“Do you have any idea . . . ?”
He trails off, but I know what he’s getting at.
“She called me when it all started,” I say. “Told me to go home. Then there was some kind of . . .” I struggle with the word. “Loud noise. An explosion maybe. I’m not sure. I had no idea what was going on. Didn’t realize what was happening until I got home and saw your boy John on the news beating up on that big alien guy. Citrus Ramen or whatever.”
“Setrákus Ra.”
“Or whatever,” I repeat. “Anyway, I haven’t had a signal or anything since then. I’m sure she’s fine. She’s tough. Well, not really. She’s the nicest, most loving person ever. But she’s a survivor.”
Sam looks like he wants to say something, but I’m so physically and mentally and emotionally tired that I just hold a hand up and walk away. If we keep talking about this, I’m going to break down.
“Daniela—,” Sam starts.
“Here, nerd,” I say, holding a granola bar I’ve just found on the ground out to him, cutting him off.
He looks at it for a second.
“Wait. Why am I a nerd? Why does everyone assume that?”
I shrug. “Just a guess. You’ve got that vibe coming off of you.”
He looks like he’s about to protest, but he doesn’t. Instead, he takes the snack. “You don’t like these?”
“No,” I lie.
I stretch and yawn. Sam does too like it’s contagious. I’m so exhausted that I’m wondering if I could use my newfound powers to float myself back to the car where John is.
“We should head back,” Sam says. “Get some sleep. We’re no good if our energy’s zapped.”
“I can’t believe I’m about to sleep in a subway car.” I wonder what Mom would say.
“There’s a whole other half of the train we haven’t gone through. We can hit it in the morning. Then we should get aboveground and see . . .”
He doesn’t finish. I don’t ask what he’s wondering. I’ve got too many questions of my own going through my head. Too many grisly images of what might be happening on the surface.
I shake my head. We start back the way we came.
“You were at the UN earlier?” I ask.
“Yeah. It was crazy.”
“How come I didn’t see you fighting?”
“Hey, I was doing my best,” he says. “Besides, I didn’t have these Legacies yet. And I haven’t exactly trained with guns that much.”
“Legacies?” I ask. “John used that word when we were on the street. Is that what you call the telekinesis and his light-up hands?”
“Yeah.”
I twist my lips a bit. “It’s kind of a dumb name. Wait—oh shit—did someone die for me to get these? Did I inherit, like, alien ghost powers? That’s messed up.”
“Uh, I don’t think so,” Sam says. “I mean, I think they’re passed down from those Elders I mentioned earlier for John and the Loric, but as far as we’re concerned . . .” He shrugs.
“So you don’t have any idea why we were chosen?” I ask as we step across the gap between two cars. “What’s so special about us?”
He shakes his head, and I can tell that this has been on his mind.
“Man,” he says, “I’ve been asking myself that all day. Honestly, until we met you I thought I was the only one.” His voice gets a little quieter. “I thought maybe I was being rewarded for helping the Loric.”
“Well, I sure as hell wasn’t being rewarded for anything, unless this is some kind of weirdo prize for finally getting my grades up in school.” I think about this for a second. “Guess that really doesn’t matter anymore.” Harlem and the diner and my apartment seem so far away. Was I really sulking over headphones earlier today?
“Whatever the reason, I’m going to use them.” Sam nods as he talks, like he’s telling me the most important thing in the world. “Now I can finally help everyone else. I won’t be stuck on the sidelines. I can protect my friends. I can protect the planet.”
“Right,” I say. John’s whole pitch from earlier comes back to me. About how I should use these powers to help him win a war. Sam’s obviously on board. “Maybe it’ll be you on TV fighting aliens next time.”
He smiles a little bit.
“Maybe. I don’t know that I’ll ever look like John when I fight, though. He’s a hero.” He sounds so genuine when he says it. There’s such awe and respect in his voice.
It makes me wonder.
“Are you two, like . . . a thing?”
Sam looks confused for a second. Suddenly he understands what I’m asking.
“We’re . . .” He hesitates. “Best friends I guess? We both have . . .” He pauses again. “Girls,” he finally says, a little awkwardly.
I stare at him for a few seconds. Then I shrug. “Because it’s totally cool if you are.”
“We’re not a thing.”
“I know. You both have . . .” I pause dramatically. “Girls?”
Sam rolls his eyes and jumps across into the car we left John in. He’s still out, snoring a little.
“It’s just a complicated situation. His girlfriend is with her ex-boyfriend right now trying to expose the Mogs. They’re the ones who made that video you saw. They’ve got some mysterious hacker friend on their side who’s helping them uncover classified government info. And my . . . the girl I’ve been . . . Oh man, I’m not sure what Six is doing right now. She’s in Mexico looking for a Loric sanctuary.”
“Your girlfriend’s name is ‘Six’?” I ask. “Weird.”
Sam looks up at me. “That’s what’s weird to you out of all of this?”
I shrug, and then let out a massive yawn.
“I know,” Sam says with a smirk. “Intergalactic space wars and the fate of the world are so boring.”
“Shut up,” I say, trying not to yawn again.
“With so many tunnels caved in, I doubt anyone’s going to be down here looking for us, but we should probably sleep in shifts just in case,” he says. “I’ll take first watch and wake you when I start to fall asleep.”
“I guess. You sure you won’t just immediately pass out on me?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve got granola bars and . . .” He pulls a crumpled plastic bag out of the tote. “Someone left their entire comic shop haul down here.”
“Yep. Nerd.”
He kinda grins, then gets a sad look on his face.
“Hey,” he says quietly. “I hope your mom’s all right. My dad . . . He was missing for a long time. There were days I thought I’d never see him again. Logically it made sense to move on, but I never really gave up hope. Eventually we were reunited. I’m not saying it’s the same thing, obviously. But you just have to keep fighting and believing. You have to honor the person who’s not there with your actions.” He shakes his head. “Sorry, I’m really tired. I think I’m rambling now.”
“Thanks,” I murmur. “For real.”
I ball up the fake Prada bag and use it as a pillow on one of the benches, turning away from Sam and John, my face almost touching the back of the subway seat. I’m too tired to even care about how gross it is to be lying here. Instead, now that it’s finally quiet and I’m not running or foraging for snacks and left-behind electronics, all I can think about is her. The uncertainty. Sam’s words repeat in my head. Tears start to come, silent and pooling on the seat in front of me. They take away my last drop of energy, and before I know it I’m asleep.
CHAPTER TEN
I WAKE UP WITH A START. TURNS OUT FIGHTING aliens all night and then sleeping on a gross subway bench doesn’t make for the best sleep. Half-realized nightmares about Mom linger in my head as I get over the initial shock of waking up in a strange place. My eyes burn from lack of sleep, and the pounding in my head is back. For some reason I think of school when we had to read The Iliad and learned about Greek gods and stuff. I remember that one of the goddesses broke out of her dad’s skull. Aphrodite, maybe? Or Athena? Whoever it was, that’s how my head feels: like someone’s
taking a bat to the inside of it, trying to get out.
It’s weird the thoughts that cross your mind when you wake up on a stalled train with an alien and his super-powered human sidekick.
The subway car is pitch-black except for the faint glow of a cell phone in Sam’s hands. He’s sitting straight up in one of the seats, passed the eff out. A handful of comic books have slid onto the floor in front of him. So much for keeping watch or waking me up.
I get up and stretch and walk over to him. There’s drool coming out of one corner of his mouth. I wonder how he can sleep so soundly with everything that’s going on, but I guess he’s had more time to process the idea of aliens being real than I have. I slip the phone out of his hand, which doesn’t get any kind of reaction from him at all. I probably couldn’t wake him up if I tried.
The cell phone tells me it’s just after 5 a.m. I don’t know if the sun would be up aboveground yet. Don’t even know if there is a sun still, actually. I turn the phone’s flashlight on and wave it around our car. John hasn’t moved. I keep the light on him long enough to make sure his chest is still moving up and down before turning my attention to the big duffel bag of cash sitting under the bench I slept on. I haven’t actually looked through the bag, so I unzip it, in case there are weapons or something inside we can use. I find myself looking down at more money than I’d ever know what to do with. I pick up a wad of hundreds and think about what this money would have meant just twenty-four hours ago. Everything. And now . . . who knows? The future seems so uncertain.
The money’s the only thing in the bag.
I stand, spreading a fat stack of cash out into a half circle and then fanning myself with it as I try to figure out how far away I am from Canal Street or whatever the next subway station is. But I don’t know where I’m at. Not for certain. My light falls on the closed train doors. I could just leave now. Take my bag and go. These guys would be fine without me. It’s not like when the tunnel was falling in around us. They’d wake up and move on. Keep fighting.
Keep fighting.
Sam’s words. Maybe it’s because I only got a few hours of sleep, or maybe it’s because evil aliens attacked our city—whatever it is, I suddenly feel so lost and alone. So much so that I almost shake Sam to try to wake him. I could just pretend to be ragging on him because he fell asleep.
But he needs his rest. They both do.
Regardless of whether I go out on my own or stay with them, I’m going to need some supplies. Even if I have a dozen phones on me, if I get lost in the tunnels I don’t want to risk being stuck with a bunch of dead batteries. So I pocket the cash and start down the other half of the train that Sam and I didn’t get to. It’s pretty much the same scene as the cars we explored last night. A lot of trash on the floors. A couple of purses and grocery sacks every now and then with usable supplies. I find a few more phones and two giant Whole Foods bags full of groceries—probably a hundred bucks’ worth. My stomach growls. I dig out a jar of almonds and eat them by the handful as I continue.
Three cars into my search, I find a small blue book bag on one of the seats. There’s a baggie of baby carrots and an applesauce pouch in the front pocket. The big zipper compartment holds a stuffed animal and some picture books. This is some elementary school kid’s bag. Maybe even a preschooler. Left behind when the train stopped for whatever reason.
Suddenly I don’t feel so hungry anymore.
I take a seat with the bag in my lap, feeling a little woozy.
I try to shine the light of the phone out the window, but it just reflects off the glass. There’s nothing but darkness waiting for me outside, and the idea of going through the dark tunnels by myself seems crazy.
But then, everything seems crazy now. I concentrate on the book bag. It floats away from me and bobs in the air. I look down at my hands. This power. What am I supposed to do with it? I realize now that I’ve been running—mostly literally—ever since I first took out the Mogs with my telekinesis. I haven’t had time to just sit and think about what all of this means. What my next steps are. I’ve had such tunnel vision about getting down to Mom’s restaurant that I haven’t let myself consider what happens if she’s not there. That hasn’t really even been a possibility.
What would I give to go back to the diner eating waffles? To walk with Mom right now? I’d even be nice to Benny—would see him in a whole new light. How does life get so messed up so fast? Yesterday morning I was just a normal girl. My biggest concern was getting some new headphones. And now . . . now everything’s different. I’m different. I’m powerful. And the world is falling apart.
But maybe I can help stop that. I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to do.
Honor the person who’s not there with your actions.
My hands start to shake and I make the kid’s bag return to my lap, where I hug it tightly. I wonder what its owner is doing now. I hope to God that he’s safe. Maybe the kid and his parents made it to the Brooklyn safe zone John and the guy on the radio talked about.
Brooklyn. I try to put things into perspective. This whole time I’ve been counting on Mom being down at her restaurant. Hiding. Safe. But realistically, that’s not what she’d be doing, right? Not if she survived. She’d come looking for me. She’d try to make her way up to Harlem. She could be anywhere.
Or maybe she was taken to Brooklyn against her will. If she was hurt, they might have sent her there. Or if the army finally showed up they might have forced everyone to evacuate. She was pretty close to the Brooklyn Bridge at work. Maybe she’s there now, waiting for me.
Maybe Brooklyn is actually my best shot at finding my mom.
And John and Sam can help me get there.
I realize that I’ve started rocking in the seat, and at that moment the last place I want to be is all by myself in an abandoned subway car, alone with my thoughts. I’ve got to get moving again. If the sun’s not up yet—if it’s still there—it will be soon. A new day’s starting; my mom will be wondering where I am.
I stand up, putting the little blue book bag on the bench carefully. Then I take a deep breath, gather up the rest of the stuff I’ve found and return to the car where my new weirdo friends are sleeping.
When I get back I try to sit still and wait for the boys to wake up on their own. I check the battery power on some of the cell phones I’ve collected, leaving a few fully charged ones on to try to make the inside of the train car feel less depressing. After a minute or two, though, I start to worry that they’re both going to sleep all morning, and I’m too fired up to get going again to wait for that. So I cough a few times and chuck the fake Prada purse onto the seat over by John’s head.
He bolts straight up.
“You’re alive,” I say. I don’t have to fake my smile.
John seems groggy, but that doesn’t keep him from going pretty much straight into another recruitment speech after giving me some shit for having a duffel bag full of money, as if I’m some kind of common thug. Like he even knows me. I don’t know where he gets off with this “I know everything you should be doing with your life” tone. He gets all serious and tells me about how he was too young to fight back when the Mogs came for his planet, but that I’m not and can make a difference on Earth. The words make sense. Maybe if I wasn’t so scared about Mom and the aliens and everything I’d jump at this chance. I don’t know. It’s hard to process right now.
John’s not as smart as he thinks he is. He doesn’t even know about the YouTube video of him they’ve been showing on the news, and he gets the dopiest look on his face when I tell him about it.
Eventually he wakes Sam up and tells us we should get moving. Before I agree to come along or even ask where they’re going, I want to know everything he does about what’s happening in Brooklyn.
“You mentioned getting some people out of New York. . . .”
“Yeah,” John says. “The army and the police have secured the Brooklyn Bridge. They’re evacuating people from there. At least, they were last night.”
I nod. In my head, I try to figure the odds of where Mom could be. But it’s all just guesswork. I could try to make it down to her restaurant alone, or I could go to Brooklyn with two dudes who can move stuff with their minds and shoot fireballs and see if she’s there first.
It would be nice not to be alone in this search. Especially if there are still Mog squads roaming the streets.
“I’d like to go there,” I say, getting to my feet. “Maybe see if my mom made it.”
“All right.” He gets a smile on his face like he knew I was going to ask something like that. I roll my eyes and start for the door. What a punk.
“We should head that way too,” he says.
“Whatever,” I murmur, even though a wave of relief crashes over me when he says this. I don’t know that either of them heard me. That doesn’t really matter. I’m glad they’re coming along, that I don’t have to go alone.
Sam yells at me not to forget my duffel bag. I lock eyes with John, ready for him to give me some spiel about how this money should go towards Earth’s war fund or something. I know I said similar stuff to Jay about this earlier, but I do not need a lecture from John Smith about—
“Use your telekinesis,” he says, pointing at the bag. “It’s good practice.”
Okay, maybe he’s not such a Boy Scout after all. I shoot him a grin and head out the doors, the bag floating after me. Today is going to be different. Today I’m going to find Mom and we’re going to pick up the pieces.
I’m one step out of the train car when I see guns pointed at me. My hands go up, and I’m ready to scream and use my telekinesis. Then I realize the guns aren’t like the Mog blasters. These are human guns, held by human soldiers.
Oh shit, I’m under arrest. Earth’s going to shit and I’m going to prison for taking money I technically didn’t even steal.
“Whoa, whoa,” I say as I step back into the train, using my powers to try to hide the bag under one of the seats.
I see John move out of the corner of my eye. His hands are on fire.
“Wait,” Sam says. “They aren’t Mogs.”