Pittacus Lore: The Lost Files: Six's Legacy

I hissed at Clifford, and he grumpily padded off in the snow. I looked down at the rabbit, matted and bloody.

But it wasn’t dead.

All of my hardness gave way as I lifted the light, furry beast to my chest. I felt its tiny heart beating furiously, at the brink of death. Its eyes were glassy, uncomprehending.

I knew what would happen to it. Its wounds were not deep, but it would die of shock. It wasn’t dead now, but it was past life. The only thing this creature had to look forward to was the paralysis of its own fear and a slow, cold death.

I looked to the window. Katarina was out of sight. I turned back to the rabbit, knowing in an instant what the kindest thing to do was.

You are a warrior, Katarina had said.

“I am a warrior.” My words turned to frost in the air before my face. I grabbed the gentle creature’s neck with both hands and gave it a good hard twist.

I buried the rabbit’s corpse deep beneath the snow, where even Clifford couldn’t find it.

Katarina was wrong: I have killed before. Out of mercy.

But not yet out of vengeance.

Katarina pulls the truck off the dirt road and we get out. It’s been a day of straight driving and it’s now three in the morning. We’re in Arkansas, in the Lake Ouachita State Park. The park entrance was closed so Katarina broke through a chain barrier and snuck the truck in, off-roading in the dark of the woods until we came to the main camp road.

We’ve been here before, though I don’t remember it. Katarina says we camped here when I was much younger, and that she had thought it would make a good burial site for my Chest, if it ever came to that.

It has, apparently, come to that.

Outside the truck I can hear the lake lapping weakly at the shore. Katarina and I walk through the trees, following its sound. I carry the Chest in my arms. We’ve decided it’s too cumbersome and too dangerous to hold on to. Katarina says it must not fall into Mogadorian hands.

I don’t press her on this point, though there is a dark implication to this task that haunts me. If Katarina thinks it’s come to the point of burying the Chest to keep it safe, then she must think our capture has become likely. Perhaps inevitable.

I shiver in the cool of the night, while swatting mosquitoes away. There are more of them the closer we get to the water’s edge.

We finally come to the shore. In the middle of the lake, I see a small green island, and I know Katarina well enough to know what she’s thinking.

“I’ll do it,” she says. But she only barely gets the words out. She is exhausted, on the brink of collapse. She hasn’t slept in days. I’ve barely slept either, only a few quick minutes here and there in the car. But that’s more than Katarina’s had, and I know she needs rest.

“Lie down,” I say. “I’ll do it.”

Katarina makes a few weak protests, but before long she’s lying on the ground by the shore. “Rest,” I say. I take the blanket she brought out to use as a towel and instead use it to drape her, to hide her from the mosquitoes.

I strip off my clothes, then grab the Chest tight and step into the water. It’s bracing at first, but once I’m submerged it’s actually fairly warm. I begin an awkward doggy paddle, using one arm to stroke through the water and the other to clutch the Chest.

I’ve never swum at night before, and it takes all of my will not to imagine hands reaching up from the murky depths to grab at my legs and pull me under. I stay focused on my goal.

I arrive at the island after what feels like an hour but is more likely ten minutes. I step out of the water, trembling as the air hits my bare skin, and walk awkwardly over the stones littering the shore. I walk to the center of the small island. It is nearly round, and probably less than an acre, so it doesn’t take long to reach.

I dig a hole three feet deep, which takes considerably longer than the swim out. By the end my hands are bleeding from clawing through the rough dirt, stinging more and more with each barehanded shovel through the soil.

I place the Chest in the hole. I am reluctant to let it go, though I have never seen its contents, never even opened it. I consider saying a prayer over it, the source of so much potential and promise.

I decide against praying. Instead, I just kick dirt into the hole until it’s covered, and smooth over the mound.

I know I may never see my Chest again.

I return to the water and swim back to Katarina.

It’s been a week since we arrived in Upstate New York. We’re at a small motel adjacent to an apple orchard and a neighborhood soccer field. Katarina has been plotting our next move.

There have been no suspicious announcements on the news or on the internet. This gives us some measure of hope for the future of Lorien, and also that the Mogadorians’ trail on us has gone cold.

It’s silly but I feel ready to fight. I may not have been back at the motel, but I am now. I don’t care if I don’t have my Legacies. It is better to fight than to run.

“You don’t mean that,” she says. “We must be prudent.”

So we wait. Katarina’s heart has gone out of training but we still do as best we can, push-ups and shadowboxing in our room during the day, more elaborate drills out in the unlit corners of the soccer field at night.

During the day I’m allowed to wander through the orchards, smelling the sweet rot of fallen apples. Katarina has told me not to play on the soccer field during the day, or talk to the children who practice on it. She wants to continue to keep a low profile.

But I can watch the field from behind a tree at the edge of the orchard. It’s a girls’ team playing today. The girls are all in purple jerseys and bright white shorts. They’re about my age. From beneath the shade of the apple tree I wonder what it would be like to give myself to something as light and inconsequential as a game of soccer. I imagine I’d be good at it: I love being physical, I’m strong and quick. No: I’d be great at it.

But it’s not for me to play games of no value.

I feel envy creep up my throat like bile. It’s a new sensation for me. I am usually resigned to my fate. But something about this time on the road, about the near miss with the Mogadorians, has opened me to hating these girls with their easy lives.

But I choke it down. I need to save my spite for the Mogs.

That night we allow ourselves to watch a little TV before bed. It is a luxury Katarina usually denies me, as she thinks it rots my brain and dulls my senses. But even Katarina softens sometimes.

I curl up next to Katarina on the queen bed. She’s turned the TV to a movie about a woman who lives in New York City and complains about how hard it is to find a good man. My attention wanders quickly away from the screen to Katarina’s face, which has gone soft with attention to the film’s plot. She has succumbed to it.

She catches me looking at her, and turns red in an instant. “I’m allowed to be sappy sometimes.” She turns back to the screen. “I can’t help it. He’s handsome.”

I look back at the TV. The woman is now yelling at the handsome man about how he’s a “sexist pig.” I’ve seen very few movies in my life but I can already guess how this one ends. The man is handsome, I suppose, though I’m not as transfixed by him as Katarina is.

“Have you ever had a boyfriend?” I ask her.

She laughs. “Back on Lorien, yes. I was married.”

My heart seizes, and I blush at my own self-absorption. How could I have never asked her this before? How could I not have known that she had a husband, a family? I hesitate before asking another question, because I can only assume her husband died in the Mogadorian invasion.