Lorien Legacies: The Lost Files by Pittacus Lore Page B

I’d started to worry that the thing had gone dead.
    And then, during my run a couple days ago, it went off. One solitary red dot trolling the lakefront. I hustled home that day, but I didn’t tell Sandor what had happened. At best, there’d be no more runs on the lakefront. At worst, we’d be packing up boxes. And I didn’t want either of those things to happen.
    Maybe that’s when I first broke the “don’t be stupid” rule. When I started keeping things from my Cêpan.
    The device is now vibrating and beeping because of the red dot that’s fallen into step a few yards behind me. Vibrating and beeping in tune with my accelerated heartbeat.
    A Mogadorian.
    I hazard a glance over my shoulder and have no trouble picking out which jogger is the Mog. He’s tall, with black hair shaved close to the scalp, and is wearing a thrift-store Bears sweatshirt and a pair of wraparound sunglasses. He could pass for human if he wasn’t so pale, his face not showing any color even in this brisk air.
    I pick up my pace but don’t bother trying to get away. Why make it easy on him? I want to see whether this Mog can keep up.
    By the time I exit the lakefront and head for home, I realize I might have been a little cocky. He’s good—better than I expect him to be. But I’m better. Still, as I pick up speed, I feel my heart racing from exertion for the first time in as long as I can remember.
    He’s gaining on me, and my breaths are getting shorter. I’m okay for now, but I won’t be able to keep this up forever. I double-check the iMog. Luckily my stalker hasn’t called in backup. It’s still just the one red dot. Just us.
    Tuning out the noise of the city around us—yuppie couples headed to brunch, happy tourist families cracking jokes about the wind—I focus on the Mog, using my naturally enhanced hearing to listen to his breathing. He’s getting winded too; his breathing is ragged now. But his footsteps are still in sync with my own. I listen for anything that sounds like him going for a communicator, ready to break into a sprint if he sends out an alert.
    He doesn’t. I can feel his eyes boring into my back. He thinks that I haven’t noticed him.
    Smug, exhausted, and dumb. He’s just what I’d been hoping for.
    The John Hancock Center rises above us. The sun blinks off the skyscraper’s thousand windows. One hundred stories and, at the top, my home.
    The Mog hesitates as I breeze through the front door, then follows. He catches up to me as I cross the lobby. Even though I’d been expecting it, I stiffen when I feel the cold barrel of a small Mogadorian blaster pressed between my shoulder blades.
    “Keep walking,” he hisses.
    Although I know he can’t hurt me while I’m protected by the Loric charm, I play along. I let him think he’s in control.
    I smile and wave at the security guards manning the front desk. With the Mog dogging my heels, we climb into the elevator.
    Alone at last.
    The Mog keeps his gun aimed at me as I hit the button for the 100th floor. I’m more nervous than I thought I’d be. I’ve never been alone with a Mog before. I remind myself that everything is going just as I planned it. As the elevator begins its ascent, I act as casual as I can.
    “Did you have a nice run?”
    The Mog grabs me around the throat and slams me against the wall of the elevator. I brace myself to have the wind knocked out of me. Instead, a warm sensation runs down my back and it’s the Mog who stumbles backward, gasping.
    The Loric charm at work. I’m always surprised at how well it works.
    “So you aren’t Number Four,” he says.
    “You’re quick.”
    “Which are you?”
    “I could tell you.” I shrug. “I don’t see what it would matter. But I’ll let you guess.”
    He eyes me, sizing me up, trying to intimidate me. I don’t know what the rest of the Garde are like, but I don’t scare that easy. I take off the iMog, laying it gently on the floor. If the Mog finds this unusual, he doesn’t