Thorne felt so torn. He knew he should have been searching for Cress and helping to turn her back into her old self. To get her and the rest of his friends out of the trances they were under thanks to that crazy gas Levana had engineered to make more soldiers.

But he knew he couldn't leave Gold all by herself. If she woke up again, with all of those lab coats circling around her, she'd have another panic attack. And with her best buddy - Cadmar - out and under more tranquilizers than you'd need to take down an elephant, Thorne was the only one she'd listen to.

Even if she sassed him while doing it.

He stood in front of the window to Goldi's room. He watched the doctors hover around her and attempt to repair her. Her metal arm was still twitching and throwing sparks in the air like a live wire. Her cyborg leg wasn't much better, and had torn Goldi's pant leg to shreds.

Aces, so many cyborgs in this friend group now. First Cinder, then Scarlet and Thorne himself, and now Goldinia. If either Jacin or Winter had to get Cyborg attachments, every couple in their friend group would have at least one metal appendage.

Yeah, that would make it a lot easier to divide teams if they ever started doing team games at future reunions. And yes, they were going to have Rampion Crew reunions with relatives. Thorne would make sure of that.

Anyway, thanks to Cinder being a cyborg and the Queen of Luna, there was always a cyborg limb expert on duty in the Med Center. One was coming soon to fix Goldi's arm and leg. Until then, the doctors were keeping Goldi sedated to ensure she stayed calm and didn't worsen her condition. Not to mention her other ailments that were killing her. The doctors were amazed that she'd lived through them. That, and how effective the Death's Rival serum was towards keeping her that way.

Speaking of that disgusting stuff, Cinder said she was going to get some of it to cure their infected friends. She should have been back by now.

Thorne glanced around the Med Center, still seeing no sign of the Lunar Queen. He wondered how she was faring through all of this. It was the first huge thing she'd dealt with as Queen. Starting with just a random prisoner and resulting in the release of a contagion that could remodel the entire Human Race.

Then again, Cinder had beat Levana in the Revolution, with the help of her friends of course. Still, Thorne was worried.

In the Revolution, people had died. People close to him and his friends. Wolf's mother, Cress's father, Scarlet's grandmother, and more before the Revolution officially started. Plus, Cinder and Cress had nearly been killed as well. Cress ... she'd almost died because Thorne had been under the control of Levana.

And that's why Thorne had been one of the first to get that Glamour blocking chip. He never wanted to lose control of his own body like that again. Not when it could get someone killed.

The doctors ran around the room frantically. Thorne looked back into the room, and saw Goldi twitching and struggling against her restraints. A piercing shriek entered the air, chilling his bones. Without thinking to wait for Cinder to get back, Thorne rushed into the room and pushed past all of the doctors to Goldi's bedside.

She squirmed and jerked at the restraints holding her down. Her eyes were barely open. Thorne gripped her by her shoulders to keep her from sitting up and flailing around.

"Goldi," he barked. Goldi wearily looked in his direction. "You have to stay calm. Stop moving."

She groaned. "I ... I have ... to save ... Crescent," she told him. Thorne heard the rapid beeping of the heart monitor she was hooked up to. Centuries of technological progress, and no one had thought to make that noise less annoying?

He made her focus on him again. "Goldi," he said, trying to assure himself as well as her. "I will find Crescent. I will bring her back to you, and keep her safe. I promise."

Thorne could hear the beeping slow, and Goldi resisted her restraints less. She took in deep breaths to fuel her lungs. "You promise?"

He nodded. "Yes, I promise I will get her back. You just have to rest."

For a second, it looked as though she was about to say something to thank him. Before she could, her eyes rolled into the back of her head. This time, not in a sarcastic manner. Or, it could have been, but she fell unconscious to quickly to tell.

Her heartbeat went back to normal, and her rapid breathing slowed. The doctors took a collective sigh of relief. But Thorne's stressful eternity was just beginning.

Now, it was up to him to save Crescent. He'd made a promise to a Darnel. And he knew for certain that those were a breed he could never turn his back on.

Especially when the promise was to save his Crescent Moon.

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

As Cinder held her pistol at her side, she kept an eye out for her infected friends. After getting back, Goldi had given a quick warning to her and Thorne about people who were infected.

Bullets were like feathers to them. They could effect them, but the damage would be so minimal it was non-existent. So if bullets barely did anything to them, tranquilizer darts would be like air brushing against them.

Yet, no matter how she tried to rationalize it, she felt horrible about the idea of shooting her friends. Especially little Crescent. If she wasn't as strong as the others, she could be seriously injured by a bullet.

The guards with her protected the doctors in hazmat suits. The ones that pulled the tanks of the Death's Rival serum back to the Med Center. Though it wasn't proven to be toxic, the doctors were not convinced that it couldn't be harmful. The way it barely kept Goldi alive, it gave everyone there a bad feeling about it.

Now, they had three full tanks of the stuff, and they hoped to fill tranquilizer darts with the serum to shoot into the infected maniac's blood streams.

From how it worked on Cadmar, everyone locked in the palace thought it was at least worth a try. Even if it didn't cure them fully, the serum would slow down and lessen the effects of the contagion and help Scarlet, Wolf, and Cress control themselves once more.

In silence, the crew moved the barrels on wheels as quickly as possible. Not one person spoke, and no one had the audacity to stop. Cinder still couldn't pinpoint the locations of her infected friends, but she knew they could be near her in less than a second.

But they had the best weapon in the world to combat them.

The cure.

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

"Cadmar is either blocking me out or is unconscious," Wolf growled. "He isn't responding and I can't see what he's thinking." He grimace. At first, he thought having a man on the inside was just what they needed to turn all of the people in the palace. Now, he wasn't so sure. If they'd detained Cadmar and found a way to keep him locked up, all of them were in trouble.

Scarlet had her doubts. "Maybe you can't reach him from that kind of distance. He must be on the other side of the palace."

"I don't think that's how it works, Scarlet." Crescent tapped at her portscreen and hissed in anger. "And breaking out of this palace is going to be much more difficult that I first thought."

"What do you mean?" Scarlet snarled.

Crescent huffed and continued to glare at the port. "Earth has set up a defense system in the event of a Lunar Invasion. It took them long enough to come up with that."

"What do you mean, defense system?" Wolf questioned. "Emperor Kaito and the other Earthen Leaders were all for the alliance. They would never allow such a thing."

Crescent shook her head. "One would think so." She was so coarse and emotionless now. As if the contagion had stripped her of the light in her eyes. It gave Wolf a slight dash of worry and doubt.

"What kind of defense system?" Scarlet crossed her arms over her chest and licked her lips. Wolf didn't need telepathy to know she was hoping for an army to fight.

Sadly, Crescent would not give her the satisfaction. "A plethora of missiles are aimed at Luna this very second. All of the Earthern Leaders have convened in one place to order them to be launched, blowing the planet of Luna into billions of pieces."

A different reason for doubt protruded into Wolf's mind. "Kaito would never let that happen. He loves Queen Selene." To him, it made perfect sense. Kaito would never do anything to harm Selene. Never again. He loved her far too much to do that to her. It was their insurance.

"Love doesn't matter," Crescent scolded. "It is nothing more than a series of chemical reactions in the body. It is merely a motivation to get people to reproduce and continue the human race. Or a pastime that will inevitably end. And it certainly won't stop the Emperor of the Eastern Commonwealth from agreeing to destroy Luna before we can get off."

With that, Crescent moved with her port, away from Scarlet and Wolf. Scarlet didn't seem at all phased by Crescent, but Wolf was horrified.

For the first time, he didn't know what to trust. His mind, or his heart.