I Am Number Four

The door slowly opens. I hold my breath, listening. Sarah leans into me and we put our arms around each other. The door closes very quietly and clicks into place. No footsteps follow. Did they merely open the door and stick their heads in to see if we were inside? Did they move on without entering? They found me after all this time; surely they aren't that lazy.

"What are we going to do?" Sarah whispers after thirty seconds.

"I don't know," I whisper back.

The room is wrapped in silence. Whatever opened the door must have left, or is out in the hall waiting. I know, though, the longer we sit, the more of them will arrive. We need to get out of here. We'll have to risk it. I take a deep breath.

"We have to leave," I whisper. "We're not safe here."

"But they're out there."

"I know, and they aren't going to leave. Henri is at home, and is in just as much danger as we are."

"But how are we going to get out?"

I have no idea, don't know what to say. Only one way out and that's the way we came in. Sarah's arms stay around me.

"We're sitting ducks, Sarah. They'll find us, and when they do, it will be with all of them. At least we'll have the element of surprise this way. If we can get out of the school, I think I can start a car. If I can't, we'll have to fight our way back."

She nods in agreement.

I take a deep breath and move out from underneath the desk. I reach for Sarah's hand and she stands with me. Together we take one step, quietly as possible. Then another. It takes a full minute to cross the room and nothing meets us in the darkness. A very slight glow comes from my hands, emitting almost no light, only enough to keep from ru

As we near the door, I can feel my heart pounding so hard that I fear the Mogadorians can hear it. I close my eyes and slowly reach for the knob. Sarah tenses, gripping my hand as tightly as she can. When my hand is an inch away, so close to the knob that I can feel the cold coming off of it, we are both grabbed from behind and pulled to the ground.

I try to scream but a hand covers my mouth. Fear rushes through me. I can feel Sarah struggling beneath the grip and I do the same thing but the grip is too strong. I never anticipated this, the Mogadorians being stronger than I am. I've greatly underestimated them. There is no hope now. I've failed. I have failed Sarah and Henri and I'm sorry. Henri, I hope you put up a better fight than I did.

Sarah is breathing heavily and with all my might I try to free myself but I can't.

"Shhh, stop struggling," the voice whispers in my ear. A girl's voice. "They're out there waiting. Both of you have to be quiet."

It's a girl, every bit as strong as I am, maybe even stronger. I don't understand. Her grip loosens and I turn and face her. We take each other in. Above the glow of my hands I see a face slightly older than mine. Hazel eyes, high cheekbones, long dark hair pulled into a ponytail, a wide mouth and strong nose, olive-toned skin.

"Who are you?" I ask.

She looks to the door, still silent. An ally, I think. Somebody besides the Mogadorians knows we exist. Somebody is here, to help.

"I am Number Six," she says. "I tried to get here before they did."

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

"How did you know it was me?" i ask.

She looks to the door. "I've been trying to find you ever since Three was killed. But I'll explain it all later. First, we have to get out of here."

"How did you get in without them seeing you?"

"I can make myself invisible."

I smile. The same Legacy my grandfather had. Invisibility. The ability to make those things he touches invisible as well, like the house on Henri's second day of work.

"How far do you live from here?" she asks.

"Three miles."

I feel her nod through the darkness.

"Do you have a Cepan?" she asks.

"Yes, of course. Don't you?"

Her weight shifts and she pauses before speaking, as though drawing strength from some unseen entity. "I did," she says. "She died three years ago. I've been on my own since then."

"I'm sorry," I say.

"It's a war, people are going to die. Right now we have to get out of here or we'll die as well. If they're in the area, then they already know where you live, which means they're already there, so it's pointless to try to be secretive once we're out of here. These are only scouts. The soldiers are on the way. They have the swords. The beasts won't be far behind. Time is short. At best we have a day. At worst they're already here."

My first thought: They already know where I live. I panic. Henri is at home, with Bernie Kosar, and the soldiers and beasts may already be there. My second thought: her Cepan, dead three years now. Six has been alone that long, alone on a foreign planet since what, the age of thirteen? Fourteen?

"He's at home," I say.

"Who?"

"Henri, my Cepan."

"I'm sure he's fine. They won't touch him as long as you're free. It's you they want, and they'll use him to try to lure you," Six says, then lifts her head towards the barred window. We turn and look with her. Speeding around the bend coming towards the school, very faintly so that nothing else can be seen, is a pair of headlights that slow, pass the exit, then turn into the entrance and quickly disappear. Six turns back to us. "All the doors are blocked. How else can we get out?"

I think about it, figuring that one of the unbarred windows in a different classroom is our best bet.

"We can get out through the gymnasium," Sarah says. "There's a passageway beneath the stage that opens like a cellar door in the back of the school."

"Really?" I ask.

She nods, and I feel a sense of pride.

"Each of you take a hand," Six says. I take her right, Sarah her left. "Be as quiet as possible. As long as you hold my hands, you'll both be invisible. They won't be able to see us, but they'll hear us. Once we're outside we'll run like hell. We'll never be able to escape them, not since they've found us. The only way to escape is to kill them, every last one of them, before the others arrive."

"Okay," I say.

"Do you know what that means?" Six says.

I shake my head. I'm not sure what she is asking me.

"There's no escaping them now," she says. "It means you're going to have to fight."

I mean to respond, but the shuffling I had heard earlier stops outside the door. Silence. Then the doorknob is jiggled. Number Six takes a deep breath and lets go of my hand.

"Never mind sneaking out," she says. "The war starts now."

She rushes up and thrusts her hands forward and the door breaks away from the jamb and crashes across the hallway. Splintered wood. Shattered glass.

"Turn your lights on!" she yells.

I snap them on. A Mogadorian stands amid the rubble of the broken door. It smiles, blood seeping from the corner of its mouth, where the door has hit it. Black eyes, pale skin as though the sun has never touched it. A cave-dwelling creature risen from the dead. It throws something that I don't see and I hear Six grunt beside me. I look into its eyes and a pain tears through me so that I'm stuck where I am, unable to move. Darkness falls. Sadness. My body stiffens. A haze of pictures of the day of the invasion flicker through my mind: the death of women and children, my grandparents; tears, screams, blood, heaps of burning bodies. Six breaks the spell by lifting the Mogadorian in the air and hurling it against the wall. It tries standing and Six lifts it again, this time throwing it as hard as she can against one wall and then the other. The scout falls to the ground twisted and broken, its chest rising once and then becoming still. One or two seconds pass. Its entire body collapses into a pile of ash, accompanied by a sound similar to a bag of sand being dropped to the ground.