Hunt for the Garde Part 8

"He is a traitor," she screams, pointing at our captain. "He will lead you off the path of Mogadorian Progress. Do not follow him blindly!"

Jax-Har, for the first time in days, laughs.

"Hail our Beloved Leader," Denbar says.

"Forever may he reign," Jax-Har adds.

And then everyone opens fire.

Mirra's body falls back, toppling over her chair. Her ally goes down as well. I keep my eyes on the table in front of me, not wanting to look back and see their bodies, wis.h.i.+ng that the trueborn fully disintegrated like the vatborn do, or that I was anywhere else in the galaxy.

I'm a fool for not leaving with Adamus.

Silence fills the room. It takes a few seconds for me to realize that everyone's looking at me.

Denbar's got his blaster aimed at my face.

"Whoa," I say. "I didn't . . . I mean . . ."

I can't seem to construct a sentence. I raise my hands in front of my chest-a completely un-Mogadorian thing to do, offering up surrender.

"We know she tried to recruit you," Jax-Har says. He speaks calmly, like his second-in-command didn't just attempt a failed coup. "The others came to me, one by one. You did not. And yet, you didn't so much as reach for your weapon when she stood. Tell me, commander: Where do your allegiances lie?"

My pulse beats in my head.

"If I questioned your leaders.h.i.+p, I wouldn't have brought us to Niagara Falls," I say slowly, enunciating each word. "I trust in Beloved Leader's wisdom. I trust in your command."

Jax-Har stares me down but eventually waves his hand to the side. The others lower their weapons. I'm safe.

For now, at least. My time on this s.h.i.+p suddenly seems very short.

I glance back, against my better judgment, and look at Mirra's disintegrating body. And I realize I have to do something. The doubts that have been growing inside my head are too heavy for me to stay here, following orders that will no doubt end in the slaughter of an entire planet. I have to get off this s.h.i.+p or I'll be murdered. Or I'll go mad. I'm not sure which is worse.

The doors open again, and someone runs in-another trueborn, a little younger than me. The officer-in-training who answers to Denbar and monitors communications overnight and during meetings.

"Captain Jax-Har!" He takes a few steps in before he stops, looking around wide-eyed, trying to digest the situation, the bodies on the floor.

"This is a closed meeting," the captain barks.

"But, sir . . ." The kid looks a little scared now. "Officer Denbar told me to report in if anything of note happened on the comms. The captains are all fighting-"

"They've been doing that all morning."

"Yes, but, sir, now there's someone else on. Phiri Dun-Ra, who was stationed in Mexico. She has news about Beloved-"

"Turn on the comms!" Jax-Har says, twisting to Denbar and pointing a thick finger at him.

Denbar taps on a terminal. Phiri Dun-Ra's shouts fill the room, her voice laced with venom. We hear only a few words. "Garde." "Legacies." They're meaningless without context and difficult to make out over the sound in the background-someone, a human boy I think, is screaming out in pain, his cries so primal and terrified that I have to fight the urge to cover my ears with my hands.

This is what the future holds for everyone. I can't just sit back and resign myself to follow along with whatever my captains and commanders ask of me. There has to be more to the Mogadorians-to me-than war and brutality.

It's not too late to change.

And then something breaks me, causes my blood to stop pumping. Someone else starts to speak on the comm line.

I don't even process the words at first. All I can do is focus on the sound of Adamus Sutekh's unmistakable voice, and what it means.

Adam is alive.

And I can't believe what he's saying.

EXCERPT FROM I AM NUMBER FOUR: THE LOST FILES: LEGACIES REBORN.

DISCOVER WHAT IT'S LIKE TO DEVELOP LEGACIES-FROM A HUMAN'S PERSPECTIVE!

CHAPTER ONE.

AS USUAL, BENNY IS AN a.s.s AND I CAN'T KEEP my mouth shut.

Lunch had been going okay. We'd walked to the diner a few blocks down from our apartment. Everybody in Harlem seemed to be out on the streets, enjoying the first warmish day in weeks. Mom looked radiant in her crisp white b.u.t.ton-down. She's always been able to make her work clothes look fas.h.i.+onable instead of like something she was forced to wear while serving fancy customers at a restaurant down on Wall Street that we could never afford to eat at. Benny, my stepdad, was quiet most of the meal, except for a groan here or there-based on his swollen eyes, I'm guessing he had a little too much fun out with his boys last night. All in all, things had been smooth sailing.

Then I had to go and ask if I could get some new headphones. Nice noise-cancelling ones that'd block out the world around me, or at least the noises in our apartment. That seemed worth fifty dollars to me.

The request doesn't go over well.

"Sure, baby," Mom says as she tries to nab the last grape from a side of fruit salad with her fork.

Benny looks like she's just agreed to buy me a Lexus for my sixteenth birthday or something.

"Hold up, now," he says. "What's wrong with the ones you've got?"

"They're busted," I say, pointing to the headphones slung around my neck. "Only one ear works."

"Then deal with one ear," Benny says. He wolfs down the last bite of a burger. "Your mom works six s.h.i.+fts a week. Sometimes more. I support us too. What do you do?"

I almost laugh at the word "support." Benny's been off work for a few months now on paid "disability," even though I haven't seen anything wrong with him. It definitely hasn't stopped him from drinking beer all day while shouting at our TV, driving me crazy.

"I put up with you," I mutter, staring down at the half a waffle floating around a little syrup lake on my plate.

"Dani," Mom says.

"What'd you just say?" Benny asks, his voice a low boom.

I bite my tongue. For Mom's sake, I keep quiet.

"She's having a great semester in school," Mom says. "Lord, I'll pay for the headphones. Don't worry."

"Oh really? Where's this money coming from, then?" he asks.

"Benny, don't spoil the meal. You know I set aside a little tip money for things like this."

"At least she works," I say. It slips out before I can stop it. Benny snorts and I can tell I've crossed the line.

When he speaks again, his voice is deep and full of anger.

"Listen here, you spoiled little-"

"Benjamin." Mom cuts him off.

He looks back and forth between us, jaw flexing as he clenches his teeth. Benny's pretty much always an a.s.shole, but it's when he gets quiet and silently rages that I know I've hit some kind of nerve. I haven't seen him look this angry in a long time, and that's saying something, considering we never see eye to eye on anything.

My body tenses up with anger. I want to hurl my plate at him, or flip this whole table over. I wish I could do something.

He stands up abruptly, his knees banging against the table and causing our plates to rattle. On his feet, he's a behemoth, six foot two and thick from years of manual labor and Mom's cooking. A couple of people look over at us, and Mom puts on a smile to show them that everything's all right.

"You got so much spare cash lying around, then you won't mind paying for this s.h.i.+t," Benny says, waving at our table. And then he's off and out the door.

Mom slowly takes her napkin from her lap and dabs her lips.

"You want dessert, baby?" she asks.

I shake my head and suck my teeth, looking across the room at nothing in particular. If I look at Mom I'll apologize for what I said and take responsibility for starting the argument, and I don't want to be sorry.

She shrugs and glances at her phone. "I gotta get down to the restaurant. My s.h.i.+ft starts soon."

"I'd hate for those rich-a.s.s bankers to have to pour their own drinks."

"Language, Dani," she says. Then she smirks. "Besides, those rich-a.s.s bankers are the ones buying you a black and white."

And before I can protest she's up and across the diner, chatting with our waitress at the bar as the woman makes me a to-go milk shake.

I walk Mom to her train. We cut through Morningside Park, which is kind of crowded because of the nice weather. There are all sorts of families grilling and having picnics. A bunch of kids playing pickup basketball on the courts. We don't really talk-Mom just hums some song I don't recognize and I try to cool off. We've done this a million times. Walking beside her always makes me feel better, no matter what's been going on at home or at school.

But we can't spend all day strolling around. Eventually she has to leave.

We come to the subway entrance.

"Text me which headphones you want, and I'll go pick them up," she says. "It'll be our little secret."

"Until Benny finds out," I say.

"He won't. He's not exactly the most observant guy. He'll forget all about them by tomorrow. Maybe we'll do something fun if the weather stays. Just you and me. I've got the day off."

This is what it should always be like. We don't need anybody else in the world except each other.

"We'd be better off alone."

"Dani . . . ," she says.

"It's true. We were fine before he came along."

"Not always, baby," she says. "You're forgetting he's the reason we can afford to stay in our apartment."

"If that's all it is, then I can get a job," I say. "I'm almost sixteen. We can get along just fine without him."

She smiles, but I don't think it's because I've just come up with some brilliant solution to our problems. We've had this conversation a hundred times before.

"He's a good man," she says slowly, patiently. "He's just going through a rough patch."

As far as I'm concerned, this "rough patch" has lasted for the last three years, ever since he moved in with us.

"Besides, you need to be focused on school." She smirks a little. "I'm going to find some SAT vocabulary lessons for you to listen to on those fancy new headphones to make sure you're putting them to good use."

I roll my eyes. She kisses me on the forehead, squeezing my shoulder gently.

"I'll see you tonight, Dani," she says. "I love you."

"Yeah." I stare down at the concrete. "Later."

She lingers.

"I love you too," I say finally.

She smiles, and then disappears down into the subway.

Thinking about going back to the apartment makes my blood start to boil again, and with Mom gone there's no one left to keep me calm. I know from past experience that it'll be best if I give Benny a little while to cool down. Besides, I don't want to be stuck in my room avoiding my stepdad when it's so nice outside. So I walk for a while until I finally come to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. I cut through the groups of people snapping pictures outside and go into the little park beside the church where this weirdo statue of an angel and a bunch of giraffes stands. I think it's really called Peace Fountain, but I've always called it Big Crab because that's what all the animals and the winged man are standing on-a Big Crab. That's also what Mom called it when I was just a kid and she used to take me on walks through the university campus nearby and talk about how if I worked really hard I'd be one of the students there when I grew up.

Now I come here when I want to get away from everything else.

I grab a bench, stretch out my legs and cross my arms, enjoying the feeling of the sun s.h.i.+ning down on me. Music blasts from one ear of my headphones. I try to completely zone out.

I don't know how much time pa.s.ses before my phone starts to vibrate in my pocket, the music in my ear suddenly replaced by a ringtone. I sigh, fearing that it's Benny asking me where the h.e.l.l I am, or if I'll run by the store and pick something up for him.

But it's Mom.

"Hey," I say when I answer. "I thought your s.h.i.+ft star-"

"Where are you?" she cuts me off. Her voice is short and on the verge of a yell. It startles me so that I don't answer at first. She continues. "Did you hear me? Where are you?"

"At the Big Crab."

"Go home."