The Fall of Five (I Am Number Four) Read online

  “Oh, no,” Sarah says, backing towards the room where John and Ella are laid out defenseless.

  From the hallway, I have a clear view of the floor-to-ceiling windows that line the penthouse living room. A half dozen ropes come slithering down from the rooftops, the Mogadorians rappelling down the side of the building.

  “I have to get to John!” Sarah says.

  I grab her by the wrist. “We don’t stand a chance if we don’t get to the weapons.”

  The windows shatter, blown open by a synchronized series of blasts from Mogadorian cannons. A rush of cold air flows through the penthouse. The Mogs swing inside, swiftly detach from their rappelling wires and start scanning the space around them for targets. They’re in the living room, standing between us and the penthouse elevator—our only exit. I’m surprised there aren’t more of them. If I was attacking a hideout for the Garde, I’d have sent an entire army. It’s almost as if they aren’t expecting a lot of resistance.

  The three of us duck back into my dad’s room.

  “I’ll get to John and Ella,” says my dad. “You two make a break for the Lecture Hall.”

  I can hear the Mogs moving out of the living room, starting down our hallway. “Here they come. Let’s go on three. One—”

  Before I hit two, a ferocious roar erupts from the hallway, immediately answered by wild Mogadorian blaster fire. I poke my head into the hallway in time to see Bernie Kosar, in the shape of a grizzly bear, mauling a pair of Mogadorians. I’d forgotten all about BK! Maybe things aren’t as desperate as they seem.

  “Go!” my dad shouts as he makes a break towards Ella’s room. “Get weapons and we’ll hold them here.”

  BK lunges from Mog to Mog, tearing through them with his claws, tossing aside the furniture that they try to hide behind. He takes a few blaster shots in the side and the air fills with the smell of burned hair, but that only seems to make him angrier. Crouched in the doorway of Ella’s room, my dad takes aim and starts picking off Mogs.

  Sarah and I take off in the opposite direction, towards the Lecture Hall and the armory. Behind me, I can hear blaster fire sizzling into the walls, my dad’s rifle answering back. We have to be quick. More will surely be dropping in from the roof and they won’t be able to hold them off forever.

  Suddenly, the bedroom door on my right swings open. I have a second to feel the rush of cool air from the broken window, and then there’s a Mogadorian on top of me. He drives his shoulder into my side, pinning me up against the wall. His forearm presses into my throat and he puts his pale face close to mine, his lifeless black eyes filling my vision.

  “Human,” the Mog hisses. “Tell me where the girl is and I’ll kill you quick.”

  Before I can ask which girl he’s talking about, Sarah cracks the Mogadorian over the head with an empty vase. The Mog shakes off the blow and spins on Sarah. An anger wells up in me—for all that time in captivity, for what they’ve done to John and Ella. I grab the handle of the Mog’s sword and rip it loose from his sheath. With a scream, I drive it through his chest, turning him to ash.

  “Whoa!” Sarah cheers.

  I can hear glass shattering from all around the penthouse. Doors to bedrooms all along the hallway are thrown open and Mogs come charging into sight, cutting me and Sarah off from my dad and Bernie Kosar. I remember thinking the empty penthouse was spooky before, but this is horrifying. I’ve lost sight of my dad at the other end of the hall. I can still hear his rifle working, the shots getting more and more frequent. I hear a loud crash, the sound of something tipping over in Ella’s room.

  “You’re after the girl?” I yell, getting their attention, hopefully taking some of the pressure off my dad. “She’s this way!”

  Sarah and I sprint into the workshop, ten or so Mogs charging down the hallway after us.

  Together, we shove over a stack of old appliances and engine parts that are next to the doorway, Sandor’s accumulated clutter coming in handy. A Mog tries to force open the door, but it’s jammed up against all the crap on the floor.

  “That’ll slow them down for a second,” I say.

  “Do they think I’m this girl they’re after?” Sarah asks breathlessly. “Or do you think they’re here for Ella?”

  A chunk of the workshop door explodes in a burst of blaster fire, hot splinters flecking across my cheek and almost into my eye. I guess our second is up. Sarah grabs me by the arm and we stagger through the workshop, the door behind us being pulverized by the invading Mogs.

  A stray blast hits the floor between us, knocking us apart, and sending Sarah falling over a table. More blasts are getting through now. I duck low and grab Sarah’s hand, helping her stand up. “I’m okay!” she yells, and we run, hunched over, towards the Lecture Hall.

  The workshop door is now just a smoking hole in the wall thanks to all the Mogadorian shooting. They’re shoving in, tripping over the junk we knocked over, but advancing all the same. Next to me, the monitor that’s displaying the location of the Garde explodes in a shower of sparks, a Mog blaster just narrowly missing me.

  “How are we going to fight this many off?” Sarah yells as we burst into the Lecture Hall. “I’ve been practicing, but not against ten targets at once!”

  “We’ve got the home field advantage.”

  Inside the Lecture Hall proper, Sarah makes a break for the gun rack and I climb into the Lectern. The first Mogs burst into the room just as I fire up the Lecture Hall’s programming, keying up one of Sandor’s old training routines—the one with difficulty marked insanity. The Mogs aren’t even paying any attention to me just yet, seated behind the metallic console, tapping buttons. They’re more focused on Sarah. Even if they realize she’s not the girl they’re looking for, she’s still the most obvious threat, out in the open and pointing a pair of pistols at the Mogs. Obvious threat and also an easy target.

  “Sarah! To your left!” I shout, raising a block of cover from the floor for her to hide behind. She dives to safety just as the Mogadorians open fire.

  Smoke starts filling the room from the nozzles along the walls. Some of the Mogs look confused; most are only interested in blasting away at Sarah. A few shots begin ricocheting off the front of the Lectern and I hunker down in the seat, trying to make myself small. I hope this thing is strong enough to withstand some blaster fire. Above the shooting, I can hear the Lecture Hall whirring to life.

  A half dozen panels along all four walls slide open, turrets loaded with ball bearings coming into view.

  “Stay down!” I yell at Sarah. “It’s starting!”

  A crossfire erupts through the Lecture Hall, the Mogs caught in the middle. This drill is meant to help the Garde practice their telekinesis, not maim them, so the marble-sized ammo being shot out of the walls doesn’t travel fast enough to kill the Mogs. Still, it has to sting like hell. Between that and the medicine balls suddenly swinging from the ceiling, I’d say they have their hands full.

  I dive out of the Lectern. A ball bearing smacks me hard in the shoulder before I can make it to the ground. My arm is sore, but I manage to press myself flat, watching as the Mogs are bludgeoned from all angles. Seeing me, Sarah sends one of her guns sliding across the floor. I pick it up and crouch down behind the Lectern. Sarah and I have the only two pieces of cover in the room.

  We open fire. It doesn’t matter that we don’t have the best aim. The Mogadorians are basically sitting ducks. With all the shooting coming from the walls, they’re starting to panic. Many of them are knocked down to their knees by the turrets or the medicine balls, at which point Sarah and I pick them off. Some make a break for the door. If they manage to stagger that far, all they get for their trouble is a bullet in the back.

  Only a minute has passed in the Lecture Hall’s training routine before the room has completely cleared of Mogs. The Garde usually have to endure seven minutes before they get a break during the training portion. I guess they don’t have anyone shooting real bullets at them, though. I reach up and slap the contro
ls on the Lectern until the system shuts down.

  “That worked!” Sarah yells, sounding almost surprised. “We got them, Sam!”

  As Sarah stands up, I notice a burn mark on the outside of her left leg. Her jeans are torn, the skin beneath them a burned pinkish where it isn’t bleeding. “You’ve been shot,” I exclaim.

  Sarah looks down. “Crap. I didn’t even notice. Must have just grazed me.”

  As the adrenaline dies down, Sarah limps over to me. I put my arm around her for support and we move as fast as we can out of the Lecture Hall. We grab more guns on our way out. I tuck a second pistol into the back of my jeans just in case I run out of ammo. Sarah drops her spent handgun and grabs some crazy-looking lightweight machine gun, the kind of thing I used to believe didn’t exist outside of action movies.

  “You know how to use that thing?” I ask.

  “They all work pretty much the same,” she replies. “You just point and click.”

  I could almost laugh if I wasn’t so worried about my dad and the comatose John and Ella. We don’t hear any sounds of fighting as we pass through the wrecked workshop, picking our way carefully over the junk we knocked over. The penthouse is eerily quiet. I’m not sure if that’s a good sign or a bad sign.

  I poke my head into the hallway. There’s no sign of anyone. The floor is covered with Mogadorian ash, but otherwise all is quiet. The loudest sound is the wind blowing through the building thanks to the Mogs having broken every single window on their way in.

  “Do you think we got them all?” Sarah whispers.

  In answer, we hear a shuffling noise from the roof that sounds like boots running across it. There must be more Mogadorians still up there and they’ll be massing for a second wave any second now, as soon as they figure out their first group has failed.

  “We need to get out of here now,” I say, helping Sarah limp along. We hurry down the hallway.

  Bernie Kosar lumbers into view, still in bear form. He looks wounded, his entire right side smoking from blaster burns. He stares at me as if he’s trying to communicate something. I wish I had John’s animal telepathy. He seems sad, somehow. Sad, but determined.

  “You okay, Bernie?” Sarah asks.

  BK grunts and takes the shape of a falcon. He soars towards the window and out, flying up. He must be going to hold off the remaining Mogs on the roof while we evacuate John and Ella. I realize now what that look BK was giving me meant; he was saying good-bye, just in case it’s the last we see of him. I suck in a deep breath.

  “Come on, let’s go,” I say, quietly.

  There’s an overturned bookshelf blocking the doorway to Ella’s room. It’s peppered with bullet holes. Obviously this was what my dad used for cover.

  “Dad?” I whisper. “It’s clear, let’s go.”

  No response.

  “Dad?!” I say, louder, a tremor in my voice.

  Still nothing. I slam my shoulder hard against the bookshelf, but it’s wedged tight. I feel sick, desperate. Why isn’t he answering?

  “Up there!” Sarah says, pointing. There’s a space large enough to crawl through between the bookshelf and the top of the doorframe. I clamber up and over, scraping my knees on the protruding shelves, landing awkwardly on the other side. It only takes seconds, but that’s time enough to imagine my dad riddled with blaster fire, John and Ella murdered in their sleep.

  “Dad—?” My breath catches. It feels like time slows down. I stagger towards the bed on wobbly legs. “Dad?”

  John and Ella look unharmed, and still in their comatose state, completely unaware of the chaos unfolding around them. And completely unaware that my father’s body is draped across them.

  His eyes are closed. He’s bleeding from a gaping wound over his abdomen. Both of his hands are clenched there, like he’s trying to hold himself together. His spent rifle is discarded on the floor, his bloody handprints running up and down the handle. I wonder how long he kept fighting after he was shot.

  Sarah gasps as she climbs over the bookshelf. “Oh no. Sam . . .”

  I don’t know what to do except take his hand. It’s cold. Tears start filling my eyes. I realize that in one of the last conversations I had with my father, I basically called him a traitor. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

  I almost jump out of my skin when my dad squeezes my hand.

  His eyes are open. I can tell he’s having trouble focusing on me and realize that his glasses are gone, smashed somewhere during the fight.

  “I protected them as long as I could,” my dad says, his voice strangled, fluid bubbling up from inside him and trickling from the corner of his mouth.

  “Come on, we’re getting out of here,” I reply, kneeling down next to him.

  A shadow of pain crosses his face. He shakes his head. “Not me, Sam. You have to go on your own.”

  A howl rises above the fighting on the roof. Bernie Kosar, desperate and in agony.

  Sarah touches my shoulder gently. “Sam, I’m sorry. We don’t have long.”

  I shrug away from Sarah’s hand, shaking my head. I glare at my dad, tears now running freely down my cheeks. “No,” I hiss angrily, “you’re not leaving me again.”

  Sarah tries to squeeze past me and drag Ella’s body out from beneath him. I don’t help. I know I’m being stupid and selfish, but I can’t let him go this easily. I’ve spent my entire life looking for him and now it’s all falling apart.

  “Sam . . . go,” he whispers.

  “Sam,” Sarah pleads, cradling Ella in her arms. “You have to grab John and we have to go.”

  I stare at him. He nods slowly, more blood spilling out from the side of his mouth. “Go, Sam,” he says.

  “I won’t,” I say, shaking my head, knowing it’s the wrong thing and not caring. “Not unless you come too.”

  But it’s too late anyway. The wire hanging outside the window goes taut as a Mogadorian rappels inside. We’ve taken too long and Bernie Kosar wasn’t able to stop them. The second wave is upon us.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  BUBBLES BREAK THE SURFACE OF THE SWAMP WHERE Nine is still under water. He’s been pinned down there for almost a minute. I take a step towards the edge, wanting to dive in and save Nine, but not sure if Five will let me. He’s watching me closely, an eyebrow raised, like he’s wondering how Eight and I will react.

  “Where’s the real Number Five?” asks Eight, his voice low. “What did you do with him?”

  Five’s brow furrows in confusion, then he smiles. “Oh, you think I’m Setrákus Ra,” Five says, shaking his head. “It’s cool, Eight. I’m the real deal. No shape-shifting tricks.”

  As if to demonstrate, Five reaches down with his free hand and opens the lock on his Chest. He clicks it shut again and glances over at us. “See?” Eight and I remain frozen in place, not sure what to do.

  “Let Nine out of the water, Five,” I say, trying to keep my voice level, as far from panic as possible.

  “In a second,” he replies. “I want to talk to you two without Six and Nine around to interrupt.”

  “Why—why would you attack us?” Eight asks, sounding angry and disbelieving. “We’re your friends.”

  Five rolls his eyes. “You’re my species,” he replies. “That doesn’t make us friends.”

  “Just let Nine out of the water and we’ll talk,” I plead.

  Five sighs and lifts Nine up. He’s gasping for air, his eyes fiery and enraged, still trapped in Five’s strangling grip. Try as he might, Nine can’t find any way loose.

  “Not so strong now, huh?” taunts Five. “Okay, deep breath, bro.”

  He dunks Nine back under the water.

  Meanwhile, Six is unmoving. Her head is cocked at an uncomfortable angle and a huge bruise is forming along her jaw. Her breath seems shallow. I start towards her, wanting to heal her, but feel Five’s telekinesis gently shoving me back.

  “Why are you doing this!” I shout at him, tears filling my eyes.

  He looks almost taken aback whe
n I yell at him. “Because you two were nice to me,” he says, like it should be obvious. “Because unlike Nine and Six, I don’t think you’ve been brainwashed by your Cêpans into thinking resistance is the only way forward. Eight, you proved that in India, when you let those soldiers die for you.”

  “Don’t talk to me about that,” hisses Eight. “I never meant for anyone to get hurt.”

  “Brainwashed?” I exclaim. “Did you say we’re brainwashed?”

  “It’s okay,” Five says, placating us. “The Beloved Leader is forgiving. He’ll welcome you. There’s still time to join the winning team.”

  The winning team? I can’t believe what I’m hearing. My stomach turns over; I feel like I’m about to throw up. It can’t be true— “You’re working with them?”

  “I’m sorry I lied to you about that, but it was necessary. I’d been on this planet for six months when they found me,” says Five, sounding wistful. “My Cêpan was already dead of some vile human disease—that part was true, it just didn’t happen when I said. The Mogadorians took me in. They helped me. Once you read the Good Book, you’ll understand that we shouldn’t be fighting them. This whole planet—the whole universe can be ours.”

  “They did something to you, Five,” I say, almost whispering, feeling both sad for Five and horrified by him. “It’s okay. We can help you.”

  “Just let Nine go,” adds Eight. “We don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Hurt me?” repeats Five, laughing. “That’s a good one.”

  He yanks Nine out of the water and hurls his body against the gnarled tree. I try to use my telekinesis to stop Nine’s flight, but it happens too quickly and Five is too powerful. Nine smacks spine first against the trunk with enough force to shake the uppermost branches. He cries out, his body contorted, and I can tell that he’s broken some ribs, maybe even his back.

  “Do you have any idea how dull it was pretending to be weak?” Five asks, his rubbery arm slithering back to his body, appearing normal again. “You were trained by pitiful Cêpans, if you were lucky. Mucking about with your Chests and your Legacies, always in the dark. I was trained by the most powerful fighting force in the universe and you’re threatening to hurt me?”