Ashley laughed at me. Without saying good-bye, she left to wait for her dad to come home from work.
‘Why haven’t we ever been on a plane?’ I asked Katarina that night as she peered out the blinds of my bedroom window.
‘Six,’ she said, turning to me before correcting herself. ‘I mean, Veronica. It’s too dangerous for us to travel by plane. We’d be trapped up there. You know what could happen if we were thousands of miles in the air and then found out Mogs had followed us on board?’
I knew exactly what could happen. I could picture the chaos, the other passengers screaming and ducking under their seats as a couple of huge alien soldiers barreled down the aisle with swords. But that didn’t stop me from wanting to do something so normal, so human, as to fly on a plane from one city to the next. I’d spent all my time on Earth unable to do the things other kids my age took for granted. We rarely even stayed in one place long enough for me to meet other kids, let alone make friends – Ashley was the first girl Katarina even allowed over to our house. Sometimes, like in California, I didn’t even attend school, if Katarina thought it was safer.
I knew why all this was necessary, of course. Usually, I didn’t let it bother me. But Katarina could tell that Ashley’s superior attitude had gotten under my skin. My silence the following days must have cut through her, because to my surprise she bought us two round-trip airline tickets to Denver. The destination didn’t matter – she knew I just wanted the experience.
I couldn’t wait to tell Ashley.
But on the day of the trip, standing outside the airport, Katarina hesitated. She seemed nervous. She ran her hand through her short black hair. She had dyed and cut it the night before, just before making herself a new ID. A family of five walked around us on the curb, dragging heavy luggage, and to my left a tearful mother said good-bye to her two young daughters. I wanted nothing more than to join in, to be a part of this everyday scene. Katarina watched everyone around us while I fidgeted impatiently by her side.
‘No,’ Katarina finally said. ‘We’re not going. I’m sorry, Veronica, but it’s not worth it.’
We drove home in silence, letting the screaming engines of the planes passing overhead speak for us. When we got out of the car on our street, I saw Ashley sitting on her front steps. She looked at me walking towards our house and mouthed the word liar. The humiliation was almost too much to bear.
But, really, I was a liar. It’s ironic. Lying was all I had done since I’d arrived on Earth. My name, where I was from, where my father was, why I couldn’t stay the night at another girl’s house – lying was all I knew and it was what kept me alive. But when Ashley called me a liar the one time I was telling someone the truth, I was unspeakably angry. I stormed up to my room, slammed the door, and punched the wall.
To my surprise, my fist went straight through.
Katarina slammed my door open, wielding a kitchen knife and ready to strike. She thought the noise she’d heard must be Mogs. When she saw what I had done to the wall, she realized that something had changed with me. She lowered the blade and smiled. ‘Today’s not the day you get on a plane, but it is the day you’re going to start your training.’
Seven years later, sitting on this plane with Marina and Ella, I hear Katarina’s voice in my head. ‘We’d be trapped up there.’ But I’m ready for that possibility now, in ways that Katarina and I weren’t.
I’ve since flown dozens of times, and everything has gone fine. However, this is the first time I’ve done it without using my invisibility Legacy to sneak on board. I know I’m much stronger now. And I’m getting stronger by the day. If a couple of Mog soldiers charged at me from the front of the plane, they wouldn’t be dealing with a meek young girl. I know what I’m capable of; I am a soldier now, a warrior. I am someone to fear, not hunt.
Marina lets go of her knees and sits up straight, releasing a long breath. In a barely audible voice, she says, ‘I’m scared. I just want to get in the air.’
‘You’ll be fine,’ I say in a low voice.
She smiles, and I smile back at her. Marina proved herself to be a strong ally with amazing Legacies on the battlefield yesterday. She can breathe under water, see in the dark, and heal the sick and wounded. Like all Garde, she also has telekinesis. And because we’re so close in order – I’m Number Six and she’s Number Seven – our bond is special. When the charm still held and we had to be killed in order, the Mogadorians would have had to get through me before they could get to her. And they never would have gotten through me.
Ella sits silently on the other side of Marina. As we continue to wait for Crayton, she opens the biology book on her lap and stares at the pages. Our charade does not demand this level of concentration and I’m about to lean over and tell her, but then I see she isn’t reading at all. She is trying to turn the page with her mind, trying to use telekinesis, but nothing’s happening.
Ella is what Crayton calls an Aeternus, someone born with the ability to move back and forth between ages. But she’s still young and her Legacies have not yet developed. They will come in their own time, no matter how impatiently she wills them to develop now.
Ella came to Earth on another ship, one I didn’t know existed until John Smith, Number Four, told me he saw it in his visions. She was just a baby, which means she’s almost twelve now. Crayton says he is her unofficial Cêpan, since there wasn’t time for him to be officially appointed to her. He, like all of our Cêpans, has a duty to help Ella develop her Legacies. He told us that there was also a small herd of Chimæra on their ship, Loric animals capable of shifting forms and battling alongside us.
I’m happy she’s here. After Numbers One, Two, and Three died, only six of us remained. With Ella, we number seven. Lucky number seven, if you believe in luck. I don’t, though. I believe in strength.
Finally, Crayton squeezes down the aisle, carrying a black briefcase. He’s wearing eyeglasses and a brown suit that looks too big for him. Under his strong chin is a blue bow tie. He’s supposed to be our teacher.
‘Hello, girls,’ he says, stopping next to us.
‘Hi, Mr Collins,’ Ella responds.
‘It’s a full flight,’ Marina says. That’s code for everyone on board looks okay. To tell him everything on the ground appears normal, I say, ‘I’m going to try to sleep.’
He nods and takes his seat directly behind Ella. Leaning forward between Marina and Ella, he says, ‘Use your time on the plane wisely, please. Study hard.’
That means, don’t let your guard down.
I didn’t know what to think of Crayton when we first met. He’s stern and quick tempered, but his heart seems to be in the right place and his knowledge of the world and current events is incredible. Official or not, he has taken his Cêpan role seriously. He says he would die for any one of us. He will do anything to defeat the Mogadorians; anything to exact our revenge. I believe him on all counts.
However, it’s with reluctance that I’m on this plane headed to India at all. I wanted to get back to the United States as soon as possible, to get back to John and Sam. But yesterday, standing on top of the dam overlooking the carnage at the lake, Crayton told us that Setrákus Ra, the powerful Mogadorian leader, would be on Earth soon, if he wasn’t here already. That Setrákus’s arrival was a sign that the Mogadorians understood we were a threat, and we should expect them to step up their campaign to kill us. Setrákus is more or less invincible. Only Pittacus Lore, the most powerful of all the Lorien Elders, would have been able to defeat him. We were horrified. What did that mean for the rest of us then, if he was invincible? When Marina asked this, asked how any of us could possibly stand a chance of defeating him, Crayton told us even more shocking news, knowledge that all the Cêpans had been entrusted with. One of the Garde – one of us – was supposed to hold the same powers as Pittacus. One of us was supposed to grow as strong as he had been, and would be able to beat Setrákus Ra. We just had to hope that that Garde wasn’t One, Two, or Three, that it was one of the ones still alive. If so, we had a chance. We just had to wait and see who it was, and hope that these powers showed themselves soon.