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deep beneath the snow, where even Clifford couldn’t find it.
    Katarina was wrong: I have killed before. Out of mercy.
    But not yet out of vengeance.

CHAPTER NINE
    Katarina pulls the truck off the dirt road and we get out. It’s been a day of straight driving and it’s now three in the morning. We’re in Arkansas, in the Lake Ouachita State Park. The park entrance was closed so Katarina broke through a chain barrier and snuck the truck in, off-roading in the dark of the woods until we came to the main camp road.
    We’ve been here before, though I don’t remember it. Katarina says we camped here when I was much younger, and that she had thought it would make a good burial site for my Chest, if it ever came to that.
    It has, apparently, come to that.
    Outside the truck I can hear the lake lapping weakly at the shore. Katarina and I walk through the trees, following its sound. I carry the Chest in my arms. We’ve decided it’s too cumbersome and too dangerous to hold on to. Katarina says it must not fall into Mogadorian hands.
    I don’t press her on this point, though there is a dark implication to this task that haunts me. If Katarina thinks it’s come to the point of burying the Chest to keep it safe, then she must think our capture has become likely. Perhaps inevitable.
    I shiver in the cool of the night, while swatting mosquitoes away. There are more of them the closer we get to the water’s edge.
    We finally come to the shore. In the middle of the lake, I see a small green island, and I know Katarina well enough to know what she’s thinking.
    “I’ll do it,” she says. But she only barely gets the words out. She is exhausted, on the brink of collapse. She hasn’t slept in days. I’ve barely slept either, only a few quick minutes here and there in the car. But that’s more than Katarina’s had, and I know she needs rest.
    “Lie down,” I say. “I’ll do it.”
    Katarina makes a few weak protests, but before long she’s lying on the ground by the shore. “Rest,” I say. I take the blanket she brought out to use as a towel and instead use it to drape her, to hide her from the mosquitoes.
    I strip off my clothes, then grab the Chest tight and step into the water. It’s bracing at first, but once I’m submerged it’s actually fairly warm. I begin an awkward doggy paddle, using one arm to stroke through the water and the other to clutch the Chest.
    I’ve never swum at night before, and it takes all of my will not to imagine hands reaching up from the murky depths to grab at my legs and pull me under. I stay focused on my goal.
    I arrive at the island after what feels like an hour but is more likely ten minutes. I step out of the water, trembling as the air hits my bare skin, and walk awkwardly over the stones littering the shore. I walk to the center of the small island. It is nearly round, and probably less than an acre, so it doesn’t take long to reach.
    I dig a hole three feet deep, which takes considerably longer than the swim out. By the end my hands are bleeding from clawing through the rough dirt, stinging more and more with each barehanded shovel through the soil.
    I place the Chest in the hole. I am reluctant to let it go, though I have never seen its contents, never even opened it. I consider saying a prayer over it, the source of so much potential and promise.
    I decide against praying. Instead, I just kick dirt into the hole until it’s covered, and smooth over the mound.
    I know I may never see my Chest again.
    I return to the water and swim back to Katarina.

CHAPTER TEN
    It’s been a week since we arrived in Upstate New York. We’re at a small motel adjacent to an apple orchard and a neighborhood soccer field. Katarina has been plotting our next move.
    There have been no suspicious announcements on the news or on the internet. This gives us some measure of hope for the future of Lorien, and also that the Mogadorians’ trail on us has gone cold.
    It’s silly but I feel ready to