My body refused to move at first as my brain processed the voice I had just heard. "John?" I got up and my eyes landed on that familiar, worn cowboy hat and a face I'd thought I'd never see again.

John smiled. "Thank God we found you!"

I took a hesitant step forward. "How?"

"When you went missin', we knew somthin' had happened. We questioned," John's eyes narrowed, "Wyatt. He eventually caved and told us where you'd been taken."

Us? I looked further out the destroyed window to see Ethan. I stiffened as he cast me a sorrowful smile, his rifle pointing at the ground.

"Bailey, I-"

"I don't want to hear it!" I yelled.

His mouth fell open and he stepped forward, about to say something, but I cut him off again, "Don't you fucking dare," I hissed through clenched teeth. "I don't want to hear your excuses."

Ethan stopped in his tracks and looked down at the carnage coated ground. John held up his hand. "Hey, hey, let's save this for later, okay? We need to get outta here first."

Ethan must have told John about his betrayal.

"Who's that?" Rose demanded from the ceiling space.

John's head flew up to spot Rose's face poking out of the empty panel space.

"My name's John, ma'am," John said as he tipped his hat.

I almost rolled my eyes. John was right, though; we needed to put everything aside so we could escape. Leo and George had gotten up while we were talking and were staring at our saviors.

"How'd you get in?" Leo asked.

"We broke into the basement and shut down the generators, then made our way upstairs," John said.

"Did you run into any people shooting at you?" I asked. Maybe they had taken out the rest of the guards.

"A few."

Tough-Guy jumped down from the ceiling panels, rolling and swearing as he hit the floor. Leo helped Rose down while George and I removed the desk from the door. Once we opened it, John shouldered his AR-15 and rushed to give me a hug. When we let go, he looked me up and down. "You injured?"

"My foot is." I left out all the other various sore spots from all the fighting the guards. I had a nice bruise on my stomach from being kneed by the guard earlier and I'm sure John could see my black eye.

"Can you run?"

I nodded. "I'll be fine."

"You wouldn't happen to have any spare weapons on you, would ya?" Tough-Guy interrupted.

"Just the one."

John pulled a handgun from his waist-line and passed it to me. It was my Beretta. I ejected the magazine; it was full.

Tough-Guy leaned down and picked up my discarded bed frame piece. "Guess you won't be needin' this then."

"All yours," I said.

We walked out of the office, jumping over the piles of infected. Amelia's men must have grabbed a bunch on their last round-up trip. Bet they're regretting that now.

"This way," John instructed. "We can leave the same way we got in."

We followed him down the corridor and took another left. The emergency lights were beginning to go out as whatever tiny reserves they were hooked up to, ran out.

"We need to go back to the cafeteria and get the others!" Leo said. "We have guns now, we should be able to take out the rest of the infected."

John looked at me and I nodded. "There were a few more who got separated from us during the escape attempt."

Never one to leave people behind, John didn't need to be coaxed into it. Ethan was very unsubtly glancing my way trying to catch my eye, but I refused to look at him as we made our way back to the cafeteria.

There was a layer of infected trying to get into the cafeteria doors. They must have barricaded the doors because the infected were getting nowhere. John and Ethan raised their weapons, but I held up my hand.

"If you can hear me, move away from the door!" I yelled, hoping they weren't using themselves to barricade the door like we had to do in the office.

Of course my yelling brought the attention of the infected from getting through the doors to us. One by one, they started towards us, giving up on the cafeteria doors.

"Good job, genius," Tough-Guy muttered.

John and Ethan took out the infected easily with their rifles. When the gunfire stopped and the bodies laid still, we ran to the cafeteria doors.

"It's us," Leo said.

A face popped up in the small window and went from terrified to relieved. It was the girl who had stopped mid-escape. Not the smartest choice. We heard rustling from the other side before the double set of black doors opened.

"Thank you for coming for us!" the girl cried and launched herself into Leo's arms. He patted her back awkwardly before saying, "We gotta keep moving."

John led the group of us back down the winding corridors to the basement stairs. All of the guards were somewhere else, except for the few that John and Ethan must have shot. There were bullet holes and blood smears across the wall leading to the stairs. It looked like the guards had ambushed them as soon as they got to the top.

Ethan took the lead with a flash light and descended down the stairs. I made sure everyone had gone through before I took one last look around. One of the doors down the hallway had light peeking underneath. Since all the hospital lights were out, there had to be someone in there with their own light source. I don't know how I knew it, but every piece of my brain knew it was Amelia in there. And I wasn't going to leave this place with her still alive.

"Bailey, come on!" John hissed.

I looked back at him. "You guys go on. I'll catch up."

The edges around John's mouth tightened. "You gotta be shittin' me. We ain't leavin' without you after comin' all this way to get you!" He was less than pleased.

"John, do you think there are some people out there who deserve to die?" I asked. I had to make John understand.

He lowered his gun and adjusted his hat. "I believe there are some, yes. But I also believe we don't get to make that call."

It was just like with Byron. I had wanted to kill Byron, but John had wanted to let the town decide what to do with him-to be fair. The thing was, none of this new world was fair. If it was, I wouldn't be here in this hellish hospital and all of our dead friends would still be alive. John's son would be alive. I would be with my family. We wouldn't have to fight for our lives over and over again. If I could help relieve this world of something evil, then I would. I would make it fair. And nothing was fairer than Amelia dying.

"I listened to you about Byron, but I won't this time. She has to die," I said, then bolted down the hallway before John could try to stop me. I got to the door where the light was shining below and twisted the knob.

Inside Amelia was sitting at a desk staring intently at the framed photo in her hand. There was a giant wind-up flashlight propped up on her desk shinning towards the ceiling. She didn't even look up. I was expecting a fight, so I stood in place, unsure if I could just shoot her if she was just sitting docile and unarmed.

"Shouldn't you be long gone by now?" she said, continuing to peer at the picture.

John appeared behind me, finally making Amelia raise her head. "You've come to kill me, yes?"

"What did you expect?" I spat. "You killed Mac and who knows how many more. You've imprisoned and tortured the rest of us." I pointed my gun at her.

She calmly set down the photo on her desk. It was of a young boy in a soccer jersey smiling for the camera. His jet black hair was a little too long and was a perfect match to Amelia's. She didn't say anything to counter the accusations. Instead, her hand went to her lap and raised back up with a revolver in it. John shoved me to the side and raised his rifle. I quickly moved out from behind him and re-leveled my gun at her head.

"Now ma'am, there's no need for this. I'm just gonna take Bailey and leave. No more bloodshed."

Amelia's chest deflated as her eyes landed back on the picture. A tear slipped down her bruised face before she opened her mouth and squeezed the trigger. Her head flew back, then her dead body slumped forward landing on the desk, blood leaking onto the framed picture. Both John and I stood frozen as the smell of the discharged revolver and rust filled the small room.

Amelia had seemed so steely and unbending. I wasn't expecting her to kill herself. I had been expecting a fight. My mouth opened to say something, but I couldn't remember what I had wanted to say. All the anger I had moments before had vanished and I now felt worse than I had before. I felt sick- and cheated somehow. She was dead; did it matter at whose hands she had met her death?

"Glad you came back?" John was angry, something I rarely saw.

I didn't want to fight with him so I just exited the office and went back to the top of the basement stairs. John followed behind me, not saying anything more. We descended the stairs and John clicked on his own flashlight. The others must've kept going. John maneuvered around me and led the way. There were no emergency lights on down here, making the flashlight beam our only source of illumination. I bumped into a tin canister, letting out a huff. Like I needed more bruises.

We passed by a giant red tank connected to a bunch of equipment. I sniffed as the smell of gas became overpowering. The floor was coated in the liquid, so I used my shirt to prevent me from inhaling the fumes.

"We cut the main gas line to cut the power," John explained. "We probably should've thought that out better." He was using his hat to cover the lower part of his face, making his words muffled and hard to hear.

Natural light began to fill the area as we continued on and fresh air pushed out the gasoline smell. We rounded a corner to face a dead end except for the smashed in basement window. I wondered how Tough-Guy had fit through.

There was a tin canister propped underneath the window. I climbed up and shoved myself through the small window. I turned around and gave John a hand as he shimmied through. The fresh air was a pleasant relief to my burning lungs. Gas fumes were terrible to breathe in. We stood and peered around, looking for the others. I couldn't see them, but I couldn't definitely hear Rose and Tough-Guy arguing. John and I followed the sound around the corner of the building to see the group flush against the side of the building.

"There they are," Leo said as we approached the group.

Rose and Tough-Guy, who were previously in each other's faces, now turned to regard us.

"Where did you guys go?" Ethan rushed from the front of the group to us.

I refused to talked to him so I walked around him to the others. I could feel his eyes following me but I kept walking towards Tough-Guy and Rose who were at the forefront.

"What are you guys fighting about?" I asked as I peered around the corner.

There were infected randomly mulling about the courtyard and beyond like cows in a field grazing. As I was about to turn back to the others, the front doors to the hospital flew open and two guards poured out. One of them was Josh. I crouched down and motioned for the others to do the same.

"She killed herself man, there's nothing left!" one guard shouted at Josh. They must have stumbled onto Amelia's body right after we had left. They were heading towards the only truck in parked in front.

"We can't just leave everything. All the research! We were so close, I know it!" Josh screamed back, his voice an octave too high.

"I ain't going back in there, man."

"Yes, you are," Josh said as he pulled a gun on the guard.

"You ain't going to shoot me, you need me," the guard sneered.

"I need to make sure you keep what we found secret." And Josh shot the guard in the head.

The guard fell to the ground as the shot echoed through the area. Shit. Now the aimless infected would be heading our way. We needed that truck for a quick getaway. I'm sure John had brought a vehicle, but would have parked it away from here to avoid detection. We might not be able to get to it when all the infected started to converge on the hospital.

Josh leaned over the body and started rummaging through the guy's pockets. He straightened up with the keys in his hand. If I was going to do this, I had to do it now. I shot up and around the corner, leveling my gun at Josh. He twisted around, his mouth wide. Before he could react I squeezed the trigger and Josh landed dead next to the guard. I ran up to them and searched for the keys, hoping I would find them in the over grown grass around the bodies.

"Damn, girl," Rose said as the others caught up to me.

"What? We needed the truck," I said briskly. My hand ran over the key ring and I scooped them up. They had a little bit of blood on them.

"I hated that guy," Tough-Guy said as he kicked Josh's dead body. "He always made sure they brought in the biggest dead-ones for me."

John's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean brought in?"

"I'll explain later," I said, hoping maybe he would forget. I didn't really feel like relaying what had happened so soon after. "We need to move. I assume you guys parked your vehicle nearby?"

"Follow the entrance path down and take a right. We're parked under some trees for cover," John said. I knew he would have been smart about it.

"Everyone hop in," I said, pulling open the driver's side door.

John got in the cab and everyone else piled into the bed of the truck. It was tight, but they all fit. I started the truck and reversed just as the first line of infected reached the hospital. The slow girl screamed as one infected groped at them. Ethan took it out with his rifle and told the girl to be quiet. I straightened out and tore down the path as fast as I could with a full load of people in the back. I didn't want anyone to go flying out. I snorted out loud at the thought and to his composure, John didn't bat an eye. He must be getting used to my weird quirk.

I spared a glance out the rear view to see Tough-Guy batting down every infected he could with my old bed frame as if we were frat guys bashing mailboxes. He was grinning widely. I couldn't hold that against him, it actually looked like fun. Man, I really was becoming unhinged. I'd have to worry about that later.

I slowed and rounded the corner to the right as John kept an eye out for their vehicle.

"There." He pointed toward an area where there was an abundance of green.

We came to a stop and John and Ethan jumped out to uncover our other mode of transport. Rose jumped out of the back and climbed into the passenger's seat.

"You ridin' back with 'em?" she asked.

"No," I said. I had no desire to be stuck inside a vehicle with Ethan right now.

"Well then, I dibs riddin' upfront."

I was about to argue, not wanting to have to spend who knows how long with Rose in a confined space, when John knocked on my window. I rolled down the window with the ancient hand roller.

"We brought a large SUV so we can take some of the people in the back," John said. "I take it I won't be able to convince you to ride with us?"

I shook my head and John sighed. "All right. Well, stick close then and honk if there's any reason you can't keep goin'."

George and the three we had liberated from the cafeteria piled into the SUV, while Tough-Guy and Leo remained in the back. I could tell that the younger girl who had thrown herself at Leo didn't want to leave him, but he convinced her to go with John and Ethan.

Leo slid open the back window to the truck cab and said, "You sure we can trust them?"

"Of course," I said. "Your little girlfriend will be fine." Wow, that sounded bitter.

Leo bristled at my comment. "Wasn't the younger guy the boyfriend who betrayed you?" He pressed on.

I turned and glowered at him. "I trust John with my life and if," I paused, "if Ethan does anything else like that again, I'll kill him myself."