Pittacus Lore - The Power of Six

“Just hug already,” Six says. Sam and I laugh.

My face is still on the screen. The photo on the TV is the one Sarah took on my very first day of school, the day I’d met her; and I have an awkward, uncomfortable look on my face. The right side of the screen is now filled with smaller photos of the five people we’re being accused of killing: three teachers, the men’s basketball coach, the school janitor. And then the screen changes yet again to images of the wrecked school-and it really is wrecked; the entire right side of the building is nothing more than a heap of rubble. Next come various interviews with Paradise residents, the last being Sam’s mom. When she comes on screen she’s crying, and looking straight into the camera she desperately pleads with the “kidnappers” to “please please please return my baby safely to me.” When Sam sees this interview, I can tell something inside of him shifts.

Scenes from the past week’s funerals and candlelight vigils come next. Sarah’s face flashes on the screen, and she’s holding a candle as tears stream down her cheeks. A lump forms in my throat. I’d give anything to hear her voice. It kills me to imagine what she must be dealing with. The video of us escaping Mark’s burning house-which is what started all of this-has blown up on the internet, and while I was blamed for starting that blaze as well, Mark stepped in and swore up and down that I had no part in it, even though using me as a scapegoat would have let him off the hook completely.

When we had left Ohio, the damage to the school had first been attributed to an out-of-season tornado; but then rescue crews filtered through the rubble, and in no time all five bodies had been found lying equal distances from each other-without a single mark on them-in a room untouched by the battle. Autopsies reported that they had died of natural causes, with no trace of drugs or trauma. Who knows how it really happened. When one of the reporters had heard the story of me jumping through the principal’s window and running away from the school, and then when Henri and I couldn’t be found, he’d run a story blaming us for everything; and the rest had been quick to follow. With the recent discovery of Henri’s forgery tools, along with a few of the fake documents he had left at the house, the public outrage has grown.

“We’re going to have to be very careful now,” Six says, sitting against the wall.

“More careful than staying inside a crummy motel room with the curtains drawn?” I ask.

Six goes back to the window and pulls aside one of the curtains to peer out. A sliver of sunlight cuts across the floor. “The sun will set in three hours. Let’s leave as soon as it’s dark.”

“Thank God,” Sam says. “There’s a meteor shower tonight we can see if we drive south. Plus if I have to spend one more minute inside this crappy room, I’m going to go nuts.”

“Sam, you’ve been nuts since the first time I met you,” I kid. He throws a pillow at me, which I deflect without lifting a hand. I twist the pillow over and over in the air with my telekenisis and then send it like a rocket at the television, shutting it off.

I know Six is right that we should keep moving, but I’m frustrated. It seems like there’s no end in sight, no place where we’ll be safe. At the foot of the bed, keeping my feet warm, is Bernie Kosar, who’s hardly left my side since Ohio. He opens his eyes and yawns and stretches. He peers up at me, and through my telepathy communicates that he’s also feeling better. Most of the small scabs that covered his body are gone, and the larger ones are healing nicely. He’s still wearing the makeshift splint on his broken front leg, and he’ll limp for a few more weeks; but he almost looks like his old self. He offers a subtle wag and paws at my leg. I reach down and pull him up to my lap and scratch his tummy.

“How about you, buddy? You ready to get out of this dump?”

Bernie Kosar thumps his tail against the bed.

“So where to, guys?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” Six says. “Preferably somewhere warm to ride out the winter. I’m pretty sick of this snow. Though I’m even more sick of not knowing where the others are.”

“For now it’s just us three. Four plus Six plus Sam.”

“I love algebra,” Sam says. “Sam equals x . Variable x .”

“Such a nerd, dude,” I say.

Six enters the bathroom and then exits a second later with a handful of toiletries. “If there’s any consolation in what happened, at least the other Garde know John not only survived his first battle, but that he won it. Maybe they’ll find a bit of hope in it. Our biggest priority now is finding the others. And training together in the meantime.”

“We will,” I say, then look at Sam. “It’s not too late to go back and put things straight, Sam. You can make up any story about us you want. Tell them we kidnapped you and held you against your will, and that you escaped the first chance you got. You’ll be considered a hero. Girls will be all over you.”

Sam bites his lower lip and shakes his head. “I don’t want to be a hero. And girls are already all over me.”

Six and I roll our eyes, but I also see Six blush. Or maybe I imagine it.

“I mean it,” he says. “I’m not leaving.”

I shrug. “I guess that’s settled. Sam equals x in this equation.”

Sam watches Six walk to her small duffel bag beside the TV, and his attraction to her is painted all over his face. She’s wearing black cotton shorts and a white tank top with her hair pulled back. A few strands fall loose around her face. A purple scar is prominent on the front of her left thigh, and the stitch marks around it are a tender pink, still scabbed over. Stitches she not only sewed herself, but also removed. When Six looks up, Sam shyly diverts his gaze. Clearly there’s another reason Sam wants to stick around.

Six bends down and reaches into her bag, removing a folded map. She opens it on the foot of the bed.

“Right here,” she says, pointing to Trucksville, “is where we are. And here,” she continues, moving her finger from North Carolina to a tiny red star made in ink close to the center of West Virginia, “is where the Mogadorians’ cave is, the one I know of, anyhow.”

I look where she’s pointing. Even on the map it’s obvious the location is very isolated; there doesn’t appear to be any sort of main road within five miles, nor any town within ten.

“How do you even know where the cave is?”

“That’s a long story,” she says. “Probably one better left for the road.”

Her finger takes up a new route on the map, heading southwest from West Virginia, traversing Tennessee, and coming to rest on a point in Arkansas near the Mississippi River.

“What’s there?” I ask.

She puffs her cheeks and releases a deep breath, undoubtedly remembering something that happened. Her face takes on a special look when deep in concentration.

“This is where my Chest was,” she says. “And some of the stuff Katarina brought from Lorien. This is where we hid it.”

“What do you mean, where it was ?”

She shakes her head.

“It’s not there anymore?”

“No. They were tracking us, and we couldn’t risk them getting it. It was no longer safe with us, so we stowed it and Katarina’s artifacts in Arkansas and fled as fast as we could, thinking we could stay ahead of them . . .” She trails off.

“They caught up to you, didn’t they?” I ask, knowing her Cepan Katarina died three years ago.

She sighs. “That’s another story better left for the road.”

It takes minutes to throw my clothes into my duffel bag, and as I’m doing it I realize the last time this bag was packed, Sarah had done it. Only a week and a half has passed, but it feels like a year and a half. I wonder if she’s been interrogated by police, or singled out at school. Where is she even going to school since the high school was destroyed? I’m certain she can hold her own, but still, it can’t be easy on her, especially since she has no idea where I am, or even if I’m okay. I wish I could contact her without putting us both in danger.