“I can make you disappear if that’s what you want,” he says, slashing a figure eight with the sword, leaving a stark white streak hanging in the air where the blade passes through. And then he charges, his sword held high and cracking with power. He swings, and it comes down like a bullet, aimed for my throat, and I know that there’s nothing I can do to stop the blow from decapitating me.

“John!” the voice screams again.

My eyes whip open. Two hands grip me hard by the shoulders. I’m covered in sweat and out of breath. I focus first on Sam standing over me, then on Six, with her stark hazel eyes that sometimes look blue and sometimes green, kneeling beside me, appearing tired and worn as though I just woke her, which I probably did.

“What was that all about?” Sam asks.

I shake my head, letting the vision dissipate, and I take in my surroundings. The room is dark with the curtains drawn, and I’m lying in the same bed I’ve spent the last week and a half in, healing from the battle wounds. Six has been recovering beside me, and neither she nor I have left this place since we arrived, relying on Sam to head out for food and supplies. A shabby motel room with two full beds off the main street in Trucksville, North Carolina. To rent the room, Sam had used one of the seventeen driver’s licenses Henri created for me before he was killed, and luckily the old man at the front desk was too busy watching TV to study the photograph. Situated on the northwestern edge of the state, the motel is a fifteen-minute drive from both Virginia and Tennessee, a location chosen mainly because we had traveled as far as we could go given the extent of our injuries. But our wounds have slowly healed, and our strength is finally returning.

“You were talking in a foreign language I’ve never heard before,” Sam says. “I think you made it up, dude.”

“No, he was talking in Mogadorian,” Six corrects him. “And even a little Loric.”

“Really?” I ask. “That’s totally weird.”

Six walks to the window and pulls back the right side of the curtains. “What were you dreaming about?”

I shake my head. “I’m not really sure. I was dreaming, but I wasn’t dreaming, you know. Having visions, I guess, and they were about them. We were about to have a battle; but I was, I don’t know, too weak or confused or something.” I look up at Sam, who is frowning and looking at the TV. “What?”

“Bad news.” He sighs, shaking his head.

“What?” I sit up, wipe the sleep from my eyes.