When Melody and I had gone our separate ways, and I walked through the door of our house to find Number Four laying on the couch by himself. It was quiet so everyone else must have still been out trying to locate Ten.

"How was your little play date?" I snickered.

"Terrible." he groaned, sitting up so that I could sit down beside him. I had many couches in my home, I thought bitterly. "We can cross Daymon off our list of possible Number Ten's."

"Backpack boy?" I raised an eyebrow, taking a seat next to him. He had been our most promising suspect. "How come?"

"When I was hanging out with him, all he wanted to do was smoke pot!" Four scrunched his nose in disgust and I couldn't help but stifle a laugh.

"Number Ten is a stoner?" I chuckled.

"No," he shook his head. "He's just a regular stoner. Apparently Cumberland is full of them, according to him."

"Alright, so that doesn't rule him out completely." I shrugged. My nose suddenly caught whiff of an odd smell, one that I hadn't smelled in a long time, not since I used to roam around the street of Chicago. Marijuana. I narrowed my eyes, examining Four closely before grinning. "Johnny, are you stoned?"

"I had to," he mumbled, making eye contact with me. Now I could see his eyes clearly, there were bloodshot and he looked really tired. I couldn't contain my laughter. "He pressured me like crazy and I had to know if he was Ten or not so I took one toke out of what he called a bong,"

"Well how do you feel?" I pressed, still giggling.

"Weird," he shook his head. "I was coughing like crazy, my throat burned and he was just laughing at me, saying that the more I coughed, the higher I would be,"

"Hey," I told him sternly, trying to keep a straight face. "You better keep your drugs away from the other kids." I joked.

"My head felt weird, but kinda good." Four sighed. "Still kinda does but I want it to stop."

"Maybe Malcom should have made your ID say Bob Marley," I laughed, shaking my head. "Seriously though, you need to sober up. Gotta be in top shape in case of a Mog attack." With me and him the only ones here, I'm not sure if I'd be able to hold off an entire attack if they swarmed us, and Four wouldn't be able to focus as clearly as he would need.

"I keep having these weird like," he paused for a moment, "deep thoughts about stuff, but I don't like it. I couldn't help it when we were sitting alone in his room, I just straight up asked him if he was Number Ten."

"You did what?" I retorted. "You dumbass." I shook my head. "You could have seriously compromised us, dude."

"He just laughed and asked what drug I was on and where he could buy it so I'm pretty sure we are good. I asked him about his bag and, get this," he coughed into his elbow before continuing. "He said that he always had it with him in case the police came and he had to make a get away with his marijuana and his smoking devices." Four scoffed. "We're back where we started."

"One of the others might turn up positive." I shrugged. "Besides, you had fun, didn't you?" I raised an eyebrow at him. In a way, I was kinda jealous. Not because he did drugs, but because it was apparently a normal experience for teenagers, and normal was something that we could never have.

"What about Melody?" Four asked, ignoring my question. "Any luck with her?"

"No." I shook my head. "I don't think that she's Ten." Her story proves that she isn't one of us.

"Maybe we'll have better luck with the others." Four sighed, shaking his head. "I don't want to stay here any longer, not while the Mogs are out there planning an attack."

"I agree with you," I nodded. "I'm done playing high school and want to get back into the real action. No more drugs, hey?" I nudged him playfully.

"Whatever." Four retorted, getting to his feet. "I'm going to go find something useful to do." Without another word, he walked down the stairs, going into the basement. It wasn't the best place for training, definitely not anything like the Lecture Hall that Sandor had built, and we suspected the neighbours could hear us training but we had at least had the sense to block out all windows so no passerby could try and peek in.

Malcolm walked up the stairs shortly after Four disappeared, waving at me before wandering down the hall towards the room that he shared with Sam. He'd set up a system where he could monitor all the video footage in the village. He was no Sandor, but he was alright. Any idea came to mind and instantly I was on my feet, making my way down the hall. I opened the door to his study and entered when I found that he was the only one in there. So it's just the three of us here.

"Hey Nathan." he said, not looking up from the screen that he was watching.

"Nine." I corrected irritably, rolling my eyes. "My name is Nine around here. I'm only Nathan at school."

"Right," Malcolm said awkwardly. "Sorry about that."

"It's fine." I shrugged, peeking over his shoulder at the screens but there didn't seem to be anything interesting, just people walking around. "I actually came here with a question for you." I said, sitting in a small chair beside him, watching the various camera footage from the large screen.

"What's your question?" he asked me, adjusting his glasses.

"Someone went missing a few years ago, here in Canada. Their family would obviously be looking for them, right?" I asked, hoping he wouldn't ask too many questions. I have to at least try to find her family for her, it's the right thing to do. "They'd be on the news or something like that? Is there anyway you could track them down?"

"It's quite possible, yes." Malcolm nodded. "Do you have names? An area maybe? It would make the search a lot easier." He minimized the cams and began typing frantically on a search browser.

"I've got names." I told him. "The missing girl's name is Melody. She went missing five or six years ago. Her father's name is Thomas, and she had a brother who's name is Andy. They are the ones who would be looking for her."

"Alright." Malcolm nodded. "I'll have to run a scan to search for anything like that," he looked away from the screen and raised an eyebrow at me. "Nine, if you don't mind me asking, why you want to find this girl?"

"I already found the girl. It's the family I want to find." I shrugged. "Just try and find a phone number or something, alright?" I turned towards and the door and started walking before he could say anything. "And Malcolm?" I asked, turning over my shoulder after opening the door.

"Yes?" he smiled.

"If you could keep this between you and me, that would be great." I winked.

"I won't tell the others." he promised, turning back to his computer. I nodded and walked out the door without saying anything else.


"Again." I hissed, standing over the pitiful Five. He was pathetic compared to the others, I kinda felt bad since his cepan wasn't really able to train him properly but that still wasn't much of an excuse since the rest of us had managed to train just fine without our cepans.

"I don't want to keep going." Five shook his head, still on his knees. What a weak little bitch. We've barely been going at this for an hour. "I'm tired."

"You're tired?" I retorted, poking him with the end of my staff. "Do you think that those filthy mogadorians will let you have a break when you're tired?" I was breathing to hard, my adrenaline pumping.

"I've never fought any mogadorians like the rest of you." Five snarled. "Unlike all of your Cepans, mine did his job and kept me hidden from them." Anger started swelling in my chest. How dare he say that about Sandor!

"At least all of our Cepan's died protecting us, doing their duties. You lost yours to some stupid human sickness." I spat shoving him roughly again. I started walking away but Five flew to his feet and tackled me, catching me off guard and knocking me off my feet. He threw his arm back and punched me hard in the jaw before I wriggled out from under him and managed to pin him down by his hands with my knees. I punched him in the nose, smirking in triumph when blood started to trickle from his nostril. I punched him again, this time hard in the jaw and stood, kicking him roughly in the gut before walking away, leaving him groaning in pain.

"You bastard." he hissed through his breath.

"You can't even beat me." I scoffed. "How do you expect to beat a mogadorian in battle?"

"I won't have to." Five retorted, stumbling to his feet. "You're all going to be there, right?"

"Are you serious?" I snarled. "If that's how you are going to think, then maybe I should just end your pathetic life right now." I spat. " You're of no use to any of us who actually want to go home."

"Go home to what?" Five spat angrily. "There is nothing left. We are all that is left. Everyone on Lorien, our parents, our grandparents, every loric there ever was, are dead. We are all that is left of them so who cares? I didn't choose this life, and neither did you. Screw the Elders and screw their higher plan for us,"

"And who do you think killed them all? Who do you think destroyed Lorien?" I retorted. "The mogs stole everything from us. They deserve to die. That's why we're doing this. Getting together so we can defeat them and restore Lorien. If you don't want to help us, then leave and stay out of our way." I walked away, leaving him there, pitiful looking and lying on the ground. We better find Number Ten soon. I'm so done with these kids, I just want everything to go back to the way they were, back when it was just me and Sandor against the world.


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