the hangar doors. Before I can answer, I hear Marina’s breath catch in her throat. My hand stings, shot through with cold, like I’m suddenly clutching a block of ice.
‘Shit, Marina!’ I hiss, but she’s not listening. Instead, she’s lunging through the doors. Considering my hand is numb, it takes all my willpower to keep hold of her. I tug Nine along behind me and his
shoulder strikes the steel door, his grunt covered by the echoing metallic rattling.
The hangar is almost completely empty, the Mogadorians having already cleared all their gear out.
Large floodlights shine down from the rafters, illuminating the metal table and chair in the center of the room. They’re the only things left in the hangar, and the lights from above cast long shadows
across the concrete floor.
Eight’s body is on the table.
He is wrapped in a black body bag, unzipped to the waist. He’s shirtless, the quarter-sized wound
where Five stabbed him through the heart plainly visible on his chest. His brown skin is ashen, but
Eight still looks very much like himself, like at any moment he’ll teleport off the table and play some annoying joke on me. There are black electrodes with short, fragile-looking antennae attached to
Eight’s temples and a few more running down his sternum. The electrodes generate some kind of field
that’s barely visible to the eye, like a low and steady current of electricity is passing over Eight’s body. I think it’s something the Mogs attached to Eight to keep his body intact for their experiments. In addition to the electrodes, someone has cleaned the blood off him and, surprisingly, they’ve left his
Loric pendant around his neck, the jewel shimmering dully against his chest. It kills me to see him like this, but Eight looks almost peaceful.
Of course, Eight isn’t the reason Marina shoved through the hangar doors, or the reason that she’s
currently giving my hand a wicked case of frostbite.
Seated next to Eight, head in his hands, is Five.
Five sits crouched forward, almost like he wishes he could fold in on himself. There’s a thick pad
of gauze over the eye Marina stabbed back in the swamp, a very faint pink stain beginning to soak
through. His good eye is red-rimmed; it looks as if he’s been crying or hasn’t been sleeping – or both.
Five’s head is freshly shaven since we last saw him, and I wonder how far off he is from getting a set of his own Mogadorian tattoos. He’s dressed in Mogadorian formal attire similar to the officer
directing traffic at the warship. However, his uniform is severely wrinkled, the buttons around the
neck undone, everything looking a little too tight.
There’s no way the one-eyed traitor didn’t hear us enter. Thanks to Marina, we made a ton of noise
coming through the door, and the emptiness of the hangar amplifies everything to the point where I’m
suddenly extremely conscious of my breathing. Even worse, I can hear a low growl coming from
Marina, like she’s fighting back an intense scream, ready to throw herself at Five. Behind me, I can
sense Nine basically holding his breath.
Five’s good eye flicks briefly in our direction. He definitely heard us, but he can’t see us. Maybe
there’s hope he’ll just write it off as noise from the Mogs outside. I want another go at the renegade Garde, too – one where he doesn’t sucker punch me into unconsciousness before the fight even starts
– but we have to pick our battles. Facing off against Five in an enclosed space with a Mogadorian
warship at our back is definitely not the battle we want. We’ll need to figure out another way to
recover Eight’s body.
I pull at Marina’s arm, the icy pinpricks in my hand now replaced by full-on numbness, trying to
communicate to her just how terrible an idea charging in would be. She tugs against me for a moment,
but then I start to feel her calm down, which I can tell because my hand starts to warm up.
But as Marina slowly and quietly releases a deep breath, I see it mist in front of her, the air around her too cold. A cloud of breath from an invisible girl, floating in the bright lights of the hangar.
Five sees it, his eye narrowing. He stands up from his chair and looks right at the spot where we’re
standing.
‘I didn’t mean to do it,’ he says.
1 2
I clench Marina’s and Nine’s hands, hoping that will be enough to keep them from saying anything
back to Five and totally giving away our position. I’m not ready to lose our one advantage –
invisibility – just yet. Thankfully, they both manage to control themselves, Five’s words hanging out
there unanswered.
‘I know you won’t believe me,’ Five continues. ‘But no one was supposed to get killed.’
Five’s beseeching gaze is still aimed right at us, so slowly, quietly, I begin leading the others to the side. We move just inches at a time, careful of each other, not making any noise. Gradually, we slip
out from under Five’s gaze, flanking him. Now, he’s staring at truly empty space, stupidly waiting for a response.
With a grunt, Five turns away. It’s like he was never talking to us at all. Instead, he starts speaking directly to Eight’s body.
‘You shouldn’t have done what you did, diving in front of Nine,’ Five lectures, his voice almost
wistful. ‘It was heroic, I guess. I kinda admire you for it. But it wasn’t worth it. The Mogadorians are going to win anyway, you know? A levelheaded guy like you would’ve learned his place. You
could’ve helped with the rebuilding and unification. Nine, though … he’s too brain-dead to know
when he’s beat. He’s no good to anyone.’
I feel muscles tense in Nine’s arm, but for now he resists the urge to throw himself at Five. That’s
good – he’s learning. Or maybe, like me, he’s stunned this is happening at all, Five just rambling
away like this, pretending we’re not here.
Five puts his hand gently on Eight’s shoulder. The sleeve of his uniform rides up and I notice the
leather sheath strapped to his arm, the one that holds the needle-shaped spring-loaded dagger that he
used to kill our friend.
‘He told me –’ Five’s voice breaks a little as he continues addressing Eight. ‘He told me I’d have a
chance to talk you guys into joining. No one would have to get hurt if you just accepted Mogadorian
Progress. He kept his word before, I mean, I’m living proof, right? When the charm broke, he
could’ve killed me, but he didn’t.’
Five must be talking about Setrákus Ra, about a deal he struck with the Mogadorian leader. He
walks around the table, turning his back on us. Marina takes a step towards him, but I don’t let her go any farther. I don’t know why Five is talking so much, but he has to know we’re here. I’m not sure if
this is a trap, if he’s baiting us, or what is going on. But I want to listen.
‘I didn’t expect you to be so brainwashed,’ Five says, standing over Eight, his hunched back
presenting a perfect target. ‘Thinking about everything in black and white, heroes and villains.’
Five reaches down and lifts Eight’s pendant, squeezing the jewel in his fist. His Legacy – Externa,
he called it, where his skin takes on the quality of whatever he touches – kicks in, Five’s skin briefly flashing the shimmering cobalt of Loralite. After a moment, he lets the pendant go with a sigh, and his flesh returns to normal.
‘But then, maybe I’m the brainwashed one, right? Isn’t that what you guys said to me?’ Five lets
loose a low laugh, then reaches up to carefully adjust the gauze over his destroyed eye. ‘They fill your head with all this shit – the Elders, the Great Book. All these rules about who we’re supposed to be.