Lorien Legacies: The Lost Files (76 page)

I
NSTEAD OF WAITING FOR
E
MMA IN THE SPOT
where she snuck up on me yesterday, I stay half a beach away, loitering between some bathrooms and a thick line of plants. That way I’ll be able to see if she shows up with a Mog brigade or something—though I don’t
really
think she’s going to. I’m just trying to be cautious.

And I don’t want her to catch me by surprise again.

Emma appears early in the afternoon. She looks around for me before shrugging and sitting underneath the palm tree where she found me. She waits for a while—twenty minutes maybe—as I try to talk myself into walking over.

It’s weird how nervous I feel. This is just so foreign to me, meeting up with someone. Talking to someone new at all. I feel awkward.

When she stands up and looks like she’s going to leave, I grit my teeth and head her way.

“Hey!” she says with a grin when she catches sight of me. “I thought you were going to stand me up.”

“Sorry,” I say, shoving my hands into my pockets. “I, uh, lost track of time.”

“No problem. It’s nice out today. Let’s hang out here for a while.”

And so we sit and chat. Or, mostly she talks, and I respond to questions as vaguely as I can—or with outright lies. Where am I from? Around. Where do I live? Not far from the beach. What about my parents or family? They’re here and there. They travel a lot. I’m left to my own devices. I pick a pocket or two on occasion because I think it’s fun.

Emma doesn’t press me about anything, which almost makes me feel bad for all the lies I tell her—that I’ve got a home to go to at night and a loving family somewhere. She’s easy to talk to in a way that Rey never was. Mostly because she talks a lot about herself, and everything she says is new to me. Sometimes she slips into Spanish and it sounds so pretty that I don’t even point out to her that I can’t understand her.

Emma isn’t at all the person she made herself out to be when we first met, so self-assured and street smart. As she talks I can see the cracks begin to show. Her brother might be some kind of criminal guy—that much I think is true—but she’s just a rebellious girl who has gotten good at sneaking things from other people, looking for some adventure during the summer. Emma really
does
have a loving family and a home to go back to every night. But from what I can tell she’s hungry to be a part of something, to get a taste of danger.

It’s funny: I never imagined people would actually go out looking for trouble or danger. I guess when you spend your life hiding from everything to keep something bad from happening, stuff like that loses its thrill. Still, when she suggests we go out and lift a few wallets or purses, I go along. I think of it as a game, or training. Lying. Hiding. Stealth. These are all things that Rey would
technically
approve of since they’re skills that’ll help keep me hidden away from the Mogs.

Right?

I find out pretty quickly that I’m not the best thief when I’m not using my powers. I only have to be chased through the streets of South Beach once to figure that out. Emma can’t see how I’ve made it so far without getting caught, but I just shrug. My role becomes that of the distraction. I’m the person who stops and asks for directions, or falls down in front of a mark while she picks their pocket.

That I’m not terrible at: I’m basically just lying and telling stories.

And before I know it we have a system that works and are making a lot of money. At least, enough that I’m never hungry or wanting for much, with a little left over to put in my Canada fund. We get good at what we do. We make a code—a sort of Robin Hood pact. We steal only from those who look like they can afford to lose a few bucks. They’re easy to spot, coming in and out of designer stores or hotels. We target tourists, not people who look like locals.

We see each other most days. About a week after first meeting Emma, I ask her why she’s into breaking the law and stealing from people. I’ve deduced by this point that she probably comes from a good enough home that she could just ask her parents for money or something.

“Respect,” she tells me as she tosses some woman’s now-empty wallet into a trash bin on the beach. “That’s what I want. That’s what
we
need. When people respect you, you can do anything. That’s how you get real power in a city like this. Your name has to mean something to people.”

I want badly to tell her that my name
does
mean something. To a lot of people. I’m a savior. And a target. But the more time I spend with Emma, the less pressing these things seem, and the farther away Canada lies. With her I’m just a kid eating ice cream and street food every day, spending the afternoons sneaking into movie theaters and lazing around the beach at dusk.

Over the course of a few weeks Emma and I
do
get a reputation around the beaches—at least enough of one that Emma’s brother hears about us and tells her to lay off before she gets into trouble. I can tell that the locals have changed the way they think about me just from how they look at us when we pass them by. Some with respect. Some with a hint of fear. All of them with knowledge of who we are and what we can do.

It feels good to be acknowledged.

I carry my Chest with me wherever I go, too scared to leave it hidden somewhere. It’s all I have left of the island, and of Rey, which both seem so far away now. At night, I sleep with it pulled close to me. It’s in the moments between sleeping and waking that I find my thoughts drifting to my destiny and the rest of the Garde, to the war and fighting that surely waits in my future. I dream that I never have to be Five again. That I can do whatever I want, no longer bound by the destiny forced upon me by the Elders of Lorien.

But I know that’s something I can’t escape. Not entirely. Either I’ll fight alongside the Garde—seven super-powered soldiers who’ve never met one another, trying to take down an entire army—or the Mogs will kill all of us and take Earth as well.

I wish there was another way: a third option I’m not thinking of. But for the life of me I can’t think of one.

I might as well enjoy my time on this planet while I can.

One night, I spot the perfect target.

Emma and I are hanging out behind one of the fancy hotels that back up to the beach, divvying up what we’ve taken throughout the day. It’s nighttime, and the only people to bother us are a few late-night joggers who just nod to us as they pass us by.

The mark is in his midthirties or so and well dressed in a crisp black button-down shirt, gray pants and shiny black shoes that are impractical for a walk on the beach—even if he is keeping to the sidewalk. His dark hair is swept back and accentuates his pale skin, meaning he’s almost certainly not from Miami. And, most importantly, he’s alone.

Perfect
. He’s practically begging us to lift his wallet.

I glance at Emma, who gives me a mischivious grin, one I recognize easily by now.

“What’s the story?” she asks.

“We lost our cat,” I say. “It’s black as night and we’ve been looking for hours.”

She smiles and nods, backing away from me. This is what we do. I provide the story and she does the “heavy lifting.”

As the man approaches, his eyes drift between the two of us but he doesn’t pay much attention. When he’s passed Emma, I step into his path. Emma positions herself behind him.

“Hey, mister. Have you seen a black cat running around here? We’ve been trying to—”

The man moves fast—faster than I would have thought—and in the blink of an eye he’s got Emma out beside him, her arm twisted in his grip. A red leather wallet falls from her fingers and bounces on the sidewalk. The man tightens his fingers around her, and Emma falls to the sand with a small cry. She lets out a string of curses in Spanish.

Shit
.

I move forward, but he raises a hand to me, and there’s a command about his presence that causes me to stop. I don’t know what to do. He speaks to Emma in Spanish, saying something that makes her eyes go wide. She mutters back to him, and he responds. His voice is low and smooth. There’s some kind of dawning recognition that sweeps over Emma’s face. Clearly she’s puting things together that I don’t understand, and I start to feel like I’m completely in the dark about what’s actually happening in front of me.

All I know is that I have one friend in the world right now, and she’s on the ground in front of a man who she’s obviously afraid of. So when he reaches for her, I can’t help but react.

I send him stumbling backwards with a telekinetic blast.

The attack isn’t much—more of a flinch of my Legacy than anything—but it serves to put some distance between all of us. The man looks surprised for a moment, and then narrows his eyes at me. I puff out my chest and clench my fists.

“Cody, what are you . . .” Emma looks confused. “Listen, I know who this guy is. Sort of.”

The man bends down slowly, hands out in front of him, and picks his wallet up off the ground. He flicks two cards out from it. They land on the sidewalk.

“If you’re ever looking for work, call this number,” he says. Then, as if it’s an afterthought, he tosses a fifty-dollar bill onto the ground as well.

Then he walks right past us. Away. Like he doesn’t have a care in the world. There’s something about him that permeates the air and makes him seem untouchable.

When he’s out of earshot, I turn to Emma.

“Are you okay?” I ask, concerned.

“You have no idea who that is, do you?” Emma asks, her eyes never leaving the man’s back.

“No. Who?”

Emma picks up the two cards and holds one out to me. It’s white, with nothing but a black phone number printed in the center of it.

“His name is Ethan,” she says. “I’ve heard my brother talking about him lately. He’s some big important guy who is shaking things up around the city now. Do you know what this means?” She stares at me, but I just shake my head. She grins. “He’s our ticket to the next level.”

E
MMA CALLS
.

She doesn’t talk to Ethan, but the person on the line seems to know who both she and I are. It makes me nervous, but it’s only a fake name that they know.

Ethan is apparently in dire need of couriers—people to run packages and documents across the city for him. It’s not exactly what Emma had in mind when she called, but she agrees on behalf of both of us.

“I thought you didn’t want someone telling you what to do,” I say when she’s off the phone.

“I
don’t
.” She frowns a little bit. “But I’m getting bored lifting off of randos every day. Aren’t you?”

Not really,
I think, but I just shrug.

“So, what, you’re going to work your way up to master cat burglar or something?” I ask with a smirk.

She punches me in the arm and laughs.

We call in for our assignments. Usually they include picking up envelopes at specific stores or locations and delivering them to stores on the other side of town. Emma hates it, but I don’t mind. I get to see parts of the city I never knew existed. Voodoo shops in Little Haiti and chandeliers hanging in store windows in the Design District. Sometimes we have to split up to get the work done. Mostly we’re running around the city together.

One day on a solo assignment, I meet Ethan again.

He sits in a big corner booth at the back of a restaurant. I have a package for him. The place is fancy, or at least fancier than the fast food and street vendor food that I usually eat. He grins widely when he sees me, flashing perfect white teeth.

“There’s my best worker,” he says, motioning to the other side of the booth. “Please, have a seat.”

“Thanks, uh . . .” I realize I don’t know what to call him.

“Please, call me Ethan.”

“Ethan.” I nod.

I plop down in the booth, setting my duffel down at my feet. Before I can say anything else, food starts arriving: plates upon plates of seviche and roasted chicken and pasta swimming in sauce. Ethan encourages me to eat as much as I want, and I practically shovel food into my mouth.

Ethan talks while we eat. “I don’t normally get my hands dirty with small-time crooks or gangs in this city,” he says, cutting into a shrimp on his plate. “But reports get back to me. From people on the streets. From cops. When someone of interest pops up, I know about it. And you and your friend are definitely people of interest. You had a solid partnership before you came across me. Tell me, what brought you to pickpocketing? Why do you do it?”

“To survive.”

Ethan smiles. He gestures to me with his fork.

“You’re young. About fourteen I’d say, right?”

I nod. He continues.

“I lived on the streets when I was your age. It made me a damned good thief and forced me to grow up fast. But it’s not an easy life. And it’s dangerous. My brother didn’t make it.” His voice goes quieter. I freeze. It feels inappropriate to keep eating while he’s telling me about his dead brother, so I sit there with a huge chunk of cheese squirreled away in one of my cheeks as he keeps talking. “I had to look for him for days before I finally found him. Another gang had . . . Well, it’s not important. I don’t want to scare you. More importantly, I see a lot of him in you. It’s uncanny, really. I think he would have survived if he had your talents.”

I tense up. As far as Ethan knows, my talents include delivering mail and taking wallets. I think back to when we met on the beach and I stupidly pushed him with my telekinesis. Has he figured out what that was?

No,
I tell myself.
He probably thinks it was the wind. How could he know?

“Uh, yeah,” I say. “I’m sorry to hear about your brother.”

“It’s all in the past,” Ethan says. “But you—you’re the future.”

Ethan’s lips curl up in a smile.

“Tell me more about yourself,” he says.

And so I start talking. Nothing about Lorien or the island, but about the things I like. Arepas, movies, books, arcades. And Ethan looks fascinated. It turns out he’s a movie buff. He’s waxing on about a long list of films I should have seen when I suddenly start to wonder how I managed to end up in a fancy Miami restaurant talking movies with some high-ranking criminal mastermind.

What would Rey say? I wish he were here. I wish he could see how well I was doing on my own. How important I’m becoming.

Emma is always hungry for more, wanting bigger and better assignments.

Eventually, we get one.

Ethan wants a series of warehouses bugged to keep tabs on competitors or something like that. As usual, we don’t ask questions. Emma and I are supposed to sneak in at night when the buildings are empty and plant a few tiny devices Ethan has supplied us with. It’s an extremely simple task.

So of course everything goes wrong.

Emma and I split up to get the work done, and I’m halfway through planting the bugs in a small warehouse filled with row upon row of boxes and shelves when a dozen guys show up. If I lived in a superhero movie, they’d be stereotypical henchmen.

“Uh,” I say as they form a half circle around me. “Hi. I was just looking for a place to sleep tonight. I’ll move along and—”

“Ethan sent you, didn’t he?” one of the men asks.

“Ethan?” I ask. “Who’s that?”

The man answers by throwing a punch at me.

At first the rudimentary training Rey had given me during hand-to-hand fighting comes in handy, but I’m rusty and was never really that good at it to begin with. And there are just so many of them. I dodge a few punches and then a fist lands in my gut and I crumple. Then I’m on the ground, kicks coming from every direction, my vision sparking as someone’s heel meets the back of my head.

They can’t kill me—there are still two Garde standing between me and death—but they can break me. Incapacitate me. Send me to the emergency room or abduct me.

I only have one chance of getting out of this.

Telekinetic energy erupts from my body, sending all the attackers sprawling backwards. I don’t give anyone a chance to recover. I use my Legacy to send them flying into walls and one another, lifting them into the air and then slamming them down onto the concrete. I lash out and use my powers in ways I never imagined. It’s strange how naturally it comes to me, this destruction. It feels so good—like I’m stretching a muscle I haven’t used in a while. I realize that I miss using my telekinesis so often, like I had on my little island or when I was first picking pockets. Bodies fly all around the room, crashing into shelves and lights, until someone calls my name and I freeze.

Emma.

I turn to see her standing in one of the open loading bay doors, half silhouetted by the moonlight. She makes no move to come forward. There’s a look on Emma’s face I’ve never seen before. Her eyes are wide, the whites standing out in the near darkness. Her hands are shaking.

She’s terrified.

Around me, all the attackers fall from the air, hitting the ground with thuds.

“Emma,” I say, stepping towards her.

She takes a step back.

“What are you? How did you—” she says.

Her eyes fall on someone lying a few yards away from me.

“Marcus?” she asks. And then she’s running towards him. He doesn’t respond when she shakes him, and tears start to fill her eyes.

It takes a moment for me to figure out why I know the name Marcus, and then it clicks. I hadn’t immediately recognized the name because she usually just calls him her brother.

Marcus appears to be alive but his leg is twisted in a way that I know means it’s broken. He’s probably cracked a few ribs from the drop in the air too.

What have I done?

“I’m sorry, I—” I start, but I’m cut off by Emma’s glare, one of pure hatred.

“You monster,” she says. “You fucking freak. Are you possessed? How did you do this?”

I take a step forward but she’s on her feet, a pipe from one of the shelves I knocked down in her hands.

“Emma . . .”

“Don’t you take another step closer.”

“It’s okay,” I say. “It’s me. Cody.”

She shakes her head. Or maybe it’s just trembling—it’s hard to say. At her feet, her brother gurgles something unintelligible.

I take another step forward.

“Let me help you—”

And then she swings. The pipe connects with the side of my head and everything goes black.

When I wake up I’m in a car. A really
nice
car, all gray leather and touch screens. A man in a suit drives. I sit in the back passenger seat. Ethan sits beside me.

“Welcome back to the world of the living,” he says.

My head pounds. I raise my fingers to find a throbbing knot on the side of my skull.

“Emma . . .” I murmur.

“It was quite the swing. You’ve probably got a concussion. I can have one of my doctors look at you if you feel dizzy or off.”

“Where is she?”

“She stayed behind. Apparently one of the men was her brother. She called for help. I came in as soon as I heard there was trouble and took you. Didn’t want you getting hurt more or arrested or anything like that.”

I nod my head a little, but that just makes it hurt more. The pain makes it difficult to piece together everything that’s just happened. A hundred different places on my body hurt. My white T-shirt is stained with drops of blood. My Loric Chest . . . there’s a thump in my heart when I think of it. I look around the car. My dirty duffel bag sits at my feet on the floorboard. I reach for it, frantically ripping back the cover. The Chest is still there. I exhale.

Ethan continues. “So, you have a few tricks up your sleeve you hadn’t bothered to tell me about. No wonder the two of you were so good at the jobs I gave you.”

“She didn’t know,” I say.

I regret the words immediately. They’re an accidental admission of truth—that I do have powers. That I’m different.

But he knows that already. He saw what I did just as clearly as Emma did.

“Ah, that explains her reaction.”

A monster, she called me. I thought she was my friend.

I stare out the window, unsure of where we’re going. Maybe I should just roll down the window and fly out into the night. Find some other place to go. Start over again.

Maybe it’s time I finally do go back to Canada.

A question forms in my sore head: Is this what my life is going to be like now? Moving from place to place, with no idea of what I’m supposed to be doing? No way to find the other Garde. No way the Garde are going to find me. If they’re even looking for me. I could cause a scene or show off my powers, but the Mogs would probably have me killed before the Garde ever came out of hiding.

I wish there was another way.

“What were you to her? Partners? Friends? More than that?”

I roll this question around in my head for a moment, trying to see what he’s getting at.

“Friends,” I say. “I mean, I think we were.”

“A friend wouldn’t have reacted as she did, Cody,” he says, leaning back into his seat. “A friend wouldn’t have turned her back on you. I hate to say this, but I think it’s possible that Emma has been riding on your coattails, trying to get anything out of you that she could. Using you.”

I start to protest, but he raises a hand, stopping me from speaking.

“Do you know what you are to me?”

I shake my head slowly. “An employee?” I ask.

“Potential,” Ethan says. “Raw power. I am not a fool. I know talent when I see it, and I respect it. I’ve been all around the world. I’ve seen some pretty crazy, unexplainable stuff in my day. Stuff you wouldn’t believe even if I swore an oath on everything I hold dear and holy. I’ve seen men in Indonesia who can tell you your darkest secrets. Women in the Caribbean who can resurrect animals. Nothing surprises me. You don’t have to tell me about yourself or your history. But you don’t have to hide anything either. I’ll never look at you like you’re a freak. Whatever power or gifts you have, it means you’re stronger than most people, right? It means you’re someone who is going to endure. To survive. And that’s why you’re here now.” He gestures back and forth between us. “We have a lot to offer each other. If we worked together, we’d be unstoppable.”

“What about Emma?” I murmur.

“Emma has a family. Her foolish brother, yes, but parents and a home as well. You, on the other hand, are alone, aren’t you?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Cody, I run a very tight ship when it comes to my business. I do thorough background checks on everyone I work with. You, my boy, have been something of an anomaly.”

It occurs to me that he hasn’t seemed shocked at all by anything that’s happened. My powers, or Emma’s leaving.

“You’ve been following me.”

“You need to work on your stealth.” Ethan pushes his dark hair back behind his ears. “That’s something I can teach you. And from the looks of it, you could use quite a bit of hand-to-hand combat training as well. But most important is that ability you seem to have. You can move things around just by waving your hands.”

“Telekinesis,” I say.

What am I doing? I should go, should jump out of the car and disappear into the darkness.

But Ethan already knows. And I suddenly realize he’s the only friend I have now. The way Emma looked at me—I know there’s no going back to her now. I’d be surprised if she ever talked to me again. Besides, all this talk of training—maybe this is actually a really good thing. Ethan is obviously a powerful man. If he can train me to be like him, I can use that later. I mean, I can always leave, right?

“People like you and me are different, Cody,” Ethan says. “You’re special. I knew it the moment I met you on the beach. I could tell that you were the talented one of your little duo. You’re powerful, but I can help you become someone that people truly admire and respect. Would you like that?”

“Yes,” I say. I don’t even really have to think about it.

“Good,” he says with a smile. “We have a bright future ahead of us.”

The driver turns towards a towering wrought-iron gate. It parts, exposing a long driveway leading up to a house that looks like something out of a movie about Hollywood millionaires.