The words keep coming out because part of me wants to stall. Maybe because I know as soon as I finish my mission, everything will happen very quickly. And as ready as I am to take my place at our Beloved Leader’s side, I want to savor my last few hours in the calm before the storm.
Or maybe—more likely—it’s because Ethan really is my weakness. And seeing him here in the house where he took me in and trained me is too much, and I can’t go through with what I’m supposed to do. Not yet.
“You look tired.” Ethan smiles as best he can beneath his bandage. “Your old room is empty. How about we catch up over breakfast. I’m sure there’s been a lot going on since the attack. You are staying here, right?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Only for one night. I just came to say good-bye.”
CHAPTER NINE
EVEN THOUGH I’M OVERWHELMED BY THE NOSTALGIA of being in my old room, I pass out the moment my head hits the bed, still fully dressed. As good as I am at flying, it’s zapped the energy out of me. But it’s not a restful or deep sleep that I enter. I wake up several times throughout the night in a cold sweat, until finally, the last time, I say screw it and just get out of bed completely.
It’s dark outside, but there’s a hint of light coming up over the beach. In the bedroom closet, I find a bunch of my old clothes. I change, slipping on a T-shirt and oversize light hoodie. I don’t want to wake up anyone else in the house—especially Ethan, who I’d have to make small talk with—so I open the bedroom window and slip out. I bring my Chest with me as I float down to the edge of the water—I need only one thing out of it, really, but cataloging the Chest’s contents always helps to center me when I need to focus. On the beach, I kick off my shoes and roll up the legs of my pants. There’s the slightest chill in the air coming off the ocean. The sand is cold between my toes as I burrow my feet down into it.
It’s been too long since I had my feet in sand.
The rising sun feels different in Florida than in West Virginia. Maybe it’s just because I’ve spent so much time underground and haven’t really felt it on my skin lately. I plunk my Chest into the beach next to me and open it, rifling through it. I find what I’m looking for inside. Then I let my fingers fall across the other items, until I pull out the file on Nine that Deltoch gave me a while ago. The notes are tattered and falling apart where I’ve folded them and unfolded them over and over again. I read them to remind myself that though the Mogs recognize me for what I am, the Garde do not. That my future is as a ruler, not as a servant to a bunch of dead old Loric who sent me to Earth with an impossible mission.
I read the pages to psyche myself up. To get my blood flowing and my anger raging. To get ready for what I’m about to do. What I have to do. Just this one thing and then the world will be mine. All the power I could possibly want.
Somewhere to my left, seagulls make a racket. Most of my life I wanted off a deserted island. Wanted to be in the action, in the thick of things. In cities. In battles. But sitting here now, for a moment I kind of wish I could disappear and become an anonymous speck on the map again. Not forever, but for a day or two. As much as I hated the island, there was a kind of peace with not having anyone around or anything to do.
But then Ethan shows up and the moment passes. “Good morning,” he says.
“Hey,” I answer, pulling the sleeves of my hoodie down over my fingers. “You’re up early.”
“I wanted to catch the sunrise,” he says, staring out across the ocean. “I haven’t seen one in a long time. It’s more beautiful than I remember.”
The bandage on his face looks fresh. The right arm of his crisp white dress shirt is rolled up to the elbow. He notices me looking at it and kind of shrugs.
The wind picks up, and it carries the papers in my hand up the beach. I jump to my feet and chase after them instinctively, until I can focus on the scattered pages and bring them drifting back to my fingers using telekinesis. Even when I have the complete file in my hands again, I keep my back to Ethan. I think of all the things he’s done for me over the last year—I can’t help it, even though it’s the last place I want my mind to go. Helping me understand my Legacies. Training me. Feeding me. He acted like the Cêpan I’d always wanted. Like a friend.
But then, those were his orders.
I hear a click, and when I turn back around, my Chest is closed. Ethan stands over it.
“Didn’t want you getting any sand inside on any of those important Loric relics.”
I nod.
He grins as much as he can. That tacked-on grin he always has.
I wonder for a minute if there’s maybe another way out of this. Maybe I could turn someone else’s body over to the Mogs and pretend it was Ethan’s. But they’d know, wouldn’t they? They’re undoubtedly watching now. Besides, where would I get another body?
I have to think of my future. Think of what will happen if I don’t do this.
“How do you feel?” he asks. “Excited to be out of the compound for a bit? You’re on the threshold of a brand-new life.”
“Yeah,” I say, trying to muster some feeling into my voice. “I can’t wait.”
I don’t say anything for a little while. I realize that he hasn’t asked what I’m going to do now that Nine has escaped and my right of passage has disappeared, or how the Mogs are going to retaliate. He hasn’t even asked me anything else about the attack on the compound. Or if I met Setrákus Ra.
“Are you hungry?” he asks.
“Not really.”
I think back to the first time we ever spoke alone, over a huge table of food. I stuffed myself full of fancy dishes while he talked all about what a good job I was doing as a small-time crook. He’d told me that I reminded him of his brother, who’d been a thief on the street like me but who hadn’t survived. Unlike his brother, though, I had infinite potential and incredible skills. And I’d felt bad for Ethan but also great about myself. About us. Like we’d had some inherent bond. So in the same conversation, when he called me “the future,” I’d listened.
I realize that the whole story about his past was probably a lie.
“What happened to your brother?” I ask.
“What brother?” Ethan looks puzzled.
And that’s all I need to hear. All I need as a reminder of the ways that Ethan has manipulated me, just like Setrákus Ra said. He told me lies from the very beginning to gain my trust and use me. Every word he’s ever spoken to me needs to be reexamined and fact-checked.
Ethan is not my friend. He’s just some human who wanted to get on the good side of power. He is my weakness. The thing that has to be cut out of me. The insignificant enemy who must be put down so he isn’t allowed to fester.
I watch Ethan try to connect the dots in his head. And suddenly his face falls into a sad smile.
“Oh,” he says. And that’s all.
I walk over to him, my bare feet sinking into the sand as I trudge along. He’s grinning at me now, but it’s not the plastered-on smile he usually has. This one is somehow more authentic.
When I’m within a few feet of him, he holds his arms out.
“You’re going to be such a good leader,” he says. “I’m so proud of you, Five.”
I embrace Ethan. His arms fold around me as he pats me on the back. He lets out a long, slow sigh and then starts to say something. I cut him off before he can get the words out. I can’t stand to hear him say another thing.
“Ethan, I’m really sorry about this. But it’s for the best.”
I can feel his body clench as the blade slips out of my forearm sheath and into his back. It slides between his ribs—a lucky shot—then retracts back into my hoodie sleeve. It’s over in an instant. I step away from him. He stands frozen, probably in shock. There’s a deep spot of red blooming across the right side of his chest where the blade must have broken the skin. Blood drips down from the hidden wrist sheath, running over my right hand before falling from my fingertips to the sand.
“It’s over,” I murmur,
more to myself than to Ethan. He’s probably not paying much attention to what I have to say. Tears are welling in his good eye, but I don’t know if they’re for me or for himself.
He blinks once and then falls to the beach with a soft thud.
I wish he were a Mog. If he were a Mog, at least his body would turn to ash and disappear.
But this will be the last thing I ever wish for. From now on, anything I want, I will have. I will take. Because I’ve offered the Mogadorians a sacrifice, and now I will rule them. And the humans. This was necessary. It had to be done.
These are the things I think about as I walk into the ocean and wash Ethan’s blood off my hands.
Somewhere behind me I hear a helicopter approaching. The Mogs, of course, have been watching my every move.
CHAPTER TEN
I AM NUMBER FIVE: THE RIGHT HAND OF Setrákus Ra.
Commander Deltoch is in the helicopter that lands at the side of the beach house. He’s got his normal scowl on, but he salutes me when I approach—something he’s never done before. I’m technically his superior now that I’ve completed my mission. I should feel thrilled about this, but instead I just feel a little numb. It’s probably for the best. No one obeys a smiling superior.
I wonder if my expression looks like Deltoch’s. I wonder if he had to prove himself in the past too in order to become a commander.
We take the helicopter towards a base in the Everglades that the Mogs have been setting up for me to use at my discretion until I figure out where I want my Central Command to be located. Deltoch tells me that our Beloved Leader would like to have been with us in person but is busy interrogating the human who was captured during Four’s infiltration of the base, just in case there is any time-sensitive info that can be gotten out of him. After congratulating me on my ascension, Deltoch presents me with a Mog officer’s uniform.
I am officially one of them now.
Over the course of the next few weeks I split my time between briefings on the Mogadorian Expansion and visiting Mog bases in other parts of the country, and in South and Central America. Deltoch accompanies me. It seems that he will be my tail for a while, teaching me how the Mog fleets are commanded and run. Showing me the ropes. At every base, I’m introduced as the highest-ranking officer in the Mogadorian empire, second only to our Beloved Leader himself. I stand onstage in front of thousands of troops who salute me and shout my name—ready to fight for me or defend me or die for me if that’s what I ask of them.
I can barely hear myself think over all the cheering. I am power now. Soon, the entire world will know me as its superior.
And the Garde will know me too.
I don’t really have any downtime anymore, and when I do, it’s usually spent going over the same facts that are already engrained in my brain—I may officially be Setrákus Ra’s disciple, but that just means I want to impress him even more. Plus, keeping busy reading files on the Garde and reports from bases around the world means my mind is so preoccupied with strategy and tactics that I don’t have time to think about Ethan, or what happened to his body, or the pattern of blood that appeared on the front of his shirt after I stepped away from him on the beach.
I can’t allow myself to think of him. I can have no weaknesses.
It’s safe to say that Six and Four have been working together. So when our forces in Spain report that Six has attacked them and taken another suspected Garde under her wing, we have to assume it’s Seven or Eight. That leaves only one of the Garde unaccounted for, though it’s entirely possible that Four and the others have gotten to whoever it is already and have just managed to keep him or her hidden from us. I’m not surprised that they’ve banded together. That was always a fear—that they would be working as a group without me. I wonder if they’ve finally made their way down to the Caribbean and found my little shack.
It doesn’t matter. I don’t have any fears now.
It’s not until something happens at one of our bases in the Southwest that Setrákus Ra reveals his plan to me.
It’s time I meet my fellow Loric. I’m going to infiltrate their ranks and learn their secrets. Then I’ll break up their group so that when the Mogs show up, they’ll be weakened and caught by surprise. Whoever is smart will join us and live in paradise. Those dumb enough to turn their backs on reason will die. Divide and conquer. A simple and timeless strategy as evidenced by the books on war I’ve studied.
The only part of the plan that our Beloved Leader hasn’t finalized is how I might get the Garde to split up. But I thought of a great plan on my own. My Chest. It holds powerful items—not that I’ve figured out how to use most of them. Our Chests are important to the future of Lorien. And so if I say mine is somewhere else and full of all kinds of helpful items—that I had to hide it or risk it being taken from me—I can get a few of the Garde to escort me on a mission to retrieve it.
Maybe I can get Nine to go with me and show him that I am not weaker than he is in any way.
And that’s how I find myself floating over the dense vegetation and scummy waters of the Everglades late one night, looking for the perfect secluded place to hide my Chest and bring the Garde. Far enough away that they won’t discover the Mog base, but close enough that I can call in reinforcements if necessary. If they turn deaf ears to me when I try to talk sense into them.
I want to take my time and make sure I find a spot that I can locate easily, so I leave my new security detail and spare Mog troops behind. I go alone to bury my Chest.
After circling in the dark for an hour or so, I settle on a muddy little island that’s hidden away but can be easily reached by boat. A single gigantic tree grows in the center of it. The plant’s gnarly roots pop up in various places around the island and in the shallows around it. It’s a little creepy looking and totally easy to spot from the air.
I like it.
I land and stretch a little bit before getting to work. Out of the corner of my eye I see movement. I turn, outstretching my hand, ready to telekinetically attack whoever’s wandered across me. But it’s only an alligator, drifting with its head half submerged in the water—black eyes staring at me, the intruder.
It occurs to me that this Chest might need a guardian while I’m gone. I wonder if there’s a piken I could have sent to keep it safe. Hell, I hear that the Mog scientists on other bases have been experimenting on creatures from Earth and Lorien. Maybe they can whip up some completely new sentry for the place. Maybe I can design my own creature even.
With a few powerful telekinetic swipes, I’ve got a nice big hole in the soft island mud. I open my Chest to give the contents a final once-over, making a mental inventory. I keep the blade with me, on my arm, where it feels like it belongs. Hidden danger completely undetectable from the surface.
And then I see it. Something strange and small tucked away under all the other items in the Chest. A cream-colored piece of paper folded over into a small rectangle with my name on it. I recognize the handwriting immediately.
Ethan.
The fact that there’s something in my Chest that I didn’t put there doesn’t make any sense. There’s no way Ethan could have gotten inside of it. The only time he would have been able to was . . .
Out on the beach. The day I killed him. With all the base tours and briefings, I haven’t really been through everything inside my Chest since it happened.
I try to put together everything that this means. Ethan’s words ring in my head. They’re always watching. He must have wanted to make sure that I was the only person to see whatever is in the note.
Something else nips at my mind. Ethan had seen me go through my Chest plenty of times before, had helped me to catalog its contents. He surely would have noticed that my wrist sheath was missing the day I killed him. That I was wearing it.
My stomach drops.
I unfold the note and read.
Five,
By the time you read this, I’ll probably be dead—most likely by your hands. Assuming this is true
, I won’t embarrass myself by telling you not to be upset about it. I was living on borrowed time among the Mogs, anyway. Surely you’ve seen what happens to those whose usefulness runs out. And let’s face it—I wasn’t really in tip-top shape anymore. At least by killing me, you’ve proved your loyalty, so they won’t be tossing you aside anytime soon. (Please don’t think of me as a martyr. If there’d been any chance of me escaping the Mogs for good, I’d have done so.)
I haven’t always been a perfect mentor to you, but let me leave you with one last lesson: think for yourself. I know this probably sounds strange coming from me, but I’ve got nothing to lose now. You should question everything the Mogs tell you. Question everything I’ve told you. Everything the Mogs have said to you or given to you serves one purpose: to keep you fighting for them. The files on Nine, for instance? I’d be willing to bet most everything in those notes came from someone like Deltoch and not Nine’s Cêpan.
The best kind of prisoner is one who doesn’t even know he’s in prison.
Remember that you are powerful and that your abilities serve only one master: you. I did everything I could to endure in this world. I hope you do too but end up more successful at it than me. Survival is everything, Five. Never put anyone before yourself. Not even Setrákus Ra.
Do whatever it takes to stay alive, and regret nothing.
Your friend,
Ethan.
P.S. We had a good run, didn’t we?
My breathing goes heavy, and I feel like there’s a hole opening up in my chest that shouldn’t be there. Ethan knew. He knew I was going to kill him, and he let it happen.
I killed my only friend.
I curse him. Because he recruited me, and befriended me, and made me care about him, and then let me kill him. Because he’s not here anymore to guide me and probably had nothing to do with the attack on the base if he sacrificed himself for my ascension. And because if he’d just told me he knew what was really going on when I showed up at the beach house, we could have figured something else out.