Return to Paradise (6 page)

IT TAKES A WHILE FOR ME TO REALIZE THAT
John might have come for her, and so I sit glued to my computer and check my phone every two minutes, hoping that she’ll send me some sort of message telling me she’s all right. She must know that I’m going out of my mind, and she’ll let me know she’s safe.

Days pass without any word from her, and I realize I’m holding on to unfounded hope. If she was with John, she would have found a way to contact me. She wouldn’t have just left me behind.

It’s so easy for me to look at the day she disappeared and see the things I should have done. When she—or whoever it was—texted me from that strange number. I shouldn’t have ever even left her alone after what happened at Sam’s house with the black car. I feel like an idiot. I feel useless.

I have to do something.

I’m practically glued to the blog, but there’s only so much research I can do online. I can’t just sit around and do nothing. I’ll go crazy.

Something dings in the back of my head. Sarah saying that Sam probably knew more about what was happening with the Loric and the Mogs than any of us.

His backyard was a battleground. His mom is probably scared, not staying at the house. The back window has been blown out, covered only by a sheet of plastic.

It would be the easiest thing in the world to climb through it. If Sam had a better idea of what was happening between the Mogs and Loric, maybe he left behind some clues I can use.

It’s almost 2 a.m. when I sneak downstairs dressed in all-black clothes, cringing at every creaking step. No one wakes up to stop me except for the dogs—but I’ve prepared for them. A few pieces of beef jerky, and Abby and Dozer are as quiet as can be.

I keep my headlights off until I’m already on the road. I drive past Sam’s house a few times to see if I can spot anyone around it, but it doesn’t look like someone’s home. I park a few houses away just in case. There’s no car out front, and a quick peek in the garage tells me there’s no car in there either. I knock, just to make sure that no one answers. It’s dead quiet inside.

Bingo. Empty house.

I take a deep breath and psych myself up. I’ve snuck
in and out of a few houses in my life, but I’ve never actually done any breaking and entering. I tell myself it’s no big deal. And I need to do this. Any info I get helps us. Any info I get helps me get closer to finding Sarah.

I push in the plastic and climb through the window in the backyard and end up in the dining room. It’s not hard to tell which room is Sam’s: the one with a sign that says
ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK
. I cross the brown carpet covering the hallway and slip inside.

Sam’s room is covered in posters that remind me why we all thought he was a weirdo at school.
Star Wars, Alien, Starship Troopers
, and at least two different NASA flags. I imagine that wherever he is right now, he’s wearing the same old ratty NASA T-shirt.

After bumping my head against a bunch of painted balls hanging from the middle of his ceiling, I start looking around. I’m not sure where to begin my search, so I just kind of start moving things on his desk. The problem is, I could point anywhere in Sam’s room and my finger would land on something “out of the ordinary.” I sift through action figures, blurry pictures of the sky, and a telescope it looks like he was trying to repair. I accidentally break the arm off a model robot and feel bad for about a split second before I remember that Sam’s off somewhere with John and probably doesn’t even remember that the model exists. Finally, I
come across something that gets my attention.

I take a seat in Sam’s desk chair and open up a copy of a little magazine called
They Walk Among Us
. It looks like a photocopy. It’s full of alien conspiracies, lizard men, and other crazy-sounding articles, like how the Loch Ness monster is really an extraterrestrial sea horse. I thumb through a few issues before I read a headline that causes me to shiver.

THE MOGADORIAN RACE

SEEK TO TAKE OVER EARTH

The article is little more than a teaser of a bigger story that’s going to run the next month, but I can’t find the next issue anywhere. I take a picture of the article and front cover of the magazine and send it in a message to GUARD. He’s going to flip out when he sees it. Maybe he can help me track down the people who wrote it—people who might know more about what’s going on and how I can find Sarah.

GUARD responds quickly.

I grab a few loose CDs lying around the desk just
in case they’ve got files of interest on them. Unfortunately, I don’t see any kind of computer. Either Sam took it with him, or someone else has already made off with it. With a stack of magazines under my arm, I head out of Sam’s room and through his house, glancing at pictures of his family that line the walls. Sam’s dad is in some of them, staring back at me through thick glasses that look a lot like the ones Sam always wears. I barely remember Malcolm Goode from school parties and stuff when I was a kid. I look down at the pile of crap I’m technically stealing from his son’s room.

“Sorry,” I murmur, and then head to the backyard—through the back door this time.

Outside, I freeze: there’s movement in the woods near the end of the yard. I think about running, but if there isn’t anything there, that’ll cause me to look more suspicious. Just as my palms start to sweat nervously, an owl flies out of the woods. I exhale, telling myself that’s what I must have seen.

The side of the house casts a shadow that I disappear into, pressing myself up against the vinyl siding. I stand there for what feels like a long time watching the road, trying to see any movement or lights—anything that might suggest that there’s a black sedan ready to run me down. But there’s only the breeze and the sound of birds and insects somewhere out in the woods. Finally, I start back to my truck. I’m silently
congratulating myself on a job well done when I realize the only thing that means is that the crazy person who was after us the other day
was
in fact after Sarah. That she’s probably being held captive by them right now.

Or worse.

I STAY UP MOST OF THE NIGHT SENDING PICTURES
and scans of the magazines to GUARD. He works his internet magic and comes back to me with several phone numbers for the people who publish
They Walk Among Us
. He asks if I want him to call, but I take responsibility for it. I’m the one who’s now pored over every column in every issue Sam had, hoping that something—
anything
—will give me a clue as to where the people holding Sarah might be. Or if not them, where John and Six and Sam might have escaped to. If I can find them, they can use their superpowers to rescue Sarah, no problem.

No problem
. I repeat this over and over in my head, hoping that eventually I’ll believe it.

I buy a burner phone after school the next day and start in on the numbers GUARD came up with as I drive home. The first three I call have all been disconnected—not
a good sign. The fourth and final number connects, though. Actually, it rings forever, with no voice mail. After about twenty rings, I hang up and call back. I count twenty more, and then I hang up and call back again.

I’ve never been one for subtlety.

After the third ring, someone hangs up the phone. I can hear the muffled sound of a split second of connection.

So someone’s there
.

I take a chance and call back. This time the pickup is immediate.

“What do you want?” The voice on the other end of the line is shaky and high-pitched. It’s a man’s voice. By the rate of his breathing, it sounds like he’s hyperventilating.

“Hi, this is . . .” I fumble for a second before landing on a name. “Roger.”

“Whatever you want, Roger, you’ve got the wrong number. Don’t call back.”

“I’m just trying to get some info on
They Walk Among Us
. Are you one of the writers or editors or whatever?”

“I said, you have the wrong number.”

Click
. The voice on the other end is gone.

I slam my fist on my dashboard and try to figure out what to do next. Then I say, “Screw it,” and dial back. This time the man sounds pissed when he answers.

“Don’t. Call. Again.”

“My friend is in trouble,” I blurt out. There’s silence from the other dude, so I continue. “She’s missing. It has something to do with the Mogadorians. I just want to find her. I just want to know that she’s okay.”

I sink back into the driver’s seat, letting my head hit the rest behind me.

“Please,” I say.

There’s a long sigh on the other end of the line. When the voice comes back, it sounds like the guy is crying.

“We don’t publish the newsletter anymore. They’ve taken everything. What more do you want from us? What more do you want? They’ve taken everything.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” I ask, but I can guess. “The Mogs? Did they get to you?”

There’s no answer on the other end. I take the phone away from my ear and stare at it for a moment before hanging up. I shouldn’t be surprised that this was the fate of the magazine. Hell, I’m surprised anyone was left alive at all.

I message GUARD about the conversation. Then I make a proposal.

I know exactly what he’s talking about—this morning before I left for school, we’d made fun of an old article I found in
They Walk Among Us
about how sea krakens come from the planet Schlongda. It was maybe the first time I’d ever got a hint that GUARD had a not-so-serious side. Now that Sarah’s gone, he’s kind of the only person I can talk to about everything that’s going on. I know I haven’t met him in person or even talked to him on the phone, but he seems like the smartest person I’ve ever met. The things he can do with a laptop and internet connection blow my mind.

And when I get home and open the file he’s sent me on my computer, I am nothing less than astonished.

I’m staring at a text file that lists a ton of information
on Agent Purdy. Not things like his bio or what he’s working on, but numbers that hold a much different power. Telephone numbers. Bank accounts. Passwords.

I message GUARD.

I’ve been dying for a way to take action. I guess I just found it.

BEFORE I LEAVE NANA’S I PUT A FEW NOTES ON
my desk. If I’m caught, there’s a chance I’ll be shoved into a black van and never see the light of day again. That’s how the FBI and Mogs work, right? If that’s the case, I don’t want my family thinking that I ran away because of them or something. I want them to know that I didn’t just abandon them for no reason.

And if possible, that they should probably get out of Paradise too. This town is getting too dangerous. I leave a separate note addressed to Mom, telling her I’m sorry I haven’t called and that she should bring Dad and Nana up to Cleveland. That way they’ll be together, and out of Mog central.

I hope they don’t have to read the notes.

I set up an automatic blog post too with my draft from earlier on what had really happened at Paradise High. If I don’t log in and adjust the post time—if I get
taken away—it will go live in a week. Maybe others can learn from what I knew. Maybe they’ll be able to find Sarah if I can’t.

I park my truck in an alley near the station where I can just see the front doors through a chain-link fence. There are a couple of agents milling about inside, but that’s all I can see. I message GUARD, who is acting as a diversion for me, calling one of the phone lines the FBI has commandeered and reporting to whoever answers that a teenager with glowing hands and the power to move things with his mind just entered a truck stop outside of town. Whatever he says, it must be convincing, because the agents fly out of the station, jumping into their black SUVs and disappearing down the dark streets. I wonder briefly if Dad’s being called in. I hope he’s in good enough shape to put himself together, if he has.

An agent stays at the front desk, but I’ve figured out a way around that already. There’s a window in the men’s bathroom with a latch that’s been broken since I was a kid. I remember once a rookie cop locked himself out of the station and got stuck climbing through it. But I’m more athletic than he was, and after crossing the street and skulking around to the side of the station, I’m bracing my arms against a porcelain sink as I pull the rest of my body inside, careful to close the window as softly as I can with my foot.

I’m in. Now I just have to stay hidden.

I walk out into the hallway where the bathrooms and some closets are and peek around the corner. There are a few rows of desks between me and the agent at the front, who seems glued to a computer screen. Dad’s office is across the station, twenty yards away.
Just two first downs
, I tell myself.
It’s a cakewalk
.

I’m halfway across the station when my dad’s office door opens.

It takes half a second for me to slam onto the floor and roll under a desk, where I hold my breath and try to fight off the trembling in my hands. I must have been fast enough, because the two men who walk out of the office don’t stop talking.

“I’m telling you, the situation here is under control,” a man’s voice says with a slight wheeze. “My agents are—”

“If things were really under control, Four couldn’t walk in and out of this backwoods town as if it was his own private warship,” the other man bellows, his voice like a bass drum. “I never should have left Paradise to someone who couldn’t handle it. From now on my soldiers will be taking over here.”

I flatten myself on the floor and press my face up against the bottom of the desk, which offers me an inch or two of room to see through.

“That’s not necessary,” the wheezy man says. His face
is pink and piggish, with a big, busted nose that looks like he’s been tackled one too many times. I recognize him from the photo GUARD and I had found online: Purdy. At least that means Dad’s office is empty if they leave. If they stay—well, I’m completely screwed. The other man is a behemoth. He’s at least seven feet tall, with jet-black hair pulled back into a ponytail that disappears beneath his black coat. From the back, he’s a wall of a man. A mountain.

“Your usefulness wears thin, Purdy,” he says. “Don’t let it wear out completely.”

The giant of a man takes a step forward, then pauses. He turns his face to the back of the station, towards me, as if he’s heard something. The man’s eyes are almost completely black. They reflect the buzzing fluorescent lights overhead.

I’m looking at a Mogadorian. I’d recognize those terrifying black eyes anywhere. I don’t breathe. If I could stop my heartbeat, I would in order to keep him from discovering me.

But he turns away, barking at Purdy.

“Take me to Number Four,” he says.

He means John
, I think.
I’ve only got a few minutes before they realize the report is a sham
.

As soon as the station door shuts, I roll out from under the desk and tiptoe across the room. Fortunately, the agent at the front desk is trying to make himself
look as busy as possible, and he types loudly on the keyboard, giving me at least a tiny bit of noise cover.

Luck stays on my side: my dad’s keys still work.

Once I’m standing in Dad’s office, I allow myself a second or two to exhale and get my shit together, though the fact that I almost got caught and probably just saw a high-ranking Mog is hard to get past. The office has changed quite a bit since I was in it last, when Dad was dragging me out the night John was taken in. There are a few big boxes sitting in one corner that look like they’re full of all the files and papers that used to litter the place when it was my dad’s. The desk is tidy now—compulsively so—which is great for me because it means less to sort through.

I take a seat in the chair behind the desk and rifle through some of the papers and files. They don’t tell me anything. It’s all memos and bulletins that are the kinds of things that go up on the FBI website—public information. I’m looking for something a little more secretive than that.

Purdy’s laptop is sleek and black, like something out of a spy movie. I open it up while removing a piece of paper from my pocket that’s got all the things GUARD found written on it. Sure enough, the computer is password protected. I type in the one GUARD pegged as Purdy’s main access code and, just like that, I’m in. I’m on an FBI computer.

“God bless you, GUARD,” I whisper.

The desktop is littered with files. At the bottom of the screen are a few applications. I open up Purdy’s email, figuring if anything, it might be the easiest way of getting info on Sarah. The first password GUARD handed over is a bust, but the second one gets me in.

I type Sarah’s name into the search bar so fast that I misspell it twice. Finally, it goes through, bringing back over fifty emails containing her name. I shudder to think how many times
my
name might pop up in these emails, but that’s not what I’m here to find out. I sort through the newest ones first until I hit the jackpot.

Detainee Hart has been transferred to the facility at Dulce.

Dulce
. I recognize the name immediately from back issues of
They Walk Among Us
and old posts on the blog. It’s a name that pops up all the time—a secret government base where weird stuff is supposedly always going down. A small-scale Area 51.

Sarah is being held in Dulce. New Mexico. Half a country away.

I have to go to New Mexico.

I start looking through other emails when I hear the station door slam shut, followed by a string of curses from what sounds like Purdy’s voice.

Shit
. Sitting in front of me is a wealth of information—maybe
enough to change the tide of the battle between the Loric and the Mogs. A battle that will decide what happens to Earth. I was hoping to have more time on the computer, then just to sneak out and let Purdy think I was never there. If I leave now, I can try to find Sarah and figure out what else is going on between the FBI and the Mogs on my own. But if I take the computer, if I
steal
this FBI laptop, maybe I can be the hero. With GUARD’s help, I can crack everything on the hard drive. Who knows what all we might learn. Sarah can help, once I’ve saved her. If this laptop has good intel on it, maybe I can save everyone.

And wouldn’t Sarah be impressed by that?

“Fuck it,” I say, pulling the power adapter out of the wall and taking the computer under my arm.

As Purdy berates the agent at the front desk, I unlock one of the windows to Dad’s office and slip out. In a flash, I’m in my truck, shooting through the alley. I take one last look at the station as I drive away. Purdy’s still in the front. Good. Maybe I’ll have a while before he realizes what’s happened.

Just enough time to leave Paradise.