I Am Number Four (14 page)

THE NEXT DAY I WAKE EARLIER THAN NORMAL,
crawl out of bed, and walk out of my room to find Henri sitting at the table scanning the papers with his laptop open. The sun is still hidden, and the house is dark, the only light coming from his computer screen.

“Anything?”

“Nah, nothing really.”

I turn on the kitchen light. Bernie Kosar paws at the front door. I open it and he shoots out into the yard and patrols as he does every morning, head up, trotting around the perimeter looking for anything suspicious. He sniffs at random places. Once satisfied that everything is as it should be, he bolts into the woods and disappears.

Two issues of
They Walk Among Us
are lying atop the kitchen table, the original and a photocopy that Henri has made to keep for himself. A magnifying glass lies between them.

“Anything unique on the original?”

“No.”

“So, now what?” I ask.

“Well, I have had some luck. I cross-referenced some of the other articles in the issue and got a few hits, one of which led me to a man’s personal website. I sent him an email.”

I stare at Henri.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “They can’t track emails. At least not the way I send them.”

“How do you send them?”

“I reroute them through various servers in cities across the world, so that the original location is lost along the way.”

“Impressive.”

Bernie Kosar scratches at the door and I let him in. The clock on the microwave reads 5:59. I have two hours before I have to be at school.

“Do you really think we want to go digging around in all this?” I ask. “I mean, what if it’s all a trap? What if they are simply trying to root us out of hiding?”

Henri nods. “You know, if the article had mentioned anything about us, that might have given me pause. But it didn’t. It was about their invading Earth, much the same way they did Lorien. There is so much about it that we don’t understand. You were right a few weeks ago when you said we were defeated so
easily. We were. It doesn’t make sense. The entire situation with the disappearance of the Elders also doesn’t make sense. Even getting you and the other children off of Lorien, which I have never questioned, seems odd. And while you’ve seen what happened—and I’ve had the same visions, too—something is still missing from the equation. If we one day make it back, I think it’s imperative to understand what happened in order to prevent it from happening again. You know the saying: he who doesn’t understand history is doomed to repeat it. And when it’s repeated, the stakes are doubled.”

“Okay,” I say. “But according to what you said Saturday night, the chance of us going back seems slimmer every day. So, with that, do you think it’s worth it?”

Henri shrugs. “There are still five others out there. Perhaps they’ve received their Legacies. Perhaps yours are merely delayed. I think it’s best to plan for all possibilities.”

“Well, what are you planning to do?”

“Just make a phone call. I’m curious to hear what this person knows. I wonder what caused him to not follow up. One of two possibilities: either he found no other information and lost interest in the story, or somebody got to him after the publication.”

I sigh. “Well, be careful,” I say.

I pull on a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt over two T-shirts, tie my tennis shoes and stand and stretch. I toss into my backpack the clothes I plan to wear to school, along with a towel, a bar of soap and a small bottle of shampoo so I can shower when I get there. I’ll now be running to school each morning. Henri ostensibly believes the additional exercise will help in my training, but the real reason is that he hopes it will help my body’s transition and pull my Legacies from their slumber, if that is indeed what they are doing.

I look down at Bernie Kosar. “Ready for a run, boy? Huh? Want to go for a run?”

His tail wags and he turns in circles.

“See you after school.”

“Have a good run,” says Henri. “Be careful on the road.”

We walk out the door and cold, brisk air meets us. Bernie Kosar barks excitedly a few times. I start at a slight jog, down the drive, out onto the gravel road, the dog trotting beside me as I thought he would. It takes a quarter mile to warm up.

“Ready to step it up a notch, boy?”

He pays me no attention, just keeps trotting along with his tongue dangling, looking happy as can be.

“All right then, here we go.”

I kick it into high gear, moving into a run, and then
into a dead sprint shortly after, going as fast as I can. I leave Bernie Kosar in the dust. I look behind me and he is running as fast as he can, yet I am pulling ahead of him. The wind through my hair, the trees passing in a blur. It all feels great. Then Bernie Kosar bolts into the woods and disappears from sight. I’m not sure if I should stop and wait for him. Then I turn around and Bernie Kosar jumps out of the woods ten feet in front of me.

I look down at him and he looks up at me, tongue to the side, a sense of glee in his eyes.

“You’re an odd dog, you know that?”

After five minutes the school comes into view. I sprint the remaining half mile, exerting myself, running as hard as I can because it is so early that there is no one out and about to see me. Then I stand with my fingers interlocked behind my head, catching my breath. Bernie Kosar arrives thirty seconds later and sits watching me. I kneel down and pet him.

“Good job, buddy. I think we have a new morning ritual.”

I pull my bag from over my shoulders, unzip it, and remove a package with a few strips of bacon and I give them to him. He scarfs them down.

“Okay, boy, I’m heading in. Go on home. Henri’s waiting.”

He watches me for a second, and then goes off
trotting towards home. His comprehension completely amazes me. Then I turn and walk into the building and head for the shower.

I am the second person to enter astronomy. Sam is the first, already sitting in his normal seat at the back of the class.

“Whoa,” I say. “No glasses. What gives?”

He shrugs. “I thought about what you said. It’s probably stupid for me to wear them.”

I sit beside him and smile. It’s hard to imagine I’ll ever get used to his eyes looking so beady. I give him back the issue of
They Walk Among Us
. He tucks it into his bag. I hold up my fingers like a gun and nudge him.

“Bang!” I say.

He starts laughing. Then I do, too. Neither of us can stop. Every time one of us is close the other starts laughing and it begins all over again. People stare at us when they enter. Then comes Sarah. She walks in by herself, saunters up to us with a look of confusion and sits in the seat beside me.

“What are you guys laughing at?”

“I’m not really sure,” I say, and then laugh a little more.

Mark is the last person to walk in. He sits in his usual seat, but instead of Sarah sitting beside him today there’s another girl. I think she’s a senior. Sarah reaches beneath the table and grabs hold of my hand.

“There is something I need to talk to you about,” she says.

“What?”

“I know it’s last-minute, but my parents want to have you and your dad over for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow.”

“Wow. That would be awesome. I have to ask, but I know we don’t have plans, so I assume the answer is yes.”

She smiles. “Great.”

“Since it’s just the two of us, we don’t usually even do Thanksgiving.”

“Well, we really go all out. And my brothers will both be home from college. They want to meet you.”

“How do they know about me?”

“How do you think?”

The teacher walks in and Sarah winks, then we both start taking notes.

Henri is waiting for me as usual, Bernie Kosar propped up on the passenger seat with his tail wagging, thumping the side of the door the second he sees me. I slide in.

“Athens,” says Henri.

“Athens?”

“Athens, Ohio.”

“Why?”

“That’s where the issues of
They Walk Among Us
are being written, and printed. It’s where they are being mailed.”

“How did you find that out?”

“I have my ways.”

I look at him.

“Okay, okay. It took three emails and five phone calls, but now I have the number.” He looks over at me. “That is to say, it wasn’t all that hard to find with a little effort.”

I nod. I know what he is telling me. The Mogadorians would have found it just as easily as he did. Which means, of course, that the scale now tips in favor of Henri’s second possibility—that somebody got to the publisher before the story further developed.

“How far away is Athens?”

“Two hours by car.”

“Are you going?”

“I hope not. I’m going to call first.”

When we get home Henri immediately picks up the phone and sits at the kitchen table. I sit down across from him and listen.

“Yes, I’m calling to inquire about an article in last month’s issue of
They Walk Among Us.”

A deep voice responds on the other end. I can’t hear what is said.

Henri smiles. “Yes,” he says, then pauses.

“No, I’m not a subscriber. But a friend of mine is.”

Another pause. “No, thank you.”

He nods his head.

“Well, I’m curious about the article written on the Mogadorians. There was never a follow-up in this month’s issue as expected.”

I lean in and strain to hear, my body tense and rigid. When the reply comes the voice sounds shaken, disturbed. Then the phone goes dead.

“Hello?”

Henri pulls the phone away from his ear, looks at it, then brings it back in.

“Hello?” he says again.

Then he closes the phone and sets it on the table. He looks at me.

“He said, ‘Don’t call here again.’ Then he hung up on me.”

AFTER DEBATING IT FOR SEVERAL HOURS,
Henri wakes up the next morning and prints door-to-door directions from here to Athens, Ohio. He tells me he’ll be home early enough so we can go to Thanksgiving dinner at Sarah’s house, and he hands me a slip of paper with the address and the phone number of where he’s going.

“Are you sure this is worth it?” I ask.

“We have to figure out what’s going on.”

I sigh. “I think we both know what is going on.”

“Maybe,” he says, but with full authority and none of the uncertainty usually accompanying the word.

“You do realize what you would tell me if the roles were reversed, right?”

Henri smiles. “Yes, John. I know what I would say. But I think this will help us. I want to find out what they have done to scare this man so badly. I want to
know if they have mentioned us, if they are searching for us by means that we haven’t yet thought of. It will help us to stay hidden, stay ahead of them. And if this man has seen them, we’ll learn what they look like.”

“We already know what they look like.”

“We knew what they looked like when they attacked, over ten years ago, but they might have changed. They’ve been on Earth a long time now. I want to know how they’re blending in.”

“Even if we know what they look like, by the time we see them on the street, it’s probably going to be too late.”

“Maybe, maybe not. I see one, I’m going to try and kill it. There’s no guarantee it’s going to be able to kill me,” he says, this time with the uncertainty and none of the authority.

I give up. I don’t like a single thing about him driving to Athens while I sit around at home. But I know my objections will continue to fall on deaf ears.

“You sure you’ll be back on time?” I ask.

“I’m leaving now, which puts me there about nine. I doubt I’ll stay more than an hour, two at the most. I should be back by one.”

“So why do I have this?” I ask, and hold up the slip of paper with the address and phone number.

He shrugs. “Well, you never know.”

“Which is precisely why I don’t think you should go.”

“Touché,” he says, bringing an end to the discussion. He gathers his papers, stands from the table, and pushes in the chair.

“I’ll see you this afternoon.”

“Okay,” I say.

He walks out to the truck and gets inside. Bernie Kosar and I walk out to the front porch and watch him drive away. I don’t know why, but I have a bad feeling. I hope he makes it back.

It’s a long day. One of those days where time slows down and every minute seems like ten, every hour seems like twenty. I play video games and surf the internet. I look for news that might be related to one of the other children. I don’t find anything, which makes me happy. That means we’re staying under the radar. Avoiding our enemies.

I periodically check my phone. I send a text message to Henri at noon. He doesn’t reply. I eat lunch and feed Bernie, and then I send another. No reply. A nervous, unsettled feeling creeps in. Henri has never failed to text back immediately. Maybe his phone is off. Maybe his battery has died. I try to convince myself of these possibilities, but I know that neither of them is true.

At two o’clock I start to get worried. Really worried. We’re supposed to be at the Harts’ in an hour. Henri knows the dinner is important to me. And he would
never blow it off. I get in the shower with the hope that by the time I get out, Henri will be sitting at our kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee. I turn the hot water all the way up and don’t bother with the cold at all. I don’t feel a thing. My entire body is now impervious to heat. It feels like lukewarm water is streaming over my skin, and I actually miss the feeling of heat. I used to love taking hot showers. Standing under the water for as long as it lasted. Closing my eyes and enjoying the water hitting my head and running down. It took me away from my life. It let me forget about who and what I am for a little while.

When I get out of the shower, I open my closet and look for the nicest clothes I have, which are nothing special: khakis, a button-down shirt, a sweater. Because we live our life on the run, all I have are running shoes, which is so ridiculous it makes me laugh—the first time I’ve laughed all day. I go to Henri’s room and look in his closet. He has a pair of loafers that fit me. Seeing all his clothes makes me more worried, more upset. I want to believe he’s just taking longer than he should, but he would have contacted me. Something has to be wrong.

I walk to the front door, where Bernie is sitting, staring out the window. He looks up at me and whines. I pat him on the head and go back to my room. I look at the clock. It’s just after three. I check my phone. No messages, no texts. I decide to go to Sarah’s and if I
don’t hear from Henri by five, I’ll figure out a plan then. Maybe I’ll tell them Henri is sick and that I’m not feeling well either. Maybe I’ll tell them Henri’s truck broke down and I need to go help him. Hopefully he shows up and we can just have a nice Thanksgiving dinner. It will actually be the first one we’ve ever had. If not, I’ll tell them something. I’ll have to.

Without the truck I decide I’ll run. I probably won’t even break a sweat, and I will be able to get there faster than I would in the truck. And because of the holiday, the roads should be empty. I say good-bye to Bernie, tell him I’ll be home later, and take off. I run on the edges of the fields, through woods. It feels good to burn some energy. It takes the edge off my anxiety. A couple times I get up near full speed, which is probably somewhere around sixty or seventy miles per hour. The cold air feels amazing whipping across my face. The sound of it is great, the same sound I hear when I stick my head out the window of the truck as we’re driving down a highway. I wonder how fast I’ll be able to run when I’m twenty, or twenty-five.

I stop running about a hundred yards from Sarah’s house. I’m not short of breath at all. As I walk up the driveway I see Sarah peek out the window. She smiles and waves, opening the front door just as I step onto her porch.

“Hey, handsome,” she says.

I turn and look over my shoulder to pretend she’s talking to somebody else. Then I turn back around and ask her if she’s talking to me. She laughs.

“You’re silly,” she says, and punches me in the arm before pulling me close to give me a lingering kiss. I take a deep breath and can smell the food: turkey and stuffing, sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts, pumpkin pie.

“Smells great,” I say.

“My mom has been cooking all day.”

“Can’t wait to eat.”

“Where is your dad?”

“He got held up. He should be here in a little while.”

“Is he okay?”

“Yeah, it’s not a big deal.”

We go inside and she takes me on a tour. It’s a great house. A classic family home with bedrooms on the second floor, an attic where one of her brothers has his room, and all of the living spaces—the living room, dining room, kitchen and family room—on the first floor. When we get to her room, she closes the door and kisses me. I’m surprised, but thrilled.

“I’ve been looking forward to doing that all day,” she says softly when she pulls away. As she walks towards the door, I pull her back to me and kiss her again.

“And I’m looking forward to kissing you again later,” I whisper. She smiles and punches me on the arm again.

We head back downstairs and she takes me to the
family room, where her two older brothers, home from college for the weekend, are watching football with her father. I sit with them, while Sarah goes to the kitchen to help her mother and her younger sister with dinner. I’ve never been that into football. I guess, because of the way Henri and I have lived, I’ve never really gotten into anything outside of our life. My concerns were always with trying to fit into wherever we were, and then getting ready to go somewhere else. Her brothers, and her father, all played football in high school. They love it. And in today’s game, one of her brothers and her father like one of the teams, while her other brother likes the other team. They argue with each other, taunt each other, cheer and groan depending on what’s happening in the game. They’ve clearly been doing this for years, probably for their entire lives, and they’re clearly having a great time. It makes me wish Henri and I had something, besides my training and our endless running and hiding, that we were both into and that we could enjoy with each other. It makes me wish I had a real father and brothers to hang out with.

At halftime Sarah’s mother calls us in for dinner. I check my phone and still nothing. Before we sit down I go to the bathroom and try to call Henri and it goes straight to voice mail. It’s almost five o’clock, and I’m starting to panic. I come back to the table, where everyone is sitting. The table looks amazing. There are
flowers in the center, with place mats and table settings meticulously placed in front of each of the chairs. Serving dishes of food are spread around the inside of the table, with the turkey sitting in front of Mr. Hart’s place. Just after I sit down, Mrs. Hart comes into the room. She has taken off her apron and is wearing a beautiful skirt and sweater.

“Have you heard from your dad?” she says.

“I just tried calling him. He, uh, is running late and asked us not to wait. He’s very sorry for the inconvenience,” I say.

Mr. Hart starts carving the turkey. Sarah smiles at me from across the table, which makes me feel better for about half a second. The food starts being passed, and I take small portions of everything. I don’t think I’m going to be able to eat very much. I keep my phone out and on my lap, and have it set to vibrate if a call or text comes through. With each passing second, however, I don’t believe anything is going to come through, or that I will ever see Henri again. The idea of living by myself—with my Legacies developing, and without anyone to explain them to me or train me, of running on my own, of hiding on my own, of finding my own way, of fighting the Mogadorians, fighting them until they are defeated or I am dead—terrifies me.

Dinner takes forever. Time is moving slowly again. Sarah’s whole family peppers me with questions. I’ve
never been in a situation where I’ve been asked so many things by so many people in such a short period of time. They ask about my past, the places I’ve lived, about Henri, about my mother—who, I say as I always do, died when I was very young. It’s the only answer I give that has even the smallest sliver of truth. I have no idea if my answers even make sense. The phone on my leg feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. It doesn’t vibrate. It just sits there.

After dinner, and before dessert, Sarah asks everyone to go out to the backyard so she can take some pictures. As we go outside, Sarah asks if something is wrong. I tell her I’m worried about Henri. She tries to calm me down and tell me everything is fine, but it doesn’t work. If anything, it makes me feel worse. I try to imagine where he is and what he’s doing, and the only image I can bring is him standing before a Mogadorian, looking terrified, and knowing he’s about to die.

As we gather for the pictures, I start to panic. How could I get to Athens? I could run, but it might be hard to find my way, especially because I would have to avoid traffic and stay off the major highways. I could take a bus, but it would take too long. I could ask Sarah, but that would involve a huge amount of explaining, including telling her I was an alien and that I believed Henri had been either captured or killed by hostile aliens who were searching for me so that they could kill me. Not the best idea.

As we pose I get a desperate urge to leave, but I need to do it in a way that doesn’t make Sarah or her family mad at me. I focus on the camera, staring directly into it while trying to think of an excuse that will get the least amount of questions. I’m wracked with full-on panic now. My hands begin to shake. They feel hot. I look down at them to make sure they aren’t glowing. They’re not, but when I look back up I see that the whole camera is shaking in Sarah’s hands. I know that somehow I’m doing it, but I have no idea how or what I can do to make it stop. A chill shoots up my back. My breath catches in my throat and at the same time the glass lens of the camera cracks and shatters. Sarah screams, then pulls the camera down and stares at it in confusion. Her mouth drops open and tears well up in her eyes.

Her parents rush over to her to see if she’s okay. I just stand there in shock. I’m not sure what to do. I’m bummed about her camera, and that she’s upset about it, but I’m also thrilled because my telekinesis has clearly arrived. Will I be able to control it? Henri will be beside himself when he finds out. Henri. The panic returns. I clench my hands into fists. I need to get out of here. I need to find him. If the Mogadorians have him, which I hope they don’t, I’ll kill every damn one of them to get him back.

Thinking quickly, I walk over to Sarah and pull her away from her parents, who are examining the camera
to figure out what has just happened.

“I just got a message from Henri. I’m really sorry, but I need to go.”

She’s clearly distracted, glancing from me to her parents.

“Is he all right?”

“Yes, but I have to go—he needs me.” She nods and we kiss gently. I hope it’s not for the last time.

I thank her parents and her brothers and sister and I leave before they can ask me too many questions. I walk through the house and as soon as I’m out the front door, I start running. I take the same route home that I took to get to Sarah’s house earlier. I stay off the main roads, run through the trees. I’m back in a few minutes. I hear Bernie Kosar scratching at the door as I sprint up the drive. He’s clearly anxious, as though he also senses something amiss.

I go straight to my room. I retrieve from my bag the piece of paper containing the phone number and address Henri gave me before leaving. I dial the number. A recording comes on. “I’m sorry, the number you are trying to reach has been disconnected or is no longer in service.” I look down at the piece of paper and try the number again. The same recording.

“Shit!” I yell. I kick a chair and it sails across the kitchen and into the living room.

I walk into my room. I walk out. I walk back in again. I stare in the mirror. My eyes are red; tears have
surfaced but none are falling. Hands shaking. Anger and rage and a terrible fear that Henri is dead consume me. I squeeze my eyes shut and squeeze all the rage into the pit of my stomach. In a sudden burst I scream and open my eyes and thrust my hands towards the mirror and the glass shatters though I am ten feet away. I stand looking at it. Most of the mirror is still attached to the wall. What happened at Sarah’s was no fluke.