"How long were you in there?" I ask.

"One hundred and eighty-five days. I think."

My mouth drops open. Over half a year locked away, completely and utterly alone, waiting to be killed. "I'm so sorry, Six."

"I was just waiting and praying for my Legacies to finally develop so I could get the hell out of there. And then one day, the first one finally did. It was after breakfast. I looked down and my left hand just wasn't there. Of course, I freaked out, but then I realized I could still feel my hand. I tried to pick up my spoon, and sure enough, I could. And that's when I understood what was happening-and invisibility was the thing I needed in order to escape."

How it started for Six wasn't all that different from how it had started for me, when my hand began to glow in the middle of my first class at Paradise High.

Two days later Six had been able to make herself completely invisible, and when dinner rolled around that day, and the slot on the door was slid open and her meal pushed through, the Mogadorian guard saw an empty cell. He'd looked wildly around and then hit an alarm that sent a piercing wail through the cave. The iron door had been flung open and four Mogs charged in. While they stood there, dumbfounded as to how she'd escaped, she slid by and rushed out the door and down the tunnel, seeing the cave for the very first time.

It had been a massive labyrinthine network of long, interconnected tunnels that were dark and drafty. There were cameras everywhere. She'd passed thick glass windows revealing chambers that looked like scientific labs, clean and brightly lit. The Mogadorians inside had worn white plastic suits and goggles, but she'd raced by so swiftly she couldn't tell what they were doing. A sprawling room housed a thousand or so computer screens with a Mogadorian sitting in front of each, and Six assumed they were looking for signs of us. Just like Henri, I thought. One tunnel was lined with heavy steel doors she had been sure held other prisoners. But she sped on, knowing her Legacy was far from developed and terrified she wouldn't stay invisible for very long. The siren had continued to wail. And then she reached the heart of the mountain, a great, cavernous hall a half mile wide and so dark and murky she could hardly see to its other side.

The air had been stifling and Six was already sweating. The walls and ceiling were lined with huge wooden trellises to keep the cave from collapsing, and narrow ledges chiseled into the rock face connected the tunnels dotting the dark walls. Above her, several long arches had been carved from the mountain itself to bridge the great divide from one side to the other.

She had pressed herself against a rocky crag, her eyes darting back and forth for a way out. The number of passageways had been endless. She'd stood there overwhelmed, her eyes sweeping across the hollow darkness, seeing nothing at all that looked promising. But then she did-far across the ravine, a pale pinprick of natural light at the end of a wider tunnel. Just before she climbed the wooden trellis to reach the stone bridge that led to it, something else caught her eye: the Mogadorian who had killed Katarina. She couldn't let him get away. She followed him.

He entered the room where he had killed Katarina.

"I went straight to his desk and took the sharpest razor I saw, then grabbed him from behind and slit his throat. And as I watched the blood gush and spread across the floor, followed by him bursting into ash, I found myself wishing that it would have been possible to kill him a little more slowly. Or to kill him again."

"What did you do when you finally got out?" I ask.

"I hiked up the opposite mountain, and when I got up there I stared down at the cave for an hour, trying to remember every little detail I could. Once I was satisfied with that, I took note of everything I passed on the five-mile run to the nearest road, and from there I jumped on the back of a slow pickup truck. When it stopped a few miles down the road to get gas, I stole his map, a notepad, and a couple of pens from the cab. Oh, and a bag of potato chips."

"Niiiiice. What kind of chips?" Sam asks.

"Dude," I say.

"What?"

"They were barbecue, Sam. I marked the cave's location on the map I showed you guys back at the motel, and in the notepad I drew a diagram of everything I remembered, like a chart that would lead whoever read it straight to its entrance. I kind of panicked and hid the diagram not far from the town but kept the map, then I stole a car and drove straight to Arkansas; but of course by then my Chest had long since been taken."

"I'm so sorry, Six."

"Me, too," she says. "But they can't open it without me anyway. Maybe I'll get it back someday."

"At least we still have mine," I reply.

"You should open it soon," she says, and I know she's right. I should have opened it already. Whatever's in that Chest, whatever secrets it holds, Henri had wanted me to know them. The secrets. The Chest. He had said as much in his final breaths. I feel stupid for having put it off this long; but whatever's in the Chest, I have a feeling it's going to set the four of us on a long, uphill journey.

"I will," I say. "Let's just get off this train and find a safe place first."

Chapter Nine.

I'M THE FIRST ONE OUT OF BED WHEN THE MORNING bell rings. I always am. It's not necessarily because I'm a morning person but because I prefer being in and out of the bathroom before anyone else.

I rush through making my bed, which I've gotten very good at over time. The key is getting the sheet, blanket, and comforter tucked deeply in at the foot. From there it's just a matter of pulling the rest to the head, tucking the sides, and adding pillows to give it that clean, a-quarter-could-be-bounced-off-it finish.

By the time I'm done, across the room in the bed nearest to the door, Ella, the girl who arrived on Sunday, is the only other one up. Like the previous two mornings, she's trying to emulate the way I make my bed, though she's struggling with it. Her problem is that she's trying to work from the top down instead of the bottom up. While Sister Katherine has been lenient with Ella, her rotation ends today and Sister Dora's weeklong shift begins tonight. I know she won't allow Ella to skimp on perfection, regardless of how new she is or what she's going through.

"Would you like help?" I ask, crossing the room.

She looks at me with sad eyes. I can see she doesn't care about the bed. I imagine she doesn't care about much of anything right now, and I can't blame her, given the death of her parents. I'd like to tell her not to worry, that unlike those of us who are "lifers," she'll be out of this place within the month, two at the most. But what consolation can that be to her now?

I bend down at the foot of the bed and pull the sheet and blanket until there's enough to tuck them both beneath the mattress, then I stretch her comforter over them both.

"Want to grab that side?" I ask, nodding to the left of the bed while I go to the right. Together we give the whole bed the same tight, clean look as my own.

"Perfect," I say.

"Thank you," she replies in her soft, timid voice. I look down into her big brown eyes and can't help but like her and feel some need to look after her.

"I'm sorry to hear about your parents," I say.

Ella looks away. I think I've overstepped my boundaries, but then she offers me a slight smile. "Thank you. I miss them a lot."

"I'm sure they miss you, too."

We leave the room together, and I notice she walks on the balls of her feet so as not to make a sound.

At the bathroom sink, Ella grips her toothbrush near the top, almost touching the bristles with her small fingers, making the toothbrush appear larger than it really is. When I catch her staring at me in the mirror, I grin. She grins back, showing two rows of tiny teeth. Toothpaste pours from her mouth and runs down her arm, dripping from her elbow. I watch it, thinking the S pattern it creates is familiar, and I let my mind wander.

A hot summer day in June. Clouds drift in the blue sky. Cool waters ripple in the sun. The fresh air carries hints of pine. I breathe it in and let the stress of Santa Teresa melt away into nothingness.

Though I believe my second Legacy developed shortly after the first, I didn't discover it until almost a full year later. It was an accident I discovered it at all, which makes me wonder if I have other Legacies waiting to be uncovered.

Every year when school lets out for summer, to reward those of us who have been what the Sisters deem "good," a four-day trip to a nearby mountain camp is organized. I've always loved the trip for the same reason I love the cave that sits hidden in the opposite direction. It's an escape-a rare opportunity to spend four days swimming in the huge lake nestled in the mountains, or a chance to hike, to sleep beneath the stars, to smell the fresh air away from the musty corridors of Santa Teresa. It is, in essence, a chance to act our age. I've even caught some of the Sisters laughing and smiling when they think nobody's looking.

In the lake, there's a floating dock. I'm a horrible swimmer, and for many summers I just sat and watched from shore while the others laughed and played and did flips off the dock into the water. It took a couple summers of practicing alone in the shallow water, but the summer of my thirteenth year, I finally learned an imperfect and slow doggy paddle that kept my head above water. It got me to the dock, and that was enough for me.

At the dock, the game is to try to push each other off it. Groups team up until they're the only ones left, and then it's every girl for herself. As the biggest and strongest at Santa Teresa, I used to think it'd be an effortless victory for La Gorda, but it rarely is; she's often outsmarted by the smaller, more wily girls, and I don't think anyone has won as many times as a girl named Bonita.

I didn't want to play La Reina del Muelle, Queen of the Dock. I was content to sit on the side and let my feet dangle in the water, but Bonita shoves me hard from behind anyway, sending me headlong into the lake.

"Play the game or go back to shore," Bonita says, flicking her hair over her shoulder.

I climb back up and rush straight towards her. I shove her as hard as I can, and she falls backwards and crashes into the lake.

I don't hear La Gorda behind me, and suddenly two strong hands shove me hard from behind. My feet slip on the wet wood, and the side of my head and shoulder smack against the edge of the dock, clouding my vision with stars. I'm knocked unconscious for a second, and when my eyes open I'm underwater. I see nothing but darkness and instinctively kick upward, flailing my arms to reach the surface. But my head smacks against the bottom of the dock, and I realize there are only a few inches of space between the water and the wooden boards of the dock. I try to tilt my head backwards to put my nose and mouth above the surface, but water instantly laps into my nostrils. I panic, my lungs already burning. I scramble to the left but there's nowhere to go; I'm trapped by the dock's plastic barrels. Water fills my lungs while the absurdity of death by drowning pops into my head. I think of the others, how their ankles are about to be seared. Will they believe that Number Three has been killed, or will they somehow know it's me? Will it burn differently than if I'd died at the hands of the Mogadorians instead of my own stupidity? My eyes slowly close and I begin to sink. Just as I feel the last stream of bubbles escape my lips, my eyes snap open, and an odd sort of calm sweeps in. My lungs are no longer burning.

I'm breathing.

The water tickles my lungs, but at the same time satisfies every desperate need I have to breathe, and that's when I know I've discovered my second Legacy: the ability to breathe underwater. I've found it only because I was pushed to the brink of death.

I don't want to be found just yet by the girls diving into the water looking for me, so I let myself drift down to the deep bottom, the world slowly fading to black until my feet finally sink into the cold mud. I can see through the brown, murky water once my eyes adjust. Ten minutes pass. Then twenty. Finally the girls swim away from the dock. I assume the lunch bell's been rung. I wait until I'm absolutely sure they've all left, then I walk slowly along on the lake's bottom towards shore, my feet sinking into the mud as I inch forward. After a while the icy water begins to warm and brighten and the mud segues to rocks and then to sand, and finally my head emerges. I listen to the girls, La Gorda and Bonita included, scream and splash towards me in relief. I take inventory of myself on shore, noticing a gash on my shoulder is bleeding, leaving a trail of blood down my arm in the shape of a subtle S.

The Sisters make me sit the rest of the afternoon at a picnic table under a tree, but I didn't mind. I had another Legacy.

In the bathroom, Ella catches me watching the toothpaste run down her arm in the mirror. She looks embarrassed, and as she tries to replicate the way I brush my teeth, even more frothy toothpaste pours from her mouth.

"You're like a bubble factory," I say with a smile, grabbing a towel to clean her up.

We leave the bathroom as the others are arriving, dress quickly in the room and walk out of it as the others are coming in, keeping just ahead of the group, as I prefer to do. We grab our lunches from the cafeteria and head out into the cold morning. I eat my apple on the walk to school. Ella does the same. I'm about ten minutes early today, which will give me a little time to get on the internet to see if there's anything new about John Smith. The thought of him makes me smile.

"Why are you smiling? Do you like school?" Ella asks. I look over at her. The half-eaten apple looks big in her small hand.

"It's a nice morning, I guess," I say. "And I have good company today."

We walk through town as street vendors set up shop. The snow hasn't melted and is piled along both sides of Calle Principal, but the road itself is clear. Up ahead on the right Hector Ricardo's front door opens, and out comes his mother in a wheelchair, being pushed by Hector. She's had Parkinson's disease for a very long time. She's been in a wheelchair for the last five years, and she's been unable to speak for the last three. He positions her in a sliver of sunlight and applies her wheel brakes. While the sun seems to bring her some comfort, Hector slinks away and sits in the shade, dropping his head.

"Good morning, Hector," I call out. He lifts his head and squints one eye open. He waves with a shaky hand.

"Marina, as of the sea," he croaks. "The only limits of tomorrow are the doubts we have today."

I stop and smile. Ella stops, too.

"That's one of your better ones."

"Don't doubt Hector; he has a few nuggets left," he says.

"Are you doing okay?"

"Strength, confidence, humility, love. Hector Ricardo's four tenets of a happy life," he says, which makes no sense whatsoever considering the question I asked, but it makes me feel good anyway. He turns his gaze on Ella. "And who's this little angel?"

Ella grabs my hand and hides behind me.

"Her name is Ella," I say, looking down at her. "This is Hector. He's my friend."

"Hector is one of the good guys," he says, though Ella remains behind me.

He waves at us as we walk the rest of the way to school.

"Do you know where you're going?" I ask her.

"I have Senora Lopez's class," she says, smiling.

"Ahh, you're a lucky girl. I had her, too. She's one of the good ones in this town, like Hector," I say.

I'm devastated; all three of the school computers are occupied, a trio of younger girls from town are desperately trying to finish a science assignment, their fingers flying across the keyboards. I coast through the day, keeping to myself as one thing runs through my mind. John Smith, on the run in America, somehow staying ahead of the law, and I'm stuck here, in Santa Teresa, an old, moldy town where nothing happens. I'd always thought I'd leave when I turned eighteen. But now that John Smith is out there, being hunted, I know I have to leave as soon as I can, to join him. The only question now is how to find him.

My last class is Spanish history. The teacher drones on about General Francisco Franco and the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s. I tune her out and instead write in my notebook about John, what I know based on the most recent article I read.

John Smith Lived 4 months in Paradise, OH Pulled over by an officer in Tennessee, driving west in a

pickup truck. Middle of the night, with 2 other people around

the same age.

Where were they driving?

One of the two people he was with is believed to be Sam

Goode, also from Paradise, originally thought to be a hostage,

now considered an accomplice.

Who is the third person? A girl with black hair. Girl in my

dream had black hair.