ALEX 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. Alex, 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 Alex 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 Alex whipped their heads toward him, and the boy asked, "Hey, man. You okay?" Winston just nodded, but the girl knew better. She 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," she mumbled, reaching down her hand for him to grab and hoisting him up. She allowed him to lean on her shoulder as they walked because he could barely stand on his own. The last thing they needed was for them to fall behind, so the girl tried her hardest to keep up with the group. She whimpered lowly when she felt him grab ahold of her injured arm, but he did not seem to hear her.

They reached what looked like an abandoned city, and there were half-buried buildings everywhere just like the one they just came from. from. Alex 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. Alex'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!"

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 for them. Minho exhaled before questioning, "They're never gonna stop looking for us, are they?"

They had to keep moving, and the worst part of the journey was the hills. Alex had to haul Winston up them. She could tell he felt bad because he was not being much help, but she did not blame him. He had an open wound that was covered in nothing but a blood-soaked bandage. She 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 that were struggling the most.

Alex nodded slowly because she was not able to conjure up words because of how tired she was. Her arm was also killing her, and she wished that she had some of that ointment that Crawford gave her that number the pain a little bit. She did not want to tell the injured boy about it because he had enough to worry about as it was, but she was not sure how much longer she could take it. 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 Alex 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 because that was the only way that she was going to make it with Winston leaning on her. She was pretty sure that her arm wound had opened up again. She was probably going to need stitches, but they did not have the supplies, the time, nor the energy to do that. So, she was just going to have to suck it up.

Thomas nodded. "Then we better get moving."

"Winston!" Alex yelled because she could feel the boy keeling over as soon as they took a step. She was too weak to resist it, so he ended up taking her down with her. Everyone slid down to their sides, but when they tried to check on her, she 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. Alex took the opportunity where they were all distracted to check on her arm.

She peeked under her jacket and saw that the bandage was almost completely red. She covered it up again and muttered, "Shit." They needed to keep all of the extra bandages for Winston along the way. They could not spare any. She just needed to wait until they reached the Right Arm and pray that they could help her.

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 and Frypan though because they were the strongest, Thomas was leading, and Alex 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. Alex 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.

Alex 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. Nick was the one to speak up, "Is he going to be okay?"

"I don't know," she responded honestly, looking at him with a slightly surprised expression because that was the first time that she had heard him talk since their little conversation where he introduced himself and how he knew a lot about her for some reason. He was a very quiet person, and she was not sure if she liked that or not. Maybe he had nothing to say or maybe he had a secret that he was trying to keep.

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 Alex held the gun as far away from her friend as she 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 girl with the weapon while on his hands and knees. It did not take her 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 Alex 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."

Alex kneeled next to him and grabbed his hand, squeezing it comfortingly as tears formed in her eyes. "No, it's okay. We'll find a way to fix you. I'll find a way. We have to. I can't lose you too."

"It's okay, Alex," he breathed out, and tears started to roll down her cheeks at the sound of his weak and dying voice. "Don't you dare cry because if you cry, I'm gonna cry, and that it really not a manly way to go out." She let out a weak laugh through her tears.

"Wait, Newt..." Thomas muttered, and she looked up to see the blonde boy with the gun in his hand. She looked at him with a scared expression as he 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 Alex with the dying boy. Winston looked over at her. "That means you too, Alex."

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.