I step forward and examine the pendant. The blue Loralite stone is slightly larger than mine, but everything else is the same. I stare at it and feel an overwhelming connection to whoever this was. “I’m not sure, but I think he was a friend.” I reach over his head and retrieve the pendant, handing it to Six.

We move to the desk. I don’t know where to start. A heavy layer of dust covers stacks of papers and writing utensils. The writing on the papers pinned to the wall above the desk is in every language but English. I recognize a few Loric numbers, but nothing else. A white electronic tablet sits on a dilapidated wooden chair, and I pick it up and press my fingers over its black screen. Nothing happens.

Six opens the top drawer to find more papers, and as she grabs the second drawer’s handle, an explosion aboveground knocks us off our feet. A long crack travels along the room’s ceiling and then the concrete buckles. Chunks fall all around us.

“Run!” I yell.

With the pendant around her neck, Six tears a dozen papers from the wall and I stuff the white tablet in the back of my waistband. We scramble up the ladder and peek out the sliver of space between the well and the sundial. Dozens of Mogs. Smoldering fires. Bernie Kosar has transformed himself into a tiger with the curling horns of a ram. A Mog’s arm is in his teeth. Sam is no longer at the fence, and neither is my Chest.

I’m about to burst out of the well when Six launches herself past me in a tornado of clouds. The sundial lid whips backwards, and she rips through a huddle of five Mogs, sending them across the yard. I pull myself out of the well and close it as she picks up a gleaming Mog sword, turning invisible.

I use my telekinesis to toss three armed Mogs standing near the well against the house. They explode into thick ash, and when I turn I see a shirtless man frozen in the back door with a shotgun in his hands. Behind him stands Sam’s frightened mom in a nightgown.

Six materializes next to two Mogs running at me with glowing cannons, and she swings the sword through both their necks. Then she uses her telekinesis to throw the wheelbarrow at another, turning him into a pile of ash. I toss two Mogs against another, and Six impales all three in one quick motion. Bernie Kosar leaps into the middle of the yard and digs his teeth into a few Mogs struggling to their feet.

“Where’s Sam?” I yell.

“Here!”

I twist to see Sam lying on his stomach under a charred shrub. Blood runs down his scalp.

“Sam!” his mom yells from the doorway.

He struggles to his knees. “Mom!”