The scout reaches the metal eave of the collapsing roof, and he drops onto the patio below, his feet cracking the concrete when he lands. He slices the sword in the air in front of him and it leaves a glowing trail. I control my breath and go over the last week of training in my mind.
The moment my feet push me forward, the scout roars and rushes at me with his trench coat billowing behind him. I see myself in his sunglasses the second before his sword swings across my body. I lean back far enough for him to miss me; but when I right myself, I enter the glowing trail the sword left behind. Pain attaches itself to my neck and travels to my waist. I’m knocked backwards and into the pool.
When my head surfaces I see Sam squaring off with the scout. His bare hands are up and out; he bobs his shoulders left and right. The scout laughs and drops his sword to the concrete, and he then mimics Sam’s fighting stance. Before I can heave myself out of the pool to help, Sam drops his weight onto his left foot and circles his right behind him. His sopping right shoe comes back around and connects with the scout’s face with a force that staggers him back several feet.
The dazed scout picks up his gleaming sword. I’m up out of the pool before he can reach Sam, and I lift my dagger to block the plummeting sword. The blades meet, and there is a ball of light so bright I can’t see for an instant. When the light fades, the scout’s sword breaks at the exact spot my dagger collided with it. Not wasting the moment of surprise, I plunge the blade of my dagger into his chest and rip it downward. He turns to ash and it covers my feet.
The house finally collapses—beams of wood crack in different directions, windows pop and explode from the walls—the roof flattening over it all like a book with a broken spine. A storm cloud appears overhead and a lightning bolt slices through the sky, landing just on the other side of the house.
“We have to get to Six!” Sam shouts. He’s right; the proximity of the lightning can only mean she’s in the middle of a battle. Or finishing one. With my one free hand, I heft the Chest up and over the backyard’s brick wall after making sure the coast is clear. Sam tosses the rest up to me and I then pull him to the wall’s cement top. We jump and roll on the moist grass beyond the wall. Securing everything behind a thick bush, we run around to the front yard.
In the middle of the driveway, just feet from our SUV, Six has a scout in a headlock, the muscles in her arms pulsing in the squeeze. Two more scouts are approaching. One aims a long, cylindrical tube right at me and a green light blasts me backwards. I can’t breathe. I can’t see. I roll into the high grass and feel the heat from the house.
When I’m able to open my eyes, I see the scout with the tube standing above me. I slowly regain some feeling in my arms and legs; my breathing returns to normal. The handle of the dagger still encases my right hand. The scout adjusts a knob on the tube, perhaps going from stun to kill, and then he steps on my right wrist. I try swinging my legs up and over me, but they don’t react the way I want them to, still sluggish from the paralyzing blast I just endured. The barrel of the tube is set between my eyes, and I think about the gun Six turned on the drunk man just an hour ago. This is it, I think. The Mogadorians’ mission is a success. Number Four, check. On to Number Five.
I watch hundreds of lights in the tube spark to life, swirling until they become one; just as he puts his finger on the trigger, Bernie Kosar clamps down on his thigh. The scout wobbles above me for a second before his head is separated from his body by a bolt of lightning. It rolls in the grass right next to mine; our noses touch before the head crumbles into a pile of ash, and I do everything I can not to breathe it in. The body above me falls over and covers my jeans with ash.
“Get up already,” Six yells, suddenly in the exact spot the scout had been.
Sam appears above me, too, his face stern and dirty. “We have to leave right now, John.”
The sound of sirens pierces the night. A mile away, maybe less. Bernie Kosar licks my left temple and whimpers.
“What about the third one?” I whisper.
Six looks over at Sam and nods. “I got a hold of his sword and used it against him. Best moment of my life,” he says.
I’m draped over Six’s shoulder, and she dumps me into the backseat of the SUV. Bernie Kosar settles himself on my shins and licks my lifeless right hand. Sam takes the keys and gets behind the wheel while Six retrieves our stuff. As soon as we’re on the highway and I no longer hear sirens, I’m able to relax and concentrate on my right hand. The dagger’s handle transforms and retreats from my knuckles and wrist. I drop the dagger in the foot well.
Fifteen minutes later, Six tells Sam to pull over, and we screech into the lit parking lot of a closed diner. She jumps out before the car has come to a complete stop, leaving the door open.
“Help me,” she orders.
“Six, I don’t want to be a dick right now, but I can’t really move my arms and legs.”
“Dude, just really try. We have to get them off our tail,” she says. “If we don’t, then you’re dead. Think about it.”
I struggle into a seated position and feel blood circulate to my legs. I climb out of the car and waver there in my burned clothes, having no idea what she needs help with.
“Find the bug,” she says. “Sam, keep the car running.”
“Roger,” he says.
“Find the what?” I ask.
“They use bugs to track vehicles. Trust me. They did it with me and Katarina.”
“What does it look like?”
“I have no idea. But time is short, so look fast.”
I almost want to laugh. There isn’t a single thing in the world I think I could do fast right now. But nonetheless, Six goes racing around the SUV while I slowly drop to a knee and manage to crawl beneath it, flashing my hands on its undercarriage. Bernie Kosar gets to sniffing, starting at the bumper and moving his way forward. I spot it almost immediately, a small circular object no bigger than a quarter stuck to the plastic cover of the gas tank.
“Got it,” I yell, plucking it off. I pull myself out and hand the device to Six while remaining on my back. She briefly studies it, then drops it in her pocket.
“Aren’t you going to destroy it?”
“No,” she answers. “Check again. We have to make sure there isn’t a second, or a third.”