Six's Legacy

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Two days pass. In the dark of my cell I now have more than madness and boredom to contend with. I must also work to burn the image of a bloody and broken Katarina from my mind. I want to remember Katrina as I know her: wise and strong.

I continue with my breathing exercises. They help.

But not much.

Eventually the cell door opens, and again I’m doused with cold water, gagged this time, blindfolded, and dragged back to the same cell. Once I’ve been chained to the ceiling, my blindfold is removed.

Katarina is right where I last saw her, as broken and battered as before. I can only hope she’s been let down at some point.

The same Mog as before sits across from us, on the edge of the desk, a bandage across his sliced cheek. I can see he is straining to be as menacing as he was before. But he regards us with a new fear.

I hate him. More than anyone I have ever met. If I could tear him apart with my bare hands I would. If I couldn’t use my hands, I would rip him apart with my teeth.

He sees me looking at him. He leaps forward suddenly, tearing the gag from my mouth. He wields the rubber-handled razor in front of my face again, twisting it, letting the ceiling light dance across its edge.

“I don’t know what number you are . . . ” he says. I cringe involuntarily, expecting him to try and cut me again, but he holds back. Then, with sadistic deliberateness, he crosses over to Katarina, pulling on her hair. Still gagged, she manages only a whimper. “But you’re going to tell me right now.”

“No!” I scream. He grins with satisfaction at my anguish, like he’s been waiting for it. He presses the blade to Katarina’s arm and slides it down her flesh. Her arm opens up, pouring blood. She buckles against her chains, tears flooding her face. I try to scream but my voice gives out: all that comes out is a high, pained gasp.

He makes another cut beside the first, this one even deeper. Katarina succumbs to the pain and goes limp.

With my teeth, I think.

“I can do this all day,” he says. “Do you understand me? You’re going to tell me everything I want to know, starting with what number you are.”

I close my eyes. My heart burns. I feel like a volcano, only there’s no opening, no outlet for the rage filling up inside of me.

When I open my eyes he’s back at the desk, tossing a large blade from his left hand to his right hand and back. Playfully, waiting for my gaze. Now that he’s got it, he holds the blade up so I can see its size.

It begins to glow in his hands, changing colors: violet one second, green the next.

“Now . . . your number. Four? Seven? Are you lucky enough to be Number Nine?”

Katarina, barely conscious, shakes her head. I know she’s signalling me to keep silent. She has kept her silence this long.

I struggle to keep quiet. But I can’t handle it, can’t watch him hurt my Katarina. My Cepan.

He walks over to Katarina, still wielding the blade. Katarina murmurs something beneath her gag. Curious, he lowers it from her mouth.

She spits a thick wad of blood onto the floor by his feet. “Torturing me to get to her?”

He eyes her hatefully, impatient. “Yes, that’s about right.”

Katarina manages a scornful, slow-building laugh. “It took you two whole days to come up with that plan?”

I can see his cheeks turn red at the well-aimed jab. Even Mogadorians have their pride.

“You must be some kind of idiot,” she howls. I thrill at Katarina’s impudence, proud of her defiance but afraid of what the consequence will be.

“I have all the time in the galaxies for this,” he says flatly. “While you are in here with me, we are out there with the rest of you. Don’t think anything has stopped us from moving forward just because we have you. We know more than you think. But we want to know everything.”

He cruelly strikes Katarina with the butt of the knife before she can speak again.

He turns to me.

“If you don’t want to see her sliced into little pieces, then you better start talking, and fast. And every single word that comes out better be true. I will know if you’re lying.”

I know he isn’t playing games, and I can’t bear to see him hurt Katarina again. If I talk, maybe he’ll be merciful. Maybe he’ll leave her alone.

It comes out so fast I barely have time to order my thoughts, so fast I barely know what I’m saying when I say it. I have one intention, but it’s a murky one: to tell him everything I know that he can’t use against me or the other Loriens. I tell him pointless details about my previous journeys with Katarina, our previous identities. I tell him about my Chest, but I don’t give its burial location, claiming it was lost in our journey. Once I start talking I’m afraid to stop. I know that if I pause to measure my words he will smell my deceit.

Then he asks me what number I am.

I know what he wants to hear: that I am number Four. I can’t be Three, or else they would have been able to kill me. But if I’m Four then all he’ll need is to find and kill Three before he can begin his bloody work on me.

“I am Number Eight,” I say finally. I am so scared I say it, with a desperate, cringing sigh, that I know that he’s fooled. His face falls.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” I croak out.

His disappointment is short-lived. He begins to beam, victorious. I may not be the number he wanted, but he got my number out of me. Or what he thinks is my number.

I search out Katarina’s eyes, and though she is barely conscious, I can see the faintest hint of gratitude in her eyes. She is proud of me for giving him the wrong number.

“You really are weak, aren’t you?” He stares at me with contempt. Let him, I think. I feel a surge of superiority over him: he was dumb enough to believe my lie.

“Your relatives on Lorien, as easy as they fell, at least they were fighters. At least they had some bravery and dignity. But you . . .” He shakes his head at me, then spits on the floor. “You have nothing, Number Eight.”

At that, he raises his arm with the blade and thrusts it, deep into Katarina. I hear the sound of bone cracking, of the knife pushing through her sternum, right into her heart.

I scream. My eyes search out Katarina’s. She meets my gaze for one last instant. I will myself past my chains towards her, struggling to be there for her in her last moment.

But her last moment goes fast.

My Katarina is dead.