Once Juliet, Thomas and Minho got to the others they got their attention and the others started to run off with them whenever they saw the Cranks behind the three of them. Juliet watched as Thomas caught the backpack that Aris threw at him and they continued running.

" Also, if you didn't figure it out yet, these are the Cranks I was talking about!" Juliet said.

" Yeah, and that means we gotta keep going!" Thomas yelled as the group runs up some escalators as they hear the screeches of the Cranks behind them.

" Which way do we go?" Juliet asks as they get to the top and the group decides to go to the left and run in that direction. She stops, standing besides Newt and Minho as the group sees a Crank in appear in front of them.

" Aris, no!" she yelled as her eyes go wide as she went forward to grab Aris' backpack to stop him from going towards the Crank with a metal bar and she feared something might happen to her best friend.

She jumped back along with the group when he hit the Crank's legs and it fell forward to where the group was. The group had to split up sadly as Cranks got in their way. Thomas and Teresa ended up on the escalators, trying to escape the Cranks as Juliet runs with the others to get around.

Juliet was falling behind since a Crank was right behind her and went to grab her, but luckily Minho was in front of her, punching the Crank and it falls to the ground. " Thanks." she let out a breath of relief and he sent her a small smile.

" Come on, let's go!" he said and the two caught up with the others as Thomas and Teresa make it up the escalator and meets with them again.

" We gotta find a way out of here!" Frypan yelled to everyone and Juliet noticed something out of the corner of her eye heading in Newt's direction.

" Newt, watch out!" she yelled, pushing him to the side just as the Crank jumped out of the window and on top of her. Newt laid on the ground in shock that she just did that and his eyes grow wide as he watches her do her best to try and keep the Crank away from her.

" Juliet!" Thomas yelled as he turned around, his eyes wide with panic as he sees her on the ground with a Crank on her. Juliet tries to get the Crank off of her, wincing as she looks at the Crank in the face.

" Why did I look at it?" she mumbles in disgust as the Crank screeches at her, trying to claw or bite her.

Thomas runs forward just as Newt quickly stands up and kicks the Crank off of Juliet, sending the Crank flying through the glass railing. Juliet was very happy that he kicked the Crank off, but she was sure she was going to have nightmares of this.

" I can't believe you just did that." she said in disbelief as he helped her up.

He chuckled. " You saved my life. I felt like I needed to save yours."

They shared a smile as Thomas ran up to them and then grabbed Juliet's arm.

" Are you okay?" Thomas asked her and she nodded. " Yeah, let's go."

The three of them catch up with the group again and they run down a hallway they find hoping it would get them away from the Cranks. They stop at a door in the hallway, Thomas tries to open it, but it wouldn't budge. Juliet glances over when she notices more Cranks were at the end of the hallway.

" Come on, we gotta find another way!" Juliet yells and they keep running down the hallway.

" It's a dead end!" Minho said as they get at the end.

" Try opening the doors!" Juliet said, pointing at the double doors in front of them. Thomas and Minho start kicking at the door on the left after Thomas noticed that it was about to open.

" I'll hold them back!" Winston announced and he turned towards the hallway, shooting at the Cranks as now Thomas, Minho and Newt try kicking the door open. After awhile of trying Frypan walked forward and threw himself at the door which immediately opened after that.

" Come on! It's open!" Frypan tells them as everyone rushes out. Juliet's eyes widened when she notices that one of the Cranks grabs a hold of Winston. " Winston!" she yelled, seeing him getting dragged backwards and she runs forwards as the Cranks try to drag him back behind the door.

Juliet, Aris and Newt try to pull Winston back from the Cranks as Thomas and Minho try to keep the door close. Juliet, Aris and Newt eventually get Winston away from the Cranks and Thomas and Minho immediately closed the door.

" Go, go, go!" Thomas tells them.

Aris and Newt helps Winston up and they start running out, but Juliet stays behind. " No, I'm not leaving you!"

" Don't worry, I'll be right behind you!" Thomas tells her and looks over at Minho. " Go with her! I'll be right behind you two!"

Minho nods. " Okay!" he pats Thomas on the shoulder and goes over to Juliet. " Come on, let's go!" he tells her, and even though she was hesitant to leave Thomas behind she started running with Minho.

Thomas only waited a few seconds before he took off running towards them and sadly the Cranks followed.

It was dark now and she and her friends were hiding under some debris away from the Cranks, knowing they can't from them forever and they needed rest.

She was besides Newt and Thomas while Thomas whispered to everyone, " Shut your flashlights off."

Juliet shut her flashlight off as did everyone else and kept quiet as she hears the screeches of the Cranks nearby.

****

Juliet wakes up the next day to Thomas yelling at a bird to get away. She sits up and puts her jacket back on since she used it for a pillow while Thomas stood up and looked around.

" Are they gone?" Newt asked him.

" Yeah, I think we're safe now." Thomas replies while picking up his backpack. " Okay, we should get moving." he said as he put his backpack on while nudging Minho and Teresa awake who were lying near him.

Juliet wraps her scarf around her neck and turns around seeing that Aris was still asleep. She gently shook his shoulder. " Hey, Aris, wake up."

She chuckled as he groaned but sat up and grabbed his backpack. The two of them stand up as everyone else gets ready. Juliet looks over with worry when she hears Winston grunt with pain and she frowns. Before they fell asleep the last night they wrapped some bandage around Winston's stomach since they found out he had a bite which worried her because that meant he probably will turn into a Crank without any cure or serum.

" Hey, man." Frypan said as he offered a hand to Winston. Winston sent him a weak smile as he took his hand and Frypan helped him up.

Once everyone was up they walked over piles of debris and parts of destroyed buildings. Juliet got to the top of the hill with the others seeing the hill was a flat balcony. The view in front of them just looked sad in her opinion.

The city was ruined because of being scorched and she bet it was beautiful before. In front there was a large street which she guessed was a main highway years ago, buildings lined the entire road, each one looking like it was about to crumble to pieces and sand even buried some of them. Along the streets there were different kinds of abandoned vehicles, all of them broken in some way.

Even though Juliet had not been locked in a maze like everyone else with her she still hasn't seen what a real city looked liked and none of them remember what a city or town looked like, but she knew it wasn't like this. Down the street there was a dirt road where cars must've come through, but now Juliet and her friends walked on it. Everyone was too in awe to speak as they walked, looking at the destroyed buildings and broken cars.

" This place looks awful." Juliet mumbled with a solemn look on her face. " I wonder what happened to this place."

" Doesn't look like anyone's been here in a long time." Newt commented, just as curious about the destruction of the city as everyone else was.

" I hope the whole world isn't like this." Aris chimes in and Juliet nodded in agreement.

The group haven't been walking for that long whenever Thomas told them to stop. Everyone obeyed and looked at him with curiosity and that was when Juliet heard it. The buzzing sound of helicopters that she figured belonged to WICKED.

" Do you hear that?" Thomas asked everyone and they only hear the sound whistling for a moment before they heard the buzzing sound of the helicopters get louder which meant the helicopter was closer to them.

" Get down! Everybody hide!" Thomas yelled. As everyone hid the sound became louder until it sounded like it was right on top of them.

Juliet saw two helicopters, but the other one looked more futuristic and high-tech which didn't surprise her. The group watched them fly away, everyone staying silent, no one daring to speak fearing that WICKED's technology could detect them speaking.

Juliet let out a sigh of relief once she didn't see them anymore. " They're never gonna stop looking for us, are they?" Minho asked and even though everyone agreed they didn't want to admit it. Everyone climbed out of their hiding spots and began walking once they felt like WICKED was far away enough.

The group continued walking for what felt like hours. The heat dried up their throats and the sun was burning any skin that was exposed. While they walked they realized why this was called the scorch. They had a clear view of everything as they walked up a steep sand dune. As Juliet stood besides Thomas and Minho she noticed in the far distance there were the mountains they were searching for and she frowned seeing how far away they looked.

" Those mountains," Thomas pointed at them. " that's gotta be it." he said as he held onto his backpack strap. " That's where we're going."

" That's a long way off." Newt spoke up and Juliet couldn't help but agree with him. " Yeah, it is."

" Then we better get moving." Thomas said and as Juliet looked over her eyes grew wide when Winston suddenly fell down and everyone including herself rushed over to him calling out his name.

She knelt on the sand across from Thomas and besides Teresa as they tried to get Winston to talk to them. Teresa gently turned him over so that he was facing them. " Winston?" Frypan asked with a frown.

" He's hurt pretty bad." Thomas said and Teresa looked around at everyone, her gaze landing on Thomas. " What do we do?" she asked and he honestly didn't have an answer even though he wished he did.

Juliet then looked down at the bottom of the sand dune to see a few pieces of scrap metal and supplies that were halfway buried in the sand. " Guys, I have an idea."

Moments later the group helped her build a lift to carry Winston through the scorch until they arrived at the mountains. Minho, and Frypan were the ones to drag him in the sand and Juliet and Teresa carried their backpacks for them as they continued to walk on the sand. Juliet was surprised that her idea actually worked even though the boys needed occasional help from some of the others when they were on some hills.

Along the way a sudden sandstorm formed which only made Juliet hate the scorch much more. She put her light blue colored scarf around her head, trying her best to block out the sand seeing that it looked like it was working for Teresa.

"  We gotta find shelter." Thomas said while he, Frypan, Minho and Aris were now carrying the lift Winston was on as the sandstorm didn't get any better. 

The group found shelter underneath a submerged balcony that sheltered them from the storm and Juliet was glad that it only lasted a little while. She was sitting across from Frypan, Minho and Newt as she finished off the last bit of her water in her bottle. Putting the empty bottle in the side pocket of her backpack she noticed that Teresa had left the group to look out across the desert. She looked around and realized that Thomas wasn't with them either and looked back at where Teresa was seeing Thomas standing besides her which for some reason made her frown.

" You okay?" Aris asked as he sat down next to her. She looked over at him and nodded. " Yeah," she glanced back at Thomas and Teresa before looking back at Aris with a small smile. " I'm fine. You okay?" she asked him and he nodded. She let out a small sigh and rested her head on his shoulder to which he smiled and rested his head on top of hers.

" How's it looking?" Newt asked. The two of them looked back at him as Thomas replies with, " Just a little bit further."

Newt looked over at everyone. " That's not very convincing."

Aris sat up whenever he noticed that Winston had sprung up from where he was laying, now wide awake. She looked over just as Winston aimed grabbed a gun that was nearby and in this panic, it went off. Luckily it missed, and Newt called for Thomas and Teresa as Frypan quickly grabbed the gun and everyone stood up.

" What happened?" Thomas asked as he and Teresa. 

" I-I don't know! He just woke up and grabbed the gun and then he tried to..." Frypan explained, his voice trailing off as Winston reached for the gun.

" Winston, are you okay?" Thomas asked as he moved towards him, but then moved backwards when Winston coughed out what looked like black blood and Juliet frowned as she watched him lay on his back while breathing heavily.

" It's growing...inside me" Winston finally said as he lifted his shirt to reveal the bite that was growing. Juliet winced at how awful it looked and quickly looked away, not being able to look at it any more. Winston took a shaky breath as he put his shirt back down and laid his head back on the sand.

Everyone was quiet for a few moments, not knowing what to do next. " I'm not gonna make it." Winston said as he looked up at them.

Juliet was starting to get teary even though she didn't even know Winston that well, she hated that this was happening because he didn't deserve to die. Winston reached his hand towards the gun in Frypan's hand as he whispered almost pleadingly, " Please. Please. Don't let me turn into one of those things."

Winston's arm fell back on the sand as Juliet watched with surprise as Newt takes the gun from Frypan and then walk towards Winston.  " Wait, Newt." Thomas said as he stepped towards Newt, but Newt stood besides where Winston was laying.

Juliet watched with teary eyes as Newt knelt down besides him and put the gun in Winston's hand, resting it on his chest.

Winston looked at him. " Thank you." he said and Newt only nodded. Winston let out another shaky breath. " Now, get out of here."

" Goodbye, Winston." Newt said and then after a moment of silence as he stood up. He grabbed his backpack and started walking off. while Aris grabbed his backpack. Juliet sighed as she grabbed her backpack and followed out with Aris.

Soon everyone left and they started their long walk again. They haven't even been walking for a few minutes when they heard the sound of a gunshot go off. Everyone stood completely still and stared off into the distance sadly knowing that one of their friends was now dead.

A/N honestly I cried just a little bit while writing the last bit of this chapter, but I hope you guys enjoyed it! don't forget to check out some my other books!