Return to Paradise
to me, Samuel. I know she’s here. Tell me where.”
    “I don’t know,” I kept repeating, my voice shaking more and more. With every answer, or lack thereof, Setrákus pulled back his staff and let me feel the searing pain again.
    Eventually, Setrákus gave up and just stared at me, disgusted. I was delirious at this point. As if with a mind of its own, the dark ooze slowly crawled back up the chain, disappearing into the dark recess it’d come from.
    “You’re useless, Samuel,” he’d said, dismissively. “It appears the Loric only value you as a sacrificial lamb,a diversion to be left behind when they’re in need of a hasty escape.”
    Setrákus swept out of the room and later, after I’d hung there for a while slipping in and out of consciousness, some of his soldiers came to retrieve me. They dumped me in a dark cell where I was sure they’d leave me to die.
    Days later the Mogadorians dragged me out of my cell and handed me over to a pair of guys with buzz cuts and dark suits, and guns holstered beneath their coats. Humans. They looked like FBI or CIA or something. I don’t know why any human would want to work with the Mogs. It makes my blood boil just to think about it, these agents selling out humanity. Even so, the agents were gentler than the Mogadorians, one of them even mumbling an apology as he clasped a pair of manacles over my burned wrists. Then, they pulled a hood over my head, and that was the last I saw of them.
    I was driven nonstop for at least two days, chained in the back of a van. After that, I was shoved into another cell—this cell, my new home—an entire block in some big base where I was the only prisoner.
    I shudder when I think about Setrákus Ra, something I can’t help but do every time I catch a glimpse of the lingering blisters and scars on my wrists. I’ve tried to put that horrifying encounter out of my head, telling myself that what he’d said wasn’t true. I know John didn’t use me to cover his escape, and I know that I’m not useless. I can helpJohn and the other Garde, just like my father was doing before he disappeared. I know I have some part to play, even if it isn’t clear exactly what that’s going to be.
    When I get out of here—if I ever get out of here—my new goal in life is to prove Setrákus Ra wrong.
    I’m so frustrated that I pound the mattress in front of me. As soon as I do, a layer of dust shakes loose from the ceiling, and a faint rumbling passes through the floor. It’s almost as if my punch sent a shockwave through the entire cell.
    I look down at my hand in awe. Maybe those daydreams about developing my own Legacies weren’t so farfetched. I try to remember back to John’s backyard in Paradise, when Henri would lecture him about focusing his power. I squint hard and ball my fist up tight.
    Even though it feels nuts and a little embarrassing, I punch the mattress again, just to see what happens.
    Nothing. Just a soreness in my arms from not using those muscles in days. I’m not developing Legacies. That’s impossible for a human being and I know that. I’m just getting desperate. And maybe a little crazy.
    “Okay, Sam,” I say to myself, my voice hoarse. “Keep it together.”
    As soon as I lie back down, resigned to another endless stretch alone with my thoughts, a second jolt ripples through the floor. This one is much bigger than the first; I can feel it in my very bones. More plaster drifts down fromthe ceiling. It coats my face and gets in my mouth, bitter and chalky tasting. Moments later, I hear the muffled drumbeat of gunfire.
    This isn’t a dream at all. I can distantly hear the sounds of a fight from somewhere deep within the base. The floor shakes again—another explosion. As long as I’ve been here, they’ve never done any kind of training or drills. Hell, I never hear anything except the echoing footsteps of the guard bringing me my food. And now this sudden action? What could be happening?
    For the first time

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