❝no quitter is a winner.❞

THE NERVE LEVEL WAS HIGH AMONGST THE GLADERS AND THEIR NEW ACQUAINTANCES. Even though Jorge had assured them that Thomas and Brenda would be fine and that he knew that Brenda would find a way out, none of them really truly believed him. Besides, the guy hung them from their ankles, so he and Brenda could be random people that wanted to take them out into the middle of the desert and kill them.

They were walking through the sand, and Jorge informed them that they were heading to the Right Arm and that the two that they had left behind would catch up with them because Brenda knew where they were going. Jorge and Teresa were leading the way with Jem and Iris behind them and Frypan, Minho, and Newt in the back. They were all spaced out pretty far apart, which allowed each group to discuss without anyone else eavesdropping. After a moment of walking in awkward silence, Jem spoke up, "Should we talk about it?"

"No, I think we're good," the blonde girl responded quickly, shaking her head. They had said very few words to each other ever since last night. It felt like an eternity ago, before Minho got hit by lightning, before they met Brenda and Jorge, before WICKED almost caught them.

He nodded in agreement. He was never a 'let's talk about our feelings' kind of guy, so he did not question why she did not want to discuss it. "Yeah, I agree."

"So, nice weather, huh?" she said after a very short moment of them walking without talking. It felt like forever because, needless to say, it was very awkward. He looked over at her with a very confused expression, smiling slightly. She responded, "Sorry, it got quiet."

"You're such a dork," he chuckled out, shaking his head and looking back down at the sand that fell down the dune every time he took a step.

All of a sudden, Iris lurched forward, and Jem whipped around to see Minho with his hands on her shoulders, using her to push himself up in the air. She yelped as she turned around once he got down, and she questioned, "What the hell?"

"What are we talking about?" the former Runner asked, throwing an arm around the blonde girl as she laughed lightly at his antics. It was weird that he was in such a good mood considering everything that was going on.

She smiled and answered, "The weather."

"Well, that's boring," he responded. Usually Jem and Iris would be fighting about something stupid, but at least it was interesting to watch. Speaking of Jem, he had gone quiet, and his eyes were trained on iris' shoulder where Minho's arm was lying. The Asian boy noticed this and began to wave his hand in front of the boy's blank stare. "You good there, buddy? Jem?"

"What?" Jem questioned, snapping out of his trance and looking up at Minho.

Iris glanced between the two boys, and she frowned when she saw the very slight sneer that was on jem's face. She thought that he liked Minho, who was just trying to make conversation. "You okay? You looked like you were thinking pretty hard."

"A feeling I'm sure you're not familiar with," the Slicer replied, and he offered the other male a sarcastic smile before speeding up so that he was not in line with them anymore.

They two left behind watched as he cut off with Jorge and Teresa. The brunette girl tried to say something, but it looked like he shut her down quickly. Minho just shook his head and sighed, "He's just a ray of sunshine, isn't he?"

"Yeah," Iris agreed, not really paying attention to what he was saying. She was more focused on Jem and what the hell was going on with him. He had been so bipolar lately, which could be very understandable considering everything that had happened recently.

"I'm surprised you were talking to him. Y'all used to always want to rip each other's heads off," Minho observed, and he watched her expression for a moment because she did not say anything back to him. He quizzed, "Unless this has transitioned into wanting to rip something else off?"

She finally turned to look at him, and her eyebrows were furrowed at his suggestive tone. "What are you talking about?"

"Like each other's clothes," he explained, and her face dropped at the words. The smirk on Minho's face was enough for her to begin hitting her with her backpack.

"Minho! What is wrong with you?" she exclaimed, and he giggled giddily as he tried to shield himself from her blows. She was so shocked that he would say that. That was not what was happening, right? Then again, they did kiss. "Did that lightning strike screw with your head or something?"

He raised his hands in surrender once she stopped hitting, trying to defend himself, even though he knew that she would not believe him. "I was just asking."

"You're an asshole, and I'm done talking to you," she informed him, and she began to speed up just like Jem did, leaving him in the sand behind her. She could practically hear the smug look on his face.

The rest of the group had been watching them after all of the commotion, and they were clearly wondering what the hell they were talking about. Minho called after her, "I feel like I can infer an answer from here."

"You are not inferring anything!"

《 ✢ 》

THEY FOUND THOMAS AND BRENDA FINALLY. Apparently, the guy that Jorge was trying to find, the one that would lead them to the Right Arm, owned this little club in the city. They had gone inside because someone had told them that they saw two teenagers go in there, and they found Thomas lying unconscious on the ground. He had clearly taken one of the drinks that they offered at the entrance, but he did not seem like he was having a good time.

Iris and Jem were on a couch in this secret hideout place with Brenda, and they were watching Jorge beat up Marcus when Thomas stirred. Teresa smiled when he woke up. She was the first to know because she had been sitting there and staring at the boy for the last hour or two. She grinned down at him. "We have to stop meeting like this."

"Ugh, that's gross," Jem muttered sarcastically, referring to the way that two of their friends were looking at each other, almost as if they were in love or something.

Minho, who was standing and crouching down beside Teresa, looked at his tired and dazed friend. He patted Thomas on the shoulder and told him, "Welcome back, you ugly shank."

"I suggest that you talk! You son of a bitch!" Jorge yelled before slapping the man tied to the chair once again. Marcus had blood dripping down his cheek from his eye, and Thomas sat up so that he could see what the hell was happening.

The man groaned after the contact. "Damn it! I'm sorry... you're going to have to leave my house."

"Oh, this is so much fun to watch," Jem mumbled, and Brenda looked over at him with a smile. Iris just rolled her eyes and tried to stop the corners of her lips from turning up. It had been a while since the curly-haired girl had seen someone get beat up really good.

Newt raised his eyebrows at Thomas when he walked over to them and stood with his arms crossed like he had not just woken up from being drunk and drugged as hell and hallucinating. The blonde boy muttered, "Looks like you've been having fun."

"Listen. I don't enjoy hurting you," Jorge told the man, but from the way it looked when Iris was watching him, he really really loved hurting the guy. There seemed to be some pent-up frustration between the two. "Okay? Where is the Right Arm, Marcus?"

"Wait, this is Marcus?" Thomas questioned, looking between all of them in shock.

Marcus chuckled a little but before he responded, mostly talking to the man that was beating him up. He did not seemed very phased by the fact that he was getting his ass kicked, though. "The kid catches on quick. Are you the brains of the operation?"

"Yeah, this is our resident genius," Iris confirmed with a smile, and Thomas sighed at her sarcasm. Jem grinned at her proudly.

Because they were kind of in a rush on their run from WICKED, Jorge wasted no time in talking over her and demanding from the man, "I know you know where they're hiding. So you tell me, and I'll make you a deal. You can come with us."

"I burned that bridge a long time ago," Marcus informed him, shaking his head. Again, he seemed pretty confident for a guy tied to a chair in a room full of people that could totally beat him up easily. "Besides, I made my own deal. You're the one who taught me, never miss an opportunity."

"What's he talking about?" Newt questioned because Jorge had frozen for a second. That was not a good sign and not a good way to show the random people that he had picked up that he might not be as trustworthy as they thought. Well, they never really thought that he was all that trustworthy in the first place.

"I'm talking about supply and demand," Marcus answered before Jorge could, and he had a really smug smile on his face. "WICKED wants all the Immunes they can get. I help provide that for them. So I lure the kids in...they get drunk, they have a good time. And then, later, WICKED comes in...they separate the wheat from the chaff."

The man standing above him stopped. "I changed my mind, hermano. I do enjoy hurting you." He kicked over the chair so that Marcus went crashing to the ground, and then he stood over him and pointed a gun straight at his forehead. "Talk! Talk!"

"Okay! Jesus! But I'm not making any promises. These guys like to move around. They have an outpost in the mountains. But it's a long way away. You got half of WICKED on your ass. You're never gonna make it. Not on foot," Marcus explained to them, spitting out some blood that had been in his mouth from getting punched in the face.

Jorge exhaled for a second before his eyes lit up like he had just remembered something extremely important, and he whipped around to face Marcus as his lips twisted into a kind of creepy smile. "Where's Bertha?"

"Not Bertha."