A/N- Yay for a fast update! I don't know what it is, but the words just kept a-comin' with this chapter. I hope this means it's pretty good. I always like to think my work is. Anyway, givin' some mahoosive thanks to Rissa-channn and Ava for reviewing!

Chapter Six- Big Show In The Big Easy

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't speak. I couldn't believe it. Because it was unbelievable. Here I was, in New Orleans, about to go on stage, hugging my big sister who I hadn't seen in three whole years. I was so glad I hadn't put my eyeliner or mascara on yet, because I was crying so much, my head buried in Mila's shoulder.

"I can't believe it's you!" I was sobbing. "I've missed you so much!"

"It's not just me!" she laughed, and I could hear from the thickness of her voice that she was close to crying too. "Look!" She made me release her and turned me to face down the hall. A middle-aged couple were standing about five metres away. The woman had carefully styled curly brown hair, and was dressed elegantly in a purple cocktail dress and nude heels. The man was slightly older, with thinning hair that was now more grey than blonde, and he was wearing a grey suit. It was them. I couldn't believe this either. My parents, here, in America.

"Mum!" I exclaimed, despite them being so close. "Dad!" They smiled broadly at me, Mum moving forward and enveloping me in a huge hug. She still smelled like Prada Candy perfume.

"We're so proud of you, Zee," she told me, and I closed my eyes and breathed in her soft, powdery scent.

"Hey kid," Dad said when Mum and I let go of each other, and I moved to hug him too.

"Hey Daddy," I replied, and he reached over and ruffled my hair. Dad had never really been one for the cuddly-cuddly stuff, even when Mila and I were little. "What are you doing here?!" I asked them, wiping the tears off my face and out of my eyes.

"Well, we saw on the news how popular your show in Las Vegas was," Mum replied. "So we decided to see for ourselves. We were lucky to get the tickets; they sold out in thirty seconds, apparently."

"Yeah, that and the whole 'we haven't seen Hunter for like three years' thing," chipped in Mila.

"How are you even here?" I asked Mila. "Like, how did you get time off work? Where's Dean? Where's Andrew?" I named her two-year-old son and husband of six years.

"Andrew's taken Dean to stay with his mum for two weeks in Yorkshire," Mila replied. "And I had an overdraft of holiday anyway so…here I am."

"Woah, two weeks?"

"Yeah, we thought we'd make a proper holiday of it," she replied. "We're staying in New Orleans for the week, then going to LA for the next. When will you be back in the Big Apple, then?"

"Oh, we'll be back in the next couple of days," I said casually, knowing exactly what was going to be happening when we got back to NYC. "We'll finish up here then fly back for our final show."

"Only one more show?" said Mum.

"Yeah, then it's time for a nice, well deserved break." Hopefully not literally…

"It does look like you've been working hard," commented Dad.

"You have nooo idea," I muttered, not meeting anyone's eye. There was the sound of a male throat-clearing behind me, and Jack stepped forward, poking me on the arm. "Oh, right. Yeah. Mum, Dad, Mila," I said, dragging Jack forward so he was standing a little bit in front of me. "This is my very bestest friend in the whole wide world, Mr Jack Wilder." Jack held up his hand in a kind of wave. "Jack, this is my mother and father, Amanda and Robert Blackwell, and my older sister Mila Tamworth, formerly Mila Blackwell."

"Nice to meet you," Jack said warmly, shaking hands with my parents, but Mila moved forward and encircled him in what really looked like a too-close-for-comfort hug.

"Any friend of Zee's is a friend of mine," she told him, releasing him from her stranglehold. He looked slightly uncomfortable.

"Zee?" Jack looked enquiringly at me.

"It's Mila's crappy sense of humour," I explained. "She thought it would be funny to start calling me Zombie Hunter, which was then shortened to Zombie, and eventually just became Zee. It's not a nickname I have ever been proud of. So tell any of the others and I will be forced to kill you."

"You love it really," Mila drawled, and I shot her the finger. "So anyway, Mother, Father, you should really be going and saving our seats. The show's starting soon, isn't it?" she directed at me, and I nodded.

"Well what are you doing, Mila?" Mum asked her.

"I need to have a catch-up with my little sister," Mila answered, grinning at me, and I vanished. "So Mr Wilder, you too need to make yourself scarce."

"Um, right," Jack said awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck. "I'll just go and…um…find Danny and Merritt and that."

"Alright then, tell them I'll be fifteen minutes," I said. "Hear that, Mill? For once, your gossip needs to be cut short."

"I cannot believe you!" Mila was fuming five minutes later, once everyone else had disappeared. "Like, seriously! Are you honestly that stupid?!"

"Mila, you don't know anything about this! Don't start yelling at me over something so trivial!"

"Trivial?! Trivial?! This is not trivial! This is your love life, little sis! How can you call that trivial?!"

"Quite easily! It's not a high focus area of my life right now!"

"Well it bloody well should be! I have just watched you friendzone one of the only guys I've seen that into you!"

"Oh please! Jack is not into me! Not like that!"

"Well I beg to differ! You're so blind when it comes to stuff like this, Hunter! You can't see the way he looks at you!"

"Well, yeah, I had my back to him for most of the bloody conversation!"

"Exactly! You're proving my point! You didn't see the little glances he kept giving you! You didn't see how his face softened when you spoke!"

"Er, Jack does not act like that. Like, ever. You don't know him, Mila!"

"I don't care if I don't know him. I know about this kind of thing. I've been married for six years, Hunter! Since I was your age! I can tell when someone likes someone else! And I can tell that you really like him too!"

I folded my arms and glared at her. Mila pulled back from applying my eyeliner for me and stared at me, hard. What was I supposed to say? If I couldn't admit this to Mila, my big sister, then I couldn't admit it to anyone. "So is it really that obvious?"

"Not to anyone else," Mila replied, her voice softer now we'd stopped shouting at each other. "But to me…I watched you grow up for fifteen years before I moved out, Zee. You have these little tics. Your voice goes gentler, and you get this misty look in your eyes. Just like he did. I saw you together for about five minutes, and I can just tell it would work. You would work."

"Yeah, and I'd really like to believe that," I sighed. "But the fact remains that if you're wrong, and he doesn't see me as anything more than just his best friend, and then I go and make a move…it will just mess everything up. And I really, really don't want that. Not now, not ever."

"But if you don't make a move, then you'll never know," Mila pointed out.

"Then I'd rather not know," I retorted, spinning round in my chair and looking at myself in the mirror. I had to cut her off now. "Right. I'm set."

"You look beautiful," she said softly, smiling at me in the reflection.

"You wait until you see Henley," I replied, fluffing up my hair. "Standing next to her, I look like Regan from The Exorcist after she gets possessed by Satan."

"Don't be stupid, Zee, you know you're gorgeous," Mila assured me, and she pulled me up out of my chair and into a hug. I buried my face in her grape-scented hair and she ran a hand through my hair. We were like positive and negative- Mila with her dark hair, smoky make-up and classy black-and-white attire; me with my blonde hair, bubblegum pop make-up and 'Hey, I have the mentality of a colour-blind ten-year-old' fashion sense.

But at the same time, we were like the same person. We had the same sense of humour, same motivation to do what we wanted (even if our aspirations were total opposites) and same stubbornness. Hence why Mila refused to let go of the fact she was convinced Jack 'like-liked' me, and why I refused to fully admit it. Mila Ruby Tamworth could read me like a book.

"Go out there and knock 'em dead, kiddo," she whispered, pressing her red lips to my forehead. "No matter what, we love you."

"Okay, I'm here! I'm ready!" I cried, running/tottering my way backstage to find the others. "I'm sorry! I got a little…um…caught up."

Henley, who was stroking Fluffy the Rabbit, looked up at me. "Wow, you look hot!"

"I know, right?" I replied with a smirk, twirling round on one foot, nearly tripping over.

"You are aware we go onstage in like five minutes, right?" asked Danny, ever the mood-killer. "You're cutting it really close, as usual."

My temper spiked up automatically. "Oh, well I'm so sorry that my family who I haven't seen in three years decided to pay me a visit! Next time I'll just tell them to fuck off, shall I?" I was shouting now, regardless of anyone who could hear me.

Jack was immediately by my side, though he looked apprehensive to get any closer than a hand on my shoulder. "Don't start, Hunter. You know what happens when you freak out."

"Are you referring to my tendency to punch people?"

"Yeah, basically. None of us really wants to go on stage with a bloody nose or black eye."

"Wait, back up a second," said Henley. "Did you say your mom and dad are here? As in, New Orleans here?"

"Yeah," I answered, breathing heavily. "My mum, my dad and my older sister."

"You have a sister?!" Henley, Danny and Merritt all exclaimed.

"Yeah," I said again, taking the microphone a stagehand had passed to me and fixing it behind my ear and across my face. "She's twenty-seven. Mum and Dad were kinda young when she came along, I mean Mum was only twenty-one, so they waited another few years before they popped me out." Dear God, why did everything big happen to the women in my family when they were twenty-one?! Mum had Mila, Mila got married and I…well…I didn't want to think about the big thing that could happen to me when we flew back to New York.

"Ladies and gentlemen. The Savoy management welcomes you to tonight's special performance: The Five Horsemen, Act Two," the announcer's voice suddenly boomed out, addressing the audience. "Unlike traditional performances, The Five Horsemen encourage you to film, call your friends, upload, stream and Tweet the show freely. Thank you. The show will begin in a few minutes."

"Oh! That reminds me!" I said, grabbing my phone from the table we'd left them on and accessed my Twitter, HunterBlackwellSparkles. "About to head on stage," I muttered as I typed. "New Orleans, are you ready?! Hashtag, can't handle the awesome. Kiss, kiss, kiss."

"Was the Tweet necessary?" asked Jack.

"Absolutely," I replied, placing my phone back down. "You heard, we can Tweet freely."

"Horsemen?" one of the stagehands called. "You're on in two." The five of us seemed to subconsciously square our shoulders. Henley and I adjusted our dress hems and the boys all tweaked their shirts. We were ready.

The auditorium was pitch black when we made our way to our positions onstage. The audience couldn't see us, and we took our places on the five protruding sections of stage. An electronic sound started playing, and the lights on the stage floor lit up yellow.

"Arthur Tressler presents," the announcer declared, causing the audience to start cheering. "Hunter Blackwell, Jack Wilder, Henley Reeves, Merritt McKinney and Daniel Atlas." A spotlight appeared on each of us as our name was said."The Five Horsemen." We all smiled and clapped at the crowd, which was going crazy.

"What is magic?" Danny proclaimed as the other four of us moved to stand on the raised stage section behind him. "Our argument: nothing but targeted deception. So I want you to look. Look as closely as possible. Because the tricks you are about to see may not seem connected. But we assure you, they are." I could see nearly every member of the audience had their phone out, filming or streaming or Tweeting us about the world.

"Is what follows one hundred different tricks?" Danny continued. "Or is it one giant illusion?" The lights behind us flaired blindingly before plummeting us back into darkness. We all moved backstage and Henley and Danny gathered up their props for their bunny trick.

"And now for one of the oldest tricks in the book," I heard Henley say as she and Danny moved back onstage, leaving Jack, Merritt and me backstage.

"Are you nervous?" Jack asked me as the duo out front debunked the traditional Vanishing Rabbit trick.

"Truthfully? Yeah," I said with a nervous laugh. "I haven't done anything like this for a year. I'm scared that I've forgotten how to do it."

"You're gonna be great," he assured me, giving my hand a comforting squeeze. "You looked awesome in rehearsal."

"I got my leg stuck and nearly dislocated my knee," I reminded him, and he frowned.

"Okay, that was a slight problem," he said. "But, y'know, it was probably just a one-time thing. You don't mess up. It's like your MO."

"I'm so rusty though," I muttered, now grabbing Jack's hand holding my hand with my other hand (oh my God, it was handception), gripping so tightly my knuckles were turning white as panic mounted up inside me. "What if I do fall?! What if I break my neck!?"

"Don't talk like that. Just chill out," Jack instructed. "You know you're awesome."

"I am pretty awesome, aren't I?" I allowed, grinning at him.

"Man, the sexual tension back here is mounting up to becoming unbearable," Merritt suddenly said, shrugging his blazer back on as Henley and Danny wrapped up their first illusion.

"Merritt!" Jack and I exclaimed irately in unison. He'd been throwing these accusations around for months now, and Jack and I were getting pretty damn sick of it. It didn't matter that I felt the tension too. It just didn't matter.

Merritt and Jack performed their tricks without a hitch, and Henley and Danny were in the throw of performing their second illusion of the evening with the man-sized bubbles. I'd spent the last forty-five minutes pacing furiously back and forth, my heels clicking agitatedly against the floor as I did so. My hands were covered in a cold, nervous sweat, and I thought I was going to be sick.

During the intermission, I had downed two bottles of water in an attempt to get rid of my dry-as-sawdust throat. It hadn't worked very well, and now on top of panicking I also really needed to piss. But I heard cheering. Danny and Henley had finished their act. Now it was my turn.

"Break a leg, girl," Henley whispered as we crossed, me going on stage and she coming off. I nodded, too scared to open my mouth. Mum and Dad were out there, so was Mila. They were here, watching me, supporting me. Loving me.

The crowd cheered and whooped as I crossed the shiny stage floor, and I felt a sudden surge of confidence flow through me. I had this. I'd got this. I'd do this.

"Okay, so," I said, clapping my hands together. "Before I joined the wide and wonderful world of magic, I was attempting to make a name for myself in a little-known circus act back in New York City. I was a trapeze artist. So tonight, I've decided to go back to my roots and put on what is hopefully my greatest show yet! I hope you enjoy!" Cue more cheering and yelling. I smiled and sat back on the silver trapeze that had been lowered down to the stage for me.

I'd never done this in heels before- especially not in heels four and a half inches high- so it was certainly going to be interesting, to say the least. As soon as I'd been hoisted ten metres in the air, I flipped backwards off the bar, grabbing it with one hand and dangling there as the audience gasped. I pulled myself back up and balanced up on both arms, pretending to be doing push ups. I twisted my way around the bar and the ropes suspending it, my body moving fluidly, like I didn't have a spine or something.

I had forgotten just how free and uninhibited being on a trapeze made me feel. It was like I was on top of the world; like I could do anything. This was what I had meant to do, and knowing that Mum and Dad and Mila were in the audience, seeing the exact reason I had left home in the first place, made me feel like I could do anything and everything.

But now came my illusion.

Sparks began to spit out whenever my hands or feet touched the bar. Faster and faster I moved, and smoke began to spiral out too. The smoke turned into flames, and the flames grew bigger, fatter until it looked like the entire trapeze was on fire. That was when the blaze spread to my arms.

The crowd was screaming as the fire began to cover my arms, spreading up over my shoulders and down my dress. I felt nothing but a warm tickling sensation all over my body. I was covered in fire from my shoulders to my toes, and then it crept up my neck, covering my head and hair. The fire roared up, engulfing me completely and I dropped from the trapeze. The air whistled in my ears, and I vanished. Literally vanished. I completely disappeared from sight, cueing more gasps and shrieks and screams from the audience.

"What's up, bitches?" I smirked, dangling upside down by my knees from the intricate chandelier handing over the seating section, making sure my skirt didn't fly up. But it was bodycon, so it stayed where it was.

"Oh my God, she's up there!" I heard someone yell, and I saw everyone craning their heads up to look, each of them clocking me almost instantly. Cheering broke out at a deafening rate, everyone in the audience standing up and applauding, shouting my name.

I was lowered back down to the stage via a harness, and I was almost certain I could pick Mila's voice out of the cheering, shouting, "That's my baby sis!"

I stepped back on the stage with a click of my heels, and I removed the harness with a flourish, bowing as I did so. I'd pulled it off. The fire hadn't burned me alive, the fall hadn't resulted in broken legs and the dangling hadn't resulted in a broken neck. I was alive, and totally kicking it.

"And that, my friends, is how you set fire to yourself and look totally smoking' hot whilst doing it! And yes, the pun really was intended!" I cried happily, laughing and waving to everyone as I walked backwards, disappearing backstage.

"You did it!" Henley squealed, running up and giving me a huge hug.

"I did it!" I replied, hugging her back as we both jumped up and down. "I'm not dead!"

"See? What did I tell you?" said Jack with a massive grin, and I let go of Henley and moved on to hugging my best friend. Both of us were laughing, my arms around his shoulders and his around my waist, and in that moment it took all the self-restraint I had not to kiss him. "You did great, Hunt."

"I know I did," I mumbled against his shoulder. At five foot five to Jack's five seven, I was at the ideal height to lean my head on his shoulder. Goddamn it, why couldn't I just grow the balls to tell him how I felt, for God's sake?!

However, even if I had miraculously found the voice to speak my feelings, there was no time; Merritt was now walking out to tell the audience of our final closing trick. The biggest one we had pulled so far.

"At the intermission, we asked you to write down your current bank balance and seal it in an envelope," Merritt explained. "Now it's time to take those envelopes out. Everyone take 'em out." Paper rustling echoed throughout the theatre as the thousand plus people grabbed their envelopes. "Now, everybody, shout out your name. All at once. Go." The shouting was indistinctive. I certainly couldn't make out a single name in all the hubbub, and I could tell Jack, Henley and Danny couldn't either. "Shout 'em out."

"Hunter Blackwell!" I shouted from the wings, and Merritt turned and grinned at me before looking at the audience and raising his hand to quiet them slightly.

"Er…Cl-Clement? Frannick?"

"Yeah! Up here!" some dude yelled from the balcony, and Merritt looked around up at him.

"Oh," he said. "Way up there! Okay. Dina…Robertson?"

"That's me!" a woman shouted excitedly, standing up.

"Okay. Names. Names," Merritt continued. "Let's go!" There were more indistinct yells, all merging into one huge cry. "Right. Mila. Mila Tamworth?" Woah, what?!

"Yeah, I'm here!" Mila cried, standing up in her spot about five rows away from the stage.

"Okay, one more, one more," Merritt said. "…Josepha…Hickey?"

"That's me!" a woman called, also standing up about two rows behind Mila.

"Josepha, I want you to focus on your balance," Merritt instructed her. "and count from one to ten out loud." Well, I'd heard weirder requests in my time.

"One, two, three, four, five-"

"Stop!" Merritt cut across her. "Is the first digit five?"

"Yes," Josepha replied, surprised.

"Do it again. This time faster."

"One, two, three, four, five, six-"

"Stop!" Merritt held up his hand. "Six? Again."

"One, two-"

"Josepha, is your bank balance five hundred and sixty two dollars as of today?" he asked.

"Yeah," Josepha admitted. "That's what I got." The audience cheered in sympathy…I hoped.

"Unfortunately you're wrong," Merritt told her, leaving the poor woman looking very confused. "Okay, Dina," he turned to the other woman, lifting a finger to his head. "One. Four. Seven. Seven?"

"Yeah," the woman said with a breathy laugh.

"You think it is," Merritt said. "But in fact you, too, are wrong. So, now, Mila."

"Yeah?" my sister's voice was curious.

"Two. Nine. Three. One. And that's in English pounds. Am I right?"

"Um, yeah," Mila muttered, looking upset. "That's all I support my son with." I gasped. I had always been under the impression that Mila was relatively well-off. She wasn't supposed to be part of the trick! Both she and her husband had well-paying jobs, a decent house. Or at least, they had done, until…until last year.

Mila, Andrew and Dean had been staying away in Chelsea one weekend when a fuse shorted out in their kitchen, setting fire to everything. There had been nearly nothing left of the house when they got back, nothing but the foundations. They'd had house insurance though, insurance that should have provided them with a payout and temporary accommodation until the executives found a loophole in the agreement. House insurance from the international branch of Tressler Insurance. How could I have forgotten that!?

I'd been feeling vaguely guilty about what we were about to do. But now…now I wanted nothing more.

"But Mila, I'm afraid you are also wrong," Merritt informed her, and even from the wings I could see Mila's pretty face had contorted with confusion. "Uh, Clement, you do not have sixty-five hundred dollars in your account. In fact, everybody stand up. Everybody." Everyone did so, the envelopes clutched in their hands. "Yeah. Put your envelopes to your forehead." Everyone in the audience now looked really quite comical. "Focus on your number."

There was a few seconds of silence as Merritt focussed also. "Oh. Oh. This is…oh dear. Just as I feared," he announced. "Oh, this is strange. You know, I hate to say this, but you're all wrong. Every last one of you is dead wrong about what you think is in your account." Danny and Henley headed out to join Merritt onstage, whilst Jack and I dragged the gigantic envelope and massive floodlight torch to the wings.

"Okay, you can sit down now," Merritt said as Danny whispered something in his ear. "Oh! Oh yeah. I almost forgot. This evening would not be possible if it weren't for our great benefactor, Arthur Tressler." A spotlight highlighted Art as everyone clapped for him, and I tried to push the sudden-found urge to give the man a heart attack to the bottom of my head.

"Big applause! Big applause!" said Danny. "Art, actually, why don't you come up on stage for the finale?"

"Come on down, Art!" Henley and Merritt both cheered.

"There he goes," said Danny. "Okay, good. Here comes Art! There he goes!" I swore he was being patronizing on purpose. Oh bloody well.

Henley led Art onstage by hand and said, "Now Art, did you fill out your envelope?" Art shook his head. "Well no need. We've done it for you." Jack and I lifted the envelope up- which was actually a lot heavier than expected- and carried it out to show off, the cheering increasing as we did so.

"Now Art, I took a guess north of a hundred and forty. Am I right?" Merritt asked Art, who nodded. "That's a hundred and forty million, by the way." Danny and Henley had taken the envelope from me and Jack and were pulling out the prop cheque from within it, revealing the actual balance of Art's bank: $144,579,651.

"Just goes to show what not sitting around on your arse playing PlayStation all day can really achieve," I joked, everyone laughing at me.

"I'm sorry Merritt," Henley said innocently. "How can he be right about his balance and everyone else be wrong?"

"Well I guess there's only one answer to that," I said.

"Hunter's right; I think possibly because he, too, is wrong," Merritt replied. He turned to the audience whilst a frown crossed Arthur's face. "Everybody, take out your paper, and using the flashlight under your seat, start to warm up that paper. I think your correct balance begins to appear." The various lights waving around in the audience was starting to make me dizzy, and I had to look away for a moment to avoid becoming nauseous.

"Now Art, don't worry, we have a flashlight for you." Jack wandered back onstage, brandishing the floodlight in his arms. Damn, I'd forgotten I was supposed to help him with that. Everyone laughed as Jack lifted the light up to show them all, and he flicked it on, accidentally shining it in my face.

"Oh my God, I'm blind!" I screeched, covering my eyes and flailing around, much to the apparent delight of the crowd as they laughed even harder.

"Sorry Hunt!" Jack laughed, manoeuvring the floodlight so it was shining along the back of Arthur's cheque.

"Look," said Danny, pointing at the cheque.

"Wow," breathed Henley as the 7 in $144,579,651 changed to a 0.

"What's going on there, Daniel?" Merritt asked.

"Wait. This is weird. A second ago, it said one hundred and forty-four million, five hundred and seventy-nine thousand, six hundred and fifty-one. But now…now it says seventy thousand dollars less."

"Josepha, can you stand up?" Merritt called into the audience.

"Yes!" was the immediate reply, Josepha leaping to her feet.

"Now what is your new number?"

"Seventy thousand, five hundred and sixty-two dollars now in my account!" Bless Josepha, she sounded as though she could barely believe it. She held up her piece of paper to show as everyone cheered for her.

"Is it possible that Josepha's balance went up the exact amount that Art's went down?" Henley said, looking falsely surprised.

"Hey, check it out," Jack piped up. "It's happening again."

"Is it?" said Danny, looking back at the cheque when the 5 and the 0 of the $509,000 dispersed into two 2s.

"Wow! It is!" Henley gasped. "Art's balance has gone down another two hundred and eighty K!"

"Dina Robertson? What did yours say?" Merritt called.

"Two hundred and eighty-one thousand, four hundred and seventy-seven dollars," she stuttered.

"Hey! Look!" I suddenly shouted, jabbing my finger at the cheque. "How is it happening again!" The cheque's numbers were fading again; what was now $144,229,651 became $144,000,651.

"And that's another over two hundred grand gone!" announced Henley.

"Mila Tamworth, where are you?" Merritt now called into the audience a third time.

"I'm here!" Mila replied, standing up again.

"Would you mind sharing your new balance with us?" Merritt asked her.

"It says…" I watched her eyes dilate in excitement. "It says two hundred and thirty-one thousand, nine hundred and thirty-one pounds. Like, English pounds." The crowd starting applauding again as Henley, Danny and Jack put down whatever it was they were holding. I couldn't help but steal a glance at Arthur, and I was grimly happy to see him looking very, very aggravated.

"We have a confession to make," Henley addressed the crowd.

"She's right," said Jack. "We lied about something."

"Yes. None of you were chosen at random," Danny told them.

"All of you have one thing in common," said Merritt.

"None of you are financially comfortable," I said. "And it is not anyone in this room's fault."

"Everyone in this room was a victim of the hard times that hit one of America's most treasured cities," Henley informed them.

"Or else suffered losses in other dreadful manners," I added, seeking Mila out in the crowd and locking eyes with her.

"Some of you lost your houses, your cars," said Merritt.

"Your businesses," tacked on Jack.

"Your loved ones," finished Danny. "But all of you were insured by the same company."

"Tressler Insurance!" we all exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at Arthur. The crowd was livid, gasping in total shock. They began to become restless, shouting angry things.

"You were abandoned!" shouted Merritt.

"You were loopholed!" yelled Henley, punching her fist in the air.

"Out of your settlements," Jack concluded.

"This is all for show. Correct?" Arthur demanded of Henley.

"'All' meaning we're doing it onstage in front of a paying audience?" Henley said cheekily. "Then yes, it's for show!"

"Woah! Woah!" someone in the crowd suddenly shouted above everyone else. "I've got eighty-two thousand dollars in my bank account! It says it right here on my cell phone!" As if on cue, text tones began pinging out throughout the theatre, everyone scrambling to check theirs. "Everybody, look at your cell phones right now! Everybody!"

The crowd went absolutely mental, everyone jumping up to their feet, yelling, cheering and stamping. I think I now knew how Jesus felt when he gave those people the fish and the wine.

"Hey! Did you do this?!" Arthur shouted furiously at Merritt.

"Oh come on," I retorted. "Don't you think that's a little unreasonable?"

"Yeah, how could we, Art?" smirked Jack. "We don't have your password."

"We'd need access to information we could never get our hands on," Henley said patronizingly.

"Ah yes, security questions," said Danny arrogantly. "For instance, like, I don't know, your mother's maiden name or…the name of your first pet."

"Where would we get that information, Art?" Merritt asked him. "You certainly would never tell us." Arthur lunged for Merritt as he walked to join us on the raised stage, but a handcuff linked around Art's ankle, binding him to the stage.

"Hey. We left you the jet, and the Rolls," Merritt told him unapologetically.

Arthur turned to face the audience; he was now at the forefront of some of the most colourful insults I have ever heard.

Danny fist-bumped Jack as we positioned ourselves in a line at the back of the stage, the lights dimming around us. Henley and Merritt high-fived as he joined us, and Jack and I knocked our fists twice together followed by a high-five that left our fingers interlinked- our childish secret handshake.

We all noticed Agent Dylan Rhodes hotfooting it towards the stage at the same time. "Stop!" he yelled. "Stop! Nobody move!" Danny waved condescendingly at him, causing Rhodes to shout out, "FREEZE!"

"Oh, such a bad call," I muttered as someone in the audience shrieked, "QUATERBACK!" Rhodes managed to jump the stage just as the twelve people who Merritt had hypnotized sprinted on to the stage too.

"We are The Five Horsemen!" we shouted in unison as our foot harnesses were lowered down to us, which we took hold of. "Good night!" We were hoisted up just as Rhodes made to grab Danny but instead was tackled by all twelve hypno victims. We all looked down and laughed as Rhodes disappeared under the pile of writhing audience members.

A/N- Okay, so I didn't quite mean for this chapter to turn out quite as long as this, but hey. All in good fun, am I right? Of course I am. So let me know how you liked it! We all know that shit starts going down from here on, doesn't it? So leave a review! They make me so happy and they make me want to update even quicker! Xx Gee xX

PS- So now on my profile there are links to Hunter, Mila and now Hunter's parents appearences, and my Polyvore account. Check 'em out!