Not wanting to take any chances, I swat the rock down with my telekinesis. It lands about twenty yards in front of us and immediately explodes, the red energy from the charged pinecone shredding Daniela’s stone carapace. We get hit with a few pebbles, but it’s otherwise harmless. I’m not sure what the blast would’ve been like if Daniela hadn’t muffled it.

“There!” Sam yells, pointing at the edge of the woods.

I see her too. The frail-looking Japanese girl from the video. She stands where the trees thin out, close to the river, shin-deep in water. She must’ve been hiding before and popped out of cover as we approached. There’s a cut above her eyebrow, and blood trickles down the side of her face. She’s scuffed up, and, on her arms, I can see the telltale burns from Mogadorian blasters. She stares at us, uncertain.

Then she quickly bends down and grabs a handful of rocks from the river. In her hands, these all start to glow.

“Don’t do that!” I shout as the girl jerks her arms back like she’s going to throw.

“Easy, Ran! Easy!” shouts a second voice. It’s the punk-looking British kid who filmed the video that brought us here. Nigel, I think his name was. He darts out of the trees, splashes through the shallow water, and grabs Ran around the waist.

Ran breaks from her attack trance when Nigel grabs her and lifts her up. The stones slip free from her hands and splash into the water. A few heartbeats later, a half dozen geysers of water explode upwards where the stones detonated.

“She makes grenades,” Sam says. “That should be useful.”

“That’s badass. Why couldn’t I get that one?” Daniela complains, rubbing her head.

Holding Ran with one arm now, Nigel waves at us. The other two—Bertrand and Fleur—cautiously emerge from the trees. They both hold Mogadorian blasters. I get a weird feeling of nostalgia looking at this ragtag group. Is this what we used to look like after surviving those early skirmishes?

“Good afternoon, alien allies!” Nigel yells cheerily, advancing towards us ahead of the others. “Bloody took you long enough.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“MARINA, I NEED YOU TO CALM DOWN.”

Probably a bad choice of words. I realize that immediately.

“Don’t tell me to calm down, John,” she replies hotly. “I wake up. I don’t know where I am. And this—this bastard is the first thing I see?”

The lethally sharpened icicle still hovers an inch from Five’s good eye. I could try to use my powers to bat it down, but it’s fifty-fifty that I could either disarm her or accidentally shove the ice right through Five’s face during the struggle. Five must know this too. He doesn’t move at all, as frozen as Marina’s weapon, his hands splayed at his sides to show he’s unarmed. Unarmed and totally naked, actually.

“You’re safe,” I tell Marina.

“Forgive me, but it does not seem that way,” Marina replies.

I glance over my shoulder. Behind me, farther down the hall, there’s a dozen heavily armed soldiers. Their guns aren’t raised. I don’t think they know what to make of this scene, but they’re still not a very welcoming sight. Nine stands a few feet ahead of them, his arms crossed, his mouth closed. I shouldn’t expect him to stick up for Five. In fact, it’s probably a show of restraint on Nine’s part that he isn’t cheering Marina on.

“We’re in a secret military base outside of Detroit,” I explain to Marina, keeping my tone neutral. “You were hurt in the battle with Setrákus Ra. I healed you, and you’ve been resting.”

“Then Setrákus Ra is still alive.”

“Yes,” I reply. “Six hurt him badly, though. He hasn’t made good on those attacks yet. We’ve got time, not much, but enough to plan our next move. . . .”

“And what about this one?” The icicle bobs in front of Five’s face for emphasis. Five flinches, the icicle dips dangerously close in response and he goes rigid once again.

“We captured Five in New York. He’s our prisoner.”

“He doesn’t look like a prisoner.”

“He was helping me with something. He’s going back to his cell now. Right, Five?”

Five’s eye flicks briefly in my direction. He swallows hard and cautiously leans his head back so that he can nod. “Yes,” he says quietly.

Marina sneers when he speaks. She turns to look at me, and I can see that, mixed with the rage and confusion that came on when seeing Five, she wants to trust me.