The Power of Six

hands. I’ll run it back to the truck first.”

“No, that’s okay. Take Sam with you, and I’ll follow behind.”

“That’s stupid, John. How are you going to follow behind?”

I pull on my hat and jacket, then zip it and pull the hood over my head so that only my face shows.

“I’ll be fine. I have advanced hearing, like you,” I say.

She eyes me skeptically and shakes her head. I grab Bernie Kosar’s leash and clip it to his collar.

“Only until we get to the truck,” I tell him, since he hates walking on a leash. On second thought, I lean down to carry him since his leg is still healing, but he tells me he’d rather walk himself.

“Ready when you are,” I say.

“All right, let’s do this,” Six says.

Sam offers his hand to her a little too enthusiastically. I stifle a laugh.

“What?” he asks.

I shake my head. “Nothing. I’ll follow you as best I can, but don’t get too far ahead.”

“Just cough if you can’t follow and we’ll stop. The truck is only a few minutes’ walk from here, behind the abandoned barn,” Six says. “Can’t miss it.”

As the door flings open, Sam and Six disappear.

“That’s our cue, BK. Just the two of us now.”

He follows me out, trotting happily with his tongue dangling. Aside from quick bathroom trips to the small plot of grass beside the motel, Bernie Kosar’s been cooped up like the rest of us.

The night air is cool and fresh, carrying a scent of pine, and the wind on my face brings me instantly back to life. As I walk I close my eyes and try to sense Six by combing the air with my mind, reaching out and feeling the landscape with telekinesis, the same way I was able to stop the speeding bullet in Athens by grabbing everything in the air. I feel them, a few feet ahead of me and slightly to the right. I give Six a nudge and she startles, her breath catching in her throat. Three seconds later she shoulders into me, nearly causing me to fall. I laugh. And so does she.

“What are you guys doing?” Sam asks. He’s annoyed with our little game. “We’re supposed to be quiet, remember?”

We make it to the truck, which is parked behind a dilapidated old barn that looks as though it’s ready to collapse. Six releases Sam’s hand and he climbs into the middle of the cab. Six jumps behind the wheel, and I slide in next to Sam with BK at my feet.

“Holy crap, dude, what happened to your hair?” I goad Sam.

“Shut up.”

Six starts the truck and I smile as she steers us onto the road, flicking on the headlights when the wheels touch the asphalt.

“What?” Sam asks.

“I was just thinking that, out of the four of us, three are aliens, two are fugitives with terrorist ties, and not a single one of us has a valid driver’s license. Something tells me things might get interesting.”

Even Six can’t help but smile at this.

Chapter Four

“I WAS THIRTEEN WHEN THEY CAUGHT UP TO us,” Six says when we cross into Tennessee, fifteen minutes after leaving the Trucksville Motel behind. I’d asked her to tell us about how she and Katarina were captured. “We were in West Texas after fleeing Mexico because of a stupid mistake. We had both been completely entranced by some stupid internet post that Two had written, though we didn’t know it was by Two at the time, and we responded. We were lonely in Mexico, living in some dusty town in the middle of nowhere, and we just had to know if it really was a member of the Garde.”

I nod, knowing what she’s talking about. Henri had also seen the blog post while we were in Colorado. I had been in a school spelling bee, and the scar had come while I was onstage. I’d been rushed to the hospital and the doctor saw the first scar, and the fresh burn all the way to the bone of the second. When Henri arrived, they’d accused him of child abuse, which was the catalyst behind our fleeing the state and assuming new identities, another new start.

“‘Nine, now eight. Are the rest of you out there?’” I ask.

“That’s the one.”

“So you guys are the ones who responded,” I say. Henri had taken screen shots of the post so I could see it. He had tried furiously to hack the computer to delete it before the damage could be done, but he hadn’t been quick enough. Two was killed. Somebody else deleted the post right after. We’d assumed it was the Mogadorians.

“Katarina did, simply writing ‘We are here’; and not a minute later the scar appeared,” Six says, shaking her head. “It was so stupid of Two to post that, knowing she was next. I still can’t understand why she’d risk it.”

“Do you guys know where she was?” Sam asks.

I look at Six. “Do you? Henri thought it was England, but he couldn’t say for sure.”

“No idea. All we knew was that if they’d gotten to her that quickly, it wouldn’t take long for them to get to us.”

“But, how do you even know she posted it?” Sam asks.

Six glances at him.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know; you guys can’t even say for sure where she was, so how do you know it was her?”

“Who else would it be?”

“Well, I mean, I watch the way you and John are so cautious. I can’t imagine either of you doing something so stupid like that if you knew you were next. Especially with everything you know about the Mogadorians. I don’t think you would have posted something to begin with.”

“True, Sam.”

“So maybe they had already captured Two and were trying to draw some of you guys out before they killed her, which could explain why she was killed seconds after you responded. It could have been a bluff. Or maybe she knew what they were doing, and she killed herself to warn you guys away or something. Who knows. Those are just some guesses, right?”

“Right,” I say. But they are good guesses. Ones I hadn’t thought about. Ones I wonder if Henri had.

We ride in silence thinking about it. Six drives the speed limit and a few cars cruise past us. The highway itself is lined with overhead lights that make the rolling hills beyond look spooky.

“She could have been scared and desperate,” I say. “That could have led her to do something stupid, like write a careless post on the internet.”

Sam shrugs. “Just seems kind of unlikely to me.”

“But they could have already killed her Cepan, and she could have become frantic. She must have been twelve, maybe thirteen. Imagine being thirteen and on your own,” I say before I realize I’m describing Six’s exact scenario. She glances at me, then turns back to the road.

“We never once thought it was a trick,” she says. “Though it kind of makes sense. Back then we were just scared. And my ankle was on fire. Kind of hard to think straight when it feels as though your foot is being sawed off.”

I nod my head gravely.

“But even after the initial fear, we still didn’t consider that angle. We replied, which is what put them on our tail. It was ridiculous for us to do. Maybe you’re right, Sam. I can only hope we’ve grown a little wiser, those of us still left.”

Her last sentence hangs in the air. There are only six of us left. Six of us against any number of them. And no way of knowing how we might possibly find one another. We’re the only hope. Strength in numbers. The power of six. The thought makes my heart pump at twice its normal speed.

“What?” Six asks.