ALEX STAYED CLOSE BESIDE NEWT AS THEY WALKED THROUGH THE CROWD. They were currently in the outside part of the city, moving toward the big wall that kept them out while looking around at all of the miserable and angry people around them. Jorge sighed, "This place has really gone through hell."

"We just gotta stay together," Thomas told him, and they moved a little faster so that they did not get separated by any of the many people moving through the streets.

"We are the voice of the voiceless!" came a voice, and they all turned to see a car driving past them. There were men in masks and with guns sitting on top of it, and one was yelling into a megaphone. "They hide behind their walls, thinking they can keep the cure for themselves, while they watch the rest of us wither and rot! But there are more of us than there are of them. And I say, we rise up and take back what is ours! Let's bring back a victory!"

As the vehicle passed them, one of the men seemed to be staring straight at Alex. Her eyes followed him as he moved, wondering what the hell he was looking at and trying to decide if they should be worried or not. Her attention was shifted away when she heard some people yelling, "Let us in!"

"That's it. That's our way in," Thomas told them, and he jogged over to where a huge crowd was forming about one hundred yards from the wall where there was kind of a blockade.

They were all shouting in hopes that someone would just mercifully open the wall and let them tear apart the city. "Let us in! Let us in! Let us in! Let us in!"

"Thomas! This is not what you're looking for," Jorge told the boy, grabbing his arm before he went any further without them. He raised his eyebrows at him before gesturing to the angry crowd that would probably do anything to get into the city. "All these people trying to find their way in, you think you're gonna find something they can't?

The boy shook his head as he continued to push through the crowd in an attempt to get to the front. They followed him as he informed them, "Came this far. I'm not turning back now."

"What the hell did we get ourselves into?" Frypan murmured, groaning before following after the boy. People shot them dirty looks as they bumped into them, but if no one was going to move up, they were.

Alex looked to her side and saw someone dressed the same as the man that was staring at her. He was yelling at a man and kicking him to the ground. They reached the front of the crowd, and Alex looked around at the men moving toward them, and it seemed like they were looking right at them. "Thomas, this doesn't feel right."

"Hey, guys, we gotta go now. Look," Newt told them, and he pointed behind them to where Alex was already looking at the men in the masks. They had guns in their hands, and the girl wondered if they worked for WICKED. It was a different uniform than the ones the soldiers usually wore, but it could be so that they blend in more outside of the walls.

All of a sudden, a loud creaking shut the entire crowd up, and they all watched in terror as the walls started to move at the top and two shapes appeared. The curly-haired girl's eyes widened when she realized what they were. "Shit! Let's go, let's go! We gotta get out of here!"

"Go! Go! Go!" Thomas yelled with her as guns started firing at the crowd, causing huge explosions. They sprinted away along with the rest of the people and ran back in the direction they came from. "Come on! Go! Keep going! Come on! Move!"

They turned at an ally, Alex and Jorge in front, and ducked under a pillar. Alex looked back just as she turned a corner and ran smack dab into something. She whipped around as hands grabbed her forearms and saw that it was one of the men. She started to panic as she saw her other friends getting grabbed.

"Let go of me!" she ordered even though she knew it would not help. Shockingly, the man loosened his grip. It was not enough so that she could get away, but it did not hurt as much anymore. Frypan tried to come to her rescue, but it was no use because someone grabbed him from the back and dragged him toward a van. She struggled against the grip of the person holding her, but it was not long before she was thrown in the back of another van with Thomas and Brenda.

They drove in silence, staring at the men guarding them in the back of the van and preparing to be brought to WICKED. One of the soldiers seemed to be very focused on Alex, and as she stared directly at the mask that was fogged up around the eyes, something about him almost looked familiar. All of a sudden, they stopped and ordered, "Get out!"

"Where is she, you son of a bitch?" Jorge's voice came, and they all whipped around to see him on top of one of the men, punching him relentlessly as he asked about Brenda.

"Hey! Wait! 'm right here. I'm right here!" the girl yelled, running over to the man that was like a father to her and trying to get him to look at her as the other men tried to break up the fight. "I'm right here. I'm right here!"

He looked up at her, and his eyes softened as he climbed off the man and gave her a hug. Alex smiled slightly despite the situation, happy that they had each other. The masked man that had kept staring at Alex raised his hands in an attempt to calm everyone down. "Everybody relax. We're all on the same side here."

"What do you mean, 'same side'? Who the hell are you?" Thomas asked with a confused expression. If they weren't with WICKED, then who the hell did they work for and what did they want with them? The man just sighed, looking away for a moment before reaching up to his mask, indicating that he was about to pull it off.

Alex froze. Her brain was moving a million miles a minute, and she could not believe who was standing in front of her. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion as his eyes landed on her, and she was transported back to the day that she first saw him in the Maze. She could not breathe. All she could do was stand there in shock. "Hey, Greenie."

"Gally?"

Frypan seemed almost as shocked as Alex was, they all did. Well, except for Jorge and Brenda who did not know him. They could not even comprehend who was staring back at them. He breathed out, "No way." Then, Thomas lunged at him and threw a punch.

"Hold! Stop! It's all right!" Gally yelled to his friends that were about to pull the boy off of him after they landed on the ground. He just lied there and let Thomas punch him, knowing what he did to deserve it.

Newt rushed to save him, kneeling next to the angry Thomas and holding up his hands in an attempt to get him to stop. The other two were too shocked to even move. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Stop! Stop it! Stop."

"He killed Chuck." Thomas reminded his blonde friend, pausing with his fist at the ready.

"Yeah, I know. I remember. I was there too, all right? But I also remember that he was stung and half out of his mind," Newt told him, and Alex could not help but remember that moment after they had escaped the Maze. That was the last time she had seen Gally, and he had been Stung. She hated seeing him like that, and she forced herself to stop before she could picture him lying in her arms. "Just calm down. All right? Come on."

Thomas just groaned before climbing off of the boy as he stood up as well, looking back to each of his old friends, his eyes lingering on one in particular. "Kind of had that coming. Anybody else? Fry? Newt? Lexi?" Alex had not heard that name in what felt like forever. She was not sure how to feel about it.

"Do you know this guy?" Jorge asked, leaning into Frypan's ear because judging by everyone's reactions, they had not left it on a good note.

Fry, still in shock and not tearing his eyes away from the ghost in front of him, answered, "He was an old friend."

"How? How is this possible? We watched you die," Newt exclaimed, glancing at the girl beside him for her reaction. She still had not moved, and he was a little bit worried about her. Frypan nudged her side, finally snapping her out of it. He silently asked her if she was okay, and she just nodded in response.

"No, you left me to die," Gally corrected, and he spared a glance toward Alex. They both thought back t the moment when her tears stained his blood-soaked shirt. "And if we hadn't found you when we did, you'd be dead right now. What the hell are you doing here?"

The blonde boy responded since two of them were too shocked to speak, two of them had no clue what was happening, and the other one was too mad at the person in front of them to tell him anything."Minho. WICKED has him here. We're looking for a way in."

"I can help with that. Follow me," Gally told them, and he turned to lead them deeper into whatever the hell building they were in when Thomas stopped him.

He shook his head with a scoff because there was no freaking way that he was trusting that boy for anything — not after everything he did to all of them. "I'm not going anywhere with you."

"Suit yourself. But I can get you through those walls." Thomas finally gave in after about ten seconds, and they all began following Gally. Alex stayed more toward the back, but every once in a while, she caught Gally looking back at her as he led them to his leader, Lawrence. "After the Maze, I got picked up by a group headed to the city. They realized I was immune, patched me up, and they brought me here to Lawrence. This group's been at war with WICKED ever since they took control of the city. But WICKED can't hide behind those walls forever. Day's gonna come, and they're gonna pay for what they've done. Listen, uh, he doesn't get a lot of visitors. So, let me do the talking. All right? And try not to stare."

They walked down a set of stairs and over to a man that was running his hand along some plants and muttering something to himself. Once he turned toward the light, Alex could see that he was at least part Crank because he had pretty much no nose and was missing a lot of skin. He seemed to be in mostly his right mind, though, which was interesting. "Gally, glad to see you made it back. Jasper told me what happened."

"It was a slaughter. There's nothing we could do against those guns," Gally responded to the man, andAlex could not tell whether they were on formal terms or not.

"No, but they can only poke the hornet's nest so long before they get stung," Lawrence replied before glancing around at the group behind Gally, having never seen any of them before in his life. He hoped that Gally would not be stupid enough to bring six random people into their base. "Now, who are these people? Why are they here?"

Thomas stepped forward, even though Gally had told him to let him do the talking. Of course, Thomas would not follow orders from him. He should have expected that. "We need to get into WICKED. Gally said you can get us through the walls."

"Gally should know better than to make promises that he can't keep. Besides, that wall is only half your problem. Getting inside WICKED is impossible," Lawrence informed them, shaking his head and shooting a pointed look at the boy that he had gotten to know pretty well over the past few months.

He stepped forward and informed his leader, "There might be a way now. But it doesn't work without Thomas."

"Is that so?" The peaked the man's interest, and he raised his eyebrows at Thomas. "Do you know what I am...Thomas? I am a businessman. Which means that I don't take unnecessary risks. Why should I trust you?"

"'Cause I can help you. You see, if you can get me through those walls... I can get you what you need," the boy informed him, and their faces were very close, and Alex was almost 100% sure that Lawrence smelled pretty awful. Thomas seemed to be going strong, though, despite that.

The man chuckled in amusement. "What is it that you think I need?"

"Time. Every last drop," Thomas answered, gesturing to the cart that he was pushing around that was connected to his wrist. There was a bag of fluid that was going through a tube and into his body. That was presumably what was keeping him sane unlike the rest of the Cranks that they had seen.

"Is that what I need?" he asked with raised eyebrows. "WICKED has something we both want. I'll tell you what. Three can go for now. The rest stay down here with me. Just a little insurance to make sure you find your way back. We have a deal?" Thomas nodded. "Gally, show him the way. Be careful, Thomas."