I Am Number Four: The Lost Files: Return to Paradise

by Lore, Pittacus

  It’s a little past 8 a.m. when Sarah comes outside, and I feel so supercharged with happiness and relief. She’s still here. They’ve let her go. Maybe this will end up all right after all.

  Sarah looks a little scared, and it’s my first instinct to jump out and sprint straight to her. Instead, I drive along beside her as she walks down the street.

  “Sarah,” I say as I pull up to the curb. The whites of her eyes are red, like she’s been crying recently. “Get in.”

  “My parents are coming,” she says. “They came to the station when they realized I wasn’t at home and stuff was going crazy outside, but the agents at the front desk made them go back home—threatened to have them arrested if they stayed around asking questions about what happened. I told them to pick me up at the grocery store down the street so they wouldn’t have to come back in. They’re going to have so many questions.”

  “Tell them I’m taking you home.”

  “My cell phone’s gone.”

  “You can use my mine,” I say, leaning over and opening the passenger-side door.

  After a short phone call—lots of “I’ll explain in five minutes when I’m home”—she hands me back my phone and lowers her head into her hands.

  “What are you going to tell them?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. I’ll figure something out. Maybe I can tell them I need some sleep before we talk.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “No,” she says through her fingers. “John came back. I got super emotional and weird with him because I was feeling so crappy about everything before he just magically showed up, and then the FBI tackled me. I don’t know where John is now, and I am officially pegged as a person who is somehow connected to all this. I’ve been sitting in an interrogation room for the last three hours.”

  “What’d you tell them?”

  “Nothing,” she says. “It was that Walker agent and a few other people. Noto. And some guy named Purdy.”

  I note the name—the agent GUARD talked to on the phone. Is he the one in charge of everything going on in town?

  Sarah continues.

  “They wanted to know why John came to see me, and I told them it was because we made out a few times before he went crazy and he probably thought that I’d do it again if he showed up and threw pebbles at my window like we were in some kind of rom-com. I just pretended to be dumb.”

  “And they believed that?”

  “No, I don’t think so. But they let me go, at least. They have John. I think that’s all they really cared about. They just told me to make sure I didn’t leave town or there’d be trouble.” She shakes her head. “I’m on a freaking no fly list they said, as if I’d try to skip the country or something.”

  “Shit.”

  “I know.” Sarah pulls the edge of her gray sweater over her fingertips. “I feel so stupid. This is my fault.”

  “No, it’s mine. My dad saw the text you sent. I shouldn’t have let that happen.”

  She looks surprised about this for a second—even happy that what happened last night might not have been her fault. Then her face falls.

  “They were probably watching me anyway. I should have told him, but instead I just ran outside. I was so happy to see him.”

  “You don’t know that they had eyes on you.”

  “I don’t know what they’ve done with him,” she says. Her voice is about to crack. “John . . .”

  “I think he’s in Dumont. There’s some kind of FBI facility near the state border.”

  “What?!” she practically shouts, jumping in her seat and straining against the seat belt. “We have to go. I have to talk to him. I have to explain to him that I didn’t—”

  “No way, Sarah. You were just held and interrogated for being caught with him. You may not realize this now, but they could have arrested you for helping a criminal. The dude is on the most-wanted list, Sarah. I’m not taking you to an FBI prison so you can get yourself in more trouble. It’s not what he would want.”

  The words come spilling out of me. Suddenly I’m hearing John’s voice in my head. That I have to make sure she’s kept safe. And right now, that means keeping her as far away from the Loric and the Mogs as I can.

  “Besides,” I say, softening up a little. “He has superpowers. Do you really think he’s going to stay locked up for long?”

  “I guess you’re right. Sam was with him, but Six wasn’t. She’ll track them down if he’s in trouble, I bet.”

  “I’m sure. She’s one girl I’d hate to have mad at me.”

  Sarah scowls a little, but I can’t decipher what the expression means.

  “I’ve got to buy a new phone,” she says. “Or try to get mine back from the FBI.” She gets quieter. “Like that’ll ever happen.”

  “You should buy a burner phone.”

  “A what?”

  “You know,” I say. “Like they have in shows about drug dealers and stuff. A prepaid cell phone. You know the FBI’s going to be tracking every text message and call you get on your old number.”

  “God. Are we like drug dealers now?” she asks, staring out the window of my truck like I’ve watched her do a thousand times. “How is this our lives?”

  “Don’t blame me,” I say. “Blame the impending war for our planet between the humanoid aliens and shark-faced bastards with magical swords.”

  When I drop her off, her parents are waiting on the front porch. I watch as their expressions run the gamut from worried, to relieved, to furious, then some weird mixture of all of them. I stay in the truck, but her dad makes sure to shoot me a glare that tells me in no subtle way that he’s blaming me for whatever happened to his daughter. After all, I’m the party-loving ex they had to pry her away from over the summer to begin with. My chest falls a little. Maybe dropping her off wasn’t the best idea. Her cell phone’s gone. If I’m lucky, she’ll be able to keep her computer for “study purposes.” Otherwise, there’s no way the Harts are letting me see or talk to their daughter.

  It’s late in the afternoon when I finally hear back from Dad, who’s been at work since he caught me in his office. He calls while I’m deep into researching a series of crop circles a few counties west of us, though I’m pretty sure that they’re just hoaxes and have nothing to do with actual aliens.

  “Hi,” I say when I answer the phone. I’m not sure whether to expect to be yelled at or apologized to. Probably the first one.

  Instead, I hear a long sigh on the other end of the line.

  “Oh, thank God,” Dad says.

  He sounds so relieved—what did he think had happened to me?

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Where are you?”

  “At home.”

  “Good. Have you talked to Sarah?”

  “Not since this morning.”

  “Listen.” He pauses for a moment and then starts talking quieter. “Stay where you are. You can’t leave the house. I assume the agents took Sarah’s phone away from her for evidence, but if you can, get her a message telling her to stay put too. She’s a good girl. I always liked her. She shouldn’t be wrapped up in all this.”

  “Dad, what’s going on?” My imagination is suddenly going wild and picturing Mogadorian ships landing all over Paradise—though I have no idea what they would even look like.

  “I can’t really say. But something’s happened that’s causing the FBI to go crazy. It’s possible there might be one or two people we recently detained who are now unaccounted for. Seems like some weird stuff is going on over in Dumont where they were taken. I just want to make sure neither of you kids got any bright ideas of running away with your classmates if they wandered back through town.”

  John and Sam. They’ve escaped.

  That didn’t take long.

  “I’ll stay here, Dad.”

  Even as I say my good-byes, I’m on my computer, emailing Sarah.

  Her response is an entire page of exclamation marks.

  GUARD is the next person I cont
act. I’ve told him that one of my friends was brought in for questioning and that one of the Loric has been taken into custody. He’s happy to hear that John has escaped.

  GUARD: AWESOME news. We need more good aliens out there.

  JOLLYROGER182: DEF!

  GUARD: I guess this means we know who the Feds are working for.

  JOLLYROGER182: what do u mean?

  GUARD: If the FBI was working with the Loric, he wouldn’t have had to escape, right?

  I lean back in my chair. He’s right. Of course he’s right. If the FBI took John into custody and interrogated Sarah after the fact, they definitely aren’t working on our side.

  JOLLYROGER182: shit

  GUARD: You said it was Agent Purdy who was in on the investigation?

  JOLLYROGER182: and some others. a woman named Walker too

  GUARD: Sounds like it’s time for me to amp up my investigation into Purdy.

  JOLLYROGER182: i thought u said u found everything you could

  GUARD: There are other ways.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SARAH AND I GET OUR FIRST CHANCE TO TALK together at school the next day. The FBI—in a rare moment of kindness—didn’t inform Sarah’s parents about the events of Saturday night, so for all they knew, Sarah had just been out way past her curfew and got caught up in the attempt to catch wanted-criminal John Smith. As part of her punishment, she’s on a strict schedule: one that includes bus rides to and from Helena High and no more quality time with me. It’s a bummer, but it’ll pass.

  I’m waiting near the entryway of the school pretending to be interested in reading a book for English class when she arrives. We lock eyes, and I motion my head towards the deserted hallway that leads to the back of the school’s auditorium.

  “Hey,” she says. She seems in good spirits, which is a vast improvement over the last time we spoke.

  “Hey yourself,” I say. “How you holding up?”

  “I’m on complete parental lockdown right now, but other than that I’m okay.” She looks away from me. “No word from You Know Who.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that. From what I can gather, they made a clean getaway.” And then I realize what she means. John escaped but didn’t contact her. He didn’t come back for her. “Oh, but . . . I’m sure he’s thinking about you?”

  It’s by far more of a question than a statement.

  “It’s cool. I’ve had a lot of time to think it over while barricaded in my room. Of course he didn’t come for me. It’s not like I can just leave my family and go gallivanting across the world fighting aliens—or whatever it is he’s doing. And dropping by again to see me just puts me in danger. I’m sure when the time is right, he’ll come back for me.”

  Great. It’s possible that a part of me was hoping that this whole “questioned by the FBI about my arrested boyfriend” thing would snap some sense into Sarah. Looks like I’ve got more waiting to do.

  “I just wish there was some way we could figure out what their next move is.”

  Something clicks in the back of my head. I see a way for me and Sarah to spend some time together.

  “You’ve got no absences in art after lunch, right?” I ask.

  “Right.” Her voice has a hint of suspicion in it. “It’s only our second week here.”

  “Good. We’re going to try to gather some intel.” Her face scrunches in confusion. I smirk. “An explosion at the Goodes’ house the same night John’s in town. Can’t be a coincidence, can it?”

  “Of course not,” she says. Her lips start to morph into a mischievous smile.

  “That’s not something you sleep through. I bet Mrs. Goode saw some stuff. Maybe she even got to talk to Sam. I mean, you know she’s been worried about him. Maybe he gave her some idea about where they were going.”

  “And what do we do about art class?”

  I shrug. “We had a flat tire at lunch. You’re allowed a few unexcused absences. Where’s your sense of adventure, Sarah Bleeding Heart?”

  She lets out a laugh.

  “Don’t you dare tell me I’m trying to lead a boring life.”

  At lunch, we leave hell and travel back to Paradise.

  Sam’s house is on the outskirts of town, and I stick to all the back roads I can—the last thing I need right now is to run into my dad when I’m supposed to be lifting weights twenty minutes away.

  We ring the doorbell a few times and loiter on the porch, but no one’s around. I peer through the front windows and some lacy curtains, but there don’t appear to be any lights on inside.

  After five minutes, we make our way around the back of the house, where I see exactly why the police rushed out to the Goodes’ place. Half the backyard is scorched. It looks like a little well or something has been blasted to pieces. There’s a huge window that’s been blown out and covered with some kind of plastic tarp. It gives me sudden flashbacks of the way campus looked during the Mog attack.

  “They were definitely here,” Sarah says, coming up beside me.

  “There’s no evidence of this being other than a fire, though. No weapons or anything like that. Everything must have been taken away.”

  “The cleanup crew is thorough.”

  I nod, and we walk over to the truck, defeated. I’m ready to drive back to Helena when Sarah sees it.

  “Mark,” she whispers.

  She’s pointing at something in the passenger-side mirror. We turn in tandem, and I immediately see what’s caught her eye. There’s a black car parked in the middle of the road about a football field away. Unmoving. The windshield is so tinted that I can’t even tell if anyone’s inside or not.

  “That car . . . ,” I start.

  “Doesn’t look friendly.” Sarah finishes my thought.

  I put my truck in gear and start driving, my eyes locked on the rearview mirror, hoping that the car will stay put.

  It doesn’t.

  “Mark,” Sarah says.

  “I know.” My foot presses harder on the gas. I tell myself this is just a coincidence, but there’s no way I can talk my brain into believing that.

  “It’s gaining on us,” Sarah says. She’s completely twisted around in the seat, her hands gripping the headrest.

  I glance down at my speedometer. I’m already going sixty in a thirty, but I speed up even more.

  “SHIT!” Sarah shouts, and I look in my rearview mirror again just in time to see the front bumper of the car disappear under my tailgate.

  The car gives me a fairly light love tap—probably not enough to cause any damage but enough for me to feel it, and to rattle me pretty hard. It lets up a little, but it’s still trailing me by only a few feet. Instinctively, I speed up. The car does the same.

  “Get back under your seat belt,” I yell at Sarah, who’s wiggled out of it to keep her eyes locked on the car.

  “What do we do?” she asks.

  My mind races. I can’t slow down. Luckily, the street we’re on is fairly straight, but there’s a curve coming up I’ll never be able to take at this speed.

  “I don’t know,” I mutter. I’m pushing ninety and rising, but the car’s not letting up. I can barely make out someone behind the wheel—just a big black blob vaguely in the shape of a human. I wonder for a second if it’s a Mog or an FBI agent or some new type of alien we didn’t even know existed, because that’s a very real possibility at this point.

  “What do they want?” I ask.

  “Obviously to murder us,” Sarah shouts. She grips her seat.

  We’re approaching the curve in the road when the car suddenly zips into the oncoming traffic lane and revs up beside me until we’re speeding along parallel to one another. The tinting on the car windows make it impossible to see anything but the reflection of the outside world—like the car is some sort of automated machine out for blood without an actual driver inside.

  Sarah gasps. “Crap! Is it going to—”

  I see what she’s guessing at a split second before it happens. I slam on my brakes. Sarah
screams. The black car whips into my lane, missing the hood of my truck by what looks like inches. I can feel my antilock brakes pumping beneath my foot as the bed of my truck starts to slide to the right.

  “HOLD ON!” I shout, bracing myself with one hand on the wheel and one gripping Sarah’s arm—as if I’m going to be able to hold us in place if we start to roll. I can feel the truck start to fall over.

  But we don’t roll. The truck tips, then shudders, and finally comes to a stop after spinning a quarter turn. Smoke from my tires drifts through the air around us, filling my nose with the stench of burned rubber. Every muscle in my body is contracted, and I can already tell that I’m going to have some kind of bruise where my body’s been thrown against the seat belt.

  There’s no sign of the black car. It’s disappeared around the curve.

  “Are you okay?” I ask Sarah, who looks at me and nods. Her hair’s been thrown over her face, and her eyes are wide. She wriggles a little, and I realize I’ve got a viselike grip on her. I let her go. My fingers feel stiff.

  I put the truck into park and start to shake a little, adrenaline rushing through me.

  Ahead of us, the black car appears, stopped at the head of the curve in the road.

  “Mark,” Sarah says. “Get us out of here.”

  And then there’s smoke coming from the car’s wheels as it peels out. It careens straight for the passenger side of my truck.

  I flip the truck into reverse to try and get us off the road, but I’m too slow. There’s no way we’re getting out of the way in time.

  And then, at the last second, the car swerves to the right and misses us completely, then continues to barrel down the deserted road as I stomp on the gas and back up as fast as possible. I end up slamming into a thin, tall tree. It falls over with a crack. Splintering.