I Am Number Four- Eight's Origin

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HARPER An Imprint

of H a r p e r C o l l i n s P u b l i s h e r s

COPYRIGHT

©2012

BY

PITTACUS

LORE

I'VE

REACHED

THE

POINT

WHERE

I

DON'T

KNOW

how long I've been alone anymore. I should have been keeping track all this time, I guess, marking off days, noting as the weeks and months passed. Or has it already been a year by now? Maybe, maybe not. I really have no idea. I do know that it has been longer than a season and shorter than a lifetime. I'm definitely taller than I used to be. My hair now falls almost to my shoulders and my arms have grown thick and ropy with muscle. But there's no one to ask how much I've grown or what else about me may have changed. There's no one who remembers what I looked like before. The only one who really knew me was Reynolds, and he's gone. Here, now, there is only me—me and the mountains and the sky and the animals. Sometimes I wonder where

I stop and the rest of it begins. Sometimes I think there is no difference at all. It might drive some people crazy, living like this, but the quiet keeps me company. I spend my days swimming in the lakes and running through the mountains. I have no name, and I like it that way because when I'm myself, not trying on some new, different identity, my memories return. I try to linger only on the ones that make me happy and skip over the ones that are painful, but sometimes it's hard to know which are which. Sometimes they are one and the same. I've learned that some memories surprise you and reveal a sharp edge just when you least expect it. I could be wandering through the woods, stumbling down rocky mountain paths in search of dinner and thinking about a happy time with Reynolds—the two of us wandering through the markets of New Delhi, me sucking on a juicy mango as he tells me a story about the life he left behind on our faraway planet, his face at a certain angle where the light catches his laughing eyes, his smile tilted up at the corner just so. Then, suddenly, the scene will shift and I'll see those same laughing eyes, that same tilted smile, but they'll be for Lola. And just like that, the memory becomes darker, terrible. And I'll be taken back to the time she betrayed us.

I never cry with these memories. But sometimes I scream. I should have been able to save him. I blame myself. Reynolds had been training me for that moment ever since we arrived on Earth, first teaching me to be fast and strong and then, when I was older, teaching me to master my abilities—my Legacies—for the day I would confront my enemies, the ones who drove me from Lorien to this distant planet. When I discovered that I could move objects with my mind, Reynolds taught me how to exercise my brain like a muscle, until I could go from lifting a small pebble to lifting almost anything. And then, when I disappeared one day on a crowded street only to find myself a block away from where I'd started, he taught me to control my teleportation power so that I could do it whenever I wanted, as easily as blinking my eyes. And he taught me about who I really am. Who we are: that there are others like me out there somewhere. In the beginning there were nine of us. We are called the Garde. I know from the scars on my ankle that there are only six of us left. Three are dead. I also know that someday, somehow, I will rejoin the others. I am Number Eight.

But without Reynolds, I have no idea how to find them. I don't know what they look like; I don't know their names. My Chest—the only physical tie I still had to my planet, Lorien—is also gone and I'm vulnerable without it. But coming together again is part of our destiny. I believe that as much as I believe in Lorien. So I can only hope that one of the others has a plan. That they know more about the rest than I do. That the other Garde find each other, and then ñnd me, before the Mogadorians return again. Because even though Reynolds had been helping me develop my Legacies, training me for the day when I would come face-to-face with the Mogadorians and be able to defeat them, I wasn't ready. Alone, I couldn't stop them. Because of the Charm, I did not become just another scar on the ankles of the rest of the Garde. So they killed Reynolds instead. After Reynolds was killed, I stayed up here in the mountains by myself. I didn't know where else to go. For a while, I thought I might die up here, alone, forgotten by the others. Then, one day, I woke up from a long sleep to see a small black rabbit sitting right next to me. He was just staring at me. "Hey, Rabbit," I said. They were the first words I'd spoken aloud in ages. The rabbit tilted his head but didn't run away, even when I sat up.

'"Boo!" I said. He still wasn't scared. It almost seemed like he felt sorry for me—like he didn't want me to be alone. We just looked at each other for a while. It made me feel good to have company, and then I pretended he was a real person who could understand me and told him first one joke and then another. It was obvious from the way his nose twitched that I was really cracking him up. For a few minutes, I felt like my old self. And then I was a black rabbit too. I didn't even notice it happen at first—I just knew that the world seemed different. Everything was bigger but also easier to understand. Smells and sounds took on their own form and shape; paths appeared where they hadn't been before. My memories gave way to instincts. The rabbit and I began chasing each other through the bushes, jumping over rocks, darting behind trees. Just having some good, old-fashioned rabbit-style fun. Then I heard a noise behind me. It was nothing—just a rock falling—but before I knew it, I'd been frightened back into my own body. The other rabbit was gone. I never saw him again, but he'd reminded me that I had a job to do, that I had to stop feeling sorry for myself and start having some fun again. He'd also showed me my newest Legacy—the power to change shape. I wonder if I would have been able to save Reynolds if I'd had this shape-changing Legacy when Lola betrayed

us. Late at night, when I can't sleep and Reynolds's final moments are flashing through my mind, I imagine how I might have done it. I picture myself turning into a lion and ripping the Mogadorians to shreds. Or becoming a dragon and breathing flames and destruction down on them. But these are still only fantasies. Because even now, even though I've had this Legacy for a while and have been practicing as often as I can, I can't become a dragon or a lion. And I don't know what good the ability to become a bunny is going to do against an alien army. I've tried—have spent hours in my cave making myself angry, trying to summon a lion's fierceness and strength and pride. It never works. I can only become a small black rabbit. This morning I wake up and crawl out from under the outcropping of rocks where I have made my home and look up at the sky. Just like always. I know that I can't stay here forever, but I also know that I'm not ready to leave yet. I stretch and yawn and try to be grateful that I'm still alive. It's not until I take on my rabbit form to go forage for food that I realize something's different. I can smell it: There's someone nearby. I am not alone on this mountain anymore.

I should be frightened, but I'm not. Not yet, anyway. I'm mostly curious. Without thinking about the danger, I bound through dirt and grass and rocks toward this smell that I don't understand but that I know is out there. When a hawk swoops down at me from the sky, my heart begins to pound and I move faster, leaping into a thick green bush where I will be safe from his predatory eye. The hawk screeches in frustration at losing sight of his tasty meal and soars back into the sky. He'll have to find his lunch somewhere else. I hear you can get a mean samosa not too far away. I wait a few moments, cautiously sniffing the air, before I creep out again and continue on my path. I finally find what I've been seeking near the lake. A man sitting against the rocks with his eyes closed. He's wearing a peaceful smile. Although he is old and gray and wrinkled, he has a strength about him too, a quiet confidence that has something to do with the way he's smiling. I suspect that he's more than he seems, though I don't know why I think that. Or what that could even mean. Reynolds's death taught me never to trust anyone. If Reynolds hadn't trusted Lola—hadn't fallen in love with her—he never would have told her our secrets. Then she never would have been able to betray us to

the Mogadorians. And Reynolds would still be alive. Trust is dangerous. But as much as I resist it, I can't help trusting this man. I watch him from a distance for a while. In my rabbit form, I can instinctively understand what another creature is going to do next from just the tiniest gestures and signals. There's something about this man's steady breathing, the way his eyes are moving lazily behind his eyelids and the way his ears are pricked, that tells me he knows I'm here watching him. But I also know that he's not going to approach me. He's just going to sit there. I could stay or go. It's up to me. Finally he laughs and opens his eyes. Then, before I even realize what I'm doing, I have hopped into the bushes, shed my rabbit skin, and teleported behind a line of trees in the opposite direction. When I step out from behind a tree, I am standing before this strange man in my human form. Number Eight. His eyes land on me. "Hello," he says. "Hi," I say. I decide to use the name I'd taken on when Reynolds and I moved here to India. "I'm Naveen." "I am Devdan," he says. "I am happy you have found me. You have much power, but you have much more to learn." He reaches into a leather pouch and pulls out a green, fresh leaf. ''But first, would you like

a piece of lettuce? " he says, and offers it to me. I stare at him, confused. "I'm sorry I don't have any carrots," he says with a sly grin. "But rabbits like lettuce too, don't they?" A smile spreads across my face. For some reason, I feel like I've known this man all my life. I feel like he has known me forever too. Like he would know me in any form. The weight of regret and loneliness and despair that I have been carrying with me for so many months lifts from my shoulders, and suddenly I'm laughing. The man looks at me curiously for a moment, and then he begins to laugh too. It's like someone has just told us each the world's funniest joke. Somehow I know that this man will teach me more than I ever believed was possible. Perhaps more than even Reynolds could. He can teach me about this shape-changing power. He can teach me that it's one thing to become a bunny but that to become something powerful—something that can defeat the Mogadorians—takes much more than fear or anger. It takes strength. It takes knowledge and focus and trust. More than anything, it takes faith. But for now, I am just a rabbit. And a boy known as Number Eight.