Chapter One
John
I'm panting from our early jogging session. Six runs ahead of me yet again, her ponytail lose, and I catch myself admiring the slight swishing of her hips as she does so. My heart just isn't used to the hard work, especially when I just came back from the dead.
I stop to catch my breath, sweat dripping from my long hair, which I refuse to cut. Only now do I regret letting it grow. I'm going to have to ask Six to cut my hair, again.
I hear Six stop in front of me and she says, "Come on, John. You can do it. We're just two miles away from the house." I take a deep breath and start jogging to reach Six. She lets me go ahead several steps before I hear her footsteps. Every morning for the past three weeks, Six takes me out jogging to exercise my heart. But no matter how near or far our distance may seem from the house, our point of origin, I always lag behind her and even fainted on the spot several times. That isn't even the worst part. Crayton takes us training for about two to three hours everyday several hours after lunch. And that leaves me with muscles like jelly every night.
I struggle keeping my breathing even, like Six does. She is now beside me, coping with my slow pace. I can't believe she can even put up with me, being slow and all. Five minutes later, I stop again, hands on my knees, my breakfast threatening to come back up. It had been the first time I actually stopped two consecutive times, and maybe it's because Six took me out farther than usual. "Are you okay? How do you feel?" Six asks with one hand on my shoulder while the other massages my back. "I'm fine, but I think I can't run any further," I say. Honestly, I feel like I can pass out right here, right now. My legs feel like limp noodles. My entire body feels like it's on fire, even with my Lumen. My heart is pumping madly against my chest and I'm bone tired. But of course, I didn't tell Six that.
"We can walk," she says. I nod in agreement and straighten my back. Squaring my shoulders, taking deep breaths, I hold Six's hand and together we walk the rest of the way back.
Once, inside, I directly walk in the kitchen refrigerator and drink about three glasses of ice cold water. It hurts my throat, but the dryness of it seems to feel better. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. I walk in the living room and see Nine and Cole playing with fifteen or so Ella's. She created this game one day, and you have to find the real her amongst her doppelgangers. So far, only Cole has beaten Ella in this little game of hers. He says that "her thoughts are strongest in her original body".
Sam takes a seat beside Nine and enters the game. Cole smiles and was about to say something when Nine punches his arm. "Don't spoil the fun, man," he says, and Cole bursts out laughing. He stands up and enters the kitchen, where Marina's cooking with another Ella. Meanwhile, Meredith, Crayton and Malcolm are in front of laptops. But where is Six? Then I hear her chuckling past me, while turning visible, she runs towards the bathroom…
"Oh no you don't!" I say. Six and I have been beating each other senseless trying to get to the bathroom first. With telekinesis, I grab her feet, and she falls to the ground. I run as fast as I can to the bathroom door. But Six managed to get hold of my feet, causing me to trip and fall over. Six crawls to the bathroom door, but I hold her back with telekinesis. Screw being a gentleman; I'm going to get the nice shower first.
I straddle Six with her hands above her head, and I don't know how, but she gets a foothold and manages to push me over her. "Guys! The other bathroom's free upstairs!" Cole says from the living from, but we didn't care. Six holds me down on the floor with her telekinesis as she walks casually to the bathroom. After she's locked herself in, I can feel her telekinetic force wear off. Damn it. She's beaten me again.
Six takes a shower long enough for the hot water to run out. Afterwards, she crosses the hall into our room, where I'm sulking right now, sweating and sticky. While Six was using the bathroom I made a beeline to the upstairs one, but Malcolm beat me to it, carrying a newspaper. "Finally," I exclaim sitting up and carrying my towel on the way to the bathroom before anyone beats me to it.
When I get out, Six and the other are in the kitchen table, eating the omelets Marina prepared. Six moves the vacant chair beside her with telekinesis and gestures for me to sit down. My stomach growls at the smell of the food on my plate. I had to remind myself that I have to eat one spoonful at a time. Afterwards, Crayton reminds us about training later that afternoon. The others, including Sam, are excited whereas I'm dreading it. My body is aching all over and still I have to train? Not in this life. "I'm going to sleep for a while," I say as I stand up. Six accompanies me and once inside, I collapse on the bed unconscious.
"John, wake up, it is way past noon and you didn't even eat lunch," Six whispers in my ear. I slept all throughout noon? Boy, I'm that tired? I'm still sleepy even. Nonetheless, I have to train, and to train I have to force myself to get up. I sit up slowly and yawn loudly. Six waits for me patiently before we head out to the backyard, where the others are already training. Sam's paired with Ella. Both of them had gotten quicker with their moves for the past few days. Since Ella's still young, she's often matched up with Sam so their defenses will be equal, so to speak.
Nine and Meredith are having a practice fight under close supervision from Malcolm. Crayton is helping Cole use his sword properly. Marina is shooting the running doppelgangers from a distance, and whenever she hits one, the decoy Ella explodes to a puff of mist. Six and I join the practice fighting group and start beating each other up in a playful yet serious kind of way.
Training feels like lifetime but when the sky gets dark, we stop, sweaty and tired. A copy of Ella goes inside to fetch us some towels while Six creates a slight rainfall to clean us up and to avoid any other races to the bathroom. We didn't even get muddy. The rain was enough to make the earth damp, but more than enough to cool our bodies. We clean ourselves up and enter the house only to change clothes and eat dinner.
Once Marina's done cooking our food, we sit together at the dining table. Malcolm is the last to enter the room and what he says is enough to make everyone fall silent. "We're going to Manhattan." I start coughing when the words leave him mouth. Sam, who is seated beside me, bangs me on the back. Is he joking? He can't be serious. I'm on the very top of the List-of-the-Most-Wanted-People-on-Earth for God's sake! Malcolm can't be serious. He just can't. If we march straight to Manhattan I'll surely be captured by the FBI—or worse.
Six stands up so quickly her chair topples over behind her. Her eyes flash dangerously and her brows are furrowed. Her eyes also show a light tint of glowing blue, a thing that rarely occurs since the war in Virginia. Crayton already warned us not to piss Six off because now that she's exposed to her full power, her "inner powerful self" might make an appearance. "Give me one good reason why we should go to Manhattan," Six says, her voice deadly calm with a pinch of venom in it. The air in the entire room tenses. Outside, thunder booms threateningly. Malcolm, however, shows no fear to Six. As he squares his shoulders, he swallows before saying, "I think I've found another Loric ally there. His name is Robert Miller. He might have information about the ship's location."
Six snaps. She pushes me aside and attempted to run to Malcolm and put her hand on his throat, but if it weren't for her foot catching on my leg, she would've succeeded. She quickly stands but I already got her with my telekinesis. I hold her arms behind her back, and with my combined strength and telekinesis, I guess that is enough to stop her, even in her current state. "What do you mean 'more information' ?" Six says, "Don't you know where the ship is?"
"That's just it," Malcolm says, his voice full of dread, "The ship is gone."