The light from the eye is now purple and it rolls over my face. I lick my lips and taste something burned. Setrákus Ra moves towards me until he’s a few feet away. I close my eyes and tighten my jaw, thinking of John and Katarina and Sam and Marina and Ella. I see Eight and Henri and Crayton, and even Bernie Kosar. I will not give Setrákus Ra the honor, the pleasure, of looking at him while he kills me. Something hot and soft touches my forehead, like a blast of air. I steel myself for whatever is about to happen; brace myself for the certain agony it will bring. When nothing happens, I open my eyes to see Setrákus Ra just standing there. Well, not exactly. There are bands of red and purple light shining out of the head of his cane and crawling up and down his massive body.

Setrákus Ra starts to shake and a white light outlines his shoulders and arms. He falls to his knees, convulsing, his huge head jerking up and down. Then his dull, waxy skin pulls away from the muscle and bone. When the skin snaps back down onto his shrinking body, it has a new, olive tone. Long blond hair grows out of his scalp until he has a full head of hair. When he looks up at me, I am more desperate than ever to attack but I still can’t move. He’s me – gray eyes and high cheekbones and dyed blond hair.

‘For me to be you, you must stay alive,’ he says in my voice, ‘but only for now.’ He lifts a palm into the air and, as if there was one magnet in the ceiling and another in my now-black hand, I shoot off the ground, slam against the ceiling, and dangle there, fifty feet off the floor. I feel a painful buzzing in my brain. I try again to call for Ella in my head, but I can’t even hear myself think. When I touch my free hand to the one stuck to the ceiling, it, too, turns black. The heavy stiffness that weighed down my hand is now spreading. The thing I can move at this point are my eyes. My entire body is now black. Black rock.

29.

29.

Once again I take the lead. Marina trails me and a growling Bernie Kosar runs alongside her. Ella still has my Chest, with Eight and Nine following close behind. My fire has made me invincible, and my flames instantly consume every Mogadorian soldier that comes charging around a corner or through a door. The fire has not only taken over my body, but also my mind. I have never felt so confident, so determined, so ready to defeat our enemies before.