Summary
In The Last Star, the point of view shifts to Evan. The reader realizes that he must still be alive after the army base exploded, impossible as that may seem. When he awakes, Evan is in a great deal of pain and can barely move. He is incredibly weak. Evan is being tended to by Grace, an old friend of his.
Grace pulled him out of the army base and nursed him back to relative health. However, she does not trust him and remains very suspicious of how he came to be at the base, his role in the event, and his relationship with Cassie.
Grace is strikingly beautiful and an Other like Evan. She interrogates Evan about the human's infiltration of the base and does not find his story believable at all. They keep on the move in order to make it back to Grace's station in the woods along Highway 68. Like Evan, she is a Silencer tasked with taking out any humans that cross into her territory.
Grace realizes that Evan is playing at being human, which is not part of their mission. Evan tries to garrote her so that he can escape. He thinks he has succeeded, but Grace has only passed out. With his broken ankle, Evan doesn't get very far and ends up hiding under a car like Cassie did in the first book.
Evan reminisces about the first time he and Grace met, when they were sixteen and at a county fair. They both realized that they were Others, and finally not all alone in the world. They became romantically involved at that time. In the present day, Grace realizes that Evan is in love with a human, Cassie.
When he first sees Ben after making it to the hotel at last, Evan punches him to make sure he won't shoot him, leading Ben to attack him. Evan knocks him unconscious and then makes his way down the hall to Sammy, who shoots the gun at Evan through the door. Evan dodges him, but is stopped by Cassie. She trips over the body of Ben and shoots Evan in the leg.
In Millions, the reader gets a glimpse into the life of Poundcake, revealing that he lost his little brother and doesn't speak because his mother told him to shut up just before she died of the plague.
Analysis
The parallelism between Cassie and Evan is heightened in this chapter as he hides under a car and makes the same decision as she does. He hides, and then comes out, not running, but slowly walking away and letting Grace follow him.
Evan also develops a mantra for himself, "I am humanity" (99), in order to push himself past the brink of his pain. He endures because he depends on his humanity, rather than running away from it, like Grace does. Evan constantly recalls Cassie's words, showing how firmly on the human side he is now.
Evan is worried about leading Grace straight to the hotel where the squad is hiding, but he realizes that he doesn't have another choice. He ends up making it to the hotel, but worries about the squad's reaction to him.
In the chapter The Millions, the reader gets the most characterization of Poundcake we have gotten to date. He goes from being a one-dimensional character who excels at shooting and doesn't talk, to a more complex individual with a background.
We now understand his motivations. Poundcake lost his little brother when he went out and came to find the three-year-old gone. His mother was ravaged by the red plague and said terrible things to him. It was too much for Poundcake to bear and he elected to become mute. This led to him becoming a favorite of the soldiers at the army base because he never spoke and thus never caused any trouble. It is implied that Poundcake is on his way to becoming a cold-hearted killer by the words of his drill sergeant.
