The Power of Six

“There’re six of us left.”

“I know there are. So what?”

“Six of us, and maybe some of the others still have their Cepans; maybe they don’t. But six to fight who knows how many Mogadorians? A thousand? A hundred thousand? A million?”

“Hey, don’t forget about me,” Sam says. “And Bernie Kosar.”

I nod. “Sorry, Sam; you’re right. Eight of us.” And then all of a sudden I remember something else. “Six, do you know about the second ship that left Lorien?”

“A ship aside from ours?”

“Yeah, it left after ours. Or, at least, I think it did. Loaded with Chim?ra. Fifteen or so, and three Cepan, and maybe a baby. I had visions of it when Henri and I were training, though he was skeptical. But so far all my visions have proven true.”

“I had no idea.”

“It took off in an old rocket that kind of looked like a NASA shuttle. You know, powered by fuel that left a trail of smoke behind it.”

“Then it wouldn’t have made it here,” Six says.

“Yeah, that’s what Henri said.”

“Chim?ra?” Sam asks. “The same kind of animal as Bernie Kosar?” I nod. He perks up. “Maybe that’s how Bernie made it here? Could you imagine if they all made it? After seeing what Bernie did during the fight?”

“It’d be amazing,” I agree. “But I’m pretty sure old Bernie here was on our ship.”

I run my hand down the length of Bernie Kosar’s back and can feel matted scabs still covering most of his body. Sam sighs, leans back in his seat with a look of relief on his face, probably imagining an army of Chim?ra coming to our aid at the last minute to defeat the Mogadorians. Six looks into the rearview mirror, and the headlights from the car behind us illuminate a band of light across her face. She looks back to the road wearing the same introspective gaze that Henri always did when driving.

“The Mogadorians,” she begins softly, swallowing as Sam and I turn our attention to her. “They caught up to us the day after we responded to Two’s post, in a desolate town in West Texas. Katarina had driven fifteen straight hours from Mexico, and it was getting late and we were both exhausted because neither of us had slept. We stopped at a motel off the highway, not all that different from the one we just left. It was in a tiny town that looked like something out of an old Western movie, full of cowboys and ranchers. There were even hitching posts outside some of the buildings so that the people could tie up their horses. It was very weird, but we had just come from a dusty town in Mexico, so we didn’t think twice about stopping.”

She pauses as a car cruises past us. She follows it with her eyes and checks the speedometer before turning back to the road.

“We went to get something to eat at a diner. About halfway through our meal, a man entered and took a seat. He was wearing a white shirt and tie, but it was a Western tie and his clothes looked outdated. We ignored him, even though I noticed the others in the diner staring at him, the same way they were staring at us. At one point he turned and gazed our way, but since everyone else had done the same, I didn’t piece it together. I was only thirteen then, and it was hard to think of anything at that point other than sleep and food. So we finished eating and went back to our room. Katarina jumped into the shower; and when she stepped out, wrapped in a robe, there was a knock at the door. We looked at each other. She asked who it was, and the man answered that he was the motel manager and had brought fresh towels and ice; and without thinking twice, I walked to the door and opened it.”

“Oh no,” Sam says.

Six nods. “It was the man from the diner with the Western tie. He walked straight into the room and shut the door. I was wearing my pendant in plain view. He knew immediately who I was, and Katarina and I knew immediately who he was. In one fluid motion he pulled a knife from the waistband of his trousers and swung for my head. He was fast, and I had no time to react. I had no Legacies yet, no defenses. I was dead. But then the weirdest thing happened. As the knife dug into my skull, it was his skull that split open. I didn’t feel a thing. I learned later they had no idea how the charm worked, that he couldn’t kill me until numbers one through five were dead. He dropped to the ground and burst into ash.”

“Wicked,” Sam says.

“Wait,” I interrupt. “From what I’ve seen, Mogadorians are pretty recognizable. Their skin is so white it looks bleached. And their teeth and eyes . . .” I trail off. “How could you not have known it in the diner? Why’d you let him into the room?”

“I’m pretty sure only the scouts and soldiers look like that. They’re the Mogadorians’ version of the military. That’s what Katarina said, anyway. The rest of them look as much like normal humans as we do. The one who came into the diner looked like an accountant, wearing wire-rimmed glasses, black slacks, and a white short- sleeved dress shirt and that tie. He even had a really dorky mustache. I remember him being tan. We had no idea they had followed us.”

“That’s reassuring,” I say sarcastically. I replay the image of the knife plunging into Six’s skull and killing the Mogadorian instead. If one of them tried the same thing with a knife on me, right now, I would be killed. I push the thought away and ask, “Do you think they’re still in Paradise?”

She says nothing for a minute, and when she finally speaks, I wish she had stayed silent instead. “I think they might be.”

“So Sarah’s in danger?”

“Everyone’s in danger, John. Every person we know in Paradise, every person we don’t know in Paradise.”

All of Paradise is probably under surveillance, and I know it’s not safe to go within fifty miles of it. Or to call. Or even to send a letter, or they’d learn the pull Sarah has on me, the connection we have.

“Anyway,” Sam says, wanting to get back to the story. “The Mogadorian accountant falls to the floor and dies. Then what?”

“Katarina threw the Chest to me and grabbed our suitcase, and we sprinted out of the motel room, Katarina still in her robe. The truck was unlocked, and we jumped inside. Another Mog came charging out from behind the motel. Kat was so flustered that she couldn’t find the keys. She locked the doors, though, and the windows were rolled up. But the guy wasted no time at all and punched straight through the passenger-side glass and grabbed me by the shirt. Katarina screamed, and some men nearby jumped into action.

“Others poured out of the diner to see what was happening. The Mogadorian had no choice but to let go of me to face the men.

“‘The keys are in the motel room!’ Katarina yelled. She looked at me with these big, huge, desperate eyes. She was panicking. We both were. I jumped out of the truck and sprinted back to our room for the keys. Those men in Texas, they were the only reason we got away then; they saved our lives. When I came out of the motel room with the keys, one of the Texans was aiming a gun at the Mogadorian.

“We have no idea what happened after that because Katarina sped away and we didn’t look back. We hid the Chest a few weeks later, right before they caught up to us for good.”

“Don’t they already have the Chests from the first three?” Sam asks.

“I’m sure they do, but what use are they? The second we die the Chest unlocks itself, and everything inside becomes useless,” she says, and I nod, knowing that much from past conversations with Henri.

“Not only are the objects worthless,” I say, “but they completely disintegrate the same way the Mogadorians do when they’re killed.”

“Wicked,” Sam says.

And then I remember the sticky note I found when saving Henri in Athens, Ohio.

“Those guys Henri visited who ran the They Walk Among Us magazine?”

“Yeah?”

“They had this source who apparently caught a Mogadorian and tortured it for information, and he supposedly knew that Number Seven was being trailed in Spain and that Number Nine was somewhere in South America.”

Six thinks about it a moment. She bites her lip and glances in the rearview mirror. “I know for a fact that Number Seven is a girl; I remember that much from the ride in the ship.” The second this leaves her mouth, a