Read Lorien Legacies: The Lost Files for Free Online Page B

crazier. On the other hand, if you forget your mission, if you try to maintain your sanity by not thinking about the matter at all, you can find your mind wandering in such dizzying patterns that you wind up, again, at madness. The trick is to forge a middle ground between the two: a detachment, a state of neutrality.
    I focus on my breathing. In, out. In, out.
    When I’m not stretching or doing push-ups in the corner, this is what I do: just breathe.
    In, out. In, out.
    Katarina calls this meditating. She used to try to encourage me to do meditation exercises to keep my focus. She felt it would aid me in combat. I never followed her advice. It seemed too boring. But now that I’m in my cell, I find it is a lifeline, the best way for me to keep my sanity.
    I am meditating when the door to my cell opens. I turn around, my eyes straining to adjust to the light coming in from the hall. A Mog stands in the light, backed by several others.
    I see he’s holding a bucket, and for a second I imagine he’s brought fresh water for me to drink.
    Instead, he steps forward and empties the bucket over my head, dousing me in cold water. It is a harsh indignity and I shiver at the cold, but it’s also bracing, restorative. It brings me back to life, back to my pure hatred of these bastard Mogs.
    He lifts me off my feet, dripping wet, and wraps a blindfold around my head.
    He drops me again and I struggle to stay upright.
    “Come,” he says, shoving me out of my cell and into the hall.
    The blindfold is thick, so I am walking in total blackness. But my senses are keen and I manage a nearly straight line. I can also sense other Mogs all around me.
    As I walk, my feet cold against the rough stone floors, I hear the varied screams and moans of my fellow prisoners. Some are human, some are animal. They must be locked inside cells like mine. I have no idea who they are or what the Mogs want them for. But I am too focused on my survival right now to care: I am deaf to pity.
    After a long march, the Mog leading the guard says “Right!” and shoves me to the right. He shoves me hard , and I land on my knees, scraping them against stone.
    I struggle to get to my feet, but I am picked up before I can, two Mogs throwing me against a wall. My hands are raised and chained to a steel cord dangling from the ceiling. My torso is stretched, my toes just barely touching the ground.
    They remove my blindfold. I’m in another cell; this one is lit, brightly, and my eyes feel like they will burn out adjusting from three days of nearly total darkness. Once they do, I see her.
    Katarina.
    She is chained to the ceiling, as I am. She looks far worse than me, bloody, bruised, and beaten.
    They started with her.
    “Katarina,” I whisper. “Are you okay . . . ?”
    She looks up at me, her eyes brimming with tears. “Don’t look at me,” she says, her eyes drifting down to the floor.
    A new Mog enters the room. He is wearing, of all things, a white polo shirt and a crisp pair of khaki pants. His haircut is short. His shoes—loafers—scuff quietly across the floor. He could be a suburban dad, or the manager of a neighborhood store.
    “Howdy,” he says. He grins at me, his hands in his pocket. His teeth are white like in a toothpaste commercial.
    “Hope you’re enjoying your stay with us so far.” I notice the bristly hair on his tan arms. He is handsome, in a bland way, with a compact but strong-looking build. “These caves can be awfully drafty, but we try to make it as cozy as possible. I trust you have two buckets in your cell? Wouldn’t want you to go without.”
    His hand reaches out so casually that for a second I think he is going to caress my cheek. Instead, he pinches it, hard, giving my flesh a twist. “You are our guests of honor, after all,” he says, the venom at last creeping into his salesman’s voice.
    I hate myself for doing it, but I begin to cry. My legs give out entirely, and I dangle hard against my cuffs. I don’t allow