“Man, do I ever want to be an alien,” he finally says. “You guys get to do way too many cool things.”

“You had me worried there for a second, buddy,” I say. “Wasn’t sure if it would work on you since some of the other stuff from the Chest doesn’t.”

“Me either,” Six adds. She leans over and kisses him on his dirty cheek. Sam lies back down and sighs. Six laughs and rubs her hand over his head of stubble, and I’m surprised by how much jealousy bubbles inside me.

“Do you want to go to the hospital?” I ask.

“I want to stay right here,” he says. “Forever.”

“You know what? We were pretty lucky we were out on that walk,” Six says after we settle back into the SUV.

“You’re right,” I say.

Sam places his right cheek on his headrest so he can look at both of us. “Why were you guys out walking in the first place?”

“I couldn’t sleep. Neither could Six,” I answer, which technically is the truth, but it doesn’t take away the guilt. I know that Sarah is the girl for me, but I can’t seem to stop these new feelings I have.

Six sighs. “You know what this means, right?”

“What?”

“They’ve probably opened my Chest.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“No, I don’t. But after I grabbed that rock from your Chest and it started pulsing and hurting my hand, I haven’t been able to shake the feeling I got from it. And it just now came to me that it probably has something to do with my Chest.”

“They’ve had your Chest for three years now,” I say. “So you think it’s possible for them to open the Chests without us, without us being dead?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe? But I have this feeling that they got into mine and that when I touched that stone it somehow led the scouts to our house.”

“Why send so few?” Sam asks between yawns. “I mean, why not wait for reinforcements before attacking?”

“Maybe they got scared and panicked?” Six offers.

“Maybe one of them wanted to be the hero,” I say.

Six rolls down her window and listens. When she’s satisfied, she says, “Regardless. Next time there will be more of them. Pikens and krauls and whatever else they can throw at us.”

“You’re probably right,” Sam whispers. He’s drifting off. “I’ll tell you one thing. This being on the run is really wearing me down.”

“Try doing it for eleven years,” I say.

“I think I’m a little homesick,” he mumbles.

I lean forward and see that in his lap he’s holding his father’s old glasses, the ones with the thick lenses he used to wear in Paradise.

“It’s not too late to go back, Sam. You know that, right?”