I Am Number Four

“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. Maybe nothing, I think. Occasionally he bites at the air.

“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.”

“Damn good,” I correct him, but he ignores me.

“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.

Six nods. “I had to risk it,” she says. “We can’t keep running, and I’m sick of waiting. We’re all developing, all of us are ready to hit back. Let’s not forget what they did to us that day, and I’m not going to forget what they did to Katarina. Everybody we know is dead, our families, our friends. I think they’re planning to do the same thing to Earth as they did to Lorien, and they are almost ready. To sit back and do nothing is to allow that same destruction, that same death and annihilation. Why stand back and let it happen? If this planet dies, we die with it.”

Bernie Kosar is still barking at the window. I almost want to let him outside, see what he can do. His mouth is frothing with his teeth bared, hair standing tall down the center of his back. The dog is ready, I think. The question is, are the rest of us?

“Well, you’re here now,” Henri says. “Let’s hope the others are safe; let’s hope they can fend for themselves. Both of you will know immediately if they can’t. As for us, war has come to our doorstep. We didn’t ask for it, but now that it’s here we have no choice but to meet it, head on, with full force,” he says. He lifts his head and looks at us, the whites of his eyes glistening through the dark of the room.

“I agree with you, Six,” he says. “The time has come.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

WIND FROM THE OPEN WINDOW RUSHES INTO the home economics room, the refrigerator in front of it doing little to prevent the cold air. The school is already chilly from the electricity being off. Six is now wearing only the rubber suit, which is entirely black aside from a gray band slicing diagonally down the front of it. She is standing in the middle of our group with such poise and confidence that I wish I had a Loric suit of my own. She opens her mouth to speak but is interrupted by a loud boom from outside. All of us rush to the windows but can see nothing of what is happening. The crash is followed by several loud bangs, and the sounds of tearing, gnashing, something being destroyed.

“What’s happening?” I ask.

“Your lights,” Henri says over the sounds of destruction.

I turn them on and sweep them across the yard outside. They reach but ten feet before being swallowed by the darkness. Henri steps back and tilts his head, listening to the sounds in extreme concentration, and then he nods in resigned acceptance.

“They are destroying all the cars out there, my truck included,” he says. “If we survive this and escape this school, it’ll have to be on foot.”

Terror sweeps across both Mark’s and Sarah’s faces.

“We can’t waste any more time,” Six says. “Strategy or no strategy, we have to go before the beasts and soldiers arrive. She said we can get out through the gymnasium,” Six says, and nods at Sarah. “It’s our only hope.”

“Her name is Sarah,” I say.

I sit in a nearby chair, unnerved by the urgency in Six’s voice. She seems to be the steady one, the one who has remained calm under the weight of the terrors we have seen thus far. Bernie Kosar is back at the door, scratching at the fridges that are blocking it, growling and whining in impatience. Since my lights are on, Six has a good look at him for the first time. She stares at Bernie Kosar, then squints her eyes and inches her face forward. She walks over and bends down to pet him. I turn and look at her. I find it odd that she is grinning.

“What?” I ask.

She looks up at me. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

Her grin widens. She looks back at Bernie Kosar, who races away from her and charges back to the window, scratching at it, growling, the occasional bark in frustration. The school is surrounded, death imminent, almost certain, and Six is grinning. It irritates me.

“Your dog,” she says. “You really don’t know?”

“No,” says Henri. I look at him. He shakes his head at Six.