogadorians know it was up here the whole time? Why didn’t they trap me in here when they had the chance? I float back onto the nave floor.
“It’s gone, Adelina,” I whisper.
“The Chest?”
“It’s gone.” I hug her and bury my face in her shoulder. She pulls something up over her head. It’s a pale blue, almost transparent amulet attached to a beige cord. She carefully slips it over my hair until the amulet touches my neck. It’s both cold and warm at the same time against my skin, and then it glows brightly. My breath is taken away.
“What is it?” I ask, covering the glow with my hands.
“Loralite, the most powerful gem on Lorien, found only at its core,” she whispers. “I’ve hidden it this whole time. It’s yours, and there’s no use in hiding it any longer.
“It’s okay,” I say, feeling tears well up behind my eyes. All these years, this was all I had wanted from her. Understanding. Companionship. The acknowledgment of shared secrets.
We get closer to the airport, and the fear of splitting up weighs heavily on us. Sam tries to distract himself by studying the papers Six took from his dad’s office. “I wish I could spread these out in some library’s reference section.”
“After West Virginia,” I say. “I promise.”
Six gives me and Sam careful instructions on how to find the map that’ll take us to the cave. The rest of the trip passes in silence. We pull into a McDonald’s parking lot a mile from Dulles.
“There are three things you guys have to know.”
I sigh. “Why do I have the feeling that none of these things are going to be good?”
She ignores me and writes something on the back of a receipt. “First, here’s the address that I’ll be at in exactly two weeks at five p.m. Meet me there. If I’m not there, or, if for some reason you aren’t, then return in another week and I’ll do the same. If one of us doesn’t make it after the second week, then I think we can assume the other isn’t coming.” She hands it to Sam, who reads it and shoves it into his jeans pocket.
“Two weeks, five p.m.,” I say. “Got it. The second thing?”
“Bernie Kosar can’t go into the cave with you.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’ll kill him. I don’t understand it completely, but the Mogadorians control their beasts by filtering some sort of gas throughout the cave that only affects animals. If one leaves its designated place, it drops dead. When I finally got out, there was a heap of dead animals right at the cave’s entrance. Animals that had gotten too close.”
“Gross,” Sam says.
“And the last thing?”
“Their cave is equipped with every detection device you can think of. Cameras, motion detectors, body temperature gauges, infrared. Everything. The Xitharis will allow you to get past everything; but once it’s out of juice, look out, because they’re going to find you.”
“Where do we go?” I ask Adelina. Now that the Chest is gone, I feel directionless. Even with the amulet around my neck.
“We go to the belfry, and you use your telekinesis to get us into the yard. Then we run.”
I take her hand and start running when a ball of fire suddenly roars from the back of the nave. The fire takes hold of the back pews and rages towards the high ceiling. The nave is now brighter than it is during Sunday Mass. A man in a trench coat with long blond hair walks confidently out of the northern hallway, our path to freedom, and every muscle in my body seems to come unwound at the same time; every inch of skin breaks out with goose bumps.
He stands watching us, the flames attacking several more rows of pews, and then a sneer slowly breaks
