“Five,” I growl, moving cautiously towards the bank’s busted entrance. I’m not sure I can handle a fight with him at this point. My only hope is that Nine’s done a good job of softening him up.
“There,” Sam says, pointing into the darkened lobby. Someone’s moving around. Whoever it is, they appear to have spent the battle hiding behind a sofa.
“Hey, it’s all clear out here,” I call into the bank, gritting my teeth as I shine my Lumen inside. “Nine? Five?”
It isn’t one of the Garde who cautiously steps into my beam of light. It’s a girl. She’s probably about our age, only a couple of inches shorter than me, with a lean sprinter’s body. Her hair is pulled back in tight rows of braids. Her clothes are scuffed up either from the fight or the general chaos, but otherwise she looks unhurt. Tossed over the girl’s left shoulder is a heavy-looking duffel bag. She looks from Sam to me with wide brown eyes, eventually focusing on the light shining from the palm of my hand.
“You’re him,” the girl says, inching forward. “You’re the guy from TV.”
Now that the girl is close enough to see, I shut off my Lumen. Don’t want to be lighting up our location for the Mog reinforcements that are on their way.
“I’m John,” I tell her.
“John Smith. Yeah, I know,” the girl says, nodding eagerly. “I’m Daniela. You really killed the hell out of those aliens.”
“Uh, thanks.”
“Was there someone else in there with you?” Sam cuts in, craning his neck to look past her. “A dude with anger issues and a habit of taking off his shirt? A gross one-eyed guy?”
Daniela cocks her head at Sam, eyebrows raised. “No. What? Why?”
“We thought we saw someone attack those Mogs with telekinesis,” I say, looking Daniela over again, feeling equal parts curious and cautious. We’ve been tricked before by potential allies.
“You mean this?” Daniela reaches out her hand and one of the dead Mogs’ blasters floats to her. She plucks it out of the air, resting it against the shoulder not supporting her duffel bag. “Uh-huh. That’s a new development for me.”
“I’m not the only one,” Sam breathes, looking at me with wide eyes.
My mind is cycling through possibilities so quickly that I’m struck speechless. I might not have understood the why of it, but Sam getting Legacies made sense to me on a gut level. He’s spent so much time around us Garde, done so much to help us—if any human was going to suddenly develop Legacies, it would be him. The hours since the invasion have been so crazy that I didn’t really have time to think about it. Didn’t need to, really. Sam with Legacies just seemed logical. When I imagined other humans besides Sam getting Legacies, I’d been thinking of people we know, people who have helped us. I was thinking of Sarah, mostly. Definitely not some random girl. This girl, though, Daniela, her having Legacies means something bigger than I imagined has happened.
Who is she? Why does she have powers? How many more like her are out there?
Meanwhile, Daniela is staring at me with that star-struck look again. “So, um, can I ask why you picked me?”
“Picked you?”
“Yeah, to turn into a mutant,” Daniela explains. “I couldn’t do this shit until today when you and the pale guys—”
“Mogadorians,” Sam clarifies.
“I couldn’t move stuff with my mind until you and the Moga-dork-ians showed up,” Daniela finishes. “What’s the deal, man? None of the other people I’ve seen out here have powers.”
Sam clears his throat and raises his hand, but Daniela ignores him. She’s on a roll now.
“Am I radioactive? What else can I do? You got those flashlight hands going on. Am I gonna be able to do that? Why me? Answer the last one first.”
“I—” I rub the back of my neck, overwhelmed. “I have no idea why you.”
“Oh.” Daniela frowns, looking down at the ground.
“John, shouldn’t we get moving?”
I nod when Sam reminds me of the impending Mogadorian reinforcements. We’ve already stood here talking for way too long. Standing in front of me—and next to me, for that matter—are . . . what exactly? New members of the Garde? Humans. It’s like nothing I’ve ever contemplated. I need to wrap my head around the new status quo quickly, because if there are more human Garde out there, they’re going to be looking for guidance. And with all the Cêpan dead . . .
Well, that leaves us. The Loric.
First things first, I need to make sure Daniela stays with us. I need time to talk with her, to try figuring out what exactly triggered her Legacies.
“It’s not safe here, you should come with us,” I tell her.
Daniela looks around at the destruction that surrounds us. “Is it gonna be safe wherever you’re going?”
“No. Obviously not.”
“What John means is that this particular block is going to be crawling with Mogs any minute now,” Sam explains. He starts walking away from the bank, trying to lead by example. Daniela doesn’t follow and so I don’t either.
“Your sidekick’s nervous,” Daniela observes.
“My name’s Sam.”
“You’re a nervous guy, Sam,” Daniela replies, one hand on her cocked hip. She’s staring at me again, sizing me up. “If more of those aliens come, won’t you just blow their asses away?”