The Lost Files: Six's Legacy(9)

There have been no suspicious announcements on the news or on the internet. This gives us some measure of hope for the future of Lorien, and also that the Mogadorians’ trail on us has gone cold.

It’s silly but I feel ready to fight. I may not have been back at the motel, but I am now. I don’t care if I don’t have my Legacies. It is better to fight than to run.

“You don’t mean that,” she says. “We must be prudent.”

So we wait. Katarina’s heart has gone out of training but we still do as best we can, push-ups and shadowboxing in our room during the day, more elaborate drills out in the unlit corners of the soccer field at night.

During the day I’m allowed to wander through the orchards, smelling the sweet rot of fallen apples. Katarina has told me not to play on the soccer field during the day, or talk to the children who practice on it. She wants to continue to keep a low profile.

But I can watch the field from behind a tree at the edge of the orchard. It’s a girls’ team playing today. The girls are all in purple jerseys and bright white shorts. They’re about my age. From beneath the shade of the apple tree I wonder what it would be like to give myself to something as light and inconsequential as a game of soccer. I imagine I’d be good at it: I love being physical, I’m strong and quick. No: I’d be great at it.

But it’s not for me to play games of no value.

I feel envy creep up my throat like bile. It’s a new sensation for me. I am usually resigned to my fate. But something about this time on the road, about the near miss with the Mogadorians, has opened me to hating these girls with their easy lives.

But I choke it down. I need to save my spite for the Mogs.

That night we allow ourselves to watch a little TV before bed. It is a luxury Katarina usually denies me, as she thinks it rots my brain and dulls my senses. But even Katarina softens sometimes.

I curl up next to Katarina on the queen bed. She’s turned the TV to a movie about a woman who lives in New York City and complains about how hard it is to find a good man. My attention wanders quickly away from the screen to Katarina’s face, which has gone soft with attention to the film’s plot. She has succumbed to it.

She catches me looking at her, and turns red in an instant. “I’m allowed to be sappy sometimes.” She turns back to the screen. “I can’t help it. He’s handsome.”

I look back at the TV. The woman is now yelling at the handsome man about how he’s a “sexist pig.” I’ve seen very few movies in my life but I can already guess how this one ends. The man is handsome, I suppose, though I’m not as transfixed by him as Katarina is.

“Have you ever had a boyfriend?” I ask her.

She laughs. “Back on Lorien, yes. I was married.”

My heart seizes, and I blush at my own self-absorption. How could I have never asked her this before? How could I not have known that she had a husband, a family? I hesitate before asking another question, because I can only assume her husband died in the Mogadorian invasion.

My heart breaks for my Katarina.

I change the subject. “But since we’ve been on Earth?”

She laughs again. “You’ve been with me the whole time. I think you’d know if I had!”

I laugh too, though my amusement is mixed with sadness. Katarina couldn’t have had a boyfriend even if she wanted one—and it’s all because of me. Because she’s too busy protecting me.

She raises an eyebrow. “Why so many questions all of a sudden? Do you have a crush? Seen any cute boys out on the soccer field?” She reaches over and pinches my side, tickling me. I squirm away, laughing.

“No,” I say, and it’s the truth. Boys practice out there some days and I watch them, but usually just to measure their athleticism and reflexes and to compare them to my own. I don’t think I could ever like any of them. I don’t think I could love anyone who wasn’t locked into the struggle with me. I could never respect someone who wasn’t part of the war against the Mogs, to save Lorien.

Back on the TV, the woman is standing in the rain, tears streaming down her face, telling the handsome man that she’s changed her mind, that love is all that matters after all.

“Katarina?” I ask. She turns to me. I don’t even have to say it out loud; she knows me well.

She switches the channels until we find an action movie. We watch it together until we fall asleep.





CHAPTER ELEVEN



The next day after drills and studies I make it back out to the orchard. It’s a warm day and I dodge from the shade of one tree to another as I stroll. I walk over mushy, sweet-stinking apples, feeling them turn to goop beneath my feet.

Despite the heat of the sun, the air is crisp and pleasant today, not too hot or cold. I feel weirdly happy and hopeful as I tramp around.

Katarina is booking us plane tickets to Australia today. She thinks it’ll make as good a hiding place as any. I’m already excited for the journey.

I turn, ready to walk back to the motel, when a soccer ball comes rolling past me, scudding over broken apples. Without thinking I leap forward and hop on it with one foot, stopping it in its tracks.

“You gonna give that back or what?” Startled, I turn around. A pretty girl with a chestnut ponytail stares at me from the edge of the orchard. She’s dressed in soccer clothes and her mouth is open, smacking on bubble gum.