The helicopters circle back and line up over the faraway vehicles, forming a united front. Nine lifts his palm and the lead black truck is suddenly ripped straight up in the air like a shuttle rocketing into outer space. Nine flips his hand and the car falls back down again. We can hear the men screaming from where we are. The car comes to a stop right before it hits the ground, then smashes down hard. We watch the men scramble out on shaky legs and look for somewhere to run. At the sound of the impact, Bernie Kosar, still in the form of a hawk, dives and lands behind the twisted car on the road, and transforms into a beast. The trailing vehicles swerve into the desert to avoid him, some spinning completely around. Bernie Kosar roars.

Nine ducks into the backseat of the car and throws our Chests into the sand. Opening his, he pulls out the string of green stones and the silver staff, and as he jogs backwards towards the chaos, he yells, ‘You wait for the others. BK and I will be right back!’

I shout back, ‘Don’t look like you’re having too much fun! And make sure you don’t blow up the entrance to the military base!’ A helicopter swings in from my right, and just as I yank on its nose with my mind, something rips into my left leg. I fall headfirst into the sand, blinded by pain. It feels all too familiar and I roll on the ground screaming at the top of my lungs. I know what this means. A scar is searing itself into my leg. Another member of the Garde is dead.

Everything stops. The thought of another one of us dying sweeps through my body and I’m paralyzed by grief so deep it feels like I’m sinking into the sand. There is one less soldier to reclaim Lorien, one less soldier to fight to save Earth and every living thing on it. Two missiles slam into our car, blowing it to bits.

Gunfire rains down on me and just in time my bracelet expands into a shield. I take some solace in the fact that my Inheritance is in tune with the dangers that face me – although I don’t know why it didn’t protect me from the first onslaught of gunfire. The bullets are hitting close and constant. When I finally manage to examine the new scar wrapped around my ankle, I’m shocked to see two gaping bullet wounds instead. I don’t know that I’ve ever been so happy to be wounded and bleeding. I’m so relieved that it’s not another scar that I don’t even care that my hands are covered in blood. As I apply pressure to stop the bleeding, the desert goes strangely silent. My bracelet retracts.