Keisha stood in front of us her eyes wide and glassy.

"Too much?" Evelyn asked.

"Too much." Keisha nodded, "I don't even know where to begin! Like do I gotta be worried about you eating my arm or something? Or my kid?"

Evelyn was taken aback. Why the sudden weariness. Wasn't she also a crank?

"Sorry...were just... we've been through a whole buggen' lot recently. So..sorry, were just not in a good way..." Newt said, trying to cover the awkward moment.

Keisha shrugged. "Yeah, none of us are. Whatever." She waved a hand. "So...your friends...they didn't catch the flare like you two? You didn't give it to them? What...did you escape from inside Denver?"

Newt exhaled heavily, "it's a long story."

Evelyn didn't want to talk about it. Not yet anyway. She didn't want to have to relive the most horrible memories she had. She would be Gone soon, and no more awful memories.

"All right now, next thing." She frowned at the two of them. "Now you listen and you listen good! What on God's green earth were you going on about going off to Crank Palace? I knew were all headed for Crazy Vill...but we don't seem too ready to jump off the train yet! Or at least I thought so, anyways. But if you two are gonna stand there and yap about going to THAT place, then you were crazy long before the Flare got ya! Sheesh! Don't come at me again with something so stupid!"

Evelyn and Newt both stood rooted to the spot. Shocked and confused. They had wide glassy eyes.

"Too much?" Keisha asked, "don't believe me?"

"We just wanted to leave our friends behind before we went off the rails. We don't really have a plan, Crank Palace seems like the logical place to go." Newt muttered.

"We won't accidentally infect someone or hurt someone...like little Dante.." Evelyn said quietly. She picked her head up and glared, " what are we gonna do? Go off and farm food for the jerks in Denver?"

Keisha rolled her eyes, "look I ain't got time for nonsense talk. I guess I gotta treat you two like the children. Now come on, we gotta keep moving. Those sweeps will be out all night. And they don't like us dirty rats getting too close to their city."

She turned and walked away. Evelyn shrugged and followed. Newt slid his hand into hers. What did it matter what they did now. They were away from Minho, Sonny, Thomas, Sonya and Tess and the rest. And that was the main goal. They followed after Keisha, who was talking.

They had gone half a block when an electric charging sound cut her off. Evelyn knew those sounds, it was the sound of launchers and it filled her with dread.  Evelyn spun around. Newt turning as well. Standing behind them were four guards on red shirts. All three of the guards had the barrel of the guns pointed at them.

"I need those hands up in the air!" One of them yelled through the speaker of his helmet. "You look like decent folk, but we need to test you. See if-"

"Don't bother." Keisha said. "We all got the damn Flare and you know it. Just let us keep going. See were walking away from the city. We wont bother a soul."

"You know we can't do that, a woman replied. "You came too close and you should know better. We want these streets empty."

Evelyn and Keisha made some kind of growl noise. Keisha had put Dante down and stepped in front of him.

"Didn't you hear?" Evelyn snarled, "were walking away from your precious city."

"If that's the case...you won't mind if we give you a lift?" The soilder said and hefted the gun. She took a step forwards, the gun pointing directly at Keisha's head.

"This thing'll knock ya out no matter where it hits, but shots to the head are especially bad. You'll be puking and seeing double for a week! Now come along, nice and easy."

"Oh yeah, I got it."

The next few seconds was chaos. Keisha had pulled an old school revolver out of somewhere. She pulled the trigger twice. Even as her hand jerked up, the guard had pulled her trigger as well. The bright flash of light thumped through the air, Evelyn could feel it. If slammed into Keisha.

Blue energy arched across her body and face. She screamed a bloody shriek of murder and pain. She collapsed to the street arms and legs shaking with spasms. Little Dante was less then a foot away and he started to wail, like the small child he was. The combined sounds of mother and child combined together and switched something in Evelyn's mind. And Newt's too apparently. Rage coursed threw her veins. She felt the burning sting of ice in her infected arm.

She yelled, a wild feral inhuman sxreach and leapt for the closed solider. She collided with him, sending them both sprawling onto the ground. Evelyn slammed her hand as best she could on the guard. He wiggled free, but as Evelyn got to her hands and knees she swung the hatchet, catching his leg, making him scream in pain.

"Doesn't feel so good does it?" She hissed.

She yanked the hatchet out with another scream from the guard. She grabbed the handle with both hands, the entire handle and blade head were now covered in frost. She swung it over her head. The guard screamed and tried to wiggle free, but Evelyn was over top of him. She slammed the hatched down into his chest. With a manic scream. Blood splattered everywhere. His body was instant ice.

She got up panting wildly, her tounge out like a dog. Her wild ice white eyes flicked around. Newt had slammed another guard into the ground. Newt was sitting on the guys stomach and grabbed his helmet with both hands and smashed it into the cement. He lifted it again smashing it into the cement. The guard stopped moving.

Newt almost collapsed off the guard, but managed to catch himself and scrambled to his feet. Evelyn smiled. Then a cackle escaped her. She felt invincible. Hysterically euphoric. She tipped her head back to cackle again, when something hit her back, she collapsed. Pain searing her nerve system. She arched her back in pain, screaming. She heard a second body collapse. Newt started twitching and screaming beside her. She saw Keisha and a scared crying little Dante.

Why the hell did they leave the Berg?

_____________________

The next few hours were nothing but pain and headaches and nausea. Evelyn was awake for all of it. She just couldn't move. She was exhausted, drained and defeated. She didn't fight when reinforcements came and loaded them up into the huge truck.

She expected it to be full of other cranks. But she hit the cold metal of the truck bed. Newt was tossed in, and same with Keisha. Her eyes were wide and paniced, the most pure wild panic Evelyn had ever seen. But it eased slightly when Dante was plopped down right beside her.

He still cried. He laid his head on his mother's chest and wrapped his little arms around her neck.

"She's gonna be okay." Evelyn said quietly. "She'll be okay." She didn't know if the kid her or not. But she tried. She stopped talking, it made her head hurt even more. Like hammers in her skull.

A solider hopped into the back with them, he squared down near the back, holding a gun the looked more like machine gun. Evelyn knew they didn't get another chance. If they didn't listen then it was a blast or two to the brain.

The truck roared to life and it slowly set off. Evelyn's mind wandered. How had those guards found them? They probably were ratted out by someone peeking through a window. Evelyn squeezed her eyes closed. It didn't matter. She didn't even care that much. Maybe she was closer to the Gone now.

She felt a hand brush hers. She tried to hold it, but she had no energy to move. Everything hurt. Newt seemed to be the same. But the small contact was soothing. He was still beside her. She used what remained of her energy to wrap a few fingers around his. She watched the white fluffy clouds and the blue sky and it slowly turned to an orange. She was sad she couldn't see a real sunset. The thought saddened her.

She would never get a full life under a real sky, watch a real sunset...or talk to the real moon. A tear slid down her temple. Her entire life had been a fake. Her existence was a fluke. She just had borrowed time. That's all she was, was a lab rate and that's all she will ever be. A life to study, to be used. Nothing was safe nothing was sacrid.

The truck jerked to a hault. Evelyn didn't know how long the drive was. Seemed to be a while. But she would never know. The truck parked between two big platforms of cement, both hovered if the top of the truck.

There were people standing on the platform now, all wearing big baggy protective suits. They looked like the green alien suits the WICKED workers wore when they saved her and Thomas from the bullets.

Evelyn glanced at Keisha, she had her back to her, but she saw her arms around Dante, they both looked like they were sleeping. She turned her head slowly and saw Newt. He was already looking at her with a worried expression; one full of appreciation.

She looked back up at the people in baggy alien suits. She slowly propped herself up onto her elbows. A huge fire hose appeared. It was pointed in their direction. And before she could do anything, it was turned on. Ice cold water shot out of the end. It hit her so hard she slammed back down into the bed of the truck.

She cried out as the cold water stung and bit  her skin. The pressure of the water made it hard to breath. The ice cold fridged water made the pressure even worse. She tried to scream, but got a mouth full of water.

The water stopped and she coughed and gagged. Not it was spraying Newt. Once he was soaked the spray went to Keisha. She tried her best to shield Dante from the hose. The cold water torture ended abruptly. All of them spitting cough and and chocking, Dante's high pitched screaming mixed in.

"What was that for?" Keisha screamed.

The guy holding the hose spoke, it sounded robotically from the speaker in the mask. "It's the best we can do out here to disinfect. Sorry. We don't have a helluva lot of choices out here. Hope the kids okay."

He straightened up and waved the truck through. The engine started and the truck was moving again. They picked up speed.

Now with soaking wet clothes it felt 30 degrees colding. Evelyn's icy infected arm didn't help. She held it close to her chest. Keisha embraced her motherly instincts and pulled Evelyn and Newt closer. Evelyn was snuggled up beside Keisha and Newt snuggled into her. Date had stopped crying now. He was shivering too violently to cry.

Evelyn closed her eyes and saw flashes of a woman. Light, and a warm feeling. Maybe a soft voice. No faces, no words. She knew her mind was breaking. The Flare eating away. She laughed at the irony. She was remembering her mother. She would remember her fully, just in time to forget her in the madness of the Flare.

________________________

The truck stopped and back doors were flung wide. Arms reached in and unceremoniously dragged us out.

"Welcome. Your gonna spend the rest of your miserable life here in this hell hole. Might as well make it comfortable." A guard said, Evelyn was shoved roughly to the ground, "your lucky to be alive kid, after the stunt you pulled with my friend back by the wall!"

Evelyn slowly picked herself up, with the help of Newt. She was standing on a mix of dry cracked earth and dead weeds. An overwhelming rush of panic rose up, threating to drown her. She grabbed Newt's hand and held tight. She took a slow deep breath, clamped her jaw shut and then took a look around.

There were trees and dozens of tents and tiny cabins haphazardly errected, it reminded Evelyn of the begging months of the Glade. That thought only made her sad. She shook her head, trying to ride her thought of friends she was trying to forget.

The was a bang behind them. Evelyn turned and saw the truck doors slammed shut and locked by a guard and he helped back to the front.

"Wait!" Newt cried, "what are we supposed to do?"

The one guard ignored him. Another one leaned out the window, "like we said kid, your lucky to be alive. Hardly anyone's being sent here anymore. Almost full. Mist cranks now are just...ya know...taken care of."

"Oh lucky us!" Evelyn mocked.

"You complain girl? I can load you up and take you to the pits!"

"No we're fine, thank you." Newt grabbed Evelyn's arm and pulled her. She turned finally and saw the dilapidated slightly crooked sign, it also looked like there was a splatter of blood on the sign hanging above the walled doors.

THE CRANK PALACE

Evelyn let out a small cackle. Oh the irony. They ended up here anyway, even after Keisha's warning.

"But why?" Keisha asked again. "If there is no room and everyone else is going to the Pits. Why spare us? What are you telling us?"

The guard leaned further out the window. Even from here Evelyn could feel the frustration, even through the helmet cover the face. The electronic speaker made the voice sound even weird. But the guard threw a hand out and pointed at Evelyn.

"It's her and him the kids." The guard pointed at Evelyn and Newt. "He wants to keep track of them! You and your kid are just lucky you made friends with them! Otherwise you and the kid would have been dead long before you made it to the Pits."

And with that the guard got back into the truck and it rumbled away.

Keisha turned to Newt and Evelyn. Evelyn had gone very pale and the ground seemed to shift under her feet. Her knees buckled. Before she hit the ground Newt caught her.

"Who is He?" Keisha demanded.

Newt just shook his head, he looked as pale as Evelyn. Her pupils had dilated in fear. She felt every inch of tourtchur, her mind hurt, her wrists and ankles stung in pain again.

"No...no...not him...please Newt...not him!" She whispered, tears filled her eyes.

"Who is he?" Keisha demanded.

"Later!" Newt snapped. Evelyn's eyes rolled into her head and she blacked out.