“I mean, like, hang out by ourselves.”
“Aren’t we doing that right now?”
“Yeah—I mean, uh—,” I stammer, then notice the wicked smile on Six’s face. “Are you messing with me?”
“A little,” she says, crossing her arms. “So you’re asking me on a date? Is that it?”
“Yeah, and I’m doing an amazing job at it.”
“You’re not doing so bad,” she says gently, moving a little closer to me. “But we’re fighting a war here, Sam. There’s not a ton of time for hanging out. You know that.”
“Um, John and Sarah went to the zoo today.”
“But I don’t want to have a John-and-Sarah thing with you,” Six says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
“Oh.” I shrink back, feeling gut punched. “I just thought—when you went to Spain, John told me how you felt about me, and back in Arkansas the way we hugged—uh, crap, I’m an idiot. I should’ve known you wouldn’t be interested in someone like me.”
“Whoa, there,” Six says, grabbing my hand before I can make a break for the door. “I’m sorry, Sam. I didn’t mean it like that. I do like you.”
“You just don’t like me that way,” I say, filling in the rest of the classic line.
“I didn’t say that. I do. Well, I might.” Six throws her hands up. “I don’t know! Look, it’s just, John and Sarah, they think it makes things easier for them, but it doesn’t. It just causes trouble.”
“They seem happy to me,” I reply.
“Sure, right now,” Six says. “But what about when something happens? You know, John’s a good leader and all, but he’s not a realist. Do you think we’re going to fight an entire army of Mogadorians without some casualties?”
“Jeez, that’s dark.”
“It’s the truth. Everything’s gonna go to shit eventually, Sam.” She reaches out and plucks a loose thread off the front of my sweater. “I wish you’d stay away from us. Go somewhere safe. When it’s over, maybe things could be different . . .”
I let loose with an incredulous laugh. “Ugh, seriously? That’s, like, the kind of crap that Spider-Man tells Mary Jane when he’s trying to break it off with her. Do you know how embarrassing it is to be talked to like I’m some superhero’s girlfriend?”
Six laughs too, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just realizing what a hypocrite I’m being. This is exactly the opposite of the advice I gave to John about Sarah.”
“Maybe you’re right and things are going to get bad,” I say. “But that doesn’t mean you should cut yourself off. Being all about the war all the time? That can’t be good. Maybe you should spend like ninety-five percent of your time as Six and, uh, five percent with me, being Maren.”
I didn’t plan that little speech; Six’s old human name just pops out. Her mouth opens a bit, but she doesn’t say anything at first, the name catching her off guard.
“Maren,” she whispers. “I’m not sure I even remember how to be her.”
There’s something in the way she’s looking at me now, almost like she’s throwing caution to the wind. It’s not the sort of devil-may-care look I’d expect from Six, but it’s something more vulnerable, like she’s decided to drop her guard just a little. I don’t let go of her hand.
“Promise me you won’t die,” she says, bluntly.
In that moment I’d promise her just about anything. “I promise.”
Her grip on my hand tightens, her fingers intertwined with mine. She steps closer. The wind picks up again and I reach up to brush some hair out of her face, holding my hand there against her cheek.
And that’s when Eight teleports onto the roof.
Six jumps away from me like she’s been scalded. I could pretty much strangle Eight right then and not feel any remorse. I expect Eight to crack some joke, but his face is set and serious.
“Guys, we need you downstairs!”
“What is it?” Six asks, starting towards Eight. “Mogs?”
Eight shakes his head. “It’s Ella.”
I guess my dad was wrong about this being one of those quiet nights.
Eight takes our hands and I immediately get the disorienting feeling of having the world yanked out from under me. I blink my eyes and we’re suddenly standing in the room that Marina shares with Ella.
Ella is on her back in bed, all the blankets kicked off, rigid as a board. Her eyes are squeezed shut. Perhaps the most frightening thing is the small trickle of blood dribbling down from the corner of her mouth. She’s bitten down on her lip, hard enough to draw blood.
Marina kneels next to the bed, dabbing at Ella’s mouth with a tissue. She keeps whispering Ella’s name over and over, trying to wake her up. Ella doesn’t move except to clench and unclench her fists in the sheets.
“How long has she been like this?” my dad asks.
“I don’t know,” says Marina, sounding panicked. “She went to bed before me, said she was tired from training. I found her like this and she won’t wake up.”
I look around, not really sure what I should be doing. Pretty much everyone seems to be sharing that feeling. Everyone has crowded into the room or is standing in the doorway, everyone sharing a look of uncertainty.
“This has never happened before?” I ask Marina.
“You were here for the worst one, when she was screaming,” she answers. “She’s always woken up before.”
“I don’t like this,” grumbles Nine from the doorway. Bernie Kosar seems to agree; he stands at the foot of the bed, sniffing the air like a guard dog catching a bad scent.
“She’s sweating so much,” says Marina.
“Some kind of fever?” John asks.
“It was never like this during my visions,” Eight says. “You guys?”
John and Nine both shake their heads.
Marina grabs a towel from a nightstand drawer and begins to dab at Ella’s forehead. Her hands are shaking so badly that Sarah eases the towel away from her. “Here,” she says, “let me do it.”
Eight puts his arm around Marina as she steps back from the bed, rubbing her back. Marina leans against him gratefully.
“Should we try healing her?” Six asks. “Or using one of the healing stones?”
“There’s nothing to heal,” John replies. “Not that we can see, anyway. And using the stone . . . who knows what might happen, what with it doubling the pain and all.”
“Did you try just prying her eyes open?” suggests Five. Everyone gives him a strange look, like it’s a callous suggestion, but it actually doesn’t seem much worse than letting Ella suffer through whatever nightmare she’s having. “What? You guys have better ideas?”
Gently, my father peels back one of Ella’s eyelids. Her eye is completely rolled back in her head; we can only see the whites. I remember the time I got knocked off the rope in gym class by Mark James and had to get a concussion test. They shined a flashlight in my eyes.
“John, maybe you could use your Lumen?” I suggest. “It’s bright, it might wake her up.”
John reaches over, lighting up his hand like a flashlight and shining it into Ella’s eye. For a moment, her body stops its constant twitching and she seems to relax.
“Something’s happening,” I breathe.
“Ella, wake up,” urges Marina.
Ella’s hand snaps upwards, grabbing John’s wrist with a force that startles him. It reminds me of one of those scary movies where the little girl is possessed by a demon. Her hand glows red where it touches John’s skin.
“What’s she doing?” Sarah gasps.
For a moment, John looks puzzled. He starts to say something, but his eyes roll back in his head and his body contorts, like all his muscles are cramping up at once—then, as if all the tension goes out of him, he collapses like a puppet with his strings cut, right onto the floor next to Ella’s bed.
“John!” Sarah shouts.
Ella’s hand is still clamped around John’s wrist. Nine lunges into the room. “Get her off him!”
Marina blocks Nine’s way. “Wait! Don’t touch her!”
Not listening, Sarah reaches down and pries Ella’s hand off John’s wrist. He doesn’t move, doesn’t come to at all, even when Sarah rolls him over and shakes him. Whatever Ella’s touch did to John, apparently it doesn’t have the same effect on humans because Sarah is unaffected.
Six steps forward to look closer, and I see Ella’s hand reaching up towards her, fingers clenching and unclenching.
“Watch it,” I say, and grab Six by the back of the shirt, pulling her backwards. The rest of the Garde notice Ella’s grasping hand and everyone takes a cautious step away from the bed. As soon as there aren’t any Garde within reach, her hand drops lifelessly back to the bed. She looks just like she did before, trapped in a nightmare. Except now, John has joined her.
“What the hell is going on?” Nine asks.
“She did something to him,” breathes Five.
Sarah cradles John’s head in her lap, stroking his hair. Nearby, my dad gently lifts Ella’s hands and tucks them under the covers. I look over at the Garde. They’re used to being on the run, to physical threats that they can fight and destroy. But how are they supposed to escape—or defeat—something that attacks them from within?
CHAPTER THIRTY
NOBODY GETS ANY SLEEP THAT NIGHT. WELL, except for the two of us that can’t be woken up, and that’s a sleep I don’t think anyone is eager to join.
My dad and I lifted John onto the bed next to Ella, laying them side by side, the two of them sporadically thrashing. Sarah refuses to leave the room; she holds John’s hand, stroking it gently, trying to coax him awake. Bernie Kosar won’t leave either; he lies curled up at the foot of the bed, whining occasionally, nuzzling John and Ella’s feet.
I poke my head into the room a few hours after John first collapsed. Sarah has her head down, pressed to the back of John’s hand. I’m not sure if she’s asleep or not and I don’t want to disturb her. Nothing has changed with John and Ella. Their facial muscles twitch, and their bodies occasionally lurch as if they’ve just tripped in a dream and are scrambling for their balance. I’ve had those dreams before, the ones where you trip or fall off a bike, and I always wake up before I hit the ground. That doesn’t seem to be the case for John and Ella.
I take a closer look at John. It has only been a few hours, but already his skin has taken on a pallor similar to Ella’s, dark circles forming around his eyes. It’s almost as if he’s being drained somehow. Now that I think about it, Ella looked pretty washed out before training this morning. I’m worried there’s some kind of physical aspect to the nightmares, like they’re weakening John and Ella, or worse.