❝relying on the kindness of strangers❞

"OKAY, LET'S GO, LET'S GO," THOMAS URGED THEM ONCE THEY HAD ALL GOTTEN FREE. Iris pulled the rope off from around her ankles so that she could stand up, but she shoved the rope into her bag in case they needed it later. She swore that Teresa had something against her because when the girl was helping everyone down, she did Newt and then walked right past Iris to help Jem. The blonde girl might have just been being paranoid, though, because she could not think of any reason why the girl would not like her. She was not the biggest fan of the girl, but she did not dislike her.

She glanced up, and her eyes widened when she saw a man pointing his gun straight at Thomas's head. She glanced at the boy that was helping Frypan up and realized that he did not notice the guy with the weapon. She spoke up to warn him, "Thomas..." The boy looked up at her, and she pointed to the man. He whipped around, everyone else following his lead, and they all put their hands up quickly.

As soon as Jem's eyes landed on the gun, he grabbed Iris by the arm and pulled her ever so slightly behind him, prepared to grab her and duck if the man's finger moved ever so slightly.

"We're not trying to cause any trouble, okay? We just got to get out of here," Thomas told him, but Iris did not think that the guy was going to allow that. It was the same man that had asked Jorge what he was doing when he was talking to the hanging teenagers earlier.

"Is that so?" the man mused before pulling out a radio and speaking into it with a sneer. "Janson, I got 'em for ya. I'm bringing 'em down. Don't shoot us." Damn it. That little snitch, Jem thought, rolling his eyes. The man put the radio back in his pocket and gestured to the group with his gun. "Come on. Let's go." No one moved, and that made him even more mad. "I said let's go."

Thomas then lunged for the guy, grabbing the gun and pointing it at the ceiling when he pulled the trigger so that it did not hit any of them. The guy was startled, but he fought. He fell back into a table of supplies for a second, but he got up quickly, regaining his composure and pointing it at them once again.

"That worked. Great job, Thomas," Jem muttered sarcastically, rolling his eyes and causing the boy to glare at him and some of the others to shoot him a look, letting him know that he was not helping their situation. To be fair, Thomas also did not help their situation by making the guy mad, but at least his actions had a possibility of helping.

Then, a gun went off. All of the teenagers jumped and grabbed their stomachs, feeling to make sure that they were not shot. Jem whipped his head back at the blonde girl, and she shot her eyes up to make sure he was okay. Then, Iris looked down at her shirt to make sure that she had not been on the other end of the bullet. Her question was answered when the man that had been pointing the gun at them fell to the ground, dropping the weapon, to reveal Brenda standing behind him with a gun pointed right at his head. She waved them over after that because they needed to move. WICKED was after them, so they did not have much time. "Okay. Come on. Come on! Let's go!"

"Barkley, what's your location? Barkley, are you there?" Janson called through the radio, and as they were leaving, Jem paused just to stomp on it with his foot. It was shattered into hundreds of pieces, and he kicked all of them into the abyss that they had been hanging over. After a second, music started playing. They all paused and whipped their heads around, wondering where it was coming from, but they could not figure it out. Brenda yelled at them to not worry about it and keep moving, but that did not take away their curiosity. Why the hell was there music playing at a time like this? Brenda led them back up the stairs and to Jorge's little office thing.

"Brenda! Hurry! We don't have much time!" he exclaimed once he saw them sprinting toward him. He ran over to the window and pulled something down. There was a wire leading out that window and to one in a building across from them. Iris's eyes widened when she realized that it was a sort of zipline. "Let's go, let's go, let's go! Right this way!"

Frypan stared down at the very very long drop below them that might be fatal if they happened to let go of the zipline. He muttered, "You have got to be kidding me."

"Plan B, hermano. You kids wanna get to the Right Arm? I'll lead you to them. But you're gonna owe me. Follow me!" Jorge yelled at them over the loud whirring of the helicopter blades rotating above them. Then, he grabbed onto the hook-like thing that was attached to the wire and jumped straight out the window. He whizzed over the ground that was littered with broken pieces of buildings and stone.

When Brenda noticed that they were all just standing there, staring at the man as he landed safely on the other side, she started pushing them toward the window. She pulled down a couple more of the zipline loop things and started yelling at them to go. "All right! Let's go! Come on! Come on. Come on!"

After they heard WICKED soldiers and guards yelling, Minho wasted no time in grabbing one and jumping after Jorge. Newt, figuring that he would go if Minho went, was right behind him. Iris sighed because she knew that since two of her friends were going, she was going to have to follow them.

"It's okay," Jem assured her once he sensed her hesitation. "I'll be right behind you." Iris nodded, trying to ignore his hand on her waist. She grabbed one of the things and took a deep breath before sprinting to the window and lifting her feet as soon as she reached the edge. She clung to the fabric of the loop as tight as she could as she flew down, the wind blowing her hair back. She heard and felt someone behind her, indicating that Nick had left as well.

She landed on the other side, and Minho and Newt were there to catch her so that she did not go barrelling into the wall in front of her. Her feet touched the ground, and she quickly got out of the way so that Jem could land as well. The music was not as loud where they were, so there must have not been speakers there that were connected to whatever the hell was playing. Iris wondered if it was some type of distraction technique from WICKED, but she wondered how they happened to manage that, even with all of their advanced technology.

Frypan, Aris, and Teresa all joined them. They waited a little bit for Thomas and Brenda, but neither of them came. They looked out at the window and saw about four soldiers pointing their guns straight at them. Iris muttered, "Shuck." They all ducked out of the way as bullets hit the wood and stone around them.

"Okay, we have to go," Jorge told them, and he had already started moving out.

Minho stood up, stopping him because there was no way that he was going to leave his friend behind, especially if he was taken by WICKED. "We have to get Thomas."

"Thomas and Brenda will be fine," the man assured them, and he was running down a set of rotting stairs that none of them really trusted. But they had to get down somehow to figure out what and how he knew. "We have to get out of here before the song ends."

"What happens when the song ends?" Iris questioned with a curious and slightly concerned voice because the way he said it did not make it sound like rainbows and butterflies would erupt from the building. He shot her a look that said, You'll see, and she did because about twenty seconds later, the building that they were in a couple of minutes ago, the building that Brenda and Thomas were currently in as far as they knew, blew up.