“What just happened, John? What is happening?”
“You were in a fire, and I got you out of it.”
“What you did isn’t possible.”
“It is for me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I look at her. I had hoped never to have to tell her what I’m about to tell her. Even though I knew it probably wasn’t realistic, I had hoped to stay hidden in Paradise. Henri has always said never to get too close to anyone. Because if you do, at some point they’re going to notice that you’re different, and that will require an explanation. And that means we have to leave. My heart is pounding, my hands are shaking, but not because I’m cold. If I have any hope of staying, or of getting away with what I did tonight, I have to tell her.
“I am not who you think I am,” I say.
“Who are you?”
“I am Number Four.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Sarah, it’s going to sound stupid and crazy, but what I’m about to say is the truth. You have to believe me.”
She touches her hand to the side of my face. “If you say it’s the truth, then I’ll believe you.”
“It is.”
“Then tell me.”
“I’m an alien. I am the fourth of nine kids sent to Earth after our planet was destroyed. I have powers, powers unlike any human, powers that allow me to do things like I did in the house. And there are other aliens here on Earth who are hunting me, the ones who attacked my planet, and if they find me they will kill me.”
I expect her to slap me, or laugh at me, or scream, or turn and run away from me. She stops and looks at me. Looks right into my eyes.
“You’re telling me the truth,” she says.
“Yes, I am.” I look into her eyes, willing her to believe me. She stares searchingly at me for a long moment, and then nods.
“Thank you for saving my life. I don’t care what you are or where you’re from. To me you’re John, the boy I love.”
“What?”
“I love you, John, and you saved my life, and that’s all that’s important.”
“I love you too. And I always will.”
I wrap my arms around her and kiss her. After a minute or so, she pulls away.
“Let’s go find you some clothes and get back so people know we’re okay.”
Sarah finds a change of clothes in the fourth car we check. They’re close enough to what I was wearing—jeans and a button-down shirt—that no one will notice the difference. When we reach the house we stand as far away as possible while still being able to see. The house has collapsed in on itself and is now nothing more than a twisted heap of blackened coals soggy with water. Wisps of smoke sporadically rise, looking ghastly in the night sky. There are three fire trucks. I count six cop cars. Nine sets of flashing lights but no sound to go with them. Few people, if any, have left. They’ve been pushed back, the house cordoned off with yellow tape. The police officers are questioning some of them. Five firemen stand in the middle of it all, sifting through the rubble.
Then I hear “There they are!” yelled from behind me. Every set of eyes in the crowd turns my way. It takes me a full five seconds to realize that it is me the person is referring to.
Four police officers walk towards us. Behind them is a man holding a notepad and tape recorder. While we were looking for the clothes, Sarah and I agreed on a story. I came around the back of the house where she was watching the fire. She had jumped out of the second-floor window with the dogs, who had run away. We had watched away from the crowd, but eventually drifted over and joined it. I explained to her that we couldn’t tell anyone about what happened, not even Sam or Henri, that if anyone found out the truth, I would have to leave immediately. We agreed that I would answer the questions and she would agree with whatever I said.
“Are you John Smith?” one of the cops asks me. The officer is of medium height, and stands with his shoulders hunched. He isn’t overweight but is far from being in shape, with a slight paunch and an overall look of softness.
“Yes, why?”
“Two people said they saw you run into that house and then come flying out the back of it like Superman, with the dogs and the girl in your arms.”
“Seriously?” I ask in disbelief. Sarah stays beside me.
“That’s what they said.”
I fake a laugh. “The house was on fire. Do I look like I was inside a burning house?”
He scrunches his eyebrows together and rests his hands on his hips. “So you’re telling me you didn’t go in there?”
“I came around the back to try and find Sarah,” I say. “She had gotten out with the dogs. We stayed back there and watched the fire and then came over here.”
The officer looks at Sarah. “Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“Well, who ran into that house, then?” the reporter beside him chimes in. It’s his first time speaking. He watches me with shrewd, judging eyes. I can already tell that he doesn’t believe my story.
“How do I know?” I say.
He nods his head and writes something in his notebook. I can’t read what it says.
“So you’re telling me these two witnesses are liars?” the reporter asks.
“Baines,” the officer says, shaking his head at him.
I nod. “I didn’t go into the house and save her or the dogs. They were outside.”
“Who said anything about saving her or the dogs?” Baines asks.
I shrug. “I thought that’s what you were implying.”
“I didn’t imply anything.”
Sam walks up with my phone. I try to fix him with a stare to tell him the timing is bad, but he doesn’t understand and he hands me my phone anyway.
“Thanks,” I say.
“I’m happy you’re okay,” he says. The officers glare at him and he slinks away.
Baines watches with his eyes squinted. He’s chewing gum, trying to piece the information together. He nods to himself.
“So you handed your phone to your friend before you went for a walk?” he asks.
“I handed him my phone during the party. It was uncomfortable in my pocket.”
“I bet it was,” Baines says. “So where did you go?”
“All right, Baines, that’s enough questions,” the officer says.
“Can I leave?” I ask him. He nods his head. I walk away with my phone in my hand, dialing Henri’s number with Sarah at my side.
“Hello,” answers Henri.
“I’m ready to be picked up,” I say. “There’s been a terrible fire here.”
“What?”
“Can you just pick us up?”
“Yes. I’ll be right there.”
“So how do you explain the cut on the top of your head?” Baines asks from behind me. He had been following me, listening to my call to Henri.
“I cut it on a branch in the woods.”
“How convenient,” he says, and again writes something in his notebook. “You know I can tell when I’m being lied to, right?”
I ignore him, keep walking away with Sarah’s hand in mine. We head over to Sam.
“I’ll find the truth, Mr. Smith. I always do,” Baines yells behind me.
“Henri is on the way,” I say to Sam and Sarah.
“What the hell was that all about?” Sam asks.
“Who knows? Somebody thinks they saw me run in, probably somebody who drank too much,” I say more at Baines than Sam.
We stand at the end of the driveway until Henri arrives. When he pulls up he steps out of the truck and looks at the smoldering house far off in the distance.
“Ah, hell. Promise me you weren’t a part of this,” he says.
“I wasn’t,” I say.
We get into the truck. He pulls away while looking at the smoking rubble.
“You guys smell like smoke,” Henri says.
None of us reply, making the drive in silence. Sarah sits on my lap. We drop Sam off first,
then Henri pulls out of the driveway and points the truck towards Sarah’s home.
“I don’t want to leave you tonight,” Sarah says to me.
“I don’t want to leave you either.”
When we arrive at her house I get out with her and walk her to the door. She won’t let go of me when I hug her good night.
“Will you call me when you get home?”
“Of course.”
“I love you.”
I smile. “I love you too.”
She goes inside. I walk back to the truck, where Henri is waiting. I have to figure out a way to keep him from finding out the truth about tonight, from making us leave Paradise. Henri pulls out and drives home.
“So what happened to your jacket?” he asks.
“It was in Mark’s closet.”
“What happened to your head?”
“I hit it trying to get out when the fire first started.”
He looks over at me doubtfully. “You’re the one who smells like smoke.”
I shrug. “There was a lot of it.”
“So what started it?”
“Drunkenness is my guess.”
Henri nods and turns down our road.
“Well,” he says. “It will be interesting to see what’s in the papers on Monday.” He turns and looks at me, studying my reaction.
I keep silent.
Yes, I think, it most certainly will be.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I CAN’T SLEEP. I LIE IN BED STARING THROUGH the darkness at the ceiling. I call Sarah and we talk until three; I hang up and lie there with my eyes wide-open. At four I crawl out of bed and walk out of the room. Henri sits at the kitchen table, drinking coffee. He looks up at me, bags beneath his eyes, hair tousled.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I couldn’t sleep either,” he says. “Scouring the news.”
“Find anything?”
“Yes, but I’m not sure what it means to us yet. The men who wrote and published They Walk Among Us, the men we met, were tortured and killed.”
I sit across from him. “What?”
“Police found them when the neighbors called after hearing screams coming from the house.”
“They didn’t know where we lived.”
“No, they didn’t. Thankfully. But it means the Mogadorians are getting bolder. And they’re close. If we see or hear anything else out of the ordinary, we’re going to need to leave immediately, no questions asked, no discussion.”
“Okay.”
“How’s your head?”
“Sore,” I say. It took seven stitches to close the cut. Henri did it himself. I’m wearing a baggy sweatshirt. I’m certain one of the cuts on my back needs stitches as well, but that would require me to take my shirt off, and how would I explain the other cuts and scrapes to Henri? He’ll know for sure what has happened. My lungs still burn. If anything, the pain has grown worse.
“So, the fire started in the basement?”
“Yes.”
“And you were in the living room?”
“Yes.”
“How did you know it started in the basement?”
“Because all the guys came running up.”
“And you knew everyone was out of the house by the time you went outside?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
I can tell he’s trying to get me to contradict myself, that he’s skeptical of my story. I’m certain he doesn’t believe that I merely stood out front watching like everyone else.
“I didn’t go in,” I say. It pains me to do so, but I look him in the eye and I lie.
“I believe you,” he says.
I wake close to noon. Birds are chirping beyond the window, and sunlight is pouring in. I breathe a sigh of relief. The fact that I was allowed to sleep this late means that there was no news to incriminate me. If there had been, I would have been pulled from bed and told to pack.
I roll off my back and that’s when the pain hits. My chest feels as though somebody is pushing down on it, squeezing me. I can’t take full breaths. When I try there is a sharp pain. It scares me.
Bernie Kosar is snoring in a ball at my side. I wake him by wrestling with him. He groans at first, then wrestles back. That is the beginning to our day. Me rousing the snoring dog beside me. His wagging tail, his dangling tongue immediately make me feel better. Never mind the pain in my chest. Never mind what the day might bring.
Henri’s truck is gone. On the table is a note that reads: “Ran to the store. Be back at one.” I walk outside. I have a headache and my arms are red and splotchy, the cuts slightly raised as though I’ve been scratched by a cat. I don’t care about the cuts, or my headache, or the burning in my chest. What I care about is that I’m still here, in Ohio, that tomorrow I’ll be going back to the same school I’ve gone to for three months now, and that I will see Sarah tonight.
Henri gets home at one. There is a haggard look in his eyes that tells me he still hasn’t slept. After he unloads the groceries he goes into his bedroom and closes the door. Bernie Kosar and I go for a walk in the woods. I try to run, and I’m able to for a little while, but after a half mile or so the pain is too great and I have to stop. We walk on for what must be five miles. The woods end at another country road that looks similar to ours. I turn around and walk back. Henri is still in his room with the door closed when I return. I sit on the porch. I tense every time a car passes. I keep thinking one of them will stop, but none of them do.
The confidence I felt when I woke up is slowly chipped away as the day wanes. The Paradise Gazette isn’t printed on Sunday. Will there be a story tomorrow? I suppose I expected a call to arrive, or the same reporter to show up at our doorstep, or one of the officers to ask more questions. I don’t know why I’m so worried about a small-time reporter, but he’d been persistent—too persistent. And I know he didn’t believe my story.
But nobody comes to our house. No one calls. I expected something, and when that something doesn’t come, a dread creeps in that I’m about to be exposed. “I’ll find the truth, Mr. Smith. I always do,” Baines said. I consider running into town, trying to find him to dissuade him from any such truth, but I know that would only encourage suspicion. All I can do is hold my breath and hope for the best.
I wasn’t in that house.
I have nothing to hide.
Sarah comes over that night. We go to my room and I hold her in my arms, lying on my back on the bed. Her head is against my chest and her leg is draped over me. She asks me questions about who I am, my past, about Lorien, about the Mogadorians. I’m still amazed at how quickly, and easily, Sarah believed everything, and how she’s accepted it. I answer everything truthfully, which feels good after all the lies I’ve told over the last few days. But when we talk about the Mogadorians, I start to get scared. I’m worried that they’ll find us. That what I did will expose us. I would do it again, for if I didn’t Sarah would be dead, but I’m scared. I’m also scared of what Henri is going to do if he finds out. Though he is not biologically, for all intents and purposes he is my father. I love him and he loves me and I don’t want to disappoint him. And as we lie there, my fear begins to reach new levels. I can’t take not knowing what the next day will bring—the uncertainty is sawing me in two. The room is dark. A flickering candle burns on the window ledge a few feet away. I take a deep breath, which is to say, as deep a breath as I can take.
“Are you okay?” Sarah asks.
I wrap my arms around her. “I miss you,” I say.
“You miss me? But I’m right here.”
“That’s the worst way to miss somebody. When they’re right beside you and you miss them anyway.”
“You’re talking crazy. She reaches up and pulls my face to hers and kisses me, her soft lips on mine. I don’t want her to stop. I don’t ever want her to stop kissing me. As long as she is, then everything is fine. Everything is right. I would stay in this room forever if I could. The world can pass by without me, w
ithout us. Just as long as we can stay here, together, in each other’s arms.
“Tomorrow,” I say.
She looks up at me. “Tomorrow, what?”
I shake my head. “I don’t really know,” I say. “I guess I’m just scared.”
She flashes a confused look at me. “Scared of what?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Just scared.”
When Henri and I get home after dropping her off I go back into my bedroom and lie in the same spot where she was. I can still smell her on my bed. I won’t sleep tonight. I won’t even try. I pace the room. When Henri goes to bed I walk out and sit at the kitchen table and write under candlelight. I write about Lorien, about Florida, about the things that I’ve seen when our training first began—the war, the animals, childhood images. I hope for some sort of cathartic release, but there isn’t one. It only makes me sadder.
When my hand cramps I walk out of the house and stand on the porch. The cold air helps ease the pain of breathing. The moon is nearly full, a side of it ever so subtly shaved away. Sunrise is two hours away, and with that sunrise comes a new day, and the news of the weekend. The paper falls on our doorstep at six, sometimes six thirty. I’ll already be at the school by the time it arrives and, if I’m in the news, I refuse to leave without seeing Sarah again, without saying good-bye to Sam.
I walk into the house, change clothes, and pack my bag. I tiptoe back through and quietly close the door behind me. I take three steps on the porch when I hear a scratching at the door. I turn around and open it and Bernie Kosar comes trotting out. Okay, I think, let us go together.
We walk, stopping often, standing and listening to the silence. The night is dark but after a while a pale glow grows in the eastern sky just as we enter the school grounds. There are no cars in the lot and all the lights are off inside. At the very front of the school, in front of the pirate mural, sits a large rock that has been painted by previous graduating classes. I sit on it. Bernie Kosar lies in the grass a few feet away from me. I’m there for half an hour before the first vehicle arrives, a van, and I assume it’s Hobbs, the janitor, arriving early to get the school in order, but I’m wrong. The van pulls up to the front doors and the driver gets out and leaves it idling. He’s carrying a stack of newspapers bound by wire. We nod at each other and he drops the stack by the door and then drives off. I stay on the rock. I glance contemptuously at the papers. In my mind I’m hurling curses at them, threatening them to deliver the bad news I’m terrified of.
I Am Number Four ll-1 Page 22
