I Am Number Four

I cry out, fall face-first into the mud. I can feel the dagger between my shoulder blades. A pain so sharp that it paralyzes me. I try to reach to pull it free but it is up too high. It feels as though it's moving, digging itself deeper, the pain spreading as if I've been poisoned. On my stomach, in agony. I can't pull it free with telekinesis, my powers somehow failing me. I begin dragging myself forward. One of the soldiers-or maybe it's a scout; I can't tell which-places a foot on my back, reaches down, and pulls the knife free. I grunt. The knife is gone but the pain stays. It takes its foot off of me but I can still feel its presence, and I wrestle myself onto my back to face it.

Another soldier, standing tall and smiling with hatred. The same look as the one before, the same type of sword. The dagger that was in my back twists in its grip. That is what I felt, the blade turning while imbedded in my flesh. I lift a hand towards the soldier to move it but I know it's in vain. I can't focus, everything blurry. The soldier raises its sword in the air. The blade tastes death, starts glowing in the night sky behind it. I'm gone, I think. Nothing I can do. I look into its eyes. Ten years on the run and this is how easily it ends, how quietly. But behind it lurks something else. Something far more menacing than a million soldiers with a million swords. Teeth every bit as long as the soldier is tall, teeth glowing white in a mouth too small to hold them. The beast with its evil eyes hovering over us.

A sharp intake of breath catches in my throat, and my eyes open wide in terror. It'll take us both out, I think. The soldier is oblivious. It tenses and grimaces at me and starts to bring the sword down to split me in two. But it is too slow and the beast strikes first, its jaws clamping down like a bear trap. The bite doesn't stop until the beast's teeth come together, the soldier's body cut cleanly in half just below the hips, leaving nothing behind but two stumps still standing. The beast chews twice and swallows. The soldier's legs fall hollowly to the ground, one dropping to the right, the other to the left, and quickly disintegrate.

It takes every ounce of strength I have to reach out and grab the dagger that has fallen at my feet. I tuck it into the waistband of my jeans, and begin crawling away. I feel the beast hovering over me, feel its breath upon the nape of my neck. The smell of death and rotting meat. I enter a small clearing. I expect the beast's wrath to fall any second, expect its teeth and claws to rip me to shreds. I pull myself forward until I can go no more, my back against an oak tree.

The beast stands in the very center of the clearing, thirty feet away from me. I look at it fully for the first time. A looming figure, hazy in the dark and the cold of the night. Taller and bigger than the beast at the school, forty feet, standing upright on two hind legs. Thick, gray skin stretched tightly over slabs of bulging muscle. No neck, its head sloped so that its lower jaw protrudes farther out than its upper. A set of fangs points towards the sky, another set points to the ground, dripping blood and drool. Long, thick arms hang a foot or two above the ground even while the beast stands straight, giving it the appearance of slightly leaning forward. Yellow eyes. Round disks at the sides of its head that pulsate with the beating of its heart, the only sign that it has any sort of heart at all.

It leans forward and brings its left hand to the ground. A hand, complete with stubby short fingers with claws like a raptor, claws meant to rip apart anything they touch. It sniffs at me, and roars. An ear-splitting roar that would have pushed me backwards if I weren't already against a tree. Its mouth opens, showing what must be fifty other teeth, each one every bit as sharp as the next. Its free hand thrusts away from its side and splits in half every tree that it strikes, ten, fifteen of them.

No more ru

I close my eyes and accept death. My lights are off. I don't want to see what is about to happen. I hear movement behind me. I open my eyes. One of the Mogadorians must be moving in for a closer look, I think at first, but I know immediately that I am wrong. There is something familiar about the loping gait, something I recognize in the sound of his breathing. And then he enters the clearing.

Bernie Kosar.

I smile, but the smile quickly fades. If I am doomed, there is no point in him dying too. No, Bernie Kosar. You can't be here. You need to leave and you need to run like the wind, get as far away as you can. Pretend you've just finished our early-morning jog to school and that it's time to return home.

He looks at me as he walks up. I am here, he seems to say. I am here and I will stand with you.

"No," I say aloud.

He stops long enough to give my hand a reassuring lick. He looks up at me with his big, brown eyes. Get away, John, I hear in my mind. Crawl if you have to crawl, but get away now. The blood loss has made me delusional. Bernie seems to be communicating with me. Is Bernie Kosar even here, or am I imagining that as well?

He stands in front of me as though in protection. He begins to growl, low at first, but it grows to a growl every bit as ferocious as the beast's own roar. The beast fixates on Bernie Kosar. A staredown. Bernie Kosar's hair is raised down the center of his back, his tan ears pi

I reach my hand out to Bernie Kosar. I wish I could stand and grab him and get away. His growls are so fierce that his whole body shakes, tremors coursing through him.

And then something begins to happen.

Bernie Kosar begins to grow.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

After all this time, only now do i understand. The morning runs when I would run too fast for him to keep pace. He would disappear into the woods, reappear seconds later in front of me. Six tried to tell me. Six took one look at him and she knew immediately. On those runs Bernie Kosar went into the woods to change himself, to turn himself into a bird. The way he would rush outside each morning, nose to the ground, patrolling the yard. Protecting me, and Henri. Looking for signs of the Mogadorians. The gecko in Florida. The gecko that used to watch from the wall while I ate breakfast. How long has he been with us? The Chim?ra, the ones I watched being loaded into the rocket-did they make it to Earth after all?

Bernie Kosar continues to grow. He tells me to run. I can communicate with him. No, that's not all. I can communicate with all animals. Another Legacy. It started with the deer in Florida on the day that we left. The shudder that ran up my spine as it passed something along to me, some feeling. I attributed it to the sadness of our leaving, but I was wrong. Mark James's dogs. The cows I passed on my morning runs. The same thing. I feel like such a fool to discover it only now. So blatantly obvious, right in front of my face. Another of Henri's adages: Those things that are most obvious are the very things we're most likely to overlook. But Henri knew. That is why he said no to Six when she tried to tell me.

Bernie Kosar is done growing; his hair has fallen away, replaced by oblong scales. He looks like a dragon, but without the wings. His body is thick with muscle. Jagged teeth and claws, horns that curl like a ram's. Thicker than the beast, but far shorter. Looking every bit as menacing. Two giants on opposite sides of the clearing, roaring at one another.