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Before long, I spot Adam’s lantern bobbing through the jungle. He’s moving purposely slow, waiting for me to catch up to him. He doesn’t hear me coming. When I slip my hand into his, in the moment before I turn him invisible, I hear his breath catch and shoulders tense.
“Scare you?” I whisper to him. I pluck the lantern out of his other hand with my telekinesis, going through the same routine that I did with my own.
“Surprised me, that’s all,” he replies quietly. “Let’s go.”
We start picking our way through the jungle towards where Marina should be. I’m careful not to go too fast at first, but Adam has good balance and seems to be keeping up just fine. His hand is surprisingly cool and dry despite the humid jungle air—he’s steady, this whole situation isn’t weird to him at all. I can’t help but breathe out a little laugh.
“What?” he asks me, his voice a whisper in the darkness.
“Just never imagined reaching a point in my life where I’d be holding hands with a Mogadorian,” I reply.
“We’re allies,” Adam responds. “It’s for the mission.”
“Yeah, thanks for clearing that up. Still, it isn’t weird for you?”
Adam pauses. “Not really.”
Adam doesn’t say anything more. I remember something he said back on the flight to the Sanctuary.
“Who do I remind you of?” I ask him as we carefully climb over a fallen log.
“What?”
“Back in the Skimmer, you said I reminded you of someone.”
“You want to talk about that now?” he whispers back.
“I’m curious,” I reply, keeping an eye out for the telltale glow of Marina’s lantern. We don’t see it yet.
Adam is quiet for long enough that I start to think he’s just done talking, like his silence is a reprimand for not staying on mission. I’m about to tell him that I can successfully track one Mogadorian while also carrying on small talk, thank you very much, when he finally answers me.
“Number One,” he says. “That’s who you remind me of.”
“One? The Garde you took your Legacies from?”
His hand tenses up in mine, like he has to stop himself from yanking away.
“She gave her Legacy to me,” Adam snaps. “I didn’t take anything.”
“All right,” I reply. “Sorry. Poor choice of words. I didn’t realize that you actually got to know her.”
“We had a . . . complex relationship.”
“Like, you were in charge of the Mogs stalking her or something?”
Adam sighs. “No. After she was killed, One’s consciousness was implanted in my brain alongside my own. For a while, basically, we shared a body. I guess that’s why I’m not concerned with holding hands or whatever juvenile thing has been making you uncomfortable for the last five minutes. I’ve been really, really close to Garde before.”
Now it’s my turn to fall silent. I never even met Number One. She remains a complete mystery to me, more like a concept. The unlucky one. First up to bat. The first one to get killed. And yet Adam has all this intimate knowledge of her. It’s weird to think that a Mogadorian has given more thought to Number One than I ever did. Not just that, but it sounds like he actually cared about her. Our world just gets stranger and stranger.
“There she is,” I whisper, sparing us any further awkward conversation as Marina’s lantern comes into view.
“Good,” Adam says, sounding relieved. “Now we follow along and wait for Phiri Dun-Ra to take the bai—”
Adam’s interrupted by cobalt-blue blaster fire sizzling through the air, aimed right for Marina’s lantern. Even with all the jungle noise, I can hear Marina scream.
“Shit! Go!”
I release Adam’s hand and sprint through the jungle, using my telekinesis to shove aside the tangled branches and dense blockades of leaves. I’m sure I pick up a few scratches along the way, but that doesn’t matter. The creature sounds around me become loud with panic as I trample through their territories. I’m distantly aware of Adam running behind me, taking advantage of the path I’m clearing.
Up ahead, I can tell that Marina’s lantern has fallen to the ground by the way it throws crooked beams of light through the twisted tree limbs.
Running full throttle, it takes me less than a minute to knife my way through the jungle. I burst into the small clearing where Marina’s lantern is on the ground, just in time to see Marina running her hand over a blaster burn on her upper arm. She glances up at me as she heals the blistered flesh.
“Plan worked,” Marina says casually.
“You’re hurt,” I reply.
“This? Lucky shot.”
I breathe a sigh of relief, then look to Marina’s left where Phiri Dun-Ra glares at us from her knees. There’s a fresh trail of blood dripping through her mess of Mog tattoos and severely pulled-back braids, probably from where Marina clocked her. Phiri’s blaster is in the dirt next to her, out of reach and crumpled beyond use by a telekinetic attack. Her hands and ankles are bound in what I quickly realize to be shackles made from solid ice. Looks like Marina’s getting pretty good with her new Legacy.
Adam arrives in the clearing a few seconds after me. Phiri Dun-Ra’s look of hatred only intensifies when he shows up.
“You got her,” Adam says, and Marina nods, even smiles a little. “You’re all right?”
“I’m good,” Marina replies. “Now what should we do with her?”
“You should kill me,” Phiri Dun-Ra growls, spitting into the dirt in front of her. “The sight of a trueborn consorting with you Loric trash so offends my eyes, I no longer wish to live.”
“Hello to you too, Phiri,” Adam says, rolling his eyes. “What did you do to my Chimæra?”
Phiri Dun-Ra’s eyes light up. “A little trick I learned from the Plum Island scientists with blaster frequencies. Did your pet die? I didn’t have time to check its body.”
“He survived. Unlike you.”
“We aren’t going to kill you—,” I start to say, but Phiri thrashes in the dirt, interrupting me.
“Because you’re cowards,” she hisses. “Do you want to rehabilitate me like this one? Make me into another Mogadorian pet? It won’t happen.”
“You didn’t let me finish,” I say, stepping closer to her. “We’re not going to kill you yet.”
“Did you search her?” Adam asks Marina.
“She was only carrying the blaster,” Marina replies. The rest of Phiri’s outfit is the standard sleek body armor of a Mog warrior. There’s no room to hide a bunch of ship parts.
“Where are the conduits?” I ask her. “Give them back and I’ll at least make your death quick.”
Marina shoots me a quick look, her eyebrows upraised. I put off answering these questions before—what do we do with a captured Mogadorian and how far do we go to get what we need? Torture. The thought gives me a chill of revulsion, especially thinking back to my time spent being one of their captives. It feels like crossing a line, like something they would do to us. It’s different from killing them in battle, when they’re fighting back and trying to kill us too. Phiri Dun-Ra is helpless, our prisoner. But one Mog prisoner is useless and we need to get the hell out of this jungle. I know we shouldn’t sink to their level, but our situation is desperate. How far will threats take us? I wonder.
“Die a slow death, Loric scum,” Phiri spits back at me.
So, she isn’t going to make this easy.
Before I can decide what to do, Adam darts past me and strikes Phiri across the face with the back of his hand. She cries out and topples over onto her side. Phiri is stunned, I realize. She wasn’t expecting the blow. Maybe she was banking on the fact that Marina and I wouldn’t have the stomach for torture. Adam, on the other hand . . .
“You forget who you’re dealing with, Phiri Dun-Ra,” Adam says through clenched teeth. He slides onto his knees in the dirt next to her and grabs her by the front of her shirt, yanking her partially upright. “Do you think because I
’ve spent time with the Garde that I’ve forgotten our ways? You know who my father was. Much to his disappointment, my marks were always highest in the non-combat-related subjects. But still . . . the General found ways to focus my training. Interrogation. Anatomy. Imagine how rigorously the General trained his heir. I remember well.”
Adam reaches one of his hands around Phiri’s head, digging his thumb into the space behind her ear. She screams out, her legs thrashing. Marina takes a step towards the two Mogs, giving me another look. I swallow hard and shake my head, stopping her.
I’m going to let this play out. Wherever it leads.
