His words ring in my ears "In the next few days, you both die"
"What?" I ask
"Go!" he shouts "Pack, hurry up, we don't have time to waste. I promised I'd tell you everything and I will, but you need to hurry up. They're coming"
I jump out of the car and race towards the house, Hilde and Adam on my heels.
"Pack only what you need, get the gems Hilde, you'll need them. I know how to get you to Kuala Lumpur, I know someone who can help. He's one of the Garde, he'll only be a kid now. But first, before anything, we have to go to the airport"
"Why? Didn't you say that there are scouts watching us?" I ask, looking up from ramming cloths into a duffel bag.
I smile spreads across his face, he's not exactly bad looking, oh my god what am I doing? "Which is why we have to go, it's one of my more brilliant ideas"
"If you betray us, I will rip you limb from limb" Hilde snarls
"And I don't doubt you, but still I need you two to wait outside the airport though" He turns to look at me "I'm not putting you in any more danger than you have to be, so wait in the car with Hilde"
I don't like being told what to do, told that I can't handle myself. But if he's right, then in the other version of history, I die soon. "Ok"
I think he can sense that I'm scared, my hands shake. He walks over to me and grabs my hands to stop them from shaking "One" he says tenderly "Look at me" I look at him "Everything is going to be fine, I have a plan, it's going to work" I nod.
He realises that Hilde is watching us and pulls away. "Is there any chance you've got a healing stone in your chest?" he asks.
"Even if we do, why would we use it on you?" asks Hilde
"Because I'm your only chance at survival, and to do what I'm about to do I need my strength"
Hilde brings the chest to me, we open it. Hilde retrieves the healing stone from the chest and forces Adam into a chair. He grit his teeth together while Hilde forcefully applied the healing stone. We finish packing 5 minutes later, Adam seems to be getting very impatient. We load up the car.
"Where to?" Hilde asks
Adam is taken aback "I'm not sure, I couldn't see the airports name that you went to. What is the closest one?"
Hilde nods and without replying she starts the car, this time I'm in the front with Hilde and Adam is seated in the back.
"We are being followed" he says 10 minutes into the trip. Hilde stares into the rear-view mirror "Three cars back, that SUV, that is our standard scouting car"
"Our?" Hilde asks
"My species" Adam replies "In the future we aren't on good terms, considering I killed one of their generals and tried to save Two and Three"
"What do you mean 'tried'? I ask, knowing the answer
"I couldn't save them. I tried to save Three, I had to beat the shit out of my step-brother, face a squadron of Mogs for him to escape. He jumped across a ravine, the biggest jump I've ever seen anyone make, maybe that was one of his Legacies. But the general that I killed was on the other side. I watched him die, I was powerless" He looks up "You were so mad at me when I couldn't save two" He stops himself, he knows he just divulged information that he shouldn't have.
"What do you mean? If they got to Two and Three that means I was dead" I say, how could this be possible? How could I be mad at him if I was dead? Was I a ghost? "What, was I a ghost or something, pestering a Mog until he relented and submitted to my evil Loric ways"
He smiles "Something like that"
We arrive at the airport. Adam leans forward in his seat to speak to us "I'll be back, if something happens to me, drive, go far away, bunker down and wait for things to cool down. Always be prepared for an attack, don't go to Kuala Lumpur immediately, wait a while, they are always watching" With that warning he jumped out of the back seat and ran, not towards the airport but towards the SUV. He was fast, sprinting as hard as he could, maybe even faster than me. Straight for the car, an invisible force ripped open the windscreen. Two pale Mogs sat in the front seats looking somewhere between astonished and scared. Adam rips them out of their seats with telekinesis and drags them along the road towards him. He pulls out a knife and stabs one of the Mogs in the back before he has a chance to get up. The other Mog is dazed, trying to stand but his legs are shaking. The Mog swings blindly at Adam, Adam ducks and plunges the dagger upwards into the Mog's jaw. It was done, just like that.
Adam walks back to the car casually and enters the back seat. "Well...now" he says, sounding out of breath "I need you to turn the radio off and not make a single sound"
He lifts a device he pulled off one of the Mogs to his mouth and presses a button. "This is scout team 34 reporting a sighting of the Garde"
"Scout 34 this is home base" comes the reply from the device "Where is the sighting?"
"The target was seen boarding a flight to Malaysia, flight 234, Malaysian Airlines"
"Is this confirmed?"
"Yes, target was seen exiting police station and was tailed to this location"
"You have done our Beloved Leader proud"
"Hail Setrάkus Ra"
The signal cuts and Adam crushes the device in his bare hands. "This ought to buy us time"
"How much?" asks Hilde
"However long it takes them to find the SUV I guess, or until they realise Scout 34 is not showing up for duty, minimum of a month"
I look at him "But…the SUV is right there, of course they'll find it"
He grins again "No, they won't. I'm going to disable the tracking chip and follow you, we head for Arizona, but I'll dump the SUV somewhere along the way"
"That is actually not a bad idea" says Hilde
Adam places a hand over his heart as though Hilde's words offended him "Hilde, I'm full of not bad ideas" I smile and the corner of Hilde's lips form the faintest outline of a grin.
Adam leaves the car and heads towards the SUV.
A phone starts ringing in the centre console. Hilde looks at me, actually it's more like glaring "What? It's not mine"
"Don't answer it" says Hilde and we let it ring out
About 10 seconds later Adam knocks on my window causing me to jump out of my seat and yelp.
Adam starts to laugh "Did you just yelp?"
"No" I say "shut up"
He puts his hands in the air as if to surrender but a smile still plays on his lips.
"Something wrong?" asks Hilde
He looks at her, as though he had forgotten why he came here "Oh, yeah. That phone, answer it, it's me calling. I bought burner phones for us, one for me, one for you, number is programmed in" He walks away and the phone rings again. This time I answer and put it on speaker.
"This is the leader of the Space Invaders gang, we specialise in surf-by shootings, I believe you have one of our members" comes Adam's voice, Hilde looks at me with her eyebrows raised and I utterly lose my shit, I laugh so hard I'm pretty sure I snort. It takes me a second to calm down. "That really was some improvising in the police station" he commends me
"Well, my middle name is improvise" I say
Hilde clears her throat and I can hear Adam sounding kind of awkward in the SUV "Right, sorry. We are headed to Arizona, a small border town near Mexico, it's called Yuma. That's where we'll find four."
"Four what?" I ask
Hilde stares at me and Adam is silent and then I get it, I shove my face in my free hand and say "Sorry, blonde moment"
Adam chuckles. "Well, Hilde, you follow me, or I follow you?" he asks
"You go first, we'll follow" says Hilde
"I'm going to have to treat with four and Henri alone" says Adam
"What? Who is Henri? And no, we are coming with you" Hilde says firmly
Adam doesn't back down "I'm sorry, but you can't, if One and Four get too close the charm will break, and I can't be sure that the other Garde don't have a tail on them. I know Eight will soon be in India, Seven will be in Spain, Five is lost, Six is in Cleveland I think, but she'll be on her way to California. Nine is soon to be imprisoned because of a girl. I'll have to go to Chicago to sort that out later. Two is in England, three in Kenya and Ella is in Spain" he finishes
"Wait…who is Ella, why is Five lost?" I ask
"Five has defected, he has joined the Mogs and there is nothing we can do to bring him back"
"WHAT?" Hilde yells "We have to help him"
"We can't, I'm here to keep you safe, and so in turn that keeps the others safe. You forget that you are one of the oldest of the children, the others won't have a way to defend themselves if you join with Nine and go to get Five. We can't risk it, I've changed a lot by coming here. All that's left is for me to find the others, and you two to stay hidden"
"He has a point" I say, I don't like the sound of agreeing with a Mog. But what if I were to team up with Nine and try and get Five back and one of the others got hurt because the charm was broken? It would be my fault, I couldn't live with that burden
"Trust me, you don't want Five on your side. Once you all have your legacies you can try and talk him out of it but until then, it won't work"
"Oh yeah? How would you know?" I sneer, forgetting for a moment that he is from the future, maybe.
"Because when the Garde tried it last time, Five killed Eight and Nine only barely lived"
"A Garde killed another Garde" Hilde whispers to herself, shocked at the prospect.
"So, five is a traitor. Then who is Ella?" I ask
"Ella is number Ten"