I’m not in the boat. The boat is still there, but it’s several yards beneath me. I’m floating towards the cloudless night sky, still holding my bag to my chest. I wonder for a moment if all the Garde get shot back into space when they die. Maybe this is part of the stupid plan that forced me to live out in the middle of nowhere. With my sick Cêpan.

My parched lips curl down into a frown as I speak my final words.

“Fuck Lorien.”

And then I’m shooting forward, the wind beating against my face. Flying.

CHAPTER FIVE

I DON’T KNOW HOW I’M DOING IT—OR WHERE I’M finding the energy—but I soar through the air. It feels different from my telekinesis, like it’s coming from somewhere else within me. I feel like I’m in some kind of trance as I shoot through clouds, focused only on looking for somewhere to crash that isn’t water. It doesn’t feel like too long before I see land. I picture myself on it, and like magic I’m lowering, until I’m bouncing on a beach, forming a little trench of sand.

I’m too exhausted to properly react to the fact that I was just flying through the air. All I can wonder is where I am and hope that no one saw me.

No such luck.

A female jogger is by my side before I can climb out of the little ditch my body’s made in the sand.

“Holy crap, what happ—”

I must look terrible, because when she gets a good look at me she stops in the middle of her sentence.

“Water,” I croak out, my throat feeling like it’s full of dust.

She pulls a bottle from her workout belt and hands it to me. I squeeze the cool liquid into my mouth, hardly stopping to savor it. My eyes are dry and stinging, but the water keeps coming, so I just keep swallowing.

“Careful, careful,” the woman says. “There’s plenty more.”

I look around warily. I’m on a beach, but not one that I recognize. It’s dawn, or just before—there’s hardly any light out at all. My mind spins.

“Where am I?” This doesn’t look like any place I remember in Martinique.

“Lummus Park,” the woman says. She’s looking less worried about me now and more confused. Her eyes keep looking out to the sea in the direction I came from.

“No, what island is this?”

Her face wrinkles.

“This is South Beach. Miami.”

Miami?

“Where do you live?” she asks me. “Was there an accident? Do we need to call for help? How did you—I mean, it looked like you were flying.”

I’m quick to shake my head.

“No accident,” I say between gulps. “No help. Don’t call anyone.”

A few people gather around us. People start asking if everything’s okay. After downing the last of the water, I start to get to my feet, but my legs are wobbly.

“No, no, no,” the woman says. “Stay right there. You need more water.”

She looks up at the handful of people gathered around us and someone offers her a bottle full of bright green liquid.

“Perfect,” she says, handing it to me. “Drink this. It’ll be good for you and help out with your electrolytes.”

I hesitate for only a second before I’m chugging the sweet liquid. My heart starts to pound, as if it’s been paused for the last few moments.

Something sparks in my mind and I look around. I’m still wearing the glove with the sheathed blade but I don’t see anything else on the beach.

“My bag . . .” I say, starting to get frantic. The Chest may not have had anything I thought I could use in it, but Rey talked about it as if it was Lorien’s last hope—other than me and the rest of the Garde, that is. There’s no way I can lose it.

It’s the only thing I have left.

A few yards away, I see a guy picking up my duffel bag. He tosses back the canvas flap and starts to pull out the Loric Chest.

“Hey!” I shout in the loudest voice I can muster.

Before I can think about what I’m doing I reach out my hand and feel a spark of telekinetic energy. The bag and Chest fly from the man’s hands and into mine. He’s stunned, but it looks to everyone else like he’s just tossed it over to me. I clutch it against my torso.

Someone snaps a picture of me on their phone.

“Hey.” The woman beside me stands up, sounding annoyed. “What are you trying to do, man? This kid’s obviously been through something and you want to take pictures of him?”

“I thought we’d need pictures to run if it’s a story,” the photographer says. “If this ‘something’ is big, we need to document it.”

They start to argue. I get up and start to run.

“Hey!” someone is shouting behind me—the woman, probably—but I don’t look back. I just put my head down and make a beeline toward the closest bushes and trees. Anything that will give me cover. My legs feel like jelly and my head pounds, but I keep going until I can’t hear anyone yelling behind me anymore.

It’s been so long since I’ve been in real civilization that I’ve almost forgotten how to function. Clinging to my bag, I do everything wrong. I almost knock down a few people as I run with my eyes looking over my shoulder. I catch bits and pieces of curses as I pass.

“Watch it, you little piece of . . .”

“. . . damned punk. I should . . .”

“. . . the hell do you think you’re doing . . .”

But I ignore all of them. Running, suddenly desperate to get away from the people and the rest of the world.