Return to Paradise (8 page)

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Authors: Pittacus Lore

Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #Survival Stories, #Science Fiction, #Love & Romance, #Short Stories

BOOK: Return to Paradise

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When I turn back around, there’s a guy standing outside my door.

CHAPTER TWO

HE’S TALL AND GAUNT, MAYBE A FEW YEARS
older than me, with a shock of black hair that hangs in front of his face. It looks like he’s just been in a fight, dirt and sweat smudged across his pale face. I stare at him, wide-eyed—it’s been so long since I’ve seen another person. He looks almost equally surprised to see me.

There’s something off about him. Something not quite right.

The slightly too pale skin. The darkness around the edges of his eyes. He’s one of them.

I back up farther into my cell, hiding the empty water bucket behind my back. If he comes in here, I’m going to clock him with all the strength I have left.

“Who are you?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady.

“We’re here to help,” the guy replies. He sounds uncomfortable, like he doesn’t know what to say.

Before I can ask who he means by “we,” a man shoves
him aside. There are deep lines on his face, which is covered by a scruffy growth of beard. My mouth hangs open in disbelief and I take another step back into my cell, startled again, but this time for a different reason. I don’t know why I expected him to look like the pictures hanging in our family room, but it’s just the way I always imagined this moment. Years have passed, yet underneath the deep crevices I still recognize this man, especially when he smiles at me.

“Dad?”

“I’m here, Sam. I’m back.”

My face hurts and it takes me a moment to realize why. I’m smiling. Grinning, in fact. It’s the first time I’ve used those muscles in weeks.

We hug through the bars, the metal pressed uncomfortably into my ribs, but I don’t care. He’s here. He’s really here. I’d fantasized about the Garde coming to rescue me. Never in my wildest dreams did I think my father would be the one saving me from this place. I guess I always thought that I’d be the one rescuing him.

“I—I’ve been looking for you,” I tell him. I wipe my forearm across my eyes; that strange Mogadorian is still hovering nearby and I don’t want him to see me cry.

My dad squeezes me through the bars. “You’ve grown up so much,” he says, a note of sadness in his voice.

“Guys,” the Mog interrupts, “we have company.”

I can hear them coming. Soldiers pouring into the cell
block from below, their boots rattling the gangway as they run up the metal stairs towards us. Finally, I’ve found my dad, he’s right here in front of me, and it’s all about to be ripped away.

The Mogadorian pulls my dad away from my cell door. He turns to me, his voice commanding.

“Stand in the center of your cell and cover your head.”

My instinct is not to trust him. He’s one of them. Except why would one of the Mogadorians bring my father here? Why would he try to help us? There’s no time to think about that now, not with other Mogadorians—ones I can guarantee aren’t here to help—closing in.

I do as he ordered.

The Mogadorian reaches his hands through the bars of my cell, focusing on the wall behind me. Maybe it’s because I was just thinking about them, but for some reason, I’m reminded of those early days when we tested John’s Legacies in the backyard. It’s something about the way this Mogadorian focuses—the determination in his eyes undermined by shaking hands, like he doesn’t quite know what he’s doing.

I feel something pass through the floor beneath me, like a ripple of energy. Then, with a piercing crack, the wall behind me crumbles. A piece of the ceiling shakes loose, smashing my toilet. The floor shifts and moves beneath my feet, and I’m thrown to the ground. It’s like the entire block of cells has been hit by a tiny earthquake. Everything
is tilted. My stomach turns over, and it’s not entirely due to the shaky floor. It’s fear. Somehow, that Mogadorian just knocked down a wall with his mind. It was almost as if he was using a Legacy.

But that’s impossible, right?

Outside my cell, my dad and the Mogadorian have been knocked backwards against the gangway’s railing. The door of my cell is cockeyed now, the metal warped and bent. There’s enough space for them to squeeze through.

As the Mogadorian pushes my dad towards the door of my cell, he points to the opening in the wall behind me.

“Go!” he shouts. “Run!”

I hesitate for a moment, glancing at my dad. He’s already squeezing through the bars. I reassure myself that he’ll be right behind me.

I cough as some of the dust from the destroyed wall enters my lungs. Through the opening in the wall I can see the inner workings of the base; pipes and ventilation shafts, clumps of wiring and insulation.

Wrapping my legs around one of the larger pipes, I start shimmying down. Pins and needles shoot through my weakened legs and for a moment I’m worried that I’ll lose my grip and slip. But then the adrenaline kicks in and my grip tightens. Escape is so close, I have to push myself.

I see my dad’s shadow in the opening above me. He’s hesitating.

“What’re you doing?!” my dad shouts at the Mog. “Adam?”

I hear the Mogadorian—Adam—reply, his voice resolute. “Go with your son. Now.”

My dad starts climbing down after me, but I’ve stopped. I’m thinking about what it was like to be left behind in one of these places. Mogadorian or not, this Adam guy just broke me out of jail and reunited me with my father. He shouldn’t have to face down those soldiers alone.

I call up to my dad. “We’re just going to leave him?”

“Adam knows what he’s doing,” my dad answers, but his voice sounds unsure. “Keep moving, Sam!”

Another vibration strikes, nearly shaking me loose from the pipe. I look up to check on my dad, just as another shock wave jostles loose the gun he’s been carrying in the back of his pants. I’m clinging too tightly to the pipe to catch it and the weapon goes plummeting into the darkness below.

“Damn it,” he grunts.

The Mogs must have closed in on Adam and he’s fighting back. Shortly after the shock wave comes a metallic rending sound, a sound that can only be the gangway coming apart—I can picture it tearing loose from outside the cells, the whole structure crumbling with it. A couple loose bricks tumble down from above, and Dad and I both duck until it’s safe again.

At least Adam’s giving them a fight back there. But we
need to move fast before he brings the place down on top of us.

I keep shimmying down. The space inside the walls is tight, a claustrophobic’s worst nightmare, with screws and loose wires ripping at my clothes.

“Sam, up here. Help me with this.”

My dad stopped in front of a ventilation shaft that I hadn’t noticed. I slip a little when I climb back up, but he reaches down to steady me. Together, we hook our fingers through the metal grate and yank it loose.

“This should lead us outside.”

No sooner are we army-crawling through the shaft than a massive explosion rocks us. We stop moving as the metal duct creaks and whines, both of us braced for the whole thing to collapse, but it holds.

We can hear screaming and sirens through the walls of the base. The fighting that I heard before has only intensified.

“Sounds like a war out there,” my dad says, crawling forward again.

“Did you bring the Garde?” I ask him, hopefully.

“No, Sam, it was just Adam and me.”

“Pretty amazing timing, Dad. You and the Garde all manage to show up at the exact same time?”

“I think this family was due for some good luck,” my dad replies. “Let’s just be thankful for the distraction and get the hell out of here.”

“It’s them fighting out there. I know it. They’re the only
ones bold enough to attack a Mogadorian base.” I pause, forgetting about the danger for a moment, a giddy smile exploding onto my face as I realize my father just broke into a Mog base. “Dad,” I say, “I’m so glad to see you and everything, but you have so much explaining to do.”

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