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do. The one who came into the diner looked like an accountant, wearing wire-rimmed glasses, black slacks, and a white short-sleeved dress shirt and that tie. He even had a really dorky mustache. I remember him being tan. We had no idea they had followed us.”
    “That’s reassuring,” I say sarcastically. I replay the image of the knife plunging into Six’s skull and killing the Mogadorian instead. If one of them tried the same thing with a knife on me, right now, I would be killed. I push the thought away and ask, “Do you think they’re still in Paradise?”
    She says nothing for a minute, and when she finally speaks, I wish she had stayed silent instead. “I think they might be.”
    “So Sarah’s in danger?”
    “Everyone’s in danger, John. Every person we know in Paradise, every person we don’t know in Paradise.”
    All of Paradise is probably under surveillance, and I know it’s not safe to go within fifty miles of it. Or to call. Or even to send a letter, or they’d learn the pull Sarah has on me, the connection we have.
    “Anyway,” Sam says, wanting to get back to the story. “The Mogadorian accountant falls to the floor and dies. Then what?”
    “Katarina threw the Chest to me and grabbed our suitcase, and we sprinted out of the motel room, Katarina still in her robe. The truck was unlocked, and we jumped inside. Another Mog came charging out from behind the motel. Kat was so flustered that she couldn’t find the keys. She locked the doors, though, and the windows were rolled up. But the guy wasted no time at all and punched straight through the passenger-side glass and grabbed me by the shirt. Katarina screamed, and some men nearby jumped into action.
    “Others poured out of the diner to see what was happening. The Mogadorian had no choice but to let go of me to face the men.
    “‘The keys are in the motel room!’ Katarina yelled. She looked at me with these big, huge, desperate eyes. She was panicking. We both were. I jumped out of the truck and sprinted back to our room for the keys. Those men in Texas, they were the only reason we got away then; they saved our lives. When I came out of the motel room with the keys, one of the Texans was aiming a gun at the Mogadorian.
    “We have no idea what happened after that because Katarina sped away and we didn’t look back. We hid the Chest a few weeks later, right before they caught up to us for good.”
    “Don’t they already have the Chests from the first three?” Sam asks.
    “I’m sure they do, but what use are they? The second we die the Chest unlocks itself, and everything inside becomes useless,” she says, and I nod, knowing that much from past conversations with Henri.
    “Not only are the objects worthless,” I say, “but they completely disintegrate the same way the Mogadorians do when they’re killed.”
    “Wicked,” Sam says.
    And then I remember the sticky note I found when saving Henri in Athens, Ohio.
    “Those guys Henri visited who ran the They Walk Among Us magazine?”
    “Yeah?”
    “They had this source who apparently caught a Mogadorian and tortured it for information, and he supposedly knew that Number Seven was being trailed in Spain and that Number Nine was somewhere in South America.”
    Six thinks about it a moment. She bites her lip and glances in the rearview mirror. “I know for a fact that Number Seven is a girl; I remember that much from the ride in the ship.” The second this leaves her mouth, a siren blares behind us.

Chapter Five
     
    THE SNOW STOPS ON SATURDAY NIGHT. THE SCRAPING sound of shovels against asphalt fills the night air. From the window I can see the faint silhouettes of residents throwing snow to less cumbersome places, readying themselves for the morning walk for Sunday obligations. There’s a certain tranquillity to the town at work on a quiet night, everyone bound by the same cause, and I wish I was out there among them. And then the bedtime bell tolls. In the room fourteen girls