Besides, it’s not like it did us any good the first time.
I was nine years old, living in Nova Scotia with Katarina. Our training room there was in the attic. Katarina had retired from training for the day, but I still had energy to burn, and was doing moores and spindles on the pommel horse alone when I suddenly felt a blast of scorching pain on my ankle. I lost my balance and came crashing down to the mat, clutching my ankle and screaming in pain.
My first scar. It meant that the Mogadorians had killed Number One, the first of the Garde. And for all of Katarina’s web scouring, it had caught us both completely unaware.
We waited on pins and needles for weeks after, expecting a second death and a second scar to follow in short order. But it didn’t come. I think Katarina is still coiled, anxious, ready to spring. But three years have passed—almost a quarter of my whole life—and it’s just not something I think about much.
I step between her and the monitor. “It’s Sunday. Game time.”
“Please, Kelly.” She says my most recent alias with a certain stiffness. I know I will always be Six to her. In my heart, too. These aliases I use are just shells, they’re not who I really am. I’m sure back on Lorien I had a name, a real name, not just a number. But that’s so far back, and I’ve had so many names since then, that I can’t remember what it was.
Six is my true name. Six is who I am.
Katarina bats me aside, eager to read more details.
We’ve lost so many game days to news alerts like this. And they never turn out to be anything. They’re just ordinary tragedies.
Earth, I’ve come to discover, has no shortage of tragedies.
“Nope. It’s just a bus crash. We’re playing a game.” I pull at her arms, eager for her to relax. She looks so tired and worried, I know she could use the break.
She holds firm. “It’s a bus explosion. And apparently,” she says, pulling away to read from the screen, “the conflict is ongoing.”
“The conflict always is,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Come on.”
She shakes her head, giving one of her frazzled laughs. “Okay,” she says. “Fine.”
Katarina pulls herself away from the monitors, sitting on the floor by the game. It takes all my strength not to lick my chops at her upcoming defeat: I always win at Risk.
I get down beside her, on my knees.
“You’re right, Kelly,” she says, allowing herself to grin. “I needn’t panic over every little thing—”
One of the monitors on Katarina’s desk lets out a sudden ding! One of her alerts. Her computers are programmed to scan for unusual news reports, blog posts, even notable shifts in global weather—all sifting for possible news of the Garde.
“Oh come on,” I say.
But Katarina is already off the floor and back at the desk, scrolling and clicking from link to link once again.
“Fine,” I say, annoyed. “But I’m showing no mercy when the game begins.”
Suddenly Katarina is silent, stopped cold by something she’s found.
I get up off the floor and step over the board, making my way to the monitor.
I look at the screen.
It is not, as I’d imagined, a news report from England. It is a simple, anonymous blog post. Just a few haunting, tantalizing words:
“Nine, now eight. Are the rest of you out there?”
CHAPTER TWO
There is a cry in the wilderness, from a member of the Garde. Some girl or boy, the same age as me, looking for us. In an instant I’ve seized the keyboard from Katarina and I hammer out a response in the comments section. “We are here.”
Katarina bats my hand away before I can hit Enter. “Six!”
I pull back, ashamed of my imprudence, my haste.
“We have to be careful. The Mogadorians are on the hunt. They’ve killed One, for all we know they have a path to Two, to Three—”