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"Are you okay?" the girl asks me

I lift up my shirt and place a hand on my wound "I will be in a second"

She ducks a blast from a cannon "Good What number are you?"

"Seven"

"I’

The iciness spreads froers over my body, but I knoon’t be able to heal adorian soldiers reaches me I roll into the lake and stay underwater My wound is almost healed when I rise above the surface

Nulowing sword She’s fighting several soldiers at once: hacking off body parts, blocking cannon fire with her blade, using telekinesis to aih dozens of Mogadorians on the for three soldiers at once Nuun adorians in seconds

There are only twenty or thirty soldiers left Maybe four krauls Nuun in the other shoots and destroys the Hu the shore Dark clouds for crack and split the ground near her The Mogadorians show fear for the first time, and I watch a few drop their weapons and run towards the woods

"Out of the water!" I yell, fearful of the lightning Ella drags Héctor to the edge of the lake and Crayton follows

I reach the shore near Nule to keeptwo of the krauls An injured soldier hiding behind a wrecked Hurenade at Number Six’s back, but I’m able to shoot it in the air The explosion rotates Nuun, and abut ash

I can’t keepThe blue pendant bounces around as the gun in her one hand cuts down more and more soldiers She rotates to her left and blows a kraul into bits, and then she rotates to her right and takes out several

The valley is bright and smoky It’s damp and charred I look around me and can’t believe that victory will be ours in just a matter of seconds Crayton races over and I toss hi soldiers retreating into the woods Héctor runs with my Chest, and soon he and Ella stand behindthat the worst is over; but that’s when Ella raises her eyes over my head and her face turns white

"Pikens!" Ella yells

Four of the horned monsters run down the mountainside at full speed Directly below the soldiers and the kraul I uproot as many silver firs as I can and send them like rockets Four hit the lead one and it falls backwards into the path of the other three, and it’s crushed and killed in the stampede

"Number Six!" I shout She hearsdown into the valley She spins with the gun and blows the knees off the monster on the left It tumbles down faster than the other two can run, and Number Six jumps from the Humvee acrunch

Crayton and I shoot our cannons at the other two, but they’re too fast, splitting up when they reach the valley floor The clouds roar when Nu crashes into one of the pikens, cutting off its arains its balance and charges ahead with blood spurting froes Crayton’s fire and rushes in from the other direction We all run towards Number Six, but Héctor is too sloith my Chest in his arms The piken closes in, and before I can help, the one-armed monster reaches down and snatches Héctor and my Chest in its fist

"No!" I scream "Héctor!"

I’m in such shock that when the piken throws a lifeless Héctor and my Chest into the lake, I don’t use

Number Six has killed the other piken She turns towards us now and holds both hands up to the sky A lightning bolt severs the monster’s head from its body

For the first time all day, there is silence I lean into Number Six, look at Ella and Crayton and the fire and destruction behind them, and I know that these quiet moments are about to become rare in my life

"Your Chest, Marina," Crayton says "You have to go get it"

I turn to Nu her "Thank you Thank you, Nuet a chance to do it again sometime" She wraps her arms around my shoulders "And just call me Six"