“Um, yeah,” says Eight, cheerily breaking the silence. “It is kind of funny when you put it like that.”
My dad clears his throat, his voice soft. “I can assure you more thought was put into your selection than just a random drawing.” He turns to Ella, giving her the same reassuring look I used to get when I’d come home from school after being bullied. “And your escape from Lorien was certainly more than an accident. More like a blessing, I’d say.”
“Uh, right,” says Five, still staring at the floor as he addresses my dad. “I guess the old human would be an expert on Lorien.” He glances up then, forcing a smile as he notices the rest of us fixing him with weird looks. “Sorry,” he adds quickly, “I’m just thinking out loud. I don’t know what I’m talking about either.”
“I don’t consider myself an expert,” my dad says diplomatically. “I’m sorry if I offended you. But I believe in the work of your Elders. If I didn’t . . .” He trails off, probably thinking about the time he’s spent as a Mogadorian captive.
Five looks sheepish now. “Four—uh, John—I’m pretty tired. Is there a place where I can lay down for awhile?”
“Sure, man,” John replies, patting Five on the back. “Why don’t I show all you guys where the rooms are?”
A few minutes ago, I empathized with Five for what an awkward situation this must be for him. But, I don’t know, something about the way he talked to my dad really rubbed me the wrong way. There was almost a note of disdain in his voice, like my father couldn’t possibly have any useful information about the Garde.
The whole group—minus Nine—lead us down a hallway covered in works of art that would probably fetch a small fortune at a museum auction. I still can’t believe a dude like Nine lives here. I feel like I should be wearing a tuxedo just walking around. As we walk through the penthouse, Sarah and Six break off to get cleaned up from the road, and Ella excuses herself to go help Nine put away the gear. Eventually, John stops in the middle of the hallway.
“This one’s free,” John says, opening a door for Five. “There are some extra clothes in the drawers too, in case you feel like a change.”
“Thanks,” Five says, trudging into the room. He’s about to slam the door, but realizes we’re all lingering outside, kinda staring at him. “Uh, see you guys at dinner, I guess,” he mutters, before closing the door.
“Cool dude,” Eight says dryly. Marina elbows him in the ribs and shushes him. I glance towards the closed door where I bet Five is still standing, listening. I feel a little sorry for him again. It isn’t easy being an outsider.
John turns to my dad and me. “Are you guys beat too? Or do you want the grand tour?”
“Nah,” I say. “Lead on. This is my first penthouse.”
“Mine too,” my dad adds, smiling.
“Awesome,” John replies, looking relieved that we aren’t being as antisocial as Five. “I think you guys are really going to like the next stop.”
My dad trails a few feet behind the group, admiring the artwork. Once we’ve continued down the hallway and put Five’s room out of earshot, Eight asks the question that I think most of us are thinking.
“What’s with the new guy?” He glances over at me. “Not you, Sam. You seem perfectly normal.”
“Thanks.”
John shakes his head, looking a little bewildered. “I don’t know, honestly. He’s a little strange, right? Not exactly what I was expecting.”
“He’s probably just nervous,” Marina adds. “He’ll settle in.”
“Where’s his Cêpan?” I ask. “What has he been doing all these years?”
“He was pretty closed off the whole car ride back,” John answers. “Even Sarah couldn’t get much out of him, and you know how she is.”
“Yeah. She’s social enough to get you secretive Loric talking about pretty much anything.”
John chuckles, catching my joke right away. “Sarah is so charming she could convince an on-the-run alien to get his picture taken for the school paper.”
“So charming that same alien might even throw rocks at her window in the middle of the night, even if the feds are staking out her house.”
Eight and Marina exchange a look of confusion as John and I start laughing.
“You threw rocks at Sarah’s window?” Marina asks John, her eyebrow cocked in amusement. “Like Romeo and Juliet?”
“Uh, allegedly, according to the FBI—oh, check it out, we’re here,” John says, anxious to change the subject. I smirk at Marina and nod.
At the end of the hall, John shows us into a room that looks like the Garde have been using for a base of operations. There are huge computer screens on one wall, one of them running a program similar to my dad’s web crawler. The Loric Chests are stored here, along with the tablet we recovered from my dad’s laboratory. The rest of the room is absolutely cluttered with various pieces of tech; some of it new and just out of the box, other pieces looking like they were recovered from a junkyard. In some places along the walls, the gadgets and spare parts are piled as high as the ceiling. My dad’s face immediately lights up.
“This is quite the collection,” he exclaims, his eyes scanning the room like a kid on Christmas morning.
“Nine’s Cêpan, Sandor, this was his workshop,” explains John. “We’ve put some of the stuff to use, but none of us are exactly technological whizzes.” John turns to my father. “I’m hoping you could see if there’s anything useful, Mr. Goode. Er, Malcolm.”
My dad rubs his hands together. “With pleasure, John. It’s been too long since I had a place like this at my disposal. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
“I’m also wondering if you could take a look at this,” John says, motioning us through a set of double doors. “Nine calls it the Lecture Hall.”
Entering a huge, high-ceilinged white room we pass by an intimidating weapons rack which makes the guns my dad acquired in Texas look like toys. The room is about the size of our high school’s gym, making me marvel all over again at the overall hugeness of the penthouse. At one end of the room a large cockpit-style apparatus is built into the wall, an array of consoles set up around it. The chair looks sort of smashed, like something huge fell on top of it.
“Amazing,” remarks my dad.
“We’ve been using this room to train. Nine says that Sandor had a bunch of traps and obstacles hooked up at one point.” He taps a panel on the wall where it looks like something should shoot out, but nothing happens. “Except, Nine threw a temper tantrum and smashed the controls. Now it only sort of works.”
“Sounds about right,” I say. It’s definitely not hard to picture Nine flying off the handle.
“That thing,” he says, waving to the chair. “It’s called the Lectern. If we could get it working again, I think we could really improve our training.”
My dad is already kneeling down before the Lectern, picking at frayed wires and bent steel plating. “This is very impressive work,” he says.
I examine the machinery over his shoulder even though I have no idea what I’m looking at. “Can you fix it?”
“I can try,” he says, turning back to John. “I’ll be of service in any way possible.”
“Me too,” I say, giving John a quick salute. He chuckles.
“I know you just got here,” John says. “I hope I’m not being pushy. Honestly, it’s just really good to have you here. And, not to get all sappy, but I’m glad you guys found each other.”
When John talks about me and my dad, there’s a bit of longing in his voice. I wonder if he’s thinking about how we could’ve had this conversation in Paradise, my dad and Henri dorking out about technology together, if only things had played out a little differently.
My dad shakes John’s hand again, patting him on the arm as he does. “We’re glad we found you, John. I know it’s been hard for all of you, but you’re not alone in this. Not anymore.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MARINA REALLY GOES OVERBOARD WITH THE DINNER spread. There are dishes heaped with rice and beans and fresh tortillas, an iced bowl of gazpacho, some kind of fried honeyed-eggplant dish, and like a dozen other Spanish dishes that I don’t even know the names of. I’ve forgotten how good home cooking can be and I eat wolfishly, going back for seconds and then thirds.
We’re all seated beneath the glittering chandelier in Nine’s banquet hall of a dining room. John sits at one end, my father at the other, and the rest of us in between. I sit next to my father and Nine.
“Crazy,” Nine mumbles as he scoops a tortilla into his mouth. “Never had so many people at this table.”
Everyone is relaxed, just chatting and joking around. Five eats a lot, but he doesn’t say much. Next to him, Ella picks at her food, looking tired yet still smiling and laughing whenever someone cracks a good joke. Six is sitting right across the table from me. I try to play it cool and not stare at her too much.
When the meal is over, John stands up and gets everyone’s attention. He glances at Sarah and receives an encouraging smile. He clears his throat and I can tell he’s given a lot of thought to what he’s about to say.
“It’s really incredible to see everyone come together like this. All of us have come so far to be here, and gone through so much. Being here—it gives me hope that we could actually win this war.”
Nine lets out a high-pitched woop woop noise that makes everyone laugh, even cracking John’s serious speech-giving face for a moment. Five looks around at everyone, a quiet smile on his face like he’s finally starting to feel more comfortable.
“I know some of us have just met for the first time,” John continues. “So, I thought it might be helpful if we went around the table and told our stories.”
“There’s a fun topic,” mutters Six.
John is undeterred. “I know some of the stories—okay, probably all of them—aren’t really the happiest. But I think it’s important for us to remember how we got here and what we’re fighting for.”
Looking over at Five, I understand what John is doing. He’s hoping that by telling their stories, the Garde might get their newest member to open up a little.
“Speaking as one of the new arrivals, I’d really like to hear what you’ve all been through,” says my dad.
“Yeah,” Five chimes in, surprising everyone. “Me too.”
“Okay,” says John. “I can start.”
John launches into a story that’s more than familiar to me. He starts during his arrival to Paradise, after years on the road. He talks about meeting Sarah and me, and how it became harder and harder to keep his Legacies a secret.
John concludes his tale with the battle at our high school, Six’s nick-of-time arrival and Henri’s death. We’re all quiet after that, none of us sure what to say.
