People began to leave the crash site. It became very repetitive to watch policemen talk, and the traffic dim. Xavier, however, stayed put. He was unsure whether Eric was near, but he was sure taking another cab ride to try and find him was a useless task. He was surprised he had even found him in the first place.

Out of the blue, police cars began to enter the area silently, as well as ambulances. They did not activate their sirens to warn people, so he figured it was nothing. He counted two police cars, - excluding the three which were already there - and six ambulances. The occupants jolted into the area of 38th and 37th street, leaving Xavier to wonder what was going on. A few moments later, the paramedics came out running with a dead corpse, one of the members of who he thought was SWAT.

Several seconds later, more bodies were taken away. He did not count, but he estimated the number to be around eight, all from the same team. They were carried onto stretchers, where they then had a large white blanket placed over top of them, in order to cover their wounds. Three ambulances left with sirens flashing, probably for the nearby Elmhurst General Hospital.

Paramedics came out once again with four more bodies; however, they did not place a white sheet over their stretchers, indicating they were not dead, but severely harmed. Some of them had major burns, and others were bleeding from what seemed to be gunshot wounds. The three remaining ambulances were rushed off to the hospital with those victims, while police officers continued to do whatever they were doing in the area.

It took several minutes before the three first ambulances returned, whose paramedics went to help another wounded body, as well as two victims who were able to limp out of the area, and sit down onto the bench inside the ambulance. Other paramedics pulled out the final two bodies - one a male, severely injured in the legs, unconscious, and the second, a female, who seemed to have been the one involved in the car accident earlier.

Xavier began to question over what had happened. He had heard a few gunshots prior, but nothing consistent. Suddenly, the crowd cheered loudly. Xavier looked up to see Eric, handcuffed, walking along side two police officers, and another member of the SWAT team, who was badly burnt. Onlookers quickly became audiences as whistling and clapping filled the air, expressing the joy and happiness of finally catching the monster which had terrorized their country for almost a week.

Xavier was stunned. He had caused his downfall after all. Eric was placed into a police car with several other officers, ready to be driven away. Then, his shock increased when seeing someone he thought he would not have seen again - the interrogator from the CIA. He was grinning, proud of his accomplishment, and entered the passenger seat of the police car. Xavier immediately turned around and ran to the nearest cab. Coincidentally, it was the same driver he had had during the last few rides, so he simply knocked on the window, and waited for him to roll it down with an annoyed expression on his face. Xavier pulled a 50$ bill from his pocket and handed it to the cab driver, whose eyes lit up like a red dwarf.

"Follow that police car as fast as you can, and don't let it out of your sight."

...

Tom Benson sat in front of the metal cage which separated him and the driver from the prisoner and his two captors. He looked in the rear view mirror to see Eric's head drooped down, clearly depressed over his loss. Out of the blue, his recently activated phone rang. Upon seeing the caller's ID, he grinned and answered.

"Hello Alan. What's shaking?"

"What the hell are you doing?!", he yelled through the phone, loud enough for everyone in the car to hear. "I told you this was my case, and you went off making decisions again!"

Benson laughed. "Well, that's life I suppose; breaking promises and ruining other lives, while trying to make ours a little bit better." He turned around to glance at his new prisoner. "Isn't that right, Eric?" The only reply he received was a nasty glare, to which he chucked to.

"What? You have him? Where are you taking him?"

"Oh you know, just around. We might go for a nice drive on Broadway, and maybe stop by Time Square. I was actually thinking of going to see the Statue of Liberty as well." He laughed again, which annoyed both Eric and Alan. "Want to come along?"

"Benson, this is serious. Stop fooling around. I'm taking over his interrogation. You'll get much too rough on him, and end up with the same result you had with Matt."

Tom interrupted him. "You see Alan, that's your problem. You don't know how to have fun. You've grown old and lost your sense of humor. Why so serious?" He laughed again, clearly enjoying himself. "Alright. All jokes aside, you do your job, and I'll do mine. Sounds fair enough for you?"

He had enough. "Benson! Where the hell are you taking him?!"

There was a small pause, and for a moment, Parker thought he had hung up. "You're a detective, aren't you? Why don't youfigure it out?"

Alan then heard a click, and a beeping tone. His rage took over him as he slammed the phone against the receiver, shattering it into pieces. His team was in the room, silenced by his actions. They had long known his habit of jamming phones, but neverhad he ever broken one. His face was fire red, and his fists were clenched, nails digging into his skin. He endlessly wondered how a kid was about to be tortured and killed for absolutely no reason whatsoever, only to satisfy Benson's thirst for "fun". Alan knew he could not let such a thing happen. Not to a minor.

He looked up, and cleared his throat, grabbing the attention of everyone in the room. He seemed much calmer, but did not lose the usual stern tone in his voice. "Alright, listen up. Use the phone number I just dialed, and trace it. Find the signal used to make the call and reverse it, giving us the location of the call, and the direction he's heading."

His team went to work, finding the phone number's service provider fairly quickly, but a few looked up and shook their heads. "Sorry boss. Phone isn't accessible. He must have encrypted access to the signal somehow, and the only way to get through it is by cracking the algorithm set by the phone company, which could take us about a week."

Alan was not out of ideas. "Was there surveillance footage around the crash area? If so, get the most recent footage, and bring it up on the big screen."

A member of his team replied to his query fairly quickly. "Got one; fairly high quality video, but a bit far from the scene. Displaying on the front screen... now."

As requested, surveillance footage played on the widescreen in front of the room, allowing everyone to view it. The only video clip they were able to get was five seconds long, and it depicted Benson get into the car, as well as when it drove off. "Pause when the police car is about to leave." A click and it was done. "Perfect. Zoom into the license plate number." More clicks, and they had a 1000% magnification into the screen, right where he wanted it. Three letters and numbers out of the seven available were visible; a "1", an "8", and an "F". The other four were much too blurred to see.

"It would take much too long to decipher those last figures, boss. Want to try to--"

"No", Parker interrupted. "Access the NYPD database and fetch the information on available police vehicles."

After a few moments, another member spoke. "There are around 3000 police cars in New York City right now."

"Alright. Sort them out with the figures we have available on the screen. How many are there?"

"64."

"Sort them by the cars active at this moment."

"Nine."

"Better. Zoom out of the picture on the big screen to 200%, focused onto the car." A click and it was done. "Any abnormalities you notice on that police car?"

Everyone looked closely toward the screen. "No, not really."

Alan directed his attention to his team again. "Look at the nine cars in the database, and throw out those with a visible defect. How many do we have now?"

"Four."

"Good enough." He pointed at four different people in the room. "Each of you; grab a license plate, and access the NYPD's GPS system. Find which one of those cars is leaving that area right now. Contact me as soon as you get things done." He went out the door, but stood still at the frame and turned around. "How many of you are TFRs?"

...

She parked her car into her driveway, grabbing her coffee from the cup holder on the way out. She was still in her work uniform, and did not plan to change until later at night, before she went to bed. Entering her house, she dropped her keys onto a hook rack nailed against the wall, walked up the stairs to her living room, and sat down on one of her large couches.

Four days after the incident at John Adams High School, Mimi felt somewhat like a new person. She had taken a new shift at the Tailor's Shop, separated from her husband, and kept the house. The first two days after Eric's departure were depressing from her, and she had been watching the news for any news breaks, which would lead to information on Eric's whereabouts. She had not checked in since she had left for work at nine o'clock, and that was just what she was about to do.

Grabbing the remote, she pressed the power button in order to turn the television on. The CBC's 24-hour news channel was the one to pop up since it was the only channel she had watched for the past few days. Commercials dominated her television screen, which allowed her to think about her day; filing paperwork for the new deep freeze at work, - which she would continue to fill and send later that night - accepting a few job applications and contacting the future employees to let them know, as well as cook. She had nothing to do other than work, because doing anything else reminded her of Eric. She restricted herself to sobbing over her lost child at night, usually until she would fall asleep.

She had pondered a lot over the case, and over the close calls Eric endured. She knew reports of the incident at the school was not entirely true, because he would never have attempted such a thing - or at least, not without a specific purpose. Meredith had also peaked interest toward the man who had helped her son on his journey. She recalled Eric speaking of his science teacher and his sense of humor, but she never would have thought he would have been the one to aid in his quest - if there was someone to have done so in the first place. Mimi was curious as to why the government had stopped talking of Matt all of a sudden, however; as was various media outlets.

The commercials finally ended after a short period of time, revealing the news anchor and a banner indicating a news break. She hoped it was more good news, since the last she had heard of him was when he had hijacked the airplane from Fargo to New York. Unfortunately, the image they showed, as well as the text, caused her heart to skip beats for well over three seconds, on top of spilling her homebrewed coffee on her brown hardwood floor.

The quick resume explained that reports came in with news of Eric's long-awaited capture, after a fierce battle which killed eight members of a special task force, and severely injured others. A video clip was shown of Eric being carried away by police, out of his alternative form, clearly injured both physically and psychologically. But the most shocking thing she noticed were the handcuffs chained across his hands, symbolizing his imprisonment and loss of freedom, something Eric had continuously talked about two weeks prior. Her eyes began to water at the thought of never being able to see her own son free for the rest of his life, but instead to have been trapped on the opposite side of the metal bars of his high-security prison cell, along with another inmate who would have been as dangerous as he was.

When they began to reveal more details about the event, she shut off the television. She could not bear to hear anymore. Grabbing the pillow beside her, she squeezed it as hard as she could, lying down on the couch she was on, and cried until she rid her body of all the tears carrying her sadness within her.

...

Eric did not move since the phone call the man at the front of the car took part in had taken place. They were on a parkway, which soon crossed into an Interstate, and led across Little Neck Bay, to an area unknown to Eric. The two officers beside him irritated him thanks to the tension they held his arms with, even though he had handcuffs on both his hands and feet, preventing him from moving at all. He had no intention of doing so either way.

Thoughts were floating through his mind one by one, each representing his hatred and regret over his actions. He had almost killed Diane. He had led Matt to be captured by police, and did nothing to stop it. He terrorized people in a plane. He killed two young classmates at his school. He stole three vehicles in total, killing two people in the action of doing so. He forged a passport, and had planned to use it to escape the county. He killed and injured three police officers to get into an airport. He robbed an Indian tribe and an old farmer. All of these things would not have been attempted if it was not for his dragon form's existence.

It was his dragon form which had caused all of his problems. If it had not existed, he probably would have lived a normal life. He would have completed school with honors, became a doctor, gotten a girlfriend, married her, had children, travel, retire, relax, and been free. If only the injection he had received when he was younger had worked. Then maybe, just maybe, he would have led a normal life.

They finished crossing the bridge to the other side of the bay. The man in the passenger's seat turned around and gave the two policemen a hand signal. Complying, the man on the left grabbed both of his hands, allowing the one on the right to get a hold of something in his pocket. This was revealed to be a blindfold, as it was placed over his eyes, blocking his view. The dragon, instinctively tried to get it off, and Eric tried his best to calm him, in fear of more complications. The latter easily won the fight gradually, however, and tried and shake the hands away from him, but to no avail.

Finally, he shifted his face into his dragon muzzle, and tried to breathe fire, hoping that it would either hit the guard, or bounce off of the bars somehow and catch the blindfold on fire. But before he could even attempt to do so for more than five seconds, he felt a stab in his left arm. Not knowing what it was, he ignored it, but felt sleepy. Soon enough, the dragon shifted unintentionally back into his human form, unconscious.