In a few words, I utterly hated that building.

So close, yet so far we came to achieving our one last goal that the more we fought for it the more it seemed everything indeed stood in our way and kept adding up until it would all explode to one leading outcome— failure.

With racing thoughts playing over and over in my mind, horrible outcomes I've imagined so far multiplying to the point their plagued my brain, I desperately followed after Thomas, Newt and Teresa, deliberately trying not to look suspicious in any way as I walked briskly besides Thomas, daring not to look anywhere else but straight forward onto the beige colored stairways and glass windows of the compound.

"Keep moving." Thomas ordered, agitated and focused, lightly pushing Teresa toward an elevator near the end of that plain hallway as Newt and I looked at each other through the shields our helmets were, our eyes meeting even though the thick material.

At last, we neared a gray elevator Thomas immediately pressing the button on the right, muttering. "Come on, come on." He repeated anxiously, multiple times pressing over the button which not only increased the suspicion but confirmed we were exactly the people half of that building was searching for.

Finally, I heaved a long sigh of relief through my helmet at the door opening, stepping through as I occupied s spot near Thomas in the back, still agitatedly breathing which ceased to less scared in matter of seconds, seeing as the door stared closing

"Hold it." A voice I immediately recognised ordered, all my hopes then dropped as a hand stoped the gray, heavy elevator door and entered the cramped room with us— Janson, so certainly walking in as he had managed to see right through us. Of course, I would not fool anyone, he had managed to see trough us, seeing as that guard to me the scanner picked Thomas up.  

My breath hitched, the hold over the holster dangling on my leg increasing and eyes boring into the back of Janson's head intensly, my entire being freezing on spot no matter that he had his back turned to me, I could still feel a few tingles of cold sweat dripping down my forehead slowly.

Janson looked over at Teresa, uncomfortably the girl stood by his side. "You're working late? That's what I like about you, Teresa. No matter how bleak things get you just...well you never give up. Time's like this, you need a friend you can count on." The man spoke.

"I'll have that in mind." Teresa answered him curtly and shortly, not showing a tiny bit of emotion in her voice.

"There is one thing you should know. One friend to another. Thomas is here. The surveillance picked him up outside the walls, Ava didn't want you to know but there is a chance he may try contact you and if he does...well, I'd like to think I'll be your first call." Janson continued carelessly, as then everything clicked in my mind— the guard I was trying to fool surely must've already known the surveillance had picked Thomas up.

Teresa seemed to think, then started speaking again. "Are you gonna kill him?"

A lump formed in my throat at her question, and even a worse one at the anticipation of what his answer might be as I felt my hands shake on the holster and sight blurry over by a bit so on longer did I see the darkened sight of an elevator that piece of metal only made that way, but a cocoon of shifting colours, a lightheaded feeling swimming in my head— I knew it that moment I was slowly loosing control.

"Would that be a problem?" Janson answered with another question, my eyes snapping shut and breathing increasing to the worse of all; audibility, something I feared the most only so the man would not catch us now, not now that we were so close.

The girl, however being smarter, did not give in to his play. "This is me." She stated, walking out into the hallway of medical wing as after her Newt followed inauspiciously careful not to give away any of our identities after which I followed suit, yet with much difficulties staggering into the hallway, blinding light seeping into the shield of my helmet and making me squint. Not even a moment later Thomas appeared, walking quickly to escape Janson which we all did, door to the elevator closing behind us as we continued on our way— nevertheless how I felt, no other option was there but to breath it all in and continue.

"Thomas you have to listen to me. Getting that serum won't save Newt. It might buy him some time but—" Teresa spoke, trying yet failing to convince the boy. After all we did come here for Minho and we didn't plan on leaving without him— whatever it took, those were the measures we were willing to go to.

"Just ignore her, she's trying to get inside your head." Newt stated certainly, pushing alongside the hallway with me in tow.

Teresa, however, didn't plan on giving up so soon. "Thomas, just listen. You know what's going on out there. People are dying, the world is dying. There's something about your blood that I don't understand." The girl persisted, at last halting in front of a plain door with only WICKED's logo on their surface.

"Open it." Thomas ordered, Teresa immediately complying to his wish as she stepped forward and pressed her thumb to the sensor.

"Let me run some tests, I promise I can protect you." And that was the last of her words, the last before she seemed to draw the last straw to Thomas snapping, the boy taking off his helmet and throwing it aside, a dangerous, angered look in his eyes.

"Oh yeah? Like you protected Minho?" He questioned tauntingly, his voice annoyed.

Shaking my head of any thoughts and feeling somehow much better than just moments ago, I followed the dangerous option of throwing away the helmet. "Thomas, stop we don't have time for this." I pleaded, resulting in the boy only throwing me a half convinced look before shifting it back to Teresa.

"How many people is it going to take? How many people will they round up, torture, kill? Huh? When the hell does it stop?" Thomas kept his voice low, came dangerously close to yelling out at the girl yet the only thing that kept him was the thought of giving up ourselves more than we already had— after all, if someone saw us no doubt we would be immediately rounded up.

"It stops when we find the cure." Teresa said.

"There is not goddamn cure!" Thomas disagreed, angrily approaching Teresa.

Pulling lightly on Thomas' sleeve I shook my head again, motioning for him not to take the bait and just continue the rescue mission, only for a voice to break me out of it. "Don't waste your breath, Teresa." Janson said, behind him, left and right guards approaching. 

Quickly evaluating the situation, Thomas grabbed the gun and positioned it against Teresa's temple, holding the girl in a locked position so she could not escape him, yet only struggle to which my eyes widened slightly, not anticipation he would be capable of such cruel thing.

"Tell them to back off! Tell them to back off!" Thomas yelled louder each time, I pushing behind with Newt at his aggressive mannerism.

"Hey, Thomas. Come on. It's me. I know you since as long as you can remember. You aren't gonna shoot her." Janson taunted.

Pressing the barrel of the gun further to her head, Thomas snapped. "You don't think so?"

"Okay then. Go on. Shoot her." Janson challenged, pressing further to gain just a bit of adventage on Thomas.

"Shoot her!" Janson persisted, crossing the line further as then Teresa snapped out of Thomas' grasp and pushed him backward behind the marked area of that glass door leading to another hallway, resulting in both Newt and I being pushed back as well, all three of us ending trapped behind the glass as the girl pulled an emergency lever, shutting off the whole level.

I glanced at her, flanked by WICKED's guards and Janson nearby wondering in what kind of horrible way had her deed pushed her in, nodding sadly and gratefully her way before running after two boys further into the buildings forking halls blaring in alarms whose red light had painted the white walls as we hurried, recieving whispers from all the doctors, when finally before the guards had managed to catch us we pulled into a dark room.

Sweat covered me, heart thumping loudly in my ears and hands sweaty as I tightly gripped the ends of some furniture item, presumably a stool, and watched on the reoccuring guards marching down the hallways, at last rising from that position when finally the coast cleared.

Thomas motioned me to go, and then followed close after, the three of us walked through the hallways, ignoring all the frightened doctors passing by at who two boys pointed their weapons at and passing lefts and rights on the way we stopped in the middle at the sight of Ava Paige standing by the forking path, her eyes in bewilderment spying us as Thomas rose his gun at her, ready go shoot her— then further panic erupted and no longer were we standing there, in the way of rushing, defenceless doctors but the guards that had abruptly started piling into the area, making us hurry down another corridor.

"Minho!" Thomas shouted, Newt and I following close behind as we sprinted not caring for any unnecessary loud sound we made, for our identities were long minutes ago discovered.

Bullets followed us wherever we went, their ringing sounds resonating through the impeccably white walls and hitting the windows to labs and other rooms as we swiftly avoided, or at least tried to avoid close contact with the armed men. Breathing in the faint smell of chemicals floating in the air, I lifted my gun up a second too slow as the guard advancing on us already began shooting, making me hurry faster after two boys, briefly turning around and pressing a hand to the trigger. The bullet hit the guard's leg, him dropping to the ground with a painful sound as others began getting closer and closer— running around the corner, I dropped down in a crouching position abruptly positioning my gun to the wall and firing bullet after bullet at the guards, of which but one found the final destination, hitting the man's arm.

By my side, Thomas panted heavily from all the running. "Shit, I'm almost out." He commented absently, reloading his weapon before starting to fire again.

"Get back!" Newt told us heavily, grabbing some kind of bomb or grenade from the ground, setting it off before throwing it at the guards in the hallway; seconds later an explosion rippled through the air, throwing blue strikes of electricity and electrocuting the men. "Nice." He commented, and I gave him a small, rushing smile.

Patting my shoulder, Thomas nodded into the direction at our fronts, away from the guards as we got up and began running again. Hallway after hallway we searched yet what we found wasn't our friend— it was a guard whose gun was pointed directly at us. "Freeze! Get down on the ground!" He yelled out, intimating as my arm slowly grasped the last of its strength and held up a weapon of my own, in preparation to shot him. "I said get—"

No second later that he position his gun at us firmly, a person ran into him and knocked him to the wall aggressively before lifting him and throwing him through the window— Minho, alive and well. Once he spotted us he ran to us and we did to him, all four of us hugging after so many months apart.

"Is this real?" The boy asked, silently and unsurely as he looked at each of us.

Directing a smile his way, I felt for the first time after long six months truly happy. "Yeah, we missed you."

(A/N):

this one is kinda long...welp, it's making up for weeks without updates hehe. damn, i'm so sorry for not updating for so long i literally have no other excuse but laziness.

anyway, how are you liking this whole series? its a year of work so far and idk, i'm satisfied with how 'light' and 'fire' turned out but for 'stars' not so much.

soo byee and until next to time!!
hint: prepare tissues