Return to Paradise

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

BEFORE I LEAVE NANA’S I PUT A FEW NOTES ON my desk. If I’m caught, there’s a chance I’ll be shoved into a black van and never see the light of day again. That’s how the FBI and Mogs work, right? If that’s the case, I don’t want my family thinking that I ran away because of them or something. I want them to know that I didn’t just abandon them for no reason.

And if possible, that they should probably get out of Paradise too. This town is getting too dangerous. I leave a separate note addressed to Mom, telling her I’m sorry I haven’t called and that she should bring Dad and Nana up to Cleveland. That way they’ll be together, and out of Mog central.

I hope they don’t have to read the notes.

I set up an automatic blog post too with my draft from earlier on what had really happened at Paradise High. If I don’t log in and adjust the post time—if I get taken away—it will go live in a week. Maybe others can learn from what I knew. Maybe they’ll be able to find Sarah if I can’t.

I park my truck in an alley near the station where I can just see the front doors through a chain-link fence. There are a couple of agents milling about inside, but that’s all I can see. I message GUARD, who is acting as a diversion for me, calling one of the phone lines the FBI has commandeered and reporting to whoever answers that a teenager with glowing hands and the power to move things with his mind just entered a truck stop outside of town. Whatever he says, it must be convincing, because the agents fly out of the station, jumping into their black SUVs and disappearing down the dark streets. I wonder briefly if Dad’s being called in. I hope he’s in good enough shape to put himself together, if he has.

An agent stays at the front desk, but I’ve figured out a way around that already. There’s a window in the men’s bathroom with a latch that’s been broken since I was a kid. I remember once a rookie cop locked himself out of the station and got stuck climbing through it. But I’m more athletic than he was, and after crossing the street and skulking around to the side of the station, I’m bracing my arms against a porcelain sink as I pull the rest of my body inside, careful to close the window as softly as I can with my foot.

I’m in. Now I just have to stay hidden.

I walk out into the hallway where the bathrooms and some closets are and peek around the corner. There are a few rows of desks between me and the agent at the front, who seems glued to a computer screen. Dad’s office is across the station, twenty yards away. Just two first downs, I tell myself. It’s a cakewalk.

I’m halfway across the station when my dad’s office door opens.

It takes half a second for me to slam onto the floor and roll under a desk, where I hold my breath and try to fight off the trembling in my hands. I must have been fast enough, because the two men who walk out of the office don’t stop talking.

“I’m telling you, the situation here is under control,” a man’s voice says with a slight wheeze. “My agents are—”

“If things were really under control, Four couldn’t walk in and out of this backwoods town as if it was his own private warship,” the other man bellows, his voice like a bass drum. “I never should have left Paradise to someone who couldn’t handle it. From now on my soldiers will be taking over here.”

I flatten myself on the floor and press my face up against the bottom of the desk, which offers me an inch or two of room to see through.

“That’s not necessary,” the wheezy man says. His face is pink and piggish, with a big, busted nose that looks like he’s been tackled one too many times. I recognize him from the photo GUARD and I had found online: Purdy. At least that means Dad’s office is empty if they leave. If they stay—well, I’m completely screwed. The other man is a behemoth. He’s at least seven feet tall, with jet-black hair pulled back into a ponytail that disappears beneath his black coat. From the back, he’s a wall of a man. A mountain.

“Your usefulness wears thin, Purdy,” he says. “Don’t let it wear out completely.”

The giant of a man takes a step forward, then pauses. He turns his face to the back of the station, towards me, as if he’s heard something. The man’s eyes are almost completely black. They reflect the buzzing fluorescent lights overhead.

I’m looking at a Mogadorian. I’d recognize those terrifying black eyes anywhere. I don’t breathe. If I could stop my heartbeat, I would in order to keep him from discovering me.

But he turns away, barking at Purdy.

“Take me to Number Four,” he says.

He means John, I think. I’ve only got a few minutes before they realize the report is a sham.

As soon as the station door shuts, I roll out from under the desk and tiptoe across the room. Fortunately, the agent at the front desk is trying to make himself look as busy as possible, and he types loudly on the keyboard, giving me at least a tiny bit of noise cover.

Luck stays on my side: my dad’s keys still work.

Once I’m standing in Dad’s office, I allow myself a second or two to exhale and get my shit together, though the fact that I almost got caught and probably just saw a high-ranking Mog is hard to get past. The office has changed quite a bit since I was in it last, when Dad was dragging me out the night John was taken in. There are a few big boxes sitting in one corner that look like they’re full of all the files and papers that used to litter the place when it was my dad’s. The desk is tidy now—compulsively so—which is great for me because it means less to sort through.

I take a seat in the chair behind the desk and rifle through some of the papers and files. They don’t tell me anything. It’s all memos and bulletins that are the kinds of things that go up on the FBI website—public information. I’m looking for something a little more secretive than that.

Purdy’s laptop is sleek and black, like something out of a spy movie. I open it up while removing a piece of paper from my pocket that’s got all the things GUARD found written on it. Sure enough, the computer is password protected. I type in the one GUARD pegged as Purdy’s main access code and, just like that, I’m in. I’m on an FBI computer.

“God bless you, GUARD,” I whisper.

The desktop is littered with files. At the bottom of the screen are a few applications. I open up Purdy’s email, figuring if anything, it might be the easiest way of getting info on Sarah. The first password GUARD handed over is a bust, but the second one gets me in.

I type Sarah’s name into the search bar so fast that I misspell it twice. Finally, it goes through, bringing back over fifty emails containing her name. I shudder to think how many times my name might pop up in these emails, but that’s not what I’m here to find out. I sort through the newest ones first until I hit the jackpot.

Detainee Hart has been transferred to the facility at Dulce.

Dulce. I recognize the name immediately from back issues of They Walk Among Us and old posts on the blog. It’s a name that pops up all the time—a secret government base where weird stuff is supposedly always going down. A small-scale Area 51.

Sarah is being held in Dulce. New Mexico. Half a country away.

I have to go to New Mexico.

I start looking through other emails when I hear the station door slam shut, followed by a string of curses from what sounds like Purdy’s voice.

Shit. Sitting in front of me is a wealth of information—maybe enough to change the tide of the battle between the Loric and the Mogs. A battle that will decide what happens to Earth. I was hoping to have more time on the computer, then just to sneak out and let Purdy think I was never there. If I leave now, I can try to find Sarah and figure out what else is going on between the FBI and the Mogs on my own. But if I take the computer, if I steal this FBI laptop, maybe I can be the hero. With GUARD’s help, I can crack everything on the hard drive. Who knows what all we might learn. Sarah can help, once I’ve saved her. If this laptop has good intel on it, maybe I can save everyone.

And wouldn’t Sarah be impressed by that?

“Fuck it,” I say, pulling the power adapter out of the wall and taking the computer under my arm.

As Purdy berates the agent at the front desk, I unlock one of the windows to Dad’s office and slip out. In a flash, I’m in my truck, shooting through the alley. I take one last look at the station as I drive away. Purdy’s still in the front. Good. Maybe I’ll have a while before he realizes what’s happened.

Just enough time to leave Paradise.