4-

Little note here, I'm kinda listening to Ready Aim Fire on YouRepeat, so if this chapter is overly violent, that's why.

It's a disgrace down there. The Mogs sweep out of the bottom like, football players. That's what I wanna say. They're trying to get the ball, Ella, to the end-zone, Lake Michigan, and past the other team, everyone else. It's all happened so fast that the police aren't even here yet, and they're already halved the distance, hurdling cars down there.

I search for Ella as BK dodges a plasma shot from down there. She's gotta be in the front somewhere, the guy who has her leading the charge. But no, there's like a united front pushing down there, tackling over the all the people and crossing an intersection. One guy gets the idea, and drives his car straight into the horde, and he trumps over the Mogs, the dead ones flashing ash behind him like driving in sand. He drives a straight path right through them, and out onto the other side of the street where he just keeps driving. Away and away and away from there.

Three quarters. Quick, John, find her. She's gotta be down there somewhere. I tell BK to swoop back over them as we do, Some of them point up at me. They're talking, and the ones near the middle immediately flip- wait.

They all flip girls over their shoulders. All of them. Hundreds. I turn around to see them, but no… No, it can't be. They all look like Ella. Every single one is like a carbon copy of Ella slung over their shoulder. I don't risk a fireball, because I can't have any freaking way of knowing! Which one she is!

"What are those!" I shout to Adam over the whip of the wind, pointing at the Ellas.

He looks down, or at least I assume he does, cuz he tilts his head down. He doesn't actually have pupils? There's no other way I can see that. "No idea," His faint voice shouts back.

I, I, I dunno. What can I do? The only way I can go get Ella is to fight them for her, and if every single one has a fake Ella as a boy shield, then how do I know which one to not kill? I can't. I give the whole scene one last, lonely look, the order BK to get over to the zoo. That's where I told Sarah I'd meet her and Sam.

"Where are we going!" Adam.

"What!"

"My car's that way!" He points off towards the river, down south.

I scoff. "Are you kidding!" Pointing north, towards the zoo, I say, "Sarah's that way!"

"Didn't you hear me earlier! You know, when you flung me off the side of the building! I said I have your chimaera!"

It clicks. It suddenly clicks. I was too enraged to see it before, but what was once dark has now come to light. He wasn't talking about BK! He must've liberated the others! The chimaera from the second ship! The ones that shared the ship with Ella! Oh, ohhhh. This is a game changer. Eight may have been lost, but damn! I mean, "Damn!" Whoops. Did I just say that out loud? Oh, who cares? This is gonna win the war, right here! Eight will not have been lost in vain! God Damn!

"I can tell you're on board," Adam shouts slyly, if you can even shout slyly. "They're over on the curb on Wacker!"

"Hear that, BK!" and in response, we do a full 180 and head south instead.

"It's a tan sedan! Old model!" He says, and we swoop down real low, the cowering people on the ground looking up at us with fear, afraid of another penthouse dropping down on them. I wave at them as our shadow covers them for a second. God, I'm psyched! Oh my God! It's not over! We're not out yet!

"There!" He points to what is, just as he said, an old but well-kept sedan. Not that old, maybe a few years. It's actually pretty nice. Not as nice as Nine's finest sports car, though, I'd imagine. Wow! Was it really just a few minutes ago that I wanted to go rip the heart out of everything?

BK lands and now he's a dog, not a beagle, but a Great Dane, standing over us as Adam fumbles with the keys. I press my head against the door to see, like, six or seven animals in there. It's so hard to keep track of them, but two are birds of some kind, one's a monkey, and the rest are animals that must be Loric because I don't recognize them. They seem excited to see Adam, and one in particular jumps out and glows white while he becomes a grey wolf that nuzzles him in the leg.

Wow. Just wow. I pop the other door open as Adam jumps in the driver's seat and suddenly they're all talking to me. A Loric! A Loric! And Adamus! Adamus! And all sorts of other things. I shove the chests in the back with them and they all hop up and down on them and play with them happily. Haha. An army of Chimaera. Who knew?

"The zoo, you said? Adam inquires.

"Yup," I say, grinning as I watch them frolic. BK is back there now, but the grey wolf still sits on Adam's lap, looking up at me questioningly. Who are you?

I'm Number Four. I tilt my head to match its, and it growls and tilts its head back the other way. Fine, be that way.

Who is the other?

Bernie Kosar? He's my Chimaera. He's been here since the beginning.

The beginning? What do you mean?

Well, I'll tell you what. While we're driving, I'll recap. Got that? But only if you tell me your story after.

So that's what happens. We're driving through a wrecked downtown, people running all around us, Mogs already stomped away into the Lake or wherever they went, and I'm sitting here talking blissfully about beating up Mark James via telepathy to a wolf. Remember those hopes of being normal? Bye Bye!

He tells me his name is Dust, and that he was on the second ship from Lorien. Nothing I didn't already know. What's new is the story after- about how Crayton knew they couldn't keep all of the Chimaera, so he released them into the wild, knowing they would survive and that one of the Nine would have a device that would let us summon them. He says he didn't know what to do in the wild, and he wandered Europe for ages, as a rat, and a stray dog, and a bird, and even hitched a ride across the Atlantic as a fly on a ship. That's when it goes downhill, but before he can continue with his cliffhanger Then they found me somehow, Adam looks at me, then snaps in my face. "We're here, Four, Do what you need to do then let's get outa this city."

"Oh? Yeah. That," I get out of the car and search the lot, and suddenly Sarah burst out of a cherry red corvette sitting in the opposite side of the lot. I sprint as fast as I can and I'm across the lot within the second, lips meeting. "Miss me?"

"More than ever," She says in return, and ushers me in the car. I hold back, though, and a confused look spreads across her face. "Problem?"

"It's just… The chests are back in the other car," I absentmindedly mumble, not knowing how to introduce Adam. Ugh. What if they shoot him on the spot? What if they… No. They'll trust him cuz I trust him, and all that. I walk back slowly across the lot, pondering my thoughts, Sarah trialing behind asking me where I'm going. Huh. This could get interesting.

Hey people. So, this was originally intended as a shorter chapter to wrap up Four and Adam's peril in Chicago, but I kinda got stuck on writing the last bit there, if you can't tell. One, I don't like romance, two, I don't like sappy stuff, and three, the most important, I blew out my headphones with Ready Aim Fire. They don't like 100%.

Anyway, I'm probably gonna go back and edit the whole ending sequence out once I come up with something. But this is just for closure, you know, get the scene done and move on. I've already got plans for what to do to Six and Seven and Nine, and it's fun for me, so it must not be fun for you people because it involves them getting shot at, but ya know, First thing's first, right? Right. Anyway.

So, long story short, I need your guy's always lovely input as to what happens after they fly over to the car. It just… goes in the toilet from there, in my opinion. Whatever. Cinco out.