Five's Betrayal (2 page)

“Where was it that you said your guardian started to get so ill?” he asks.

I point to a place where the line dips into Pennsylvania.

“Around here somewhere. I’m not sure where exactly. We were camping in the mountains.”

Ethan scowls.

“There are some of the finest hospitals in the country in that area. You know, if your Cêpan hadn’t forced you to stay hidden on the island for as long as you did, he probably would have lived,” Ethan says. “It’s a shame he was so shortsighted that he couldn’t see the inevitable future of Mogadorian progress.”

“He thought the warmer air would help him.”

“What he probably needed was a shot of antibiotics.” Ethan shakes his head and crosses his arms. “I’m just glad you were able to get off the island before you ended up going crazy and talking to the pigs. I still can’t believe someone as powerful and smart as you was expected to raise those slop-covered animals.”

I laugh a little. Over the last few weeks I’ve told Ethan basically everything I can remember about my life. All about the tiny little shack and the pigs I raised and how I trained myself to use my telekinesis on my own. He and the other Mogs seemed really impressed by that part. Like I managed to become something great even when every card in the deck was stacked against me.

When I look at Miami on the map, my mind flashes with memories of the time I spent there before Ethan took me in. When I was just a punk-ass street rat wasting my powers on petty stuff like picking pockets, totally oblivious to how much authority I should have been wielding. There was a girl. Emma. My partner in crime who turned on me when she saw what I was capable of. Who was afraid of what I could do instead of respecting my abilities. I frown at the memory, and my stomach drops a little because it’s been a while since I’ve thought of her. There had been a time when she was my only friend in the world, but she was just using me too, wasn’t she? I was the one with the real talent. She was just riding on my coattails.

There’s a knock on the door, and then a Mog enters. One of the vatborn messengers and servants in the compound. I straighten up in my chair. This is a reflex. Even though I’ve been here a few weeks, I’m still getting used to seeing Mogs every day. More than that, I never know what they’re going to ask me to do when they show up in the interrogation room that’s been turned into my study or track me down in my bedroom. For all I know, they could be telling me that I’ve failed some test of theirs I didn’t even know I was taking.

“You weren’t responding to your radio,” the Mog says to Ethan, clearly a little ticked off.

Ethan points to the little earpiece that’s hanging out of his collar.

“Of course not,” he says. “All of your superiors know that I never wear my earpiece when I’m with our guest.” He motions to me. “It would be rude.”

“Commander Deltoch requests your presence in the detention wing,” the Mog says.

“I’ll be there at once.” Ethan nods.

“You
and
the Loric.”

I tense up. What do they want from me in the detention wing?

“Is that how you would address an honored guest in this base?” Ethan asks. “How about ‘sir’?”

The Mog seems a little apprehensive but nods his head to me.

“Sir,” he says.

“Dismiss him,” Ethan says to me.

“What?” I ask.

“You’re going to have to get used to giving orders at some point.”

I look at the Mog, who’s got a full-on grimace now. I suddenly feel awkward. I hate it when Ethan does this. He’s always trying to make everyone on the base treat me like their king or something. And while I’ll be leading them one day in the future, I’m still unproven potential, and the last thing I want is anyone stirring up animosity against me.

“Five,” Ethan says.

“You’re dismissed,” I say.

The Mog hesitates a moment. I assume his orders were to escort us to the other side of the building. I can almost see him trying to figure out who outranks whom in his head before Ethan clears his throat and, in a flash, the servant is gone.

“Conflicting orders, I’d imagine,” Ethan says as if he could read my brain.

“Do you think I’ll get him in trouble?”

Ethan’s face goes serious.

“You can’t worry about that. Don’t forget who you are. When the Mogs take Earth, you’ll be one of their officers. A leader. You may be new here, but you are the powerful Number Five. Show them mercy now, and they won’t respect you when you’re in charge.”

“I need a chart to keep the ranks all straight in my head.”

“Just always act like you’re at the top of the food chain. Now come along,” Ethan says, motioning towards the door. “Let’s see what Commander Deltoch is up to with the prisoners this afternoon.”

He doesn’t give me time to react, only turns and heads out the door. I can’t help but glance to the wall across from my desk, where a photo is taped up. It’s a guy who looks like he’s a few years older than me, with long brown hair. He’s built like an athlete—way fitter than I’ve ever been in my life. He looks smug. He’s jogging in the photo and seems to be unaware that his picture is being taken. I haven’t met him yet, but I know he’s here on the base with me. Locked up. They’ve tried to torture him, but that doesn’t really work. He’s protected by magic, like I am. By a charm put on us when we were kids that keeps us from being hurt until our number is up.

He is Number Nine.

The Mogs want me to kill him. His is the blood that must be spilled for me to advance.

He is my proof of loyalty.

FOR A LONG TIME, THE THING I WAS MOST
afraid of was being left out. Alone on an island in the Caribbean. Left behind as the other Garde banded together without me. That wasn’t exactly helpful when I was also afraid of getting too close to anyone for fear of them finding out my secret: that I’m not human. I had a really crappy life because of all this.

Until I met Ethan. Until the Mogs took me in. Now I have no worries of ever being left out. And I’ll definitely never feel alone. It would be impossible to: there must be thousands of us living together on the West Virginia base.

The compound the Mogs have here is maybe the most incredible structure on Earth, even if few humans will ever see the inside of it. It’s hidden in a hollowed-out mountain, and is so vast and full of trailing tunnels and caves that I doubt anyone has seen every corner of the place. I’ve spent a lot of my free time floating around the corridors and rocky hallways, and I think I’ve seen only a twentieth of it.

It’s almost all Mogs here—the vatborn soldiers and servants and the trueborn higher-ups—but there are a handful of humans. Most aren’t here by choice, though Ethan’s an exception, as are the men and women in dark suits and military garb whom I pass in the halls on occasion.

And there’s one other Loric. Nine.

I follow Ethan through the cavernous main hall, floating a few feet above him because flying is good practice and Ethan says it reminds the others that I’m powerful. I don’t mind, really, because it’s easier than walking. There are dozens, maybe even hundreds, of Mogs who we pass as we head towards the detention cells. They stop walking and step aside as I go by, staring at me. Some of them nod in respect, knowing that one day I’ll be a powerful force in the Mog ranks. Others look at me with skepticism. I can feel their eyes on me as I fly over them.

The only really annoying thing about the base is the scalding-hot green stuff that flows throughout it and pools in the main chamber. It’s some sort of energy source for the Mogs, Ethan said, but if you touch it, it’ll eat through your skin like acid (or a least that’s what I hear—I haven’t been dumb enough to actually test that theory out). Whatever it is, it smells like sulfur and rotten coconuts. As we pass through the main hall, the scent is heavy in my nose, and I grimace.

“Why do you think we’ve been summoned?” I ask Ethan.

He shrugs.

“Maybe Commander Deltoch thinks it’s time for you to take your place in the leadership.”

As a commander, Deltoch is the highest-ranking Mog in charge of the base. He reports to a General Sutekh and sometimes our Beloved Leader directly. He’s also become my de facto keeper—the person Ethan reports to and who I assume is on the other side of the one-way glass watching me in my study half the time. He’s an aggressive, trueborn Mog—I’ve come to learn that’s something to be proud of around here—and takes exquisite delight in telling me that I don’t
look
anything like a soldier. He has never explicitly said that I’m maybe a little on the heavy side, but it’s almost certainly what he’s thinking.

I’m always a little on edge around Deltoch. I can’t help but want to impress him every time I see him.

For my part, the detention area is the one place I’m not allowed to go on the base. I’ve seen only the first few cells. Ethan says it’s because they don’t want me to hurt Nine just yet. They’re still trying to figure out a way to force him to spill everything he knows about the Garde—and besides, since his death will be so important, it must be ceremonious. I’ve wondered what it would be like to be imprisoned here, like Nine. To spend all day in a cold stone cell. It sounds terrible. But then, I don’t have to worry about it. I chose to join the Mogs—to serve their cause in order to elevate myself. I’m sure the others here had the same chance. They just threw it all away. And for what? Do the imprisoned humans really think their own resistance to the Mogs means a damned thing in the long run? That they’re anything other than a speck of dust in what will be the vast empire of the Mogadorians? Maybe I would have thought that once, but not after seeing their resources and strength with my own eyes.

We pass row after row of containment cells in the detention wing, the entrances barred and pulsing with some kind of blue energy field. I keep my eyes darting back and forth, trying to catch a glimpse of Nine, to no avail. Inside are the weak and unrepentant enemies of the Mogs. Most of them are humans who got a little too close to figuring out what was happening around them on Earth and refused to quit snooping, or who disobeyed orders. The traitors are being taught an important lesson about crossing their superiors—one they won’t forget when they go back out into the world after they’ve served their time, which is what Ethan says happens to most of the ones who realize the error of their ways. A few are test subjects or people somehow related to the Loric cause—I hear there are even a few Greeters in captivity, those whose job it was to introduce the Loric to the human ways of life on Earth. Not all of them were as smart as Ethan was. It’s hard to imagine that he might have been in one of these cells had he not foreseen the Mogs’ inevitable victory.

Deltoch stands in the middle of the hallway. He’s at least two heads taller than me and built like a giant wrestler shoved into an ominous black officer’s uniform. His skin is pale, and his hair is gleaming jet-black and pulled into a tight ponytail. Dark tattoos peek out around his hairline, above eyes like big black marbles.

“So thrilled you could join us,” he says flatly as I approach. He glances at Ethan and sneers slightly—despite Ethan’s role as my recruiter and mentor, I don’t think Deltoch has been a big fan of having a human roaming around his base with so much authority.

“Whatever our Beloved Leader requires of me,” I say.

“Our afternoons are usually spent expanding upon Five’s powers for the good of Mogadore,” Ethan says, which I recognize as his way of asking why we’ve been ordered to come to this side of the compound.

Deltoch narrows his eyes a little. “I assume you must have been in the middle of something very important since it took you so much time to get here.”

I start to stammer a response, but Ethan speaks on my behalf.

“He was just reading from the Great Book,” he says, grinning. “What could be more important than our Beloved Leader’s words?”

Deltoch smirks in a way that bares all of his gray sharklike teeth. It’s not exactly a happy expression.

“You’re here because the all-wise Setrákus Ra is
anxious
for Five to prove himself loyal to the Mogadorians.”

“We’re looking forward to him taking his rightful place as a high-ranking member of the Leader’s forces as well,” Ethan says. “But these things take time, as I’m sure—”

“Five,” Deltoch says, ignoring Ethan. He steps aside and points a long, thick finger at one of the cells. “Do you wish to see the power of the Garde?”

Ethan starts to protest, but I nod.

“Yes, sir.”

I step up to the blue force field and stare. There’s a prisoner inside, stretched out on a dirty slab of rock serving as a bed. The guy is shirtless, his muscles glinting under a sheen of sweat. Long, dark hair is spread out around his head. His eyes are closed, and his lips move slightly, as if he’s meditating or saying some sort of prayer.

Number Nine.

“He doesn’t speak when he’s conscious, but he talks in his sleep sometimes,” Deltoch says. “That’s how we figured out his number.”

Something within me stirs as I look at Nine. Not pity or brotherhood, but something unsettling. A sort of fear. When the Mogs first recruited me, they gave me a folder with Nine’s picture inside it. He’s to be my victim, the blood offering that proves my loyalties to the Mogadorian progress. The only thing is, I’ve never killed anyone before. I had a hard time even killing animals back on the island with Rey. And so deep down I’m afraid that when the time comes and I’m finally given the order to end Nine’s life, I won’t be able to do it.

Thankfully, whatever magic the Elders of Lorien worked on us when we were kids is still in effect, because there’s no way I can kill Nine out of order. At least, not that the Mogs or I know of. If there’s a way to dispel the magic that protects us, that knowledge probably died with Rey or the Elders. I have no idea how to break the charm.

“What do you think?” Deltoch asks. “Is the hunger for power rising up inside you? Are you ready to take the next step and ascend into power among us?”

My stomach drops. They
have
brought me here to kill Nine. I swallow hard and try to steel my churning guts.