"Where's Nine?" John asks me as I drop a sack of groceries on a table that looked like it was on the verge of collapse.
Sam walks up to the bag and peeks inside. "He's still training."
"Sun's almost down. " I point out. "He needs to get his sweaty a** back here pretty soon."
"I thought he went with you into town?" Marina says, taking the bag from Sam and pouring the contents onto the table. Five tomatoes, four cucumbers, and a box of crackers fall out.
"I know it's not much." I begin.
"It's plenty for now." Marina reassures me. "I'll split it up."
It's been two days since we had left the state park in Florida. At the moment we were in an off season hunting shack on the outskirts of a major highway in Alabama. We wanted to stay as far away from major cities as possible so that we could have some time to prepare for our next Mog encounter, and ultimately, to cope with Eight's death. Since he was murdered by Five no one has really brought it up except to make a point. No one has admitted how much they missed him, it was just unanimous. I wanted so much to bring it up, to shout because I hated the silence. It wasn't healthy to keep this bottled inside. It's just that I didn't want to break the peace. It was already tense enough with Adam here. The more we listened to his past the more I began to feel a bit of ease in his presence, but I had lived through way too much to turn my back now. I had voted him into our group so it was my job to make sure it wasn't a mistake.
"And Nine never went with me." I add.
"You went by yourself?" Sam asks distantly.
"Nine was supposed to go with you." Marina sighs.
"I was gone for twenty minutes and I was invisible for nineteen of them. Besides, we have a better chance at being spotted in groups."
"Got it!" Malcolm announces in the corner of the shack. Adam stands over his shoulder and smiles with pride. I see that they are both looking at the screen of a high tech, highly illegal laptop that is changing constantly.
"Are we in?" John asks, he and Sarah move over to observe. Curiosity gets a hold of me and I am looking over Malcolm's shoulder as well. Adam told us he knew how to get into the Mogs computer programs and so far it looked to be true. I'm kind of glad that Nine isn't here, he'd probably crack some jokes and piss off Marina. I've noticed she's been even more tense than usual around him. It might just be me seeing things, but I'm not sure.
"Sweet." Sam cheers.
The screen looks like a sort of web chatroom cite. Several links roll up the screen and on the left side there is a column of files.
"What are in those files?" I ask.
Adam moves the mouse so that the arrow is right above one and clicks on it. The page is the same as the old one except the amount of links popping up are a lot slower.
"This site is what Mogadorians use to find any piece of news that could be about the Garde. It also goes through emails and Instant Messages."
"So that's how they caught Two." John murmurs.
"How are they able to do this?" Sarah asks.
Adam exits out of this file and returns to the first page. "The U.S. Government gave them the programs to do this. I don't know if you knew that but the U.S. is letting Mogadorians use any means possible to find you guys in exchange for technology."
John looks at me and then looks back at the computer. "Yeah we knew that, they even used Sarah as bait to find me."
"Yeah." Sarah shivers.
"It was Americans who found me in the desert after Eight dropped me there." I add and at the mention of Eight silence burns through the room. Good, silence is a reaction.
"He didn't mean to Six, he hadn't ever teleported a whole group before." Marina murmurs, but I can't see her face. She is on the other side of Sam. Her voice sounds lower than normal and I feel really bad for trying to bring him up, but I needed to.
"I know that, it's just-."
The front door swings open and is stopped before it can slam into the wall. Everyone is holding their breath and I see John begin to move a bit in front of Sarah. Nine lumbers in the door way and shuts the door behind him. His hair is pulled back and he is wiping his face with his shirt before putting it back on.
"What did I miss?" He asks breathily, unwinding cloth that he had wrapped around his knuckles.
"How about telling us you were going off on your own?" I suggest.
"I was close, I followed you into town to make sure everything went okay and then on our way back I found a cave."
"A cave?" Marina asks dryly.
"Yeah, it was pretty neat."
Everyone looks at Nine with disbelief, but John shrugs. "There's nothing wrong with going off on your own. Just don't be stupid. Make sure the coast is clear."
Something John said causes Nine to go rigid. Before I know it he is shaking his head. "No, no one needs to go off on their own. What I did was incredibly stupid, if anyone is going to leave they need to have someone else with them. And I want at least two of us here with the non Garde at all times."
His last part needs no explanation. He wants two garde watching Adam, and I am with him on that, I may have voted the dude into this group but that doesn't mean I have forgotten everything sixteen or so years of life has taught me.
"Me and Six are going to be patrolling tonight." John informs Nine.
"Sounds good. You're taking BK too right?"
"Yeah, that way we can have a faster, more subtle way of communication besides you know, yelling."
"Alright, so what are we gathering around here?" Nine inspects the webpage. "Are we watching Adam talk to his girlfriend back home?"
"Actually no." Adam says making the arrow on the screen do loops as he explains what we are all looking at.
"That's how they found Two right?" Nine asks. It's funny how in sync we all are.
"Yeah, It was me who had found that actually." Adam admits.
I'm sure this is a huge deal to everyone else as it is to me. Was it his fault that Two was murdered?"
"What do you mean?" John looks at Adam who looks at the rest of us with a wide expression.
"Did you kill her too?" Nine asks.
"No. I was looking at computers and found it by accident on basically the same program here. I found that message she sent. I deleted it right away. This was a while after I had woken up from the experiment. I tracked the address to somewhere in London, every mogadorian available was already hunting her Cepan, Number Two was all alone. When I showed up she thought I was a garde and I almost had her out the door, but then Ivanick, my step brother showed up. I couldn't help her then."
The way Adam looks as he talks about his failure stirs something inside me. Adam looks legitimately remorseful. I look down at John's ankle where Two's scar is embedded, it's weird to think that when I had sent my reply that it was Adam who deleted the post. It's weird to be connected like that.
"What did Two look like?" John asks curiously.
I don't know why we never asked before, I guess it's because we were still getting comfortable with his presence.
Adam has a far way expression, probably trying to remember himself. "Well, she was a girl."
"We got that from 'she'." Nine rumbles.
"Alright." Adam says, impressively immune to Nine's arrogance. That must be nice. "She was pale, I think she had freckles and she had really curly red hair."
"In England, curly red hair, pale, freckles." Nine lists. "She's frickin Annie."
"Annie was from America." Sam points out.
"Close enough." Nine shrugs.
Adam looks confused. Sam shakes his head with amusement. "Annie is a movie about an orphan who gets adopted by a rich dude during the Great Depression."
"She can sing too." Sarah points out.
"Could Two sing?" Nine asks Adam.
"No idea, but she could quote lines from books."
"A book worm too, s***." Nine chuckles to himself.
We all revel in silence, thinking about a Garde that we would never meet or rather, never meet again.
"What did One look like?" Sam asks this time.
Adam turns his face back to the computer. "Uh, she was pretty tall. I believe she was about fourteen when she died. She had blue eyes, blue like the ocean. Also she had long straight blonde hair and she had a mole right here." Adam points to a spot right under his left eye.
"Damn. You remember all that?" Nine laughs.
"Yeah I do." Adam sniffs. "I was with her for nearly five years."
"That's longer than we got huh?" John half smiles.
"Yeah, much longer." I agree.
"I also saw Number Three-."
"Before you killed him." Nine asks bluntly.
Adam takes a deep breath and ehxales, but Malcolm speaks before Adam. "I think Adam has made it quite clear that he has not killed a member of the Garde Nine." Even Malcolm is fed up with Nine's constant nit picking. I wanted to make sure Adam was clean too, but sheesh! How about some subtlety?
"Lay off Nine." Sarah rolls her eyes.
Nine looks completely un affected and waits for Adam to continue.
"It was just before he was killed though." Adam confirms. "Not by me or Ivanick, but my own father."
"So what did he look like?" I press, trying to move past the melancholy mood.
"Number Three was tall himself for being around thirteen years old. He was pretty dark too. He had dark brown hair, I can't remember the color of his eyes, but all in all he looked like a skinnier version of Nine I'd say."
"Cool." Nine murmurs.
"Where was this?" Sam asks.
"Kenya, we were there posing as volunteer workers. When I first met him he invited me to play ball with him."
I feel a flash of anger. That's evil in itself, pretending to be working towards the greater good while hunting a young boy. At the same time I feel a pang of sadness. I want so bad to bring them all back, I hope so much that I could resurrect the dead. If that was a legacy I'd use it to bring every single Loric lost at the hands of the Mogadorians back. I'd start with Eight of course and then move my way up, maybe bring Katarina back next. I wonder if it would be selfish to bring my Cepan back first, but then decide that it isn't. If it was John he'd probably bring Henry back, or Nine would probably bring Sandor back. It's probably silly to think this way, but maybe if I think about it enough I will just magically develop this legacy.
"I think I'll start dinner." Marina steps away from the group and towards the pile of groceries.
"Nine—do you still have that pocket knife on you?" Marina stands not quite facing Nine, but not quite not facing Nine.
Nine reaches for his shoe and slides out his red Swiss army knife. "Don't cut yourself sweetheart."
"Yeah right." Marina rolls her eyes and then Nine and takes the object from his hand.
"After we eat Six and I will start our night watch." John says. "BK and Dust are out there right now and they haven't raised any alarm yet."
"I want to say that it's probably because we are hidden well enough." Nine begins. "But, well you know."
"We've thought that before." I finish.
"Hey." Marina calls from across the room. "Let's try not to be grim shall we."
A few of us chuckle, but I'm sure we are all aware of potential danger.
Marina wipes the blade of the knife on her shirt, the same one that gutted those fish, and then begins to peel the skin off of one of the long cucumbers. While we all watch Marina, John clears his throat.
"Alright so, this is a nice spot and all, but it's about time that we need to talk about our next destination."
"We need to keep moving." Nine agrees.
"I've been thinking, and it might be best if we leave America all together."
"But Everything is in America." Marina points out. "The Mogs, Ella, Five. What if we need to get to somewhere fast?"
John bites his cheek for a moment. "I thought of that also. We need to stay close, but we also need to keep away from civilization. I say we choose either Canada or Mexico."
"Canada is too much like America, it has just as many video cameras and stuff as this country." Nine mutters.
"So mexico then?" John asks.
"We could find an empty range, somewhere that we can be isolated from everyone else in and then we can train." Marina says.
"Hell yeah." Nine agrees. "I need to whip everyone into shape."
"We need a place near water too" I remind everyone. "So that way Marina can perfect her legacy."
"We can bring a tub of water." Nine waves me off.
"I guess." Though I'd still rather we had a body of water like when we were fighting off that stray Piken in Florida.
"I'll do an aerial scope." Malcolm suggests. "See if I can find a good spot in Mexico, we'll need passports to make it over the border though."
"Yeah." Sam agrees. "They are really tight about who goes in and out of there."
I look at John. "If security is that bad then maybe we should think about somewhere else."
"Keep a look out Malcolm." John rubs his hands together. "We really shouldn't stay here for much longer."
"I'll find us something." Malcolm promises. "You kids need to start training."
"I'm sure they've all gone soft." Nine mutters.
"Yeah." Sarah laughs quietly as she pinches John's bicep. "These looked a lot better a few days ago."
"Ouch." Sam snaps.
"Not that they were ever large to begin with." Nine jabs.
"I'll get there."
"Oh, I'll get you there. When Setrakus Ra sees us coming he'll know for sure what he's dealing with then."
"Alright guys." Marina announces. "I split it up equally."
Spread out on eight plastic plates were stacks of tomato and cucumber strips with five crackers a piece.
Sam helps pass out plates and then once everyone has something he puts a tomato on a cracker and then takes a bite. "I offer my compliments to the chef." Sam says after swallowing.
Marina has only bitten off the corner of her cracker. "I do my best."
"My mom could use you." Sam smirks and looks side long at his father.
Malcolm chokes a bit and once his airway is clear he chuckles and so does Sam. It's so great that they can have father son moments like that.
"I'd take her black and crispy grilled cheese any day these days." Sam admits, popping the last of his meal in his mouth. Everyone else is about done too.
"That was really refreshing." John says, also done with his meal. "Beats that sustenance cube any day."
The entire ride over here we had used the two cubes from John and Nine's chest for food and water. Although they helped us stay nourished not having anything in our stomachs really took it's toll. So we agreed that every so often that we could, I'd walk into town with some money found in the van to buy small amounts of food. I couldn't buy it directly since it was too much of a risk, but I left enough money to cover it.
"If we're all done I should show you that cave." Nine suggests, covering his mouth. "You can see a lot from it, even in the dark I bet."
"Yeah." I agree. "That way John can be hidden too." I'd have my invisibility so John could use something too.
John swallows his food. "How did you find it anyway?"
Nine wags a strip of tomato. "I saw it on the way to the market with Six and on the way back too. Once I was sure Six would be alright I went back to inspect it. It's pretty sweet."
"Well." I say dropping the plate on the table. "Let's get to it."
Nine drops his plate on top of mine and then John does the same.
"Thanks for dinner Marina." I throw a bag over my shoulder and look at Marina. Everyone else practically scarfed their food down but Marina was still nibbling on her first cracker. "You're gonna eat all of that right?"
"Of course." She assures me. "Just taking my time."
"Okay." I say, not fully convinced.
Marina pops the entire cracker in her mouth and chews it slowly and I turn away. "We'll be around close."
"I'll be—here." Sam says sadly.
"I'll let you patrol with me next time alright?" I slap his shoulder and he smiles. I think back to that moment we almost had on the roof. It feels so long ago. If I could stop time so that maybe we could really have something between us I would, but as I can't obviously—there's just no time for that. I can still be friendly though, there's no reason to shut him out completely.
"I feel like a kid. " He jokes.
"If I could give you a legacy I would." I offer.
"We can't all be Adam." Sam pouts.
"Sorry about that, you just be Sam alright? I like Sam."
"Anything for you." Sam winks.
I laugh is response and back towards the door. "Be good squirt."
"Hey!" Sam laughs.
I am out the door and into the pitch black darkness. When I look back I see John kissing Sarah, I can't help but stare, unsure if it's because I want Sam to kiss me like that or if it's because I still want John to kiss me like that. Wow I am pathetic. I grab John telekinetically around the ankle and tug. He takes his hand off of Sarah's waist and waves me off. Sarah laughs and tells him he better go.
"Alright." John murmurs before kissing her once and then twice more.
"Wishing Sammy would kiss you like that?"
"Ah!"
I look all around me and finally see Nine's silhouette standing horizontally on a tree.
"Shut up." I hiss.
The door closes and John walks our way, oblivious to Nine's taunts. "let's see that cave, dude."