Leo 9

It takes a few minutes for Ella to settle down, and a lot of shouting as we explain where we are and what has happened. Whoever this Eli was, or Emil, must've been her counterpart in their group. Everyone seems to have one, since the only difference between us is our numbers. I wonder who B57 is. I wonder what his role is in all of this. I wonder how similar we are.

"Are we out, then?" Harriet asks, packing up her stuff.

"Seriously?" Rose asks. She seems pissed. "Michelle and I got like twenty minutes of sleep. This is a load!"

Michelle doesn't seem to mind. The bags under her eyes are no different than usual. She shrugs, rolling up her sleeping bag. She tosses it to me, and I would drop it in my backpack, but I've got no room. I put the sleeping bag under my arm instead. In turn, I throw her a granola bar.

She catches it, glaring at me. She eats it anyway, before taking a swig from the canteen on her belt. I didn't know she had one before now.

"We're moving," Harriet takes one of the extra sleeping bags, and Sonya takes the other. My backpack is practically completely full with all the klunk I need to carry. I lug it behind me, thankful Ella can walk for herself.

Before she leaves, Harriet turns to Teresa. "How did it go?"

Teresa shakes her head. "It was awful."

"What happened?" I ask. Dawn moves up beside me, crossing her arms over her chest.

Teresa shakes her head, before biting down on an apple. It must be bitter, because her expression only tightens. "It was a shucking mess. I made him feel safe."

"How?" Dawn comes across as antagonistic, so I elbow her.

Teresa shakes her head. "It was shucking awful. They made me kiss him. WICKED was controlling my body."

"They did that to Alby too," I offer. I remember that. He almost strangled himself when he tried to tell Thomas and Newt what he remembered during the Changing. Back when he was alive, WICKED had a strong hold on him. They kept him under controlling.

"That's stucking messed," Marie offers.

Harriet nods. "At least we don't have to have contact with Thomas until the tenth night." She ignites her flashlight, before shining it out the door. "Are we good to move?"

Everyone nods in agreement, and she leads us out the door. Sonya heads up the back of the party, waiting for all of us to clear out. Other than her, I'm the last to go.

There is too much clutter on the ground for us to jog. The hallways are thin, and it is extremely dark. Even when my eyes adjust to the dim lighting, I can't see farther than a few inches in front of me. Even Dawn is invisible.

"We're going to walk, no breaks, until night," Harriet calls out.

"Seriously?" Rose demands.

"Would you rather we jog?" Harriet argues.

No one agrees to that. Maybe that's how she gets consensus. She proposes her idea, and then one infinitely worse. If those are the only two possibilities, who in their right mind would disagree?

So, we continue walking without breaks. There is no sign that we are getting any further than we have been. Maybe these tunnels are slightly curved, and we have yet to realise it. We could be walking in circles. We could be miles ahead or behind the other group. I couldn't tell you. I don't know where we are going. I'm in the dark, in the dark.

Dawn is silent and seething. I don't bother talking to her, since I have a feeling she will explode and take the tunnel walls down with us. There isn't much of a solution to this.

"We should reach the city next morning." Teresa calls out. "If your watches are still working, you'll be able to count down until we get there."

I glance at my wrist, just as Dawn shines a light on it. It's six in the morning. We've been out in the Scorch for only twenty-four hours. How is that even possible? We must've only slept like two hours, maybe three. Maybe Teresa didn't sleep at all. No wonder my eyes feel so heavy. No wonder my feet are slipping out beneath me.

I continue walking, and every five minutes, Dawn checks the time again. Her face looks hollow. I can't imagine how tired she must feel too. She's pregnant too, so that must be wearing her down as well. I don't know how to ask her about it. Maybe that's why she is so bitter.

After about an hour, we are still silent, and there is still no break. I can feel the anger rising in the group. It's one of the only things apparent without light.

"Where's Ella?" I ask the darkness. "I want to check on her."

"She's fine," Teresa offers. She must be trying to soothe me.

"She can speak for herself," the voice is Ella's and her bitterness is still new to me. Her speaking is all new.

I push through the crowd, moving up to her. Within the groups that I pass, I can here girls whispering. I tune in and out of the conversation, which is mostly gossip. Not about me, thankfully. A bit about Teresa and Thomas, but a lot of it about Jay and Sheil. And Ella's strange outburst. I try to listen closely but I mostly catch names.

It's weird to think that they same things that happened to me happened to them. It's as if I'm holding myself up to a mirror, to see a reflection that I didn't know existed.

"You feeling alright?" I ask, moving next to Ella.

She doesn't answer. One foot in front of the other, she marches forward.

"What happened while you were out?" I ask. "What did you remember?"

"Not you," she tells me.

"That's not what I'm asking."

She looks over at me, her face obscured by the darkness. I can't imagine just waking up after all that has happened over the last few days. Suddenly, head first into the Scorch. Head first into the mission.

"Not enough to make me kill myself like Alby," she tells me. "Not the same stuff and not all of it."

I nod, still studying her face. She isn't bleeding or seizing, which normally happens when she tries to tell me about before. Ella is more aware than she has ever been.

"Why did you get yourself stung?" Part of it is because the question has been racking my brain for days, and the other part of it is that I'm doing a technique I was taught to use by Jeff before he died.

After the Changing, we have to monitor the victim. We aren't supposed to let them outside for a day, but I can't do that with Ella. We talk through the things they saw, if they let us. As far as I can tell, only a few have ever mentioned visions they saw. Jeff wouldn't talk about what they said. Not like he can now, anyway.

Outside of the counselling, and ensuring they are safe, we monitor their physicality. It's a draining process. Most people are too exhausted to get up from bed, or they otherwise rack up a nervous energy, and do crazy things. Ben attacked Dawn. We let Alby have at least a week, and he died anyway.

Besides that, the memory is shot. People forget where they are, and how they got there. Obviously, the unconscious days are a blur, but sometimes people even forget the day the day they stoped Changing. Then, the days before can be lost as well.

Ella has never had a good memory, nor made much sense. I feel like she is a stranger, now more than ever, even though this is the first time she's talked to me and seemed awake.

"It's complicated," she tells me. "And I thought I would understand what made it that way. I still don't."

Maybe this angry Ella is a side-effect of the Changing. I doubt this is who she was before this mess. I can't tell if this shift is permanent though.

"Stuck," I hear a commotion just up ahead. I move away from Ella, out of pure instinct moving up to the sound.

"What's going on?" Teresa calls out, shining her flashlight back at us.

I move up, spotting a girl on the ground I don't recognize. Bleach blonde hair falls into her face, as she holds her ankle tightly in her hands. Half her leg is scraped.

"I tripped," her voice is so calm it's like she is just noticing she fell. I shine my light behind her. There is blood on the wall from where she skinned herself.

"I've got it," Marie moves up. She spots the girl on the ground, and I watch her face turn green. She looks at me, before backing into the wall. "That's a load."

I almost roll my eyes at Marie as a smile creeps on to my face. It's barely a scratch. I kneel down, moving towards the girl on the ground. I touch her ankle, and she winces.

"We need to stop," I turn to the girls up front.

Harriet shakes her head. "We need to keep moving. Is it broken?"

"I need a minute to check." I turn to her. "It depends. I doubt it's a bad break if it is one."

"You've got five," Teresa offers. Her voice is harsher than I'm used to it being. Whatever Thomas did to her must've sucked. I don't know when that could've happened. How long ago was it? How long has she been hiding it?

There is a crowd of girls hanging around my shoulders, so I turn to them. "I need space."

Despite the grumbling, everyone moves off. Except for Marie. She kneels down next to me, knees wobbling.

"I need to see your ankle," I tell the girl as she flinches from my touch. I begin to take off my backpack. "I'm Leo, a Med-jack. Meddy, I guess, in your words. I'm trained and have dealt with this stuff before."

The girl nods, before slowly moving her hands back. I touch her ankle, and she winces.

"It's not that bad," she tells me, but her nose scrunches anyway. Her light blue eyes finally reach up to see mine. "I could probably walk on it."

I don't know that I want her too.

"What's your name?" I ask, as I feel her ankle. There is swelling, and from what I can tell, it feels very sore.

"Saph," she tells me.

She's the girl whose friend was killed yesterday. Anne was the girl's name. Saph told us to run. I remember her.

"I like that name," I tell her. Even though we both know it's not hers. "I guess WICKED likes you more than the rest of us."

"I wish," she tries to smile, but grunts as I push down on the muscles.

"How much does this hurt?" I ask. "And don't lie."

She shrugs, shaking her head. "A lot... but I can walk." She adds the rest as an after thought, and I don't trust it.

"That's klunk." I tell her. I dig through my back, searching for compression bandages. None. I can't believe I remembered to bring sedative, but not compression bandages. I hope Saph's the only one who falls. "Does anyone have anything thick and metal?"

Marie, behind me, digs through her stuff until she hands me her water bottle. "Sorry I'm not much help. I was assistant to our Meddy."

That explains a lot, actually. I mean, I was an assistant too. My knowledge could never match Clint's, nor Jeff's.

"I'm better with numbers," Marie tells me, turning away. "I could memorize dosages, count bandages. Keep track of check-ins. I don't have the stomach for this though."

I didn't at first, but the job grew on me.

I place the metal water bottle against Saph's ankle, and she holds it in place for me. "When you fell, did you hear anything snap, or crack?" I take out the alcohol form my bag. I dump some of the liquid on her calf, but don't waste the bandages on the scrape. Most of it will get covered later anyway.

"I don't remember," Saph offers, wincing at the alcohol.

I grab bandages out and move the metal off her ankle. It's still swelling, but we don't have time to sit with it. These might not be compression bandages, but I doubt I need them. I've always wrapped boys up too tight anyway.

"Do you have tape, or cling wrap?" I ask, turning back to Marie.

"I have tape!" A girl I don't know calls out.

Slowly, the tape gets passed to me. I take it, placing it on the ground next to me. Now, I can put on the bandages. I wrap them tightly around her heel, then up her ankle. "Your ankle isn't crooked, and the numbness will come later. Tell me if you lose feeling in your toes. If you do, I will unwrap, and we will take a break before you keep walking. If you get any numbness as all, talk to me."

"Okay," Saph agrees.

I straighten her leg. Carefully, I wrap the tape around her knee and the base of the foot, until I am content that she won't be able to move her ankle. It's not a splint, but it will work as one for now. At least until I can get some better materials.

"Maybe that's why he thanked you," Saph looks up at me, watching me carefully.

"Sorry?" I glance back down, trying not to make eye-contact. Her gaze is intense, and I'd rather not think about what he said to me.

"That scientist guy. Maybe you're helping since you are a Med-jack."

I offer a forced smile. That's not true, simply because he didn't thank me for helping. He was happy I facilitated this. Sure, maybe a few people will live because I'm a Med-jack, but that has nothing to do with facilitating. Besides, he told me I wouldn't remember what I'd done, and I remember that I'm a Med-jack.

With the last bit of tape, I attach the bottle to her ankle. It dangles haphazardly, but it'll work for now.

"Do not bend your ankle," I tell her. With a free-hand, I offer her a hand up. She pulls against me, and I need Marie's help to get Saph off the ground.

"Thanks Lee," she offers.

"I'll watch her," Marie offers, winking at me. I can't help the smile on my face. She laughs at my expression. "I'll be good for something at least."

"I can walk," Saph calls out, her eyes searching the crowd.

Teresa is on her feet, in front of us. "Alright then. We move out."