Pittacus Lore - Five's Legacy

Why don’t we have giant hell-beasts to fight for us?

My arms are shaking by the time I squat on the limb, the wood creaking under my weight as I stare into the blackness, hoping over and over again that nothing will emerge from it. That I can just wait this out.

That it will all just go away .

There’s no telling how much time passes. If I’d been more put together or hadn’t been so taken by surprise, I might have remembered to grab my watch on the way out the window. It’s weird—time always seemed like it didn’t mean anything on the island, and now it means everything. How many minutes before more of them arrive? How many seconds before they find me? I try to keep from trembling, and my stomach from turning over—between the running, my fear, and the damp smell of pig that clings to me in a thick coat of sludge, I’m teetering on the edge of vomiting. Maybe the stinking layer of crap will help keep me camouflaged, at least.

It’s not a very reassuring silver lining.

Finally, a silhouette starts to take shape in the darkness. I draw in closer to the tree. The figure is human sized. Maybe even a little hunched over, leaning on a cane as he steps into the dim moonlight. He’s wearing a blue linen shirt, khaki cargo pants, and sneakers that might have been white at some point. His beard is white, streaked with black, his wild hair almost silver.

I recognize him immediately, of course. Rey.

He’s got something held against him, wrapped in a piece of cloth. I start to call down to him, but he’s already staring holes into me, his lips quivering, as if he’s fighting every urge to yell. He simply stands there, the silence hanging in the thick air between us. Finally, I break it.

“Well? Did you get him?”

Rey doesn’t respond immediately, just looks away, staring down at the ground.

“What’d you forget?” His voice has a slight rattle to it.

“What?” I ask, my breath short.

He throws his parcel down on the ground. Part of the cloth falls back, and I can make out a familiar corner.

“The Chest?” I ask. My Loric Chest. The most sacred thing I own. The treasure I’m not actually allowed to look into. The container that supposedly holds my inheritance and the tools to rebuild my home planet, and I can’t even peek inside until Rey thinks I’m ready to—whatever that means.

“The Chest.” Rey nods.

I scramble down the tree, half falling to the earth.

“We should get going, right?” I ask. My words are spilling out now, my tongue stumbling over the letters as I try to say a million things at once. “You don’t have any weapons? Or our food? Where are we going now? Shouldn’t we be—”

“Your Chest is the second most important thing you have to protect after your own life. It was stupid to leave it. Next time, it’s your priority to keep it safe.”

“What are you—”

“You made it half a mile into the forest,” he says, ignoring me. His voice is getting louder now, filled with barely restrained anger. “I didn’t want to believe it, but I guess this is proof. You haven’t been doing your training. You’ve been lying to me about it. Every day.”

“Rey . . .”

“I already knew that, though.” He sounds sad now. “I could tell just by looking at you.”

My mind is racing, trying to figure out why we’re still standing here. Why he’s worried about my training when there could be a whole fleet of Mogs on their way after us. Unless . . .

“There aren’t any Mogs here,” I say quietly.

Rey just shakes his head and stares at the ground.

This was a test. No, worse than that: This was Rey’s way of trapping me and catching me in a lie. And even though, yes, I technically have been less than honest about my training regimen, I can’t believe Rey would scare me like this.

“Are you kidding me?” Unlike Rey, I don’t have the power to keep my anger from clouding my voice. “I was running for my life. I thought I was going to die .”

“Death is the least of your worries for now,” he says, pointing at my ankle. Underneath the layer of mud and crap is an ugly red mark that appeared a few days ago. A mark that’s starting to scab over, and will soon turn into a scar. The mark that—thanks to some otherworldly charm—shows me that another one of my fellow Garde has been murdered. Two is dead. Three and Four are all that stand between death and me.

I am Number Five.

I suddenly feel stupid for thinking I was about to be killed. Of course I wasn’t. Numbers Three and Four have to die before I can. I should have been worried about being captured and tortured for information. Not that Rey ever tells me anything.

And I realize what this is about. Ever since the scar appeared, it’s like something within Rey snapped. He’s been getting sicker the last few years, and I’m not anywhere as strong as he thinks I should be. I haven’t developed any of the magic powers I’m supposed to have. Neither of us can put up a good fight. That’s why we’re here on this stupid island, hiding.

Rey’s eyes have been on the ground, but he finally raises them to mine, looking at me for a long moment. Then he nods at the Chest.

“Carry it back,” he says. Then he’s shuffling off into the darkness, leaving me in the sparse moonlight, staring at the duffel bag that contains my Chest.

We weren’t under attack. It was only a test.

I’m not going to die on the island. At least, not tonight.

I pick up my Chest, hugging it close to me, letting the corners dig into my stomach.

I stare into the blackness that Rey has disappeared into, and in that moment there’s only one emotion filling me. Not fear or relief or even shame for being found out. It’s the feeling that the only person I have in this world has betrayed me.

THE SUN RISES AS I WASH OFF IN THE OCEAN and think of Canada, the first place I remember living here on Earth.

I really liked Canada.

In Canada we ate butter tarts and French fries covered in gravy and rubbery globs of cheese, all served out of carts on the sides of the roads. Even when it was summer there it wasn’t all that hot. I learned a little bit of French. Rey didn’t like the cold, but I did. He was Albert in Canada, a name he’d picked after seeing Alberta on a map, thinking it would make him sound like more of a local. “Old Al” he called himself sometimes when talking to servers or cashiers. I always thought it was funny when he dumbed his personality down and pretended to be my grandfather at times like that, using words like “whippersnapper” that he’d picked up from the TV. No one questioned the kindly old man and his grandson.

I was Cody then. I liked being Cody. I was a person, not just Five. At night, Rey would tell me about Lorien and the Mogadorians and the other Garde—my kindred spirits scattered across the world—and how one day we’d bring about the glorious return of our home planet. Back then, everything seemed like a fairy tale. All the aliens and powers and other worlds were nothing but stories to get me to do my chores. Didn’t clean up after yourself? Lorien didn’t stand a chance. Forget to brush your teeth? The Mogs would get you for sure.

Then they actually came.

We’d been living up near Montreal for six months—maybe a whole year—when Rey found out they were coming for us. I’m still not sure how. All I know is that suddenly I was running through the woods behind our little cottage while a few Mogadorians tracked me. I was six years old, scared out of my mind. Eventually I’d hidden in a tree. I thought I was a goner until Rey appeared, taking out the Mogs with a broken-off shovel and a shotgun he’d bought on the black market. He’s always been good with tools.