The Forgotten Ones by Pittacus Lore Read Free Book Online

Missouri track.
    Rex solves that problem. He reaches down and grabs me around the chest just below my arm, then he just lets himself fall back, pulling me with him into the boxcar. We both land on the worn wooden floor with a thud and lay there a second, winded.
    Then he starts to laugh.
    “Woo!” he shouts, still laying there, the biggest grin I’ve seen yet plastered all over his face. “We just jumped onto a moving train!”
    I smile too. Rex just saved my life. Now we’re even. Maybe there’s hope for him after all.
    We have to hide once, in Columbus, Ohio, when the train stops and rail-yard cops check all the cars for stowaways like us, but it’s easy to hear them coming. We just duck out of the boxcar as soon as the train lurches to a halt, taking the spike with us, and then circle around, hopping back on once they’ve gone.
    It would almost be fun if I wasn’t so preoccupied with what’s going to happen once we get to New York. I still have no idea how we’re going to make it to Plum Island at all, much less how I’m going to get inside, get past whatever security measures the Mogs have and free the Chimæra.
    It’s overwhelming, but I’m starting to doubt myself less now. When I look back and think of how much I’ve managed to accomplish since I left Ashwood, I’m amazed. I could actually pull this off.
    However, I still haven’t managed to get in touch with Malcolm, and that is worrying me. Why wouldn’t he be answering his phone? Unless he never got to the Garde at all.
    I can’t let myself think about what that would mean.
    Rex and I are silent for most of the trip, but somewhere halfway through the journey, as I’m watching the countryside fly by, I surprise myself with the sound of my own voice.
    “Why destroy it all? What’s the point?”
    Rex doesn’t hesitate before he rattles off one of the most important tenets from the Good Book. “ Conquer, consume, cauterize. ” He shrugs. “It’s what we do.”
    It’s a phrase I’ve heard so many times that I’ll be able to repeat it by heart for the rest of my life. It’s the perfect summation of the Mog objective—travel to a new world, conquer it completely, drain all of its resources, then leave it a burnt-out husk and move on to the next one. It used to make sense to me.
    “But why?” I ask. “Don’t you ever question it?”
    “Because it’s the way of the universe. It’s the way progress happens. The Piken eats the Kraul. He doesn’t feel guilty about it. He just does it.”
    “Because he has to,” I argue. “Survival is one thing. This is different.”
    Rex’s face hardens into a stubborn frown. “Look at what happened on Lorien. They had so much power. Their Legacies alone should have allowed them to fight us off easily. But they’d gotten soft. Even with all that power, they were weak. Their world was stagnating. It was disgusting.”
    “They were happy. What’s disgusting about that?”
    He fixes me with a glare so hard that I can practically feel it. “I almost forgot who you are,” he says coldly. It’s the voice of the old Rex. “I forgot what you are. And what you’ve done. I won’t forget again.”
    Then I know that, whatever came over Rex on the course of this trip, it was only temporary. He’s not going to change. It’s in his blood. And when we get to Plum Island, he won’t need me anymore. He’ll be back with his true people; he’ll have no reason not to turn on me.
    I look away. I’m alone again. I don’t even know where Dust is—he turned himself into a mouse a few hours ago and has been exploring the train on his own ever since.
    Ten hours after Rex pulled me on board, we arrive in Philly in silence. We haven’t said a word since our argument.
    Dust appears from behind a crate and slides into my pocket as Rex is jumping out into the rail yard. I’m about to follow behind him when I see that he’s left the railroad spike behind. I guess he thinks I’m so weak that he doesn’t need it.