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“Yes. I came here with Crayton and my friend Zophie. You probably know this by now, but we weren’t part of the Elders’ plan. We managed to escape Lorien because of Crayton—well, because Crayton worked for Ella’s father, and because we had access to that old ship. Ella’s father, he knew what was coming. That’s why he hired me to fix it up. I wasn’t even really a pilot. I had to learn, well . . . on the fly.”
I snort at Lexa’s bad joke and smile at her, but my mind is racing. There are more of us. Maybe the Loric aren’t as extinct as we thought. I should be excited about this, but instead I feel suspicious. I’m probably just being paranoid after what happened with Five. Still, I think of Crayton and how he raised Ella while secretly hunting for the rest of the Garde. He never mentioned that he came here with two other Loric. My eyes narrow a fraction.
“Crayton never told us about you,” I say, trying to make it sound not too much like an accusation. Crayton did withhold a lot from us, after all. Ella’s real origin didn’t even come out until after he died.
“I guess he wouldn’t have,” Lexa replies, frowning slightly. “His only concern was keeping Ella alive. We agreed not to have contact with each other. It was safer for everyone if we kept our distance. You know how the Mogs are. They can’t torture any information out of you if you don’t actually know anything.”
“What about your friend? Zophie? Where’s she?”
Lexa shakes her head. “She didn’t make it. Her brother was the pilot of this ship. Your ship. Zophie went looking for him, actually thought she’d found him through the internet, but . . .”
Marina fills in the blank. “Mogs.”
Lexa nods sadly. “After that, I was alone.”
“You weren’t alone, though,” I say. “We were out there. A lot of us—hell, all of us, we lost our Cêpan. Some of us pretty damn quick. We could’ve used some guidance. Why did you wait so long? Why didn’t you try to find us?”
“You know why, Six. For the same reasons that your Cêpan didn’t try to find each other. It was dangerous to try making contact. Every internet search risked exposure. I did what I could from afar. I funneled money and intel to groups that were working on exposing the Mogadorians. I started a website called ‘Aliens Anonymous’ to try spreading the word, to maybe expose what they were up to with MogPro. That’s how I met up with Mark.”
I think about what it must’ve been like for her, a stranger in a strange land, with no one to rely on. Actually, I don’t have to imagine what she went through. I lived it myself. I knew the dangers and I never stopped looking for the others. I can’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. “Dangerous for us? Or dangerous for you?”
“For all of us, Six,” Lexa replies. I can tell that my words stung her. “I know it’s not even a fraction of the responsibility the Elders hung on the nine of you but . . . I didn’t ask for this either. I took a cake job in a museum and next thing I know I’m flying an antique ship to a planet in a completely different solar system with one of the last living Garde as cargo. I lost my brother, my best friend, my whole life.”
She takes a breath. Marina and I are both silent.
“I told myself that helping you all from afar was enough. So, I did what I could from a distance. I erased whatever information I found about you all online. I tried to make you invisible, not just to the world, but to me. Maybe it was cowardice. Or shame. I don’t know. I knew deep down that I should be doing more. I always intended to get this ship, though, and contact you, once you were old enough and once I . . .”
“You’re here now,” Marina says gently. “That’s what matters.”
“I couldn’t stay away any longer. I’d already fled one planet during an invasion. I decided it was time to stop running.”
That hits home for me. In a way, after spending years hiding from the Mogadorians, we’ve all decided it’s time to stop running. I only hope it isn’t too late.
“Would it be okay if I gave you a hug now?” Marina asks Lexa.
The pilot is taken by surprise, but she nods. Marina wraps her up in a big hug, burying her face in the woman’s shoulder. Lexa sees me watching and gives me a tight, almost embarrassed smile before closing her eyes and letting herself be squeezed. She sighs, and maybe I’m just imagining this, but some invisible weight seems to lift from Lexa’s shoulders. I don’t join in. The group-hug thing isn’t really for me.
“Thanks for coming,” I say after a moment. “Welcome to the Sanctuary.”
With that, I lead the two of them out from the ship. I take one last lingering look at the passenger area before tamping down that memory of fleeing Lorien. I’m not a child anymore. This invasion is going to play out differently.
Outside, Adam and Mark are in the middle of a discussion. Sarah stands a few feet away from them, closer to the ship, obviously waiting for us. She raises her eyebrows questioningly when she sees me and I let out a deep breath in response.
“Crazy who you run into in Mexico,” I say, trying to play off the shock and mixed feelings of encountering Lexa.
Together, we walk over to Mark and Adam. Mark, already sweating through his T-shirt, looks like he’s having trouble wrapping his mind around something.
“A hole,” he says flatly. “You’re going to kill Setrákus Ra with a hole in the ground.”
Adam sighs, pointing to the sections of the jungle where we’ve hidden Mog artillery. “You’re really stuck on the hole aspect of the plan. I told you, we’ve got guns, bombs—”
“But for Setrákus Ra, you’ve got a hole.”
“I realize it’s low-tech, but our options are seriously limited,” Adam replies. “And we aren’t trying to kill him. That’s not even a possibility considering any damage we do to him will be reflected onto Ella. We just want to slow him down and buy ourselves some time.”
“Time to do what?” Mark asks.
Adam glances at me. “To rescue Ella, steal the Anubis out from under Setrákus Ra’s nose or both.”
“Why don’t we just bail?” Mark asks, thumbing towards the newly arrived Loric ship. “I get that all these booby traps might’ve been a good idea when you were, like, stranded. But we can leave now.”
“That’s not an option,” Marina replies. “The Sanctuary must be defended at all costs.”
“At all costs?” Mark repeats, glancing back to the ship, then over to the temple. “What the hell is so special about this place?”
I notice that Lexa’s been awfully quiet during this discussion. Her eyes are locked on the Sanctuary, her face blank, sort of like how Marina looks when she goes into one of her reverent trances. Lexa must sense me watching her, because she abruptly shakes her head and meets my gaze.
“This place . . .” She searches for the right words. “There’s something special about it.”
“It’s a Loric place,” Marina replies. “The Loric place now, actually. The source of our Legacies resides inside.”
“We just sealed the entrance or I’d give you the tour,” I put in.
“Could’ve introduced you to the creature living in there. Pretty nice for an Entity made out of pure Loric energy.”
Lexa flashes me a quick smirk before replying. “I can feel it . . . whatever’s in there. I can feel it in my bones. I understand why you’d want to protect this place.”
“Thank you,” Marina replies.
“That said . . .” And now Lexa glances in my direction. “Keep in mind that my ship—our ship—is ready. If you need it. It has outrun their warships before.”
I nod subtly and exchange a quick look with Adam. Marina might not want to admit we need one, but we’ve got an exit strategy all the same, and it’s now a lot better than running into the jungle.
“Man, so whatever’s inside there, it’s like in charge of the Legacies?” Mark asks, looking at the Sanctuary with his hands on his hips.
“We think so,” I reply.
“So, that’s what decided that nerdy Sam Goode should get superpowers and that I . . .” Mark trails off, grimacing. “Shit. I should’ve been nicer in high school.”
I try not to laugh. John must have filled Sarah and Mark in on humans getting Legacies thanks to our messing around in the Sanctuary. I don’t know how the Entity decided who would get Legacies, but I wouldn’t really expect a guy like Mark to make the cut, even if he’s been risking his ass for us over the last couple of months. Sarah, on the other hand . . .
“What about you?” I say, facing her.
Sarah shrugs and looks down at her hands, like she’s expecting rays of light to shoot out of them at any moment.
“Nothing yet,” she says, frowning. “Still just a regular old human.”
Sarah tries to play this off, but I can tell it’s bothering her. After all she’s done for us, for John in particular, it does strike me as a major oversight on the Entity’s part to pass her over when choosing which humans receive Legacies.
