A/N: Hey guys. I'm not sure how this chapter turned out, as I don't reread after I write because if I do, there would never, ever be a Redemption. (There would never, ever be any story, for that matter) Anyways, I wrote this when I wasn't feeling too well so I hope it turns out okay. Enjoy!

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          One

          The light is so bright that I have to turn my eyes away. I don’t remember the last time I saw light – minutes, hours, days, who knows? Underground and in complete darkness, you cannot tell how much time passes no matter how hard you try.

            I don’t know when the light of the subway went out. It hadn’t lasted that long after we gave up on the door, the one that was supposed to lead us to safety and still hadn’t opened since we arrived. At first we were all scared of the darkness, frightened that we would die in complete black. But something was comforting about the thought, and I started to wonder if I was really alive at all.

            I drift in and out of consciousness as the light grows brighter, swinging across the subway tracks as if it’s looking for something. Each time I come to its a little bit closer, and eventually Jagger and Cole start to call to it, but I can barely hear them. I’m slumped against Jagger, suffering from a death I thought was already upon us.

            I feel Jagger move and he removes himself from underneath me, gently picking up and cradling my head with my hands. He lies me down because without him I would fall. My face presses onto the cool, cement platform and I close my eyes. He brushes my dirty, matted hair away from my cheek.

            “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he murmurs.

            For a moment, I can see his eyes. Somehow they reflect the light even though it’s coming from behind him. He looks concerned. I close my eyes.

            I don’t know if merely seconds or minutes pass by the time something is touching my face. Slowly, I open my dry eyes and Bullet snuggles under my chin, as if trying to lift me from the ground. I weakly push his head away, wanting to be left alone, but he doesn’t stop. Slowly, I place my palm flat on the concrete and push myself as far off of the floor as I can. My vision wavers.

            The light is nowhere to be found. In fact, there are no voices, no footsteps, no one beside me when I reach through the darkness. I’m completely alone as I open my mouth, trying to call for them. No words come out from my desiccated lips and I lie back down to close my eyes. Maybe they left me. I drift off to unconsciousness again in hopes that Jagger and Cole made it out alive and that Bullet will leave me for them.

            I dream of Jack with his wide eyes, full of fear and something I didn’t see until it was too late. He wasn’t just upset about the zombies – he really wanted out, he really wanted to die. He, Emily, the toddler, they’re all gone. Even in my dream I’m too dehydrated to cry.

            A voice wakes me from my sleep.

            “We’ll have to carry her,” someone says. I’m too far gone to understand what’s happening, to know to swallow when a bottle is pressed to my lips. The water spills over my chin and onto the floor and for a moment I start to choke.

            I’m lifted into the air as I drift off again. The rest of what’s going on comes to me in scattered pieces of oblivion.

            Bullet panting below me, the movement of my body swaying limply as someone carries me, too close to death to even raise my limbs. Voices, fragments of conversations and words I cannot put together to form a sentence. Occasionally someone will murmur to me, tell me things like that I’m going to be okay. But for a while I’m sure I’m dreaming, that this is some kind of heaven.

            More light starts to creep its way over my closed lashes, and warmth begins to cover my skin. I cringe, trying to turn my head away but I’m too weak to move. Someone else groans at the heat but no one does anything to stop it and I suddenly wish I was in the darkness again because I’m pretty sure this isn’t heaven but hell.

            “We’re almost there,” someone says. Though I refuse to open my eyes and wish to give in to the undertow again, the brightness keeps me somewhat awake. “There’s water in the Jeep.”

            Someone touches my hair, moving it away from my cracked lips when a breeze blows it into my face. Their hand lingers for a moment and they run the back of their palm across my cheek. I try to open my eyes but the light is too much. Instead I close them again, not wanting to be blinded.

            My mind is foggy as I’m shuffled around and adjusted. My left arm falls from my lap and hands limply, swaying back and forth beside me. Once the person holding me stops, they grab my hand and place it on my stomach. They don’t let go

Water is tried to force its way into my mouth once again and a hand has to rub my throat to get me to swallow. It takes a few tries, as if I’ve forgotten how, but eventually it makes its way down my dry throat and into my stomach.

I don’t know whether I fall asleep or pass out afterwards, but when I wake up, the bright light suddenly isn’t so strong, and when I open my eyes too look, I can tell that it was the sun that’s starting to set and cast shadows across the desert.

When I look around at all the sand, I realize that I have no idea where I am – or what exactly is going on.

Slowly, I lift my head up, only to be met with the same ocean-blue with chocolate brown eyes that sends a wave of comfort across my skin. As if on instinct my body instantly relaxes into his lap and all my tense muscles suddenly feel like jelly.

“Hi,” he murmurs, adjusting his palm on my back. I’m leaning over him like a mother would cradle a baby. The sound of an engine roars over his voice and my hair whips around me when I notice the constant wind. As much as I’m confused and thrilled to see Jagger staring down at me, I need to look around.

A vast amount of sand and dust surrounds the Jeep that carries us across it. The wheels create clouds of sand as we speed across the desert, with only a few trees and hills in sight. There isn’t even a sign from where we came from, or how we made it out of the tunnels.

Jagger holds me in the leather back seat of the Jeep with Bullet panting on the space to the right. He looks content but hot, much like my skin that’s bright red from the sun.

“She’s up?” Cole turns around in the passenger seat and meets my eyes. In the daylight his face is almost tan, but from the dirt and lack of showers we’ve endured. Even his blonde hair looks darker. I manage a small smile, something that seems a lot harder than it is and he reaches his arm over the center console to grab my arm. He gives it a squeeze. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

He grins and drops my arm before someone whom I do not recognize looks at me in the rear-view mirror. He’s wearing a pair of Aviators and a red baseball cap that casts a shadow over his face, barely hiding the small scruff on his jaw.

Instead of looking away I stare at him with a hard expression. We hadn’t seen anyone since we left the school, other than that crazy woman who jumped in front of the Hummer when she wanted us to help her zombie daughter. Now, even though I should be thrilled that we’re with another human, I can’t help but be a little hostile. What if he’s infected?

Cole looks between the other person and I, waiting for one of us to speak. When neither of us does, along with Jagger keeping completely silent, Cole gestures to the guy.

“Sloane, this is the guy who helped us.”

I tilt my chin up a little higher but I still don’t say anything. Saved us how? Where did he come from? How did he find us? How did we get out of the subway? No one chooses to answer my unanswered questions and with my throat still so dry, I don’t think I can speak.

Jagger runs his thumb across my forehead and I suddenly feel like I’m being treated as a child. I try to work my way out of his grasp but he only readjusts me until I’m slouched over him in a more upright position. I feel so childish.

“You’re dehydrated,” Jagger says, twirling a strand of my hair around his finger. I don’t know when he became so affectionate, and I’m not sure whether or not I like it. “Severely. We didn’t think…”

He didn’t think that I would survive.

Instead of finishing his sentence, the driver fills Jagger’s unsaid words by raising his arm and pointing straight ahead. I follow his direction to the treeline that’s just beginning to come into view.

“That’s where we’re going,” he says, lowering his hand to hang out of the window. “We’ll have more water there, but it’s going to be a trek to get to the safe house.”

Cole leans his head back against his leather seat. “I don’t think Sloane can walk, and judging by the incline, I don’t think we can carry her anymore, either. She isn’t the only one who’s dehydrated.”

“We have that covered,” the guy says, as if he’s bored with the conversation. He looks only a few years older than us, but what I pay attention to the most is that he’s clean. Not only isn’t his skin caked with dirt, but he also smells like shampoo.

“How?” Cole asks.

“An ATV and a safety pack are waiting at the bottom of the hill.”

“Won’t that attract zombies?” Jagger wonders. He looks more excited than concerned, but I don’t feel either. In fact, I don’t really feel like anything.

“There was a collapse of a building while you guys were underground. All the zombies within range will be heading there. I could feel it all the way at the safe house, so we’ll be okay,” he answers.

No one asks anymore questions and the rest of the drive towards the forest is immersed in silence. The sun lowers itself in the sky as we drive, causing us to lose the daylight quicker than we want. Jagger empties the rest of what he whispers is the last water bottle into my mouth and I drink it greedily. Though it burns my throat, I’m begging for more.

As Cole and Jagger help me from the car, Cole’s arms shake slightly at me weight and when I look at him I have to do a double take. With his dirty, tattered clothes and matted hair, along with all the smudges of blood and dirt over his once light skin, he can pass for a zombie. When I meet his eyes, they look dry. When I blink, mine burn.

Bullet, other than panting, acts like nothing is amiss whatsoever. Someone must have given him water, and even if they did, he shouldn’t be jumping happily around happily. Even though I’m glad he’s okay, I have no idea why he’s not dehydrated.

“We have to hike for a bit,” the guy says, already starting up the slight incline and into the forest.

“How far?” Cole asks.

“Not far.”

“That doesn’t tell me anything.”

“It wasn’t supposed to,” he replies smugly, fixing his Aviators on his ears.

Jagger grabs my hand as Cole stumbles on ahead of us, grumbling to himself. With the Jeep hidden behind a pile of bushes and fallen branches put together by the person leading us up a slightly walked trail, we start to head along. Walking in the desert heat with my own breath too warm for my lungs is something close to torture. I trip over roots that I knew I needed to step over and sometimes stagger over air. But each time Jagger waits patiently, helping me to my feet when I’m ready and offering to carry me. I only consider his offer one, but when I look at him and see how exhausted he looks, how his shirt hangs loosely off his limbs, I decide against it.

Each time I fall too far behind, causing Jagger to slow, Cole and the Jeep driver turn around to wait for us, both looking as equally impatient and annoyed.

The first time we encounter a problem is when we thought we were close to home free.

“There’s only one ATV,” Cole practically shouts. His fists grasp his blonde hair that I hadn’t realized had grown out since I first met him. “You said that there were more, Reed!”

The Jeep driver, now who I know whose name is Reed, looks more annoyed and bored than angry while Cole tries his hardest now to freak out.

“I never said there were more. I said ATV. That implies one.”

“What are we going to do then?” Jagger asks, his voice low.

“I’ll have to take one of you up at a time and then come back for the next person,” says Reed.

Cole glares at him and throws his hands in the air. “And then what? One of us is left here by ourselves during dark? I don’t think so.”

“Who says anything about someone being alone after dark?”

“Well what do you expect?” Cole snaps.

Reed doesn’t say anything.

“How far is it?” Jagger meets Reed’s eyes while Cole decides to glare at us as if this is somehow our fault. “Can we walk?”

Reed shakes his head and leans against the red and black ATV. He folds his arms across his chest and blows a breath out of his lips. “Why do you think we have the ATV?”

I let my legs shake me to the ground where I sit off to the side, absentmindedly brushing the hem of my dress farther over my legs. I feel like someone who is about to fall asleep but the constant background noise won’t let them. Between Cole and Reed fighting and the survival instinct coursing through my mind and veins, I can’t seem to take a break to calm down.

“That is not going to work!” Cole yells. “We’re not doing that.”

I tilt my head up and my gaze wavers. “Doing what?”

Jagger looks down at me, not noticing that I had sat down and dropped his hand. As if upon instinct he takes a step backwards until he’s standing protectively beside me. Despite the world populated with zombies, no one looks over their shoulder anymore once we hit the forest.

Reed turns his attention towards me. “I’ll take Jagger up first on the ATV,” he starts.

“I’m not leaving Sloane,” Jagger says quickly. He folds his arms across his chest and when I look up at him, something about the gesture sends a wave of normalcy over me.

“I’ll take Cole up first,” Reed says, ignoring when Cole tries to object. “I’ll come back down for you, and then I’ll come back for Jagger. We should all be up there before sunset, but regardless, the ATV has lights and the only threat up here is coyotes.”

I raise my eyebrows. I hadn’t realized that a whole world existed outside of my group, now Reed included, and the zombies. For a while, I hadn’t even acknowledged life other than us. Not bugs, certainly not coyotes. I don’t even remember seeing a single bird in the last few weeks.

“That sounds good.” Even though my words are quiet, deflated even, there’s a sense of sureness in them. Cole picks up on it immediately.

“You need to go up first,” he says, his voice quieting from its yelling. He takes a step towards me and crouches down to my level to meet my eyes. He looks worried. “You’re the worst of us all, no offense. I don’t want you to have to stay out here any longer…”

“If we take her up first,” Jagger explains, “then who is going to be there to watch her and make sure she’s okay? Who’s going to make sure something doesn’t happen to her?”

Cole rises to his feet and sighs, aggravated. For a moment he looks like he’s going to fight with us but then he decides against it. “Are you sure you don’t want to go up first and wait for her?” he asks Jagger.

He nods in response.

“Okay.” Cole turns towards Reed and puts his hands in the air beside himself. “I guess we’re going.”

There’s a rustling behind me and I turn to look over my shoulder. In my dehydrated dream-like state I completely forgot about an important factor.

“What about Bullet?” I ask worriedly. “He can’t go on an ATV uphill, can he?”

Reed’s face twists into a confused expression. “Who’s Bullet?”

“The dog.” Jagger deadpans.

Reed doesn’t miss a beat, keeping his leader role dominant despite the fact that we really have no one else’s guidance to follow at this point. “I’ll bring an ATV trailer down when I come back.”

As far as I know until I ask questions later we would be dead if it wasn’t for Reed. Somehow he saved us, and even though I want to know how he managed to find us in the middle of a secret, military subway line, there aren’t any times for questions. The sun is already going down regardless of Reed’s assurances, and we need to get to this safe house as soon as possible.

“You need to hold on,” Reed says as he starts the engine of the ATV. Cole looks completely uncomfortable on the back of it, as if he wants to be as far away from Reed as possible. I can’t tell whether or not he actually dislikes him, or he’s not happy that he doesn’t have a say in anything at this point. “There are rocks and fallen trees along the path, so it will be bumpy.”

Cole grimaces. “I’m not fucking holding onto you.”

Even through his Aviators, I can tell that Reed is rolling his eyes. “I meant the bars on the back, idiot.”

Cole looks beside him and takes a deep breath to calm down when he sees the back part of the ATV surely enough has handles for him to hold onto. His jaw noticeably tightens as he grips onto the bars and I decide that maybe he just plain doesn’t like Reed.

“I’ll be back for you guys shortly. You can start walking up the path,” Reed says, revving the engine.

“Wait.” Jagger turns away from me to face him. “You said that there was water.”

Reed nods and asks Cole to open the back compartment of the vehicle. He pulls out a single bottle of water and tosses it to Jagger, who barely catches it.

“It’s all we have,” Reed shrugs.

Jagger and I don’t move until Cole and Reed are too far to see through the brush. I move from an uncomfortable bump while Jagger turns to me, offering a hand.

“Do you think we can start heading up that way? Or do you want to stay and rest?” A concerned expression covers his face and I can’t help but feel bad for him. I’m a complete mess, caked in dirt, blood and everything else. On top of that I’m desperately holding onto consciousness and can’t remember most of my life. Am I the same person now that I was before I forgot my life?

I turn my eyes away and put on a fake smile. “Sure.”