Sarah’s cheeks and I wipe them away with my thumbs. She puts her hand over mine, squeezing hard,
and I can tell she’s trying to steel herself. She takes a deep, shuddering breath and fights back more tears.
‘I have to go, John.’
‘I trust you,’ I whisper urgently. ‘I don’t just mean to find Mark. If things get bad, I trust you to stay alive. I trust you to come back to me in one piece.’
Sarah grabs the front of my shirt, pulls me in. I feel a few of her tears against my cheek. I try to let everything go – my missing friends, the war, her leaving me – and just live for a while in her kiss. I wish I could go back to Paradise with her, not as it is now, but the way it was months ago – sneakily
making out in my temporary bedroom while Henri was grocery shopping, stealing looks during class,
the easy, normal life. But that’s over. We’re not kids anymore. We’re fighters – soldiers – and we
have to act the part.
Sarah pulls away from me and, in one fluid motion, not wanting to drag this painful moment out any
longer, she opens the door and hops out of the van. She shoulders her backpack and whistles. ‘Come
on, Bernie Kosar!’
BK clambers into the front seat, head cocked at me, as if wondering why I’m not getting out of the
van, too. I scratch him behind his good ear and he lets out a little whine.
Keep her safe, I tell him telepathically.
Bernie Kosar puts both his front paws on my leg and sloppily licks the side of my face. Sarah
laughs.
‘So many good-bye kisses,’ she says as BK jumps down from the van. Sarah clips on his leash.
‘This isn’t good-bye,’ I say. ‘Not really.’
‘You’re right,’ Sarah replies, her smile getting shaky, a note of uncertainty creeping into her voice.
‘I’ll see you soon, John Smith. Stay safe.’
‘See you soon. I love you, Sarah Hart.’
‘I love you, too.’
Sarah turns away, hurrying towards the sliding doors of the bus station, Bernie Kosar trotting along
at her heels. She looks back at me only once, right before she disappears through the doors, and I
wave. Then, she’s gone – into the bus station and eventually off to some secret location in Alabama,
searching for a way to help us win this war.
I have to stop myself from running after her, so I clutch the steering wheel until my knuckles are
white. Too white – my Lumen kicks in unexpectedly, my hands glowing. I haven’t lost control of that
since … well, since back in Paradise. I take a deep breath and calm myself down, glancing around,
making sure no one outside the bus station noticed. I turn the key in the ignition, feel the van rumble to life and pull away from the bus station.
I miss her. I already miss her.
I head back towards one of Baltimore’s rougher neighborhoods, where Sam, Malcolm and Adam
are waiting for me, planning an assault. I know where I’m going and what I’m doing, but I still feel
adrift. I remember my brief scuffle with Adam in the destroyed John Hancock penthouse, how I
almost fell out the window. That feeling of emptiness behind me, of teetering right next to the edge,
that’s how I feel now.
But then I imagine Sarah’s hands pulling me away from that empty space. I imagine what it will be
like when we meet again, what it will be like with Setrákus Ra vanquished and the Mogadorians
beaten back into the cold emptiness of space. I imagine the future and I smile grimly. There’s only one way to make that happen.
It’s time to fight.
4
We hike through the darkness, down a muddy road carved out of the swampland, the rhythmic sucking
noises from our waterlogged sneakers and the incessant chirping of bugs the only sounds. We pass by
a solitary wooden pole, slanted and close to being totally uprooted, the streetlight out, power lines
sagging under the overgrown trees, disappearing into them. It’s a welcome sign of society after two
days spent in the swamps, hardly sleeping, turning invisible at the slightest noise, plodding our way
through muck.
It was Five who led us into the swampland. He knew the way, of course. It was his ambush. We
didn’t have an easy time finding our way out. It’s not like we could’ve gone back to the car we drove
down here, anyway. The Mogs would definitely be watching that.
A few steps ahead, Nine slaps the back of his neck, squashing a mosquito. At the noise, Marina
flinches, and the field of cold she’s been giving off since the fight with Five momentarily intensifies.
I’m not sure if Marina’s having trouble getting control of her new Legacy or if she’s intentionally
cooling the air around us. Considering how humid the Florida swamps have been, I guess it hasn’t
been so bad trekking around with a portable air conditioner.
‘You all right?’ I ask her quietly, not wanting Nine to overhear and yet knowing that’s impossible
with his heightened hearing. She hasn’t spoken to Nine since Eight was killed, has barely said
anything to me.
Marina looks over at me, but in the dark I can’t get a read on her. ‘What do you think, Six?’ she
asks.
I squeeze her arm and find her skin cool to the touch.
‘We’ll get them,’ I tell her. I’m not much for these leader-style speeches – that’s what John does –
so I keep it blunt. ‘We’ll kill them all. He won’t have died in vain.’
‘He shouldn’t have died at all,’ she replies. ‘We shouldn’t have left him out there. Now they have
him, doing Lord knows what to his body.’
‘We didn’t have a choice,’ I counter, knowing it’s true. After the beating we endured at the hands
of Five, we were in no shape to fight off a battalion of Mogadorians backed up by one of their ships.
Marina shakes her head and falls silent.
‘You know, I used to always want Sandor to take me camping,’ Nine butts in out of nowhere,
looking at us over his shoulder. ‘I hated living in that cushy-ass penthouse. But man, after this? I sort of miss it.’
Marina and I don’t respond. That’s the way Nine’s been talking since our battle with Five – these
forced anecdotes about nothing, weirdly upbeat, like nothing serious happened out here. When he
wasn’t rambling, Nine made it a habit to hike ahead of us, using his speed to put some distance
between us. When we caught up, he’d have already caught some animal, usually snake, and be
cooking it over a small fire he built on a rare dry patch of land. It’s like he wanted to pretend we
were just on some fun camping trip. I’m not squeamish; I’d eat whatever Nine caught. Marina never
did, though. I don’t think the roasted swamp creatures bothered her so much as the fact it was Nine
doing the hunting. She must be running on empty by now, even more so than me and Nine.
After another mile, I notice the road getting a little more packed down and well traveled. I can see
light up ahead. Soon, the nonstop buzzing of the local insect life gives way to something equally
annoying.
Country music.
I wouldn’t exactly call this place a town. I’m sure it doesn’t show up on even the most detailed
map. It looks more like a campground that people forgot to leave. Or maybe this is just a place where
the local hunters come to bro around and escape their wives, I think, noticing an overpopulation of
pickup trucks in the nearby gravel parking lot.
There are a couple dozen crude huts scattered throughout this cleared stretch of swamp coast, all of
them pretty much indistinguishable from an old-school outhouse. The huts basically consist of some
pieces of plywood hastily nailed together, and they look like a strong breeze could knock them over. I guess when you’re building at the edge of a Florida swamp, there’s no point in putting too much effort in. Hung between the huts, lighting this grim little vista, are strings of blinking Christmas lights and a few gas-powered lanterns. Beyond the huts, where the solid ground sinks back into the swamp,