The Fall of Five (I Am Number Four) (32 page)

“I guess I’d say this place is going significantly downhill,” Teev said. “They’re letting
teachers
in now?”

“Bad luck, dude.” Paxton laughed. “All that trouble to get in here and now you’re going to get busted.”

“Come on man. Don’t laugh. How about helping me out?” When they just looked at each other skeptically, I gave a sheepish shrug. “Please?”

Teev tossed her hair and rolled her eyes amiably. “Okay. You got it, little dude,” she said, patting my face. It was kind of humiliating, but what could I do? “We’ll take care of you,” she promised. “Get your ass out of here.”

I watched for a second as Teev and Paxton approached Endym and the woman he was dancing with and inserted themselves between the dancing pair. Teev danced off with Endym; Paxton danced off with Endym’s partner.

When I was sure they’d reeled Endym in, I took my chance. I slid through the crowd, keeping my head low to avoid being seen.

I was almost home free when someone shouted at me. “Hey!” I looked back, startled, to see an angry face and a guy shoving toward me. I had accidentally knocked the guy’s ampule to the floor as I’d pushed past him, and he wasn’t happy.

The last thing I needed was to be caught in a fight on the dance floor. I picked up speed and ran for the edge of the stage, where I groped the dark corner and found a small door.

Of course it was locked.

“Hey! You!” shouted the guy whose drink I’d spilled. He was getting closer. “You’re gonna replace that!”

I jiggled the handle furiously. When it didn’t budge, I gave up on trying to be cool and began throwing myself against the door, hoping that with enough force—and a little luck—it might give.

The dude was getting closer, still shouting. What a jerk—making this kind of scene over one spilled drink? All over the room, heads were turning toward me. I’d be caught any minute.

One last try. With all of my force I threw myself against the small door.

This time, it gave.

THE FORCE OF MY WEIGHT SENT ME TUMBLING
blindly into the room on the other side of the door. I tripped across the floor, crashing through layers and layers of fabric. I tripped and fell, my head hitting the ground with a snap.

Then I heard a voice. A
girl’s
voice. “Now
that’s
funny.”

As I lay there, I realized that what I’d crashed into was a rack of clothes. Women’s clothes. Now I was lying in a heap of them on the floor. I looked like I’d gotten caught in an explosion of rhinestones and sequins.

Standing above me, a guy in black metallic pants and a collarless shirt was struggling to lock the door I’d just busted through.

“Yeah, funny,” he was saying sarcastically. “I love it when underage pipsqueaks come barging into the dressing room.”

I stood up sheepishly and tried to gather up the pile
of dresses I had knocked loose. This really was not how I’d imagined my night going.

“So. So.
Funny
.” I spun around to see a girl with electric-white hair sitting on a low stool in the corner of the room. She was wearing a tiny pair of shorts and was in a crouching position. She was drawing on herself with some kind of makeup pen, marking her bare calves with an elaborate pattern of swirls and curlicues.

“No,” I said.

I probably should have apologized. Or at least explained myself. But I couldn’t. I was too starstruck. All I could say was
no
.

“Oh,
yes
,” she said, still drawing on her leg. She leaned down closer to the serpentine markings, pursed her lips, and blew up and down her calf, drying the ink.

It couldn’t be. But it
was
.

It was Devektra.

Most people on Lorien probably would have had no idea who she was. But I’m not most people, and I’d been listening to Devektra’s music for months. For people in the know, she was
the
most buzzed about Garde performer on Lorien. With her striking beauty, her wise-beyond-her-years lyrics—because she was practically a kid herself, only a little bit older than me—and her unusual Garde legacy of creating dazzling, hypnotic light displays during her performances, it was all
but certain she was going to be a huge star before long. She was already well on her way.

“What, you’ve never seen a girl putting makeup on her legs before?” she said with a twinkle in her eye.

I tried to regain my composure. “You must be the top-secret performer,” I finally managed to say, stumbling over practically every word. “I’m, um, a big fan.” I cringed as I said it. I sounded like a total loser.

Devektra appraised her legs, then stood up and looked at me like she didn’t know whether to be angry or to laugh. In the end, she split the difference. “Thanks,” she said. “But you know, they lock those doors for a reason—to keep big fans
out
.”

Stepping forward, she threw her arms theatrically around my shoulders and pulled my ear right up next to her mouth. “You gonna tell me what you’re doing in my dressing room?” she whispered. “I don’t need to call security, do I?”

“Um,” I stuttered. “Well, see, it’s like this. . .” I searched my brain for an explanation and couldn’t think of one. I guess I’m a lot better at hacking software than I am at talking to girls. Especially hot, famous ones.

Devektra stepped back and looked me up and down with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “You know what I think, Mirkl?” she asked.

“What?” the guy I’d practically forgotten about asked
in a bored voice. Honestly, he sounded like he was kind of sick of Devektra.

“
I think
,” she said slowly, “that this little fellow’s
way
too young to be here. It looks to
me
like he was about to get kicked out for being underage and snuck in here looking for a place to hide. We’ve got a lawbreaker on our hands. And you know how I feel about lawbreakers . . .”

I looked at the floor. Now I was
definitely
busted. This wouldn’t be the first time I was in trouble for something like this. Or the second. This time, though, the consequences would definitely be serious.

But Devektra surprised me.

A grin spread across her face and she began to giggle. This girl was sort of crazy, I was starting to suspect. “I love it!” she said. She narrowed her eyes and wagged a scolding finger at me. Her nails were glittering in every color of the rainbow. “Such a naughty little Cêpan.”

For the second time in just a few seconds, she’d caught me by surprise. “How do you know I’m a Cêpan?” I asked.

Like the majority of public figures on Lorien—athletes, performers, soldiers—Devektra was a Garde. I was a Cêpan. An elect group of Cêpans were mentor Cêpans, educators of the Garde, but most of us were bureaucrats, teachers, businesspeople, shopkeepers,
farmers. I wasn’t sure which kind I’d turn out to be after school was finished, but I didn’t think any of my choices seemed too great. Why couldn’t I have been born a Garde and get to do something actually
fun
with my time?

Devektra smirked. “My third Legacy. The dull one I don’t like to mention. I can
always
tell the difference between Garde and Cêpan.”

Like all Garde, Devektra had the power of telekinesis. She also had the ability to bend and manipulate light and sound waves, skills she used in her performances and which had made her the rising star she was. That was a pretty rare power already, but the third Legacy that she’d just mentioned, to be able to sense the difference between Garde and Cêpans, was one I’d never heard of at all.

For some reason, I felt self-conscious. I don’t really know why—there’s nothing wrong with being a Cêpan, and although I’d often thought it seemed like a lot more
fun
to be a Garde, I’d never felt insecure about who I was before.

For one thing, I’m not usually a very insecure person. For another thing, that’s just not how it works around here. Though Garde are revered as a collective—a “treasured gift” to our planet—there was a widespread conviction, shared by Garde and Cêpan alike, that the Garde’s amazing abilities belonged not to them alone, but to
all
of us.

But standing there, faced with the most beautiful girl
I’d ever seen, a girl who was about to go onstage and demonstrate her amazing talents for everyone at the Chimæra, I suddenly felt so
ordinary
. And she could see it. She was Devektra,
the
Devektra, and I was just some stupid, underage Cêpan with nothing going for him. I didn’t even know why she was bothering with me.

I turned to go. This was pointless. But Devektra caught me by the elbow.

“Oh, cheer up,” she said. “I don’t care if you’re a Cêpan. Anyway, I’m just kidding, thank the Elders. What a boring third Legacy
that
would be. My
real
third Legacy is much more exciting.”

“What is it?” I asked suspiciously. I was starting to feel like Devektra was messing with my head.

Her eyes glittered. “Isn’t it obvious? I make men fall in love with me.”

This time, I knew she was pulling my leg. I blushed, suddenly realizing the truth. “You read minds,” I said.

Devektra smiled, impressed, as she leaned back against Mirkl, who looked less than amused. “Mirkl,” she said. “I think he’s starting to get it.”

Excerpt from I Am Number Four: The Lost Files: The Search for Sam

DISCOVER THE WHEREABOUTS OF FORGOTTEN ALLIES!

I DON’T KNOW IF I CAN
.

I’m too weak to speak, so I don’t say it out loud. I merely think it. But One can hear me. She can always hear me.

“You
have
to,” she says. “You have to wake up. You have to fight.”

I’m at the bottom of a ravine, my legs twisted beneath me, a boulder pushed uncomfortably between my shoulder blades. A stream laps against my thigh. I can’t see anything because my eyes are closed, and I can’t open my eyes because I don’t have the strength.

But to be honest, I don’t want to open my eyes. I want to give up, to let go.

Opening my eyes means facing the truth.

It means realizing that I have been washed onto a dry riverbank. That the wet I feel on my legs is no river. It’s blood, from a compound fracture of my right leg,
the bone now jutting out of my shin.

It means knowing that I’ve been left for dead by my own father, some seven thousand miles from home. That the closest thing I have to a brother, Ivanick, is the one who nearly killed me, pushing me brutally off the edge of the steep ravine.

It means facing the fact that I am a Mogadorian, a member of an alien race bent on the extermination of the Loric people and the eventual domination of Earth.

I clench my eyes shut, desperately trying to hide from the truth.

With my eyes still closed, I can drift off to a sweeter place: a California beach, my bare feet digging into the sand. One sits beside me, looking at me with a smile. This is One’s memory of California, a place I’ve never been. But we’ve shared the memory for so long during that three-year twilight that it feels as much mine as hers.

“I could stay here all day,” I say, the sun warm on my skin.

She looks at me with a soft smile, like she couldn’t agree more. But when she opens her mouth to speak, her words don’t match her expression: they’re harsh, stern, commanding.

“You can’t stay,” she says. “You have to get up.
Now
.”

My eyes open. I’m in my bed in the volunteers’ sleeping quarters at the aid camp. One stands at the end of the bed.

As in my dream, she’s smiling, but now it isn’t a sweet smile. It’s a teasing smirk.

“God,” she says, rolling her eyes. “You sleep a lot.”

I laugh, sitting up in bed. I
do
sleep a lot lately. It’s been seven weeks since I pulled myself out of the ravine and other than some residual weakness in my right leg, I’ve made a full recovery. But my sleep schedule hasn’t adjusted: I’m still sleeping ten hours a night.

I look around the hut and see that all the other beds are empty. My fellow aid-workers have already risen for morning chores. I get to my feet, wobbling briefly on my right leg. One smirks again at my clumsiness.

Ignoring her, I slip into my sandals, throw on a shirt, and exit the hut.

Outside, the sun and humidity hit me like a wall. I’m still sticky from sleep and I’d kill for a shower, but Marco and the other workers are already elbow-deep in morning chores. I missed my chance.

The first hour of the day is devoted to housekeeping around camp: cooking breakfast, doing laundry, cleaning dishes. After that, a jeep will pick some of us up and take us deeper into the village. We’re currently working on a water project there, modernizing the town’s antiquated well. The others will stay behind in
the classroom next to camp, teaching the village children. I’ve been trying to learn Swahili, but I’ve got a ways to go before I’ll be ready to teach.

I bust my ass at the camp. It gives me great pleasure to help the villagers. But mostly I work as hard as I do out of gratitude.

After dragging my busted body out of the ravine and a quarter mile through the jungle, I was eventually discovered by an elderly villager. She mistook me for an aid-worker, my cover while tracking down Hannu, Number Three. She went to the camp and returned an hour later with Marco and a visiting doctor. I was brought back to camp on a makeshift stretcher; the doctor reset my leg, stitched it up, and put me in a cast I’ve only recently shed.