“How long?” Sam asks through gritted teeth.
“Don’t know,” I reply. “Keep going.”
“Shit,” Daniela repeats over and over, her voice a hoarse whisper. I can see her arms shaking. Both she and Sam are raw, not used to telekinesis. I’ve never supported this much weight before, and I certainly didn’t come close to it on my first day with Legacies. I can feel their strength waning, beginning to slip.
They just need to hold on a little bit longer. If they don’t, we’re dead.
“We’re going to make it,” I growl. “Keep going!”
I can feel the subway tunnel gradually sloping downwards under my feet. The deeper we get, the sturdier the ceiling is above us. Step by step, the telekinetic counterpressure we need to exert lessens, until finally we reach a section of tunnel where the ceiling is stable.
“Let go,” I groan. “It’s okay, let go.”
As one, we release our hold on the ceiling. Ten yards away, the last bit of ceiling we’d been supporting crashes into the tunnel, blocking off the way we came. Above us, the tunnel creaks and holds. All three of us collapse into the filthy water that fills the bottom of the tunnel. I feel as if an actual weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I hear a retching noise next to me and realize that Daniela’s throwing up. I try to stand up to help her, but my body doesn’t cooperate. I fall face-first into the water.
A second later, Sam’s hands are under my arms, lifting me up. His face is pale and strained, like he doesn’t have much left to give.
“Oh man, is he dying?” Daniela asks Sam.
“However much ceiling we were holding, he was probably carrying four times as much,” Sam replies. “Help me with him.”
Daniela slides underneath my other arm. She and Sam lift me up, dragging me down the tunnel.
“He just saved my life,” Daniela says, still breathless.
“Yeah, he does that kinda thing a lot.” Sam turns his head, speaking into my ear. “John? Can you hear me? You can shut off the lights. We can make it in the dark for a bit.”
That’s when I realize that I’m still illuminating the tunnel with my Lumen. Running on fumes, and still I’m instinctually keeping the lights on. It takes a conscious effort on my part to let my Lumen go out, to not fight against my own exhaustion, to allow myself to be carried.
I let go. Trust in Sam.
And then I can no longer feel Sam’s and Daniela’s arms around me. I can’t feel my feet dragging through the thick slop of the subway tunnels. All my aches and pains melt away until I’m peacefully floating through darkness.
A girl’s voice interrupts my rest.
“John . . .”
A cold hand slips inside mine. It’s slender and girlish, fragile, but it squeezes with enough force to bring me back to my senses.
“Open your eyes, John.”
I do as she says and find myself stretched out on an operating table in an austere room, an array of ominous-looking surgical machinery spread out around me. Right next to my head is a machine that looks almost like a vacuum cleaner—a suction tube with scalpel-sharp teeth at its end is attached to a barrel filled with a viscous, writhing black substance. The ooze floating through the machine reminds me of the stuff I cleansed from the secretary of defense’s veins. Just looking at it makes my skin crawl. It’s inherently unnatural and Mogadorian.
This isn’t right. Where am I? Were we captured while I was unconscious?
I can’t feel my arms or my legs. And yet, strangely, I don’t panic. For some reason, I don’t feel like I’m in any real danger. I’ve had this kind of out-of-body experience before.
I’m in a dream, I realize. But not my own dream. Someone else is controlling this.
With some effort, I manage to turn my head to the left. There isn’t anything in that direction except more bizarre-looking equipment—a mixture of stainless-steel medical tools and complicated machinery like the stuff we found inside Ashwood Estates. On the far wall, though, there’s a window. A porthole, really. We’re in the air, the sky dark outside, lit only by the fires in the city below.
I’m on board the Anubis, floating above New York City.
Trying to take in every detail, I turn my head to the right. A team of Mogadorians dressed in lab coats and wearing sterilized gloves huddle around a metal table exactly like the one I’m laid out on. There’s a small body on the table. One of the Mogs holds the tube from another of those ooze machines, in the process of pressing it into the sternum of the young girl on the table.
Ella.
She doesn’t cry out when the blades on the hose pierce her chest. I’m powerless to do anything as the black Mogadorian goo is slowly pumped into her.
I want to scream. Before I can, Ella turns her head and locks eyes with me.
“John,” she says, her voice totally calm despite the gruesome surgery being performed on her. “Get up. We don’t have much time.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“WE CAN DO THIS, BUT FIRST YOU NEED TO understand how Phiri Dun-Ra thinks,” Adam whispers.
“You are the expert on Mog psychology,” I reply, watching as Adam uses a broken branch to draw a square in the dirt. “Enlighten us.”
The three of us crouch next to our lifeless Skimmer on the dirt strip the Mogs were using as a runway. It’s dark now, but the Mogs had plenty of handheld electric lanterns on hand to illuminate their round-the-clock attempts to break into the Sanctuary. I guess Phiri didn’t have the foresight to steal all the batteries, so at least we’ve got light. There are also some huge floodlights positioned around the temple’s perimeter, but we’ve left those off. No need to make spying on us any easier for her.
The jungle around us seems louder now that the sun’s gone down, the chirping of tropical birds replaced by the shrill buzzing of billions of mosquitos. I slap the back of my neck as one of them tries to bite me.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that she’s out there right now, watching us,” Adam says. “Every Mog warrior of her class is trained in surveillance.”
“Yeah, we know,” I reply, glancing out into the darkness. “You guys have been stalking us all our lives, remember?”
Adam continues, ignoring me. “She’s probably capable of going at least three days with no sleep. And she won’t remain in one place, she’ll stay mobile. There won’t be a campsite to find or anything like that. If we go in there after her, she’ll move, stay ahead of us. She’s got a lot of jungle to hide in. That said, it’ll be her instinct to stay close. She’ll want to keep tabs on us.”
Marina frowns at Adam, watching as he draws some squiggly lines in the dirt around his square. I realize that he’s drawing Sanctuary and the surrounding jungle.
“So we have to draw her out,” Marina says.
“You know a good way to do that?” I ask Adam.
“We give her something no Mog can resist,” Adam replies, and he draws an “M” in the western part of the jungle. Then, he gives Marina a pointed look. “A vulnerable Garde.”
Immediately, I feel the air around us get a little colder. Marina leans forward, getting close to Adam, her eyes narrowed threateningly.
“Do I seem vulnerable to you, Adam?”
“Of course not. We just want you to appear that way.”
“A trap,” I say, trying to mediate. “Marina, chill out.”
Marina gives me a look, but I feel her icy aura dissipate.
“So,” Adam continues, “first, we split up.”
“Split up?” Marina repeats. “You’re kidding.”
“That’s always the worst idea,” I say.
“We can just go out there and hunt her down,” Marina says. “Six can make us invisible. She won’t have a chance.”
“That could take all night,” Adam says. “Maybe longer.”