Thorne helped Goldi the rest of the way to the Med Center and watched her grown more and more fatigued. She was still kind of coughing up blood, so Thorne could understand she was having a rough day.

It had been nearly an hour since their run in with Cress and their other friends. It was slowly sinking into Thorne's head that Cress was under the control of some kind of Hive Mind. A girl who he really cared about was on a rampage and trying to turn people into her mindless minions. His heart sank, and he had to remind himself that he wasn't that much more than Cress's friend.

Yeah. Even though everyone thought they were together, they weren't. All that talk he'd had with Cress after the Revolution was her membership to his crew. The crew that was literally just him and Cress. It wasn't intimate a at all.

Okay, so it kind of was. But they weren't in an official relationship like everyone assumed. Like the rest of their friends just believed.

Like Goldi thought they were. He'd have to explain that to her when her mind was properly functioning and blood wasn't rising up her throat.

The moment they got into the Med Center, Cinder was ready to start scolding them for running off like she was their mother. Conveniently enough, Goldi's eyes rolled so far back into her head she fell unconscious. That got Cinder's attention, diverting her rant from criticizing the two in that moment.

Thorne buckled under Goldi's weight. Seeing as how she was nearly half cyborg, she was about half metal, and everyone knows metal in large quantities is pretty hard to lift.

Cinder rushed to help Thorne bring the knocked-out cyborg to a hospital bed. They dragged her over and layed her down on the bed. Cinder gave Thorne a stern look. "What in the name of stars did you do?" she demanded.

Thorne glanced at Goldi, thinking, Wow, she faints just in time to escape Cinder's wrath. What a little-

"Thorne!" Cinder barked. "What were you and Goldinia doing out there?! You could have been killed!"

He shook his head. "That's not what they're planning," Thorne explained. "Scarlet, Wolf, and Cress have more of a world domination type plan. They're going to convert the population of Luna by biting them, then they're going to get everyone on Earth. What's crazy is that the gas affects people differently. Scarlet and Wolf got the brawn and some speed. But Cress got super intelligence and speed like a demon. So if they get more people, they'll have an army with all kinds of messed up people."

Cinder's jaw hung to the floor. The Queen of Luna was sure not too happy to be what she was at the moment. Inheriting all of these gifts her aunt left her must have felt like the worst birthday ever. "Is there any good news?"

Again, he glanced at Goldi. He said the first thing that popped into his head. "Goldi and I started bonding."

Cinder smacked herself in the face with her metal hand. Something Thorne winced at because it looked painful. Maybe that's what Cinder wanted. A sharp strike to herself that could wake herself up from the nightmare she hoped she was in.

She sighed, her hand still covering part of her face. "Please tell me that you at least know where they are?"

"They're down by the labs," Thorne answered.

Cinder wasn't exactly pleased with that. "There are dozens of lab areas connected to the palace. Being a bit more specific would be helpful." Her faced was flushed, and Thorne thought the Queen of Luna was about to blow a fuse.

A few doctors came around and began to wheel the bed to a more private area. Thorne wanted to protest, knowing that Goldi wouldn't be happy when she woke up if she was in some sterile hospital room. Then again, she was kind of dying on the inside. Like, her body wasn't able to hold together with all of the excitement she was having all of the sudden.

They wheeled her off, and Thorne was almost jealous that Goldi was getting out of the conversation with Cinder and her anger. Sure, she was unconscious and sort of dying. But she wasn't the one Cinder was going to be berating for the next few weeks about this.

Yeah, Goldi really lucked out on this one.

...................

Cadmar came to after the doctors had finished their final tests on him and realized they'd used much more anesthetic than they had to. Either that, or they used too much on purpose to keep him from lashing out while they poked him with needles and took his blood.

An idea that Cad thought saved the doctors a lot of trouble.

Ever since his introduction to LSOP, Cad had grown to loathe needles. Whenever he was sent in for tests, he'd snarl and fight until he was shot with a tranquilizer dart. Of course, he wasn't the only one who hated the needles. And while others fought them off and detested being pricked and poked, some were terrified of the medical equipment.

Of course, showing any fear was weakness in LSOP was sure fire way to get more injections. So most of them kept their fear to themselves.

Waking up, Cad felt a horrible headache in his brain, like a chunk of it was missing. That gas must have messed up his mind in more ways than one. He vaguely remembered feeling like Wolf was connected to him. As if they shared some kind of psychic link. He saw memories that weren't his ... but with Wolf and that red-headed girl.

There was so much blood in his head. So much death, so much pain. He was one of the soldiers in LSOP who'd been terrified of needles.

Then he saw memories he knew were Wolf's and his own. Chasing the red-headed girl ... and Goldi. Running after them, trying to turn them into what they were. He knew Wolf changed Scarlet, and that he tried to change Goldi. Instead, she changed him. She cured him somehow, and he was free from that mind-boggling gas.

Once he was awake enough to register what was going on, he stared out the window of the room he was in. Doctors were hovering around him, and he began to groggily push them away. A few of the doctors got the message. Others were not as fortunate. After a moment or two, Cad was so aggravated with the doctors that he back handed one in the stomach.

As the doctors ran around to get more anesthesia, he caught a glimpse of a body being rolled past his window. He tried to focus, and saw the body had flowing blond hair and was wearing all black.

Two things Cad knew Goldi had.

A surge of terror raced through his veins. He mustered all of his strength and ripped himself free from all of the tubes and machines his body was connected to. He drunkenly stumbled across the room, fighting off the doctors who tried to pull him back to the bed. He wasn't sure of the sight of the body was a hallucination from the anesthesia. Honestly, he didn't care. If there was even the slightest chance that Goldi was hurt, he'd rip whoever hurt her to pieces.

He made it to the door and slammed the button harder than he should have. The people in lab coats pulled at his clothes, their feeble attempts to keep him in the room were useless. With every movement he made, he grew a little stronger.

Either that, or he was becoming more and more numb to his pain by the second.

When he was able to focus on the bed being wheeled down the hall, he saw that it was in fact his best friend. Her eyes was shut, though only barely. She was pale as death, and not moving a muscle. The rings around her eyes were darker than before, and a bandage was stuck to her neck. The bandage was soaked with blood, and didn't seemed to be helping the injury that must have been underneath.

Suddenly, it hit Cadmar. That was the spot he bit Goldi. Where he bit her to turn her into the same monster he was. Now, she was still bleeding from that wound, and her body was covered in smaller cuts that also appeared to still be dripping.

The fear in his heart quadrupled. Goldi's body was wheeled past him before he could stop the doctors. What horrified him was that he had no idea if she was being brought to a private room ... of the morgue.

Of course, when he needed his legs most, they gave out on him. He crumbled to the ground and his vision went dark. His last thoughts before his lights went out were that he killed his best friend, and that he'd never be able to say goodbye to her. That he would forever be responsible for the death of the one he loved most.

The idea gave him a heart attack.

.................

Cinder watched as doctors sprinted in and out of Goldinia's room and Cadmar's room. Goldi was suffering from massive internal bleeding, malnutrition, and horrible fatigue. Cadmar had been dosed with too much anesthesia and was having an acute heart attack. His doctors said Goldinia was being moved past his room and he shot out of his bed to get to her. Some thought it was because he was still in the mindset of the monster he was only a few hours ago. Others believed it was because he was worried about her, and guilty about what he'd done to her.

Thorne thought the latter was the way to go. Cinder was undecided. While the doctors said the bite Goldinia received from Cadmar reversed the affects of the gas on him, Cinder wasn't sure what to think. They didn't exactly have an official way to test if people were infected yet.

But they would have, if Cadmar hadn't fought the doctors doing tests on him a dozen times.

Both of their lives were in jeopardy now, and on top of all this, Cinder still had no idea where Cress, Scarlet, and Wolf were. They'd tried to scan the area with the security system Cinder commissioned, but Cress had hacked it and locked Cinder out. She tried to use her back up system to scan for human life in the lab areas, but somehow, the system didn't register people infected by the gas as proper humans.

Kai was stuck in the E.C. because the Lunar Palace was on Lock down. Winter was acting as the Lunar Ambassador on Earth, and Jacin was her guard (as always). Cress, Scarlet, and Wolf were all infected and trying to spread their disease to every human in their solar system.

Just like she had been when her streak of bad luck began, Thorne was at her side. The first time, it was more of a random incident related to chance than the two of them being best friends. For the past few months, Thorne had been with her, even though he had no reason to be. He'd had no personal stake in the Revolution, no requirement to stay with her after they escaped prison.

Nonetheless, he stayed, and became one of her more treasured – and annoyingly childish – companions. When all else when to Tartarus, Thorne was standing next to her. Whether she liked it or not.

Not wanting to talk about the incredibly dark situation she and Thorne were stuck in, she tried to lighten the mood with some normal banter. Something she thought Thorne would have done already.

"So," she began. "How are things with Cress?"

He shrugged. "Well, she's kind of a demon monster that wants to convert me into what she is. And she looked like she was going to kill me the last time I saw her. But ... I think things are going fairly well."

Unable to help it, Cinder chuckled. "I meant about you two being together, before all of this started. You know, since you two have been dating since she decided to stay on your ship with you."

Her biddy sighed, and Cinder thought it was for the fact that his girlfriend was now a she-devil with the speed of lightning bolt.

"We're not actually dating," Thorne told her. Something that made her stare at him in disbelief. "We decided to wait until she's and adult, and ... after she gets used to being around so many people. After that ... we'll talk about it."