Michelle 43

I walk in silence, staring at Rose's face. It's hollow. Her cheeks are much thinner than they were just days ago, and the bags under her eyes much blacker. Across her brow, there is a cut that bleeds a deep black blood. Anything could've happened to her. Maybe it's the lighting, or maybe she has the Flare too. It would explain why she is so silent and so still.

Jay keeps hanging behind us. I watch as he reaches a hand forward, as if he is going to grab her. What would he say though? Sorry for sleeping with Hilde? Sorry that you aren't enough?

Rose still hasn't said anything to me. There is another cut across her throat. How much of the blood on her clothes is hers? She is limping as she walks. Perhaps she has shattered her ankle. I made it through the town, just like her. Alone, at least for the most part. Wherever she went, it must have been awful.

Jay's hand reaches forward. He grabs her wrist. She spins around, shoving him against the rock wall behind us. Though she is close to a foot shorter than him, he flinches. His face tightens, the Adam's apple in his throat bobs up and down while he breathes in and out.

She whips out a knife, spinning it in her hands. Raising an eyebrow at him, waiting for him to act, or move, or say anything. He simply stares at her, waiting for her to drop the weapon.

It only occurs to me now that I haven't considered helping, and that I don't really plan on joining in.

Eventually, she lowers it. She brushes past me, walking further up the hill. Jay and I make eye contact, if only for a second. He pulls his head off the rock, shaking it back and forth. It's enough for me to know that he isn't going to try again. I would tell him something bad happened to her, but that fact wouldn't be news to him. In the Scorch, it is only bad things that seem to happen anyway. Rose isn't special in that regard. We've all seen klunk.

Brenda grabs my arm, pulling me forward. She gestures for me to keep pace with her when I try to slow down. Instead of resisting, I match her footsteps. The rocks crunch underneath our feet. Are we not getting close to daybreak yet? It feels like I have been awake for hours. Maybe that is just the effect of the constant sleep deprivation on my body.

I haven't slept properly in shuck knows how long. Certainly before Dave died. Maybe it was before Gally disappeared

"She okay?" Brenda asks.

I bite my lip. Not hard, but it splits open anyway. I can taste blood in my mouth. Every part of me is cracked.

Since Brenda is on my left, I have to complete turn my head to look at her. No vision has returned. I really hate Gally sometimes. At least, I hate what happened in the Glade. Though it wasn't entirely his fault, I still can't see properly. It's doubtful I'll ever heal from every wound he has caused me.

"As good for someone who was on their own for a week as it gets," I shrug. I don't know if it was a week. My head hurts from dehydration.

Brenda gestures up to my face. "Are those from being on your own?"

What a slinthead. Some of them, sure. Not all of them obviously, but I barely know this chick. I'm not delving into my past with her.

"See, this one here," she rolls up her sleeve to show me a long slice along her arm, "is from me. I did that in my sleep. Clawed my arm open, then tasted the blood. Freaked me out."

Right. That freaked her out. For a minute, I forgot Brenda was a Crank, but then it came bubbling up to the surface again. Is this what will happen to Gally first? If I see him again, will he be scratching himself in the night? Will he crave human flesh?

I don't want to think about that. At least this won't ever happen to Dave. He is dead, but dead and healthy. At least there is that.

"What about here?" Brenda points to her own cheek, blemish-free. I assume she is really asking me about my own face.

"I got in a fight," I tell her. My fingers graze my cheek. The scabs are beginning to heal over, but they are still rough. Lines from splinters embedding in my skin will forever lie on my face. I'm pale enough though that I hope they aren't too noticeable.

"I get in plenty of those," she raises her eyebrows, a smirk across her cheeks.

She is not as far gone as Gally. I wonder exactly how long she has been sick. Maybe it just affects people differently. Last time I saw Gally, he was out of it. He said he knew my real name.

"Have you heard of the Right Arm?" I ask.

Brenda's jaw drops. She grabs me by the sleeve, pulling me up to the front of the group. We pass Rose even, who isn't lucid enough to comprehend anything that we say.

"How do you know them?" She asks, glancing me up and down. Her eyes widen, she spins me around. "Did Leo or Sheil tell you that?"

I don't know that I've spoken to Leo in weeks. Between my return and her abduction, there wasn't really enough time to play catch up. As for Sheil, I don't think I've ever talked to him. Doubt that I could point him out to you in a crowd, actually.

"No," I continue, shaking my head back and forth. "What is it?"

Brenda glances back at the group and pulls us further forward. She almost glides across the mountain top, never stumbling on any of the rocks along our path. The further up we move, the farther behind the others seem to grow.

We reach an impasse and without hesitating, she begins to climb it. I follow after her, my hands gripping firmly against the rocks. They are cold despite the heat, and jagged, so much so that I scratch my hand. Blood spills down between my finger tips. I pull back, cradling my hand against me. The cut is deep, and harsh.

"Come on," Brenda calls. She is at the top already.

I ignore both the pain and the instinct to keep my hand away from dirt. The soles of my shoes struggle not to slip against the blood on the rocks as I push myself up to the top. When I am finally next to her, the rest of our crew is only approaching the bottom. The distance up has to be at least two storeys, so they will be preoccupied for a while.

"What?" I demand, turning to face her. "Why are you talking about Leo and Sheil?"

Brenda exhales sharply. Looking once more at the ground, her eyes focus on the people below us. She makes eye contact with Jorge, before pulling me away from the edge.

"The Right Arm is a terrorist organisation," she clarifies, her eyes finally meeting mine. "They are bent on destroying WICKED, even if it means losing a cure. They have operatives everywhere, though a strong base in Denver."

I have never seen her talk so clearly. Her eyes are focused, her hands are still, and her voice doesn't fluctuate.

"Gally mentioned them, last time I saw him," I tell her, since Brenda seems to know what she is talking about.

Is Gally is going to the Right Arm in Denver? It wouldn't make sense that WICKED would just hand over one of their assets to their rival organisation, except to dismantle it. He wouldn't need to whisper their name to me though if WICKED was okay with his transfer.

Brenda's shoulders seem to relax at this revelation. "Don't mention them to anyone, especially Leo and Sheil."

"Why?" I ask, trying to run my head through every interaction I've had with Leo. Is she working for them? I couldn't imagine her being a double agent, or even an agent to begin with. Leo can't lie to save her life. "One of the guys from WICKED thanked Leo when we met him. Shuck, he didn't thank Teresa, who built the Maze. He didn't give a damn about anyone besides Leo and Ella."

"He was probably trying to piss her off and stop you from trusting her," she offers. "Why would you believe someone who claims to be in leagues with a group when WICKED likes her so much."

I guess that's fair. The line he said seemed so inconsequential in our lives, but it hangs over me like a thick air. Never mind what Gally said. "Still, Gally never mentioned Leo or Sheil. He just kept saying red, over and over. He said it was my real name."

Then, she stares at me. Her hands are up, digging into my hair. I try to swipe her off as she pulls the hair further away from my head. Examining it.

I grab her wrist and flip her around. I lock her arm behind her back. Her breath becomes heavier, escaping her lips in short, violent breathes. She tries to turn around to see me, but I shove her elbow deep into her spine. Struggling, she blows the hair out of her face.

"Don't touch my hair," I instruct, carefully and calmly.

"You aren't a ginger," she tells me. "It's less than half an inch, probably from the lack of nutrients your hair isn't growing, but your roots aren't red."

What? I let her go, examining my own hair. I pull it away from my head, but no matter how hard I try I can't see the roots. They are locked tightly against my head.

"Why would WICKED dye my hair?" I spin around to look at her.

"What?" Doug pulls himself over the edge of the rock wall.

Brenda spots him and turns to look at me. She retreats back from the edge. Quickly, I kneel down and help Doug up. His weight shifts into my hands, resting his palms on mine. When he lets go, he notices the blood.

"We can patch that when Clint gets to the top of the cliff," he tells me, as if I don't know that we can do that. No part of me wants to be bandaged by Clint. I nod though for Doug's sake. I glance back, staring at Brenda.

"Where is she going?" Doug asks.

Brenda has started wandering off. I follow after her, leaving Doug to help the others up. I can hear the next boy, who I don't know, grumbling as he pulls himself up the cliffside. He complains about his fatigue. The sun is going to rise soon enough anyway, so we will need to camp out and make dinner.

Brenda seems to have found a cave. The perfect spot for us to sit and wait for night to fall once more. I follow her, jogging despite the heaviness in my calves. Inside the cave, it's too dark to see anything.

I grab the hammer out of my belt and pull out the knife. I nudge Brenda, about to hand it off when she is tackled.

It's a Crank. I hear another one screeching, guttural and throaty. It charges for me, and I use the hammer to smash its jaw in. It falls over, and I move to Brenda. I hit the one on her over the head. Blood splatters on to her face.

I can barely recognize the creature on her as human. It's skin clings to the bone, grey and rotting. I am tackled from the side, one climbing on top of me. The hammer is no good at close range, so I chuck it aside, trying to pry the creature off my legs. I kick at it, feeling the skin slipping off in layers. The Crank pays no mind.

Klunk. "Help!" I call out. I don't know that I've ever done that, but the blood is rushing into my head.

The Crank pulls its head up above mine. It snaps it's jaw in my face. I punch it, and the jaw falls off, on to my lap. Reaching over, I snap the bones in the thing's arm. It's brittle, and thinner.

Its head is knocked off. The body goes still, relaxing on me. I chuck it to the side, looking up. Newt stands above me. He holds a hand out to help me up, and I begrudgingly take it.

Minho knocks on the flashlight. There are eight or nine corpses on the ground, all of them Cranks. No bodies that I recognize, thankfully. I lean into Newt, realizing how loud the thumping is in my own chest, as if my heart is going to race away. I am alive. We are all alive.

"Well, now that that's out of the way," Minho blows the hair out of his eyes. The black strains cling to the sweat on his forehead. "We might as well set up camp here."

Newt helps hold me. I am so dizzy; I feel like I could fall over. Despite this, I nod anyway.