THEY PULLED IN FRONT OF A HUGE DARK TUNNEL AND CLIMBED OUT OF THE CAR. Thomas had the bright idea to go through it, and they all turned to him with raised eyebrows. Fry and Alex inspected the entrance to the tunnel as Newt looked at his leader of a friend. "You want us to go in there? I don't wanna come across as too negative, but if I was a Crank, that's exactly where I would be."

"I don't think we have much of a choice," the other boy answered, and he had a point. There did not seem to be a way around the tunnel, and that was the only way to get to the city that Thomas had found on the map. It seemed like there were going to have to suck it up and just go through.

The blonde boy sighed, knowing that he was right and started walking back toward the car, gesturing them to follow him. "All right. I get shotgun."

"Well, here we go," Thomas muttered from beside Alex. Frypan was driving, leaving the other two in the back. They were all leaning forward, though, looking through the darkness in search of anything moving or any hazards along the way that could potentially leave them stranded in the middle of a very long, dark tunnel.

Alex nodded, patting her driving friend on the shoulder in an attempt to reassure him. He seemed really freaked out and nervous about driving in the dark with their mostly broken headlights. "Yeah, just take it nice and slow."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Thomas yelled, and Alex looked up to see a Crank standing in their way, slighty illuminated by the dim light. It had black blood dripping down its face, and all of its features were distorted. "It's okay. It's just one, so take it slow, go around him. We'll be fine. Take it slow. Take it slow."

All of a sudden, a hand slapped on Thomas's window, causing him to jump back, almost into Alex's lap. A face of a woman appeared, and she looked dead. She sobbed, "Please. Please. Help me. Please. Please! Let me in."

"Okay. Fry, we gotta go. You need to go right now! Just floor it, Fry!" the boy yelled as more Cranks began coming toward them. One was at each of their windows, and there was more to come. They needed to get out of there now. No time for slow and steady.

They all yelped as one jumped onto the hood of the car and stared at them threw the window as it screamed. They all jumped back, and Fry started going crazy with the car partly because of fear and partly because he could not see past the creature. "Come on, Fry, shake him!"

"I'm trying! Go!" he shouted as if that would get the Crank to just let go of the car and let them be on their way. He finally let go and flew off, but that did not stop the fact that they were spinning out of control. "Hang on!"

"Oh, God. Frypan, watch out!" Newt shouted, pointing to a stack of crates in front of them. Frypan tried to swerve, but that ended up with the car flipping over. They all went crashing to the hood of the car since there were no seatbelts left.

Thomas climbed out first, and he grabbed Alex's hand and pulled her out with him. She looked around to see that neither Frypan nor Newt had gotten out yet. She called, "Everyone okay?"

"Wait! Thomas! Thomas, the door!" the driver yelled, and the boy pulled on the handle of the door, but it was so crushed that it would not open, leaving him trapped inside. He was going to have to go around to the other side.

"Oh, shit. All right. Newt, you all right? Fry, go around," Thomas instructed him, and he and the curly-haired girl walked over to the other side of the car just in time to see the passenger door open and the blonde boy to come rolling out. "Newt, you okay?"

He nodded, brushing the dirt off of his clothes and clutching his hand. Alex had heard him yell something about it, but she was not totally sure what had happened. "Yeah, I think so."

"Fry, you good? Alex?" Thomas checked as Frypan got out, and Alex nodded as she rolled her head around to get the kink out of her neck from where she landed on it weird. All of their eyes widened as they saw a whole army of Cranks headed toward them. "Oh, shit. Frypan, I think we gotta move. Now!"

"Wait a minute!" he told them, and he was crouching by the crashed vehicle and searching the back for something. They did not have time for that, though, and they really needed to get moving before the creatures reached them.

Alex argued, "Right now!"

"Fry, now! Come on, what are you doing?" they all shouted at him, urging him to either hurry up with whatever he was doing or forget about it. "We gotta move! Come on! Come on! Hold on! Frypan gotta go! Come on! Come on!"

Just as one of the Cranks was about to reach out toward Alex, Frypan stood up and shot it right in the face with a shotgun, causing it to fall to the ground. She breathed out, "Nice shot, Fry."

"Thanks." he responded, as they all stood there in shock.

"Okay. We gotta go," Thomas informed them, and they all started to sprint the other way. They froze when they saw figures coming toward them from the other direction. The leader boy gestured to the gun in his friend's hands. "Fry, you got any left?"

Fry continued to shoot the Cranks coming toward them, but there were too many. Sooner or later, he was bound to... "I'm out! Shit!" All of a sudden, the crowd of Cranks was lit up by something moving, and a car burst through them, killing a couple.

"Hey, get in!" Brenda's voice yelled, and they all sighed in relief as they ran toward the jeep while she shot at the creatures coming toward them.

They all piled into the back, a little squished, but they would have to suck it up. Alex glanced to the front seat to see the person that was almost always with Brenda. "Go, Jorge, go!"

"I'm impressed!" Jorge exclaimed as soon as they were out of the tunnel. He grinned at the four in the back by looking in the mirror in front of him. They were all trying to catch their breath as Brenda sat back down next to him. "You guys almost lasted a whole day."

"I'm sorry. I didn't wanna bring you guys into this," Thomas informed the girl when he saw her looking back at him and shooting him a look for not letting them know that they were leaving or inviting them to come with him. They were in this together.

Frypan leaned forward to correct his friend before Jorge kicked them out of the car or something for not being grateful. "I think what he's trying to say is thanks for saving us."

"You're welcome."

Jorge shook his head at them, not wanting them to get to excited about the fact that they had made it past the Cranks. "Hey, don't get your hopes up. That checkpoint back there, that was the city's last defense. If that was overrun, chances are the city is, too."

"Yeah, unless they figured out some other way to keep the Cranks out," Newt said, and they all followed his gaze to something out the window. They all breathed out in disbelief as Jorge slowed the car down so that they could climb out. They were staring at a city witha huge wall built around it. Outside of the wall looked poor and small, indicating that that was probably the part overrun by Cranks. "Funny — spent three years trapped behind walls, trying to break out, and now we wanna break back in."

"Yeah. It's hilarious," Fry scoffed sarcastically.

Alex thought back to the last time they had to deal with walls built by WICKED, and it had not gone so well. They ended up 'escaping' right back into WICKED's hands, and they lost so many people in the process. ONe person in particular stood out to the girl, and a wave of sadness washed over her. She brushed it off. That was months ago. "Best joke I've heard in a while."

"Jorge, how do we get in?" Thomas asked, turning to the man who had seemed to know everything about the city the night before when they discussed it.

Jorge shook his head, wondering how the hell they expected him to get them inside those huge walls surrounding the city. He was not a superhero. "Don't look at me, hermano. Those walls are new. I guess that's WICKED's answer for everything."

"Well, we ain't gonna figure it out from up here. Let's go!" Brenda yelled at them, and she, Frypan, and Jorge got into the car, ready to go and save their friend. The other three lingered for a moment, though, staring out at the city in front of them and wondering what the hell they were getting themselves into.

Newt raised his eyebrows at their leader because they would all put their faith and trust in him if he said so. He had gotten them that far, and what more did they have to lose? "You really think he's in there?"

"I guess we'll find out," he breathed out.

Alex offered a comforting smile as she put her hand on his shoulder. "I'm loving the confidence." He shot her a look but grinned at her joke.

"You know she's gonna be there, too," Newt pointed out, and Thomas nodded, knowing exactly what he was referring too. Teresa. She was in there, probably on the opposite side of the glass as Minho. Alex could tell that Thomas missed her, but she had not said anything, not wanting to upset anyone.

The blonde boy headed back to the car, leaving the two standing on the cliff. Finally, Thomas spoke up, not moving his eyes away from the city. "Is it bad that..."

"That you still love her?" she finished for him when she saw that he did not know how to continue. After what Teresa had done, everyone had gotten really mad at her, all except Thomas. He seemed more hurt than angry, and she understood that.

"Yeah," he responded before finally looking at her to see her expression. He knew that she would be the one to understand since she had gone through something similar. "You know, after everything she's done?"

She shrugged and glanced down at the ring on her right hand, getting flashbacks to the moment that Gally had given it to her just before he had died. She spun it around her finger with her thumb and sighed, "Maybe, but I'm definitely not one to judge."

"She said 'we," he said suddenly after a moment of silence.

She furrowed her eyebrows, snapping her eyes away from her hand to look at him in confusion, not understanding what he meant by that. "What?"

"When Teresa told me she called WICKED, she said 'I need you to understand why we did it,' like it wasn't just her," he explained, remembering the moment that Teresa had told him that she had called WICKED on that cliff when they were with the Right Arm.

"That's weird."

She groaned because the last thing they needed was to have more problems to solve. He asked her, "Do you think it means anything?"

"Who knows?"