❝there's nothing i can do❞

IRIS GROANED WHEN SHE WAS WOKEN UP BY THOMAS YELLING AT A BIRD. The small creature had been pecking at one of their bags, and he was trying to scare it away, disrupting all of their sleep in the process. With her eyes still closed, she murmured, "Thomas, we just outran hundreds of mutated people. I don't think a bird is our biggest problem."

"Are they gone?" Newt questioned as everyone else stirred, referring to the things that chased them the previous night.

"Yeah, I think we're safe for now," Thomas assured them before starting to wake everyone up. He kicked their sides to get them to get up. "Okay, we should get moving. Let's pack it up. Aris, come on. Fry, Winston. Let's go. Iris, punching my leg isn't gonna do anything."

They all started to stand up and grab their bags. Winston glanced down at the bandage that the blonde gil had wrapped around his waist the night before to see the blood soaking through it. He tried to get up, but he groaned loudly in pain. Frypan and Jem whipped their heads toward him, and the chef asked, "Hey, man. You okay?" Winston just nodded, but they all knew better. Iris had seen plenty of people in pain during her Med-jack times, and she knew when they were lying about how much pain they were in.

"Come on," Jem mumbled, reaching down his hand for him to grab and hoisting him up. He allowed him to lean on his shoulder as they walked because he could barely stand on his own. The last thing they needed was for them to fall behind, so Jem tried his hardest to keep up with the group. After a minute, Minho moved to help him, throwing Winston's dangling arm over his shoulder.

They reached what looked like an abandoned city, and there were half-buried buildings everywhere just like the one they just came from. from. Iris also figured that that meant they were filled with the things as well. Frypan questioned, "What the hell happened to this place?"

"I don't know," Newt answered as he looked around. There were no signs of life, but that's what they thought about the other place until they were attacked. "It doesn't look like anyone's been here in a long time."

"I hope the whole world's not like this," the cook sighed.

"Hang on, stop," Thomas called to them. They all looked back at him because he had stopped while they kept walking. "Do you hear that?" Everyone furrowed their eyebrows but paused to listen nonetheless. Jem's eyes widened when she heard a low whirring that was getting louder and louder as if it were getting closer and closer. Thomas yelled, "Get down! Everybody, hide! Hide! Hide! Get in here. In here, in here!"

Iris panicked, frantically searching around for somewhere to hide. Aris grabbed her arm all of a sudden and tugged her toward the others. They all slid underneath some sort of concrete formation so that the aircrafts flying above them were unable to spot them. They watched as the vehicles flew overhead. They had not walked too far, but they were still a good ways away from the WICKED base that they were at or whatever. So, they had flown kind of far in search of them. Minho exhaled before questioning, "They're never gonna stop looking for us, are they?"

As they stood back up and stepped out of their hiding place, Iris realized that Aris's hand was still wrapped around her wrist. She was not the only one that noticed it apparently because Jem came practically flying out of nowhere, shoving the boy in the chest so that he stumbled back and released the girl.

"Touch her again, and I'll end you," Jem threatened as they all started shouting. He turned around and met the eyes of the blonde girl, who was shooting him a look. He sighed and then turned back around to look at the boy he just pushed, raising his hands to let him know he meant no harm, even though he did. He added, "In a non threatening way."

They had to keep moving, and the worst part of the journey was the hills. Jem had to haul Winston up them. He could tell he felt bad because he was not being much help, but Jem did not blame him. He had an open wound that was covered in nothing but a blood-soaked bandage. Iris had examined it, and the cuts were really really deep. They might've even caused some damage to some of his organs. Nothing major, though, because he would have been dead a while ago.

"Everyone good?" Thomas called down to them, especially the two boys that were hauling Winston and Winston himself.

Winston was able to manage a very weak, "Yeah."

"A little further, guys," the boy assured them as they reached the top of yet another sand dune. They had passed the abandoned city, and he was now pointing in the very far distance to some mountains that looked like ants from where they were. "Those mountains, that's gotta be it. That's where we're going."

"That's a long way off," Newt pointed out, and Iris groaned. She really did not need his pessimistic words right now. She needed them to say that it was not as far as it looked and that they would be fine.

Thomas nodded. "Then we better get moving."

"Winston!" Jem yelled because he could feel the boy keeling over as soon as they took a step. He was too weak to resist it, so he ended up taking both of the other males down with him. Everyone slid down to their sides, but when they tried to check on Jem, he just muttered, "Winston. Get Winston. He's hurt pretty bad."

"What do we do?" Teresa asked, holding the boy's face as he wheezed and coughed out sand.

They made a little cot-like thing for Winston to curl up on, and they took turns dragging him through the sand. It was mostly Minho, Jem, and Frypan though because they were the strongest, Thomas was leading, and Iris felt like she was about to collapse as well from exhaustion and pain. It did not help when the wind started to pick up and sand went flying everywhere. She had to spit the dirt out of her mouth and swat it like flies.

The wind calmed down, and they were able to find shelter from the heat. Iris was so sure that she was sunburnt now, but everything hurt. So, she was not sure what was burnt and what was just aching and what was scratched from the sand or all three. Winston was sleeping on the ground, and she was staring at him with pity in her eyes. She sat next to the other boys as Thomas and Teresa went a couple yards away so that they could talk and scout out how much more was left.

"How's it looking?" Newt asked Thomas.

The boy glanced between Teresa, the mountains, and back at Newt before he called back an answer, and he did not even try to make it sound like a good lie. He was probably too distracted by Teresa. "It's a little further."

"That's not very convincing," the blonde boy muttered, turning back to them with a sigh.

Iris crouched down next to Winston and placed one of her hands on his forehead. He was burning up, and there were probably a couple dozen factors that could be contributing to that. Jem was the one to speak up, "Is he going to be okay?"

"I don't know," she responded honestly, and she looked over and felt her heart break when she saw the hopeless look on his face. He had just lost his best friend, and now his next best thing might die as well. He was done with the entire fucking thing.

All of a sudden, a gun was fired, and they all whipped around to see an awake Winston holding the gun from earlier. Frypan yelled to Teresa and Thomas, "Hey! Guys, get down here! Winston, what are you doing, man? Give me that!'

"What's going on?" Newt questioned as the curly-haired girl lunged toward the weapon and yanked it out of her friend's hand.

The other female there questioned, "What happened?"

"I don't know," Frypan answered honestly as Jem held the gun as far away from his friend as he could while still being able to comfort him. "He just woke up and grabbed the gun and then he tried to—"

"Give it back, please," the hurt boy begged, holding his hand out toward the boy with the weapon while on his hands and knees. It did not take Jem long to realize that he was not planning on using it to hurt any of them.

He wanted to kill himself.

Thomas rushed over to him and held his back as he threw up dark, almost black, blood all over the ground just like the creatures when Iris saw them when they chased them. "Winston, are you okay?"

"It's growing...inside me," Winston gasped out as he fell onto his back and lifted his shirt up to reveal infected chunks of skin missing and black veins running everywhere. His voice was sad, like he was sobbing. "I'm not gonna make it. Please. Please. Don't let me turn into one of those things."

"Guys, can we have a minute?" Jem questioned, looking around at everyone. They all nodded and stood up, heading up to the top of the dune. Iris looked back and saw the two boys talking, and even though she was not close enough to tell, she knew Jem was on the verge of tears.

"Hey, since I'm dying, I have a wish," Winston informed him. Jem opened his mouth to protest, but the other boy shut that down quickly. "And don't tell me I'm not dying."

Jem wanted to argue, but he knew that his friend did not have a lot of time. There was no point in wasting it by telling him that he wasn't. He sighed before questioning, "What's your wish?"

"Iris, she's really tough, but she's been through a lot, just like the rest of us. So, don't break her heart," the sick boy responded after a moment. Both of them glanced up at the blonde girl standing about ten or twenty yards away from them before looking back at each other.

The other male just shook his head and began playing with his fingers and picking at his fingernails. How could he break her heart? She did not seem to give a crap about him. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do," Winston argued, laughing lighty at his friend's stubbornness. After a moment, they waved to the others, and everyone came back down to say their goodbyes.

"Wait, Newt..." Jem muttered, and Iris looked up to see the blonde boy with the gun in his hand. She looked at him with a scared expression as Jem crouched down, grabbed Winston's other hand and wrapped his fingers around the weapon.

"Thank you," the boy breathed out before glancing between the two by his side. "Now, get outta here." Slowly, one by one, they left and started walking away, leaving only Thomas and Iris with the dying boy. Winston looked over at her. "That means you too, Iris."

Her breaths were shaky as she leaned down and planted a kiss on his forehead before standing up, grabbing her bag, and walking after her friends. Thomas followed shortly after her. Winston had been one of her best friends ever since arrived in the Glade. He had been there for her ups and downs, and he never failed to make her laugh when she was having a bad day. He was truly an amazing person.

That was why she sobbed when a shot rang through the air. Minho just wrapped an arm around her shoulder and allowed her to lean her head on his shoulder while they walked in silence.