Five's Legacy

CHAPTER SEVEN

INSTEAD OF WAITING FOR EMMA 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.”