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.”
I crawl back under with my hands blazing, scooting from the back of the SUV to the front. I don’t see anything.
“You’re sure?” she asks when I stand.
“Yes.”
We get back in and speed away. It’s two o’clock in the morning, and Sam heads west. With Six’s instructions, he keeps the SUV between eighty-five and ninety, and I can’t help but worry about police. After thirty miles, he jumps onto an interstate and drives south.
“We’re almost there,” she says. Two miles later she tells Sam to get off the interstate. “Stop! Right here, stop!” Sam slams the brakes beside an idling semi whose owner is pumping gas. Six goes invisible and steps out, leaving the door ajar.
“What’s she doing?” Sam asks.
“I don’t know.”
After a few seconds the open door slams shut. Six reappears and tells Sam to get us back onto the highway, this time heading north. She’s relaxed a bit, no longer holding a white-knuckled grip on the dashboard.
“Are you really going to make me ask what you just did?” I say.
She glances over. “That truck was on its way to Miami. I stuck the tracking device on the underside of its trailer. Hopefully they’ll lose a few hours trailing him south while we drive north.”
I shake my head. “Should be an interesting night for that trucker.”
Once we’re past the Ocala exits, Six tells Sam to get off and park behind a strip mall a few minutes from the interstate.
“We sleep here tonight,” Six says. “Actually, we’ll take turns sleeping.”
Sam opens his door and turns his body sideways to dangle his feet out of the SUV. “Um, guys? I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but well, I got cut pretty bad back there and it’s really starting to hurt and I think I’m about to pass out.”
“What?” I scramble out of the vehicle and stand in front of him. He pulls up the dirty right leg of his jeans to reveal a wound above the knee that’s slightly smaller than a credit card, though probably an inch deep. Dried and fresh blood cover his knee and shin.
“Good lord, Sam,” I say. “When did that happen?”
“Right before I got ahold of that Mog’s sword. I kind of pulled it out of my leg.”
“All right, come on, get out of the car,” I say. “Get on the ground.”
Six shoves her head under Sam’s armpit and helps him to the ground.
I open the back and retrieve the healing stone from the Chest. “Better hold on to something, man. This might . . . sting.” Six offers her hand, and he takes it. The second I press the stone to his wound he writhes in agony as every muscle tightens. It seems like he’s going to pass out. The skin around his wound turns white, then black, then to the bright red color of blood; and I immediately regret attempting to use the stone on a human. Did Henri ever say it won’t work on them? I’m trying to remember as Sam lets out a long-winded groan that empties him of air. The outer edge of the wound seals inward and then disappears altogether. Sam relaxes his grip on Six’s hand, and he slowly regains his breath. After a minute he’s able to sit up.
“Man, do I ever want to be an alien,” he finally says. “You guys get to do way too many cool things.”
“You had me worried there for a second, buddy,” I say. “Wasn’t sure if it would work on you since some of the other stuff from the Chest doesn’t.”
“Me either,” Six adds. She leans over and kisses him on his dirty cheek. Sam lies back down and sighs. Six laughs and rubs her hand over his head of stubble, and I’m surprised by how much jealousy bubbles inside me.
“Do you want to go to the hospital?” I ask.
“I want to stay right here,” he says. “Forever.”
“You know what? We were pretty lucky we were out on that walk,” Six says after we settle back into the SUV.
“You’re right,” I say.
Sam places his right cheek on his headrest so he can look at both of us. “Why were you guys out walking in the first place?”
“I couldn’t sleep. Neither could Six,” I answer, which technically is the truth, but it doesn’t take away the guilt. I know that Sarah is the girl for me, but I can’t seem to stop these new feelings I have.
Six sighs. “You know what this means, right?”
“What?”
“They’ve probably opened my Chest.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“No, I don’t. But after I grabbed that rock from your Chest and it started pulsing and hurting my hand, I haven’t been able to shake the feeling I got from it. And it just now came to me that it probably has something to do with my Chest.”