Chapter Five

Six

John kissed me. In front of her. And that made the anger wash away. Sarah runs out of the living room and up the stairs. I hear a door slam. One good thing the kiss had effect on me is that it prevented me from ripping Sarah's heart out and shoving it down her own throat.

"What have you done?" Robert says, but John pays no attention to him as he hauls me out the door. "I didn't want to do this, but you forced me to!" Robert says, and again John ignores it until we hear a click of a button. I look behind me and see some sort of device in his hand. In his other hand was a familiar white tablet. And then all hell broke loose.

Mogadorians hiding in cars and vacant lots come out from every direction, armed with every weapon you can think of. People can also mistake them for the army, since they're wearing camouflaged clothing that hides most of their gray skin. "You," I say, the blue hue in my eyes intensifying, "you traitor! How could you?"

"Who wants to be on the losing side when there are better chances at surviving on the winning team?" Robert says, handing the tablet to the nearest Mogadorian. Great. Now the race for the ship is on.

I look around. The quickest way out for us is back the way we came. But we have to do it quickly; the entire place will be on lock-down, now that one of the neighbors who noticed the commotion phoned the cops. John and I, since we aren't in the truck yet, will have to run. I only pray that Crayton is smart enough to find John's phone and find us again using the locator app. If Cole is reading my mind now, I can only hope he's making sense of my plan. He must've been, because almost immediately, the truck and the minivan's engines roar to life. And they were off. Meanwhile John and I kill the remaining Mogadorians.

It was pretty hard to do without losing myself. I have to blink away the bright blue that threatens to take over my thoughts. I knew that if I let go of my control, I'll burn Manhattan down to the ground.

John and I mostly deflect the bullets from the Mogadorians's weapons with telekinesis as we edge our way down the street, where Crayton and the others have gone. Lightning touches the ground and a cloud of dust fills the air where the lightning struck. One of the Mogadorians found an opening and fired at me. A bullet grazes my shoulder, and the impact of the poison from it throws me to the ground. My arm is bleeding, and the poison from the bullet is agonizing. But I can't let my guard down. I have to protect John…

Another Mogadorian brings out a familiar tube, but bigger and I guess more powerful. "Six!" John yells, and by the sound of his voice he was tired. Damn it! Why did I have to be shot? John isn't used to being exposed to this much power yet. Any minute now he'll let grow weak. And we'll die.

Past my double vision, I see the Mog with the tube aim at me, and then he fires. "No!" John yells, and he stands in front of me. No, no, no, no…not again. He'll surely die this time. Before I do anything to push him out of the way, he does something I did not expect.

He raises his hands in front of him, and catches—literally—the air from the tube that threatens to kill me. The air then contracts into a small ball, and John pushes the air outward, radiating it all the way to the Mogs. The air is thick with dust and ashes in no time. "John…how…what…" I stutter, because the pain in my shoulder is killing me. I can hear cop cars in the distance. I hope the others made it out in time.

John sweeps his arms from under me, hefts me up and runs at Loric speed away from the mess we recently caused. So much for being incognito.

He sets me down after some time. We're in a forest a few miles out of town. By then I was bleeding heavily, and nausea clouded my thoughts. John…he just used the energy against their source. Could this be another Legacy? John takes his hoodie off, and then his shirt. He uses his shirt as a cloth to wipe away the blood. I wince slightly when he dabs hard on my open wound. "Sorry," he says, and he dabs at my wound just a little gentler. John looks at my wound, and he grows pale. I think it's worse than it feels. "What?" I manage to croak. My throat seems very, very dry. The pain in my head makes me want to sleep. But if I do, there's a ninety percent chance I won't wake up again.

"It—it's green," he says. John's finger traces the perimeter of my wound, and I wince again. The pain is too much to handle. It's like having your hand soaked in ice cold water and experiencing cramps at the same time. Numbness and cramps. I can't feel my fingers. "Don't worry, Six," John reassures me, "I'm right here." He repositions himself against what I think is a tree and wraps his arms around me. I lean into his shoulder and recoil a little when John applies pressure to the hole in my shoulder.

We stay like that for what seems like hours. My upper arm feels cold and I didn't notice that I started shivering. The sun seems to be on the other side of the sky past the canopy above. John feels me shiver, and he uses his Lumen to keep me warm. "I wish the others would find us sooner. Marina can get you healed up in no time," John says, pressing his lips against my forehead. He hits me with his Lumen every after twenty minutes, whenever he feels me shiver. At times he shakes me awake whenever I seem to drift away. "How bad does my shoulder look?" I whisper. I could've made my voice louder if it weren't for the dryness in my throat. John repositions himself and releases his hold on the soaking shirt. I swear he turned green.

"Um…" he says, but there was some rustling from somewhere to our right. John's hand illuminates and he yells, "Who's out there?"

"Chill, it's me," someone says, and Nine and Cole come out of the gloom.

"Thank god! Hurry, we have to take her to Marina," John says, and as he lifts me up in his arms, the bloody t-shirt he once wore fell from my shoulder. "Holy shit!" Cole exclaims at the sight of the wound on my shoulder. God, do I really look that awful?

"What the fuck happened to her?" Nine asks, the tone of his voice really grossed out. It would be the first time I heard Nine talk with a tone like that.

"I'll explain everything on the way. Right now, Six is on the brink of dying and we have to take her to Marina now," John says. We barely even moved yet when pain shoots through my shoulder, and this time I had to scream. John sets me on the forest floor and I can see his mouth move, but can't hear anything. I continue screaming.

Pain. All I felt was pain. Heart-stopping pain. Every kind of god damned pain multiplied a thousand times. Black…things swim in and out of my vision. And all of a sudden I'm not on Earth anymore.

I'm in hell. I mean, if this was hell, I never imagined that it would be this peaceful—wait, what? I'm hallucinating. Hell can't be peaceful. What the heck is wrong with me?

My own screaming fills my ears, magnified ten times. My ears feel like they're about to burst. Who knew that the poison from that bullet would have these kind of effects? "Six! Six!" John yells, his hands cupping my face, shaking me so hard that my head hurts. "Help…me…" I say before blacking out.

In the edge of darkness, I feel like I'm being swept away quickly. I can hear angry shouts everywhere. I wanted everything to stop. I wanted the pain to go away, but the noise was making it worse. I can't feel my own body. I don't know what I want anymore. The part of me that was infected by the poison wants to die on the spot while the stronger part of me still wants to hold on. My brain is malfunctioning. I don't know what to feel. Numbness has spread from my shoulder to the other parts of my body. Why can't the pain just go away? Why does it have to be so stubborn?

As if there was a genie, my wish came true. The pain slowly fades, and a new, warm sensation runs through my veins. I rejoiced for a minute, until everything went wrong.