RIDING IN A CAR WAS SO MUCH FUN. Even though Alex was stuffed in the back with Nick, Aris, Minho, Brenda, Thomas, and Frypan, she was having a blast. She laughed at Newt who was grinning in the front seat, having the time of his life. They drove for a while in the direction that Marcus had told them to go, but they finally reached a road that was blocked by a ton of old cars.

"Well, I guess we're on foot," Jorge breathed out as they climbed out of the vehicle. They walked a little ways down the road, examining the cars as they went, which slowed them down a lot. They only walked a couple of feet when a gunshot rang out through the canyon, and a bullet almost hit Thomas. "Get down!"

They all dove behind cars, and Alex was sitting next to Nick behind one. There was some yelling, and Newt finally asked the question that they all wanted to know the answer to. "Anyone know where those bloody shots came from?"

"Everybody! Get set to sprint back to the truck! And hold your ears!" Jorge shouted to them, and Nick and Alex looked over to see him hand Thomas something that resembled a bomb. Her eyes widened, and she crouched, getting ready to run. Her eyes got even wider when she saw two people come up behind them.

"Drop it," one of them said, and Alex realized that they were both female. They were wearing masks over the bottom of their faces, probably to hide their identity. "Now! I said drop it! On your feet. Let's go. Let's go! Move! Back!" The girls waved her and Nick over to stand next to the rest of them as well. "You two, over here now! Don't be stupid! Move." She froze for a second, and she seemed to be staring incredulously at the two teenage boys that were not Gladers. "Aris? Nick? Oh, my God."

"Harriet?" Nick exclaimed, and both of the girls pulled their masks off their faces and smiled at the boys. Harriet, as they had just learned, lunged for Nick and threw her arms around him.

The blonde girl did the same, but with Aris. The boy breathed out, "Sonya."

"Aris, you're lucky we didn't shoot your dumb ass," she told him, patting him on the back as she backed up from the embrace to look him in the eye. Alex might just be crazy, but it seemed like there was something going on between the two.

Minho furrowed his eyebrows, almost as shocked about the fact that Aris might actually have a girlfriend than he was that the boys knew the people that were about to kill them or rob them or both. "What's happening?"

"We were in the Maze together," Nick explained. The curly-haired girl nodded slowly as if she was trying to process what he was saying. She was still confused as to how the hell these girls got away from WICKED and why they just completely abandoned Nick and Aris.

"We're clear, guys!" the girl introduced as Harriet called to the mountains. A bunch of people popped out, and it was clear that were holding guns. Alex figured that that was where the first shower of bullets came from. "Come on out!"

Sonya was still smiling at Aris when she turned to Nick and hugged him. "My God, you're alive."

"Wait, so, how did you guys get here?" Aris questioned as the girls led them through a tunnel to where a bunch of cars were waiting. A couple dozen people were there, loading the trucks up with their weapons and supplies.

Harriet brought them over to a car and explained, "The Right Arm got us out." That made all of their eyes widened because that was what they had been searching for that entire time.

"Wait. The Right Arm? Do you know where they are?" Thomas exclaimed, practically jumping forward in excitement.

"Hop in," the female ordered, opening the door for them with a smirk. They started driving again, the Gladers having a lot of fun in the vehicle, and they pulled up to what looked like some sort of camp. Harriet explained, "They've been planning this for over a year now. This is all for us."

Sonya nodded along to what she was saying as they stopped and all hopped out of the car. "You guys are lucky you found us when you did. We're moving out at first light." She looked over to some guy that was walking past with a crate of supplies. "Where's Vince?"

"Who's Vince?" Thomas questioned as the guy shrugged and kept walking.

Harriet sighed and answered, "He's the one who decides if you get to stay." Alex furrowed her eyebrows. What did she mean? Wasn't the Right Arm all about helping people get away from WICKED and giving them a safe place?

"I thought the Right Arm was supposed to be an army," Minho commented, and it was clear that a lot of the Gladers were thinking the same thing as Alex because what they were looking at looked less like an army and more like a camp.

"Yeah, we were," came a voice from behind them. They turned around to see a guy staring at them, and, putting two and two together, Alex assumed that this was Vince. "This is all that's left of us. Lot of good people died getting us this far. Who are they?"

Harriet informed him, trying to sound as nice as she could because he seemed really suspicious about the group. "They're Immunes. Caught 'em coming up the mountain. I know this guy, Aris, and that guy over there, Nick. I trust them."

"Well, I don't. Check 'em,'' Vince told a couple of men that approached the group with him, and they moved toward the group of teenagers. In response the Gladers, along with Nick and Aris, tried to step back a little bit.

Before the men could do anything, Brenda suddenly collapsed. Jorge lunged forward to catch her before she could hit the ground. He grabbed her face as he started coughing and made her look at him. "Brenda! Brenda! Brenda! Brenda. Brenda, talk to me. Brenda, are you all right? Brenda? Talk to me."

"What the hell?" Vince muttered, and he kneeled down next to the sick girl as everyone crowded around her to check on her. He rolled up the leg of her pants to reveal a very infected bite on her ankle, one that looked exactly like the cut in Winston's side right before he died. Vince jumped up and pointed his gun straight at Brenda. "Shit! Crank! We got a Crank!"

"No, no, no. Wait, wait! Listen, okay? This just happened, okay? She's not dangerous yet," Thomas told him, standing up and getting in between the gun and Brenda.

Vince continued to yell at him, jerking the gun every which way and letting them know that he would happily shoot through Thomas to get to Brenda. "You shouldn't have brought her here! We let Cranks in here now, the safe haven doesn't last a week! Step back!"

"I understand, okay? I understand. Just listen. Please. Please, okay?" Thomas begged, and the man in front of him made a face like he was listening. "I told her that you could help. Okay? No. There's got to be something you can do."

"Yeah, there is. I can put her out of her misery," he answered, and he was about to pull the trigger when everyone in the group yelled.

The thing that stopped him, though, was a woman coming up from behind him and standing next to him. "Vince, that's enough! Let him go. Let him go!"

"She's infected, Doc. There's nothing we can do for her," he said, defending himself. Alex kind of understood because having a Crank there would compromise the safety and the location of the camp, but they couldn't just leave Brenda like that.

"No, but he can," the woman informed them, looking up at the leader of their little group. "Hello, Thomas."

Thomas furrowed his eyebrows, and all of his friends mimicked him because none of them had ever seen that lady before in their life, at least that they could remember. "What? You know me?"

"How does everyone know Thomas, but he never knows them?" Alex whispered to Minho, who just shrugged.

"Interesting. It makes sense they'd put you in the Maze," the woman muttered to herself as she took a step closer to the boy. "Though I must admit...I was worried they'd kill you after what you did."

"What I did?"

She nodded, and when it was clear that nobody in the area knew what the hell she was talking about, she went into further detail. "The first time we spoke, you said you couldn't take it anymore...watching your friends die, one by one. The last time we spoke, you gave me the coordinates of every WICKED compound, trial and lab." She turned to Vince. "He was our source. We couldn't have pulled all this off without him." She gestured to Brenda, telling the men to help her out. "Take her to the tent. Get these guys some warm clothes." The men did as they were told, and Thomas followed them as they dragged Brenda down a path.

"Alex, what the hell?" Minho exclaimed, and the girl turned toward him to see that he was staring at the blood that was soaking through her jacket. It was coating almost half of her arm now.

She pulled her arm away and tried to cover it with her hair even though it was no use. He had already seen it. She shook her head. "It's nothing."

"The hell it is," he responded before reaching for her sleeve and pulling it down so that he could see the damage of the injury. His eyes widened as the other Gladers gathered around along with Nick and Aris to see it as well. The hole in her arm was really bloody and infected." Minho groaned, "For shuck's sake, Al, is this from the Griever? How long has it been like this?"

"It got bad when Winston got sick," she sighed.

Newt looked up at her in shock because that seemed like forever ago, and he was surprised that she had been able to hide the pain for that long. "Why haven't you told anyone?"

"It was just never our biggest problem," she answered with a shrug, causing all of them to glare at her.

"We've gotta get you checked out," Minho told her before looking around. He grabbed a guy that was walking past them with a basket and raised his eyebrows as he gestured to the injury on his female friend's arm. "Hey, is there another doctor somewhere?"

The man responded with a shake of his head, and he shifted his basket over to one arm so that he could point down the path that Thomas and Brenda walked down with the men and that woman that knew Thomas. "Mary's the only one we got. She's in that tent over there with your friends."

"Thank you," Minho replied, and then he pushed Alex in the direction of the tent.

She begrudgingly walked toward the tent. She lifted her hand up to knock on the side when she realized that it was fabric and that that wouldn't work. She could hear them speaking inside, so she decided to just open the flap. Once she did, both Thomas and Mary looked up at her. Mary's eyes fell to her holding her arm, and her eyes widened when she saw the blood almost dripping onto the ground below them. "Oh, my God, honey."

"Is there anything you can do?" Alex questioned.

"Of course. Wait for me outside while I get this done," the female nodded, and Thomas shot Alex a concerned look as she stepped to exit the tent. She waved him off with her other arm before climbing out. She sat in one of the chairs outside until Mary came out a few moments later. She had some medical supplies in her hands, and the girl recognized some of them from her Med-jack days in the Glade. The woman crouched down in front of her and started getting the supplies prepared. "So, how did this happen?"

Alex answered, "I got stabbed."

"How long ago?" she questioned as she coated a rag in some sort of liquid. After the scent of it reached her nose, Alex came to the conclusion that it was alcohol. God, that was going to hurt.

She poured a different liquid on the rag as well, and the girl furrowed her eyebrows because she had no clue what it was. She responded to the questioned as the woman grabbed her arm to examine it. "Um, about two weeks ago."

"It looks infected. Bite down on this because this is going to hurt," Mary ordered, handing her a clean cloth. The girl hesitantly did as she was told and grasped the fabric in between her teeth. She was a little confused but she understood why when Mary pressed the liquid-coated cloth onto her wound. She screamed, her voice muffled by the cloth, and tears welled up into her eyes. That hurt more than actually getting stabbed. The woman continued to clean it, and the pain subsided as she finished up and removed the cloth. "You did good. I'm going to stitch it up now."

Mary did that, and Alex thanked her before heading up to one of the cliffs where the rest of the Gladers, minus Teresa and Thomas, were sitting and looking out on the camp. She plopped down next to Minho, and he raised his eyebrows at her in question, "Everything good?"

"Yeah, thanks," she responded, showing him stitched up wound. He smiled contently, and she leaned her head on his shoulder and watched the people interact below them.

After a couple of minute, Thomas joined them and sat down by Newt and Frypan. She assumed that he had been with Brenda that whole time because she had not seen him exit the tent. Newt sighed, "I wish Alby could've seen all this."

"And Winston," Frypan added, causing Alex to nod in agreement. They would have loved seeing everyone happy and safe together. They had escaped WICKED, and they were moving out the next morning. Everything was going to be great.

Thomas joined in, and they all knew what he was going to say. "And Chuck." And Gally, Alex said in her head. She did not know what the reaction would be if she said it out loud, especially right after Thomas mentioned Chuck, so she kept her mouth shut.

"He'd be proud of you, you know, Tommy," Newt informed him.

Thomas nodded slowly, and Frypan called out the the boy that was sitting next to Sonya and Harriet by the fire, "Hey, Aris!"

"Hey, guys!" Aris yelled back with a grin, lifting his hand to wave at the group. A couple of them, including Alex, mimicked his actions before allowing him to return to his conversation.

Frypan nodded slowly with a smile. "I kinda like that kid. Nick too."

"Yeah. I still don't trust them, though, especially Nick," Minho informed them, and even though Alex understood that he was just being cautious, but she kind of liked Aris and Nick too, no matter how weird they were. "He's too quiet."

"Hey, where's Teresa?" Thomas questioned, looking around as if he had just realized that the girl was missing.

Newt was the first to answer, pointing to another cliff that was perpendicular to them so that they could see two figures standing there, looking out into the distance. "Speaking of Nick, he went up there with him."

"Thanks," he muttered to them before standing up and walking away, probably going to go talk to the female.

As they watched him walk away, Minho smirked slightly spoke up, breaking the silence, "He better hurry or Nick might steal his gir...or one of his girls."

"Nah, Nick likes Alex," Frypan told him, shaking his head as all of the guys around him nodded in agreement. The female's eyes widened in confusion as she looked around at all of them.

"You guys are insane," she muttered, rolling her eyes. After a moment, Nick disappeared from the cliff with Teresa and was replaced with Thomas. She sighed, shaking her head slightly as she watched the two curiously. "How is it that Thomas can get two girls, but none of you Shanks can get any?"