After the initial rush of elation at hearing John and Sam, at knowing our friends are alive, the conversation turns grim. Over the radio, they describe what went down at the John Hancock Center. After that, John tells us about what he saw in the nightmare vision he shared with Ella and why he thinks Setrákus Ra doesn’t want to hurt her. John’s pieced together a theory that Ella could be related to Setrákus Ra and that the Mogadorian ruler could actually be some kind of twisted Loric, the banished Elder mentioned in Crayton’s letter. I’m not ready to grapple with that yet.

Once John’s caught us up, it’s our turn to fill in the others on what happened in Florida. Even over the radio, I can tell John’s trying not to press us too much. I think about the days that John’s been living with a fresh scar on his ankle, wondering which one of us wouldn’t be making it back—as much as it hurts to talk about, he deserves to know what happened to Eight. However, neither Marina nor Nine are very forthcoming, so it falls to me to describe how Five betrayed us, how he murdered Eight technically by accident, but only because he was actually trying to murder Nine. I was unconscious for most of the fight, so I keep the description bare bones, just the facts, not sugarcoating anything. Then, I give them the details of rescuing Eight’s body from the Mogadorian encampment and tell them about what Five did to his Mogadorian pal. When I’m finished, a grim mood settles inside the cockpit and we ride in silence until we reach suburban D.C.

I land the ship in the middle of a basketball court. We’re in a fancy-ass suburban development, one made extraordinarily eerie by all its darkened windows and general emptiness. The cockpit opens for us and Marina flashes me a relieved look as she stands up. Carefully, Nine picks up Eight’s body and climbs out of the ship. Marina stays close to him, her hand on Nine’s elbow, making sure that Eight doesn’t get jostled too much. It’s still hard to believe that’s our friend in that body bag, and it feels wrong to be carrying him around so much.

“Your travels are almost over,” I overhear Marina whisper to Eight’s body. She must feel the same as I do.

Marina and I hop down to the ground and turn around to help Nine lower Eight’s body. Instead of passing Eight down, Nine squints into the darkness around us.

“Whoa,” he says. “There are, like, some random creatures watching us right now.”

“Creatures?” I reply, looking up at him. Nine’s expression has gone blank—well, blanker than usual—the way he gets when he’s using his animal telepathy.

“Oh, I forgot to mention we found some new friends!”

It’s John, jogging towards us from the crooked doorway of a house that looks half smashed, like the ground tried to swallow it up but couldn’t quite finish. Sam is a few steps behind him, beaming at me, although when he notices me noticing him, he quickly tones down the wattage of his smile, going for something a little less eager. Behind John and Sam, pushing a gurney, are Malcolm and a pale, lanky guy that I assume must be Adam, the dark hair hanging in his face making him look half-Mog and half-emo rock star.