Lorien Legacies: The Lost Files by Pittacus Lore Read Free Book Online Page A

crosses over to Katarina, pulling on her hair. Still gagged, she manages only a whimper. “But you’re going to tell me right now.”
    “No!” I scream. He grins with satisfaction at my anguish, like he’s been waiting for it. He presses the blade to Katarina’s arm and slides it down her flesh. Her arm opens up, pouring blood. She buckles against her chains, tears flooding her face. I try to scream but my voice gives out: all that comes out is a high, pained gasp.
    He makes another cut beside the first, this one even deeper. Katarina succumbs to the pain and goes limp.
    With my teeth, I think.
    “I can do this all day,” he says. “Do you understand me? You’re going to tell me everything I want to know, starting with what number you are.”
    I close my eyes. My heart burns. I feel like a volcano, only there’s no opening, no outlet for the rage filling up inside of me.
    When I open my eyes he’s back at the desk, tossing a large blade from his left hand to his right hand and back. Playfully, waiting for my gaze. Now that he’s got it, he holds the blade up so I can see its size.
    It begins to glow in his hands, changing colors: violet one second, green the next.
    “Now . . . your number. Four? Seven? Are you lucky enough to be Number Nine?”
    Katarina, barely conscious, shakes her head. I know she’s signalling me to keep silent. She has kept her silence this long.
    I struggle to keep quiet. But I can’t handle it, can’t watch him hurt my Katarina. My Cêpan.
    He walks over to Katarina, still wielding the blade. Katarina murmurs something beneath her gag. Curious, he lowers it from her mouth.
    She spits a thick wad of blood onto the floor by his feet. “Torturing me to get to her?”
    He eyes her hatefully, impatient. “Yes, that’s about right.”
    Katarina manages a scornful, slow-building laugh. “It took you two whole days to come up with that plan?”
    I can see his cheeks turn red at the well-aimed jab. Even Mogadorians have their pride.
    “You must be some kind of idiot,” she howls. I thrill at Katarina’s impudence, proud of her defiance but afraid of what the consequence will be.
    “I have all the time in the galaxies for this,” he says flatly. “While you are in here with me, we are out there with the rest of you. Don’t think anything has stopped us from moving forward just because we have you. We know more than you think. But we want to know everything.”
    He cruelly strikes Katarina with the butt of the knife before she can speak again.
    He turns to me.
    “If you don’t want to see her sliced into little pieces, then you better start talking, and fast. And every single word that comes out better be true. I will know if you’re lying.”
    I know he isn’t playing games, and I can’t bear to see him hurt Katarina again. If I talk, maybe he’ll be merciful. Maybe he’ll leave her alone.
    It comes out so fast I barely have time to order my thoughts, so fast I barely know what I’m saying when I say it. I have one intention, but it’s a murky one: to tell him everything I know that he can’t use against me or the other Loriens. I tell him pointless details about my previous journeys with Katarina, our previous identities. I tell him about my Chest, but I don’t give its burial location, claiming it was lost in our journey. Once I start talking I’m afraid to stop. I know that if I pause to measure my words he will smell my deceit.
    Then he asks me what number I am.
    I know what he wants to hear: that I am number Four. I can’t be Three, or else they would have been able to kill me. But if I’m Four then all he’ll need is to find and kill Three before he can begin his bloody work on me.
    “I am Number Eight,” I say finally. I am so scared I say it, with a desperate, cringing sigh, that I know that he’s fooled. His face falls.
    “Sorry to disappoint you,” I croak out.
    His disappointment is short-lived. He begins to beam, victorious. I may not be the number he