"Come on!" Thomas shouted, though the words felt like a couple of noiseless throbs in his brain.

Minho coughed, winced again, but then nodded and wrapped one of his arms around Thomas's neck. Together they moved as fast as they could toward the building, Thomas doing most of the work.

All around them, the lightning continued to fall like arrows of white fire. Thomas could feel the silent impact of the explosions, each one rattling his skull, shaking his bones. Flashes of light all around. Past the building toward which they stumbled and struggled, even more fires had sprung up; two or three times he saw lightning make direct contact with the upper reaches of a structure, sending a rain of bricks and glass falling to the streets below.

The darkness began to take on a different tone, more gray than brown, and Thomas realized that the storm clouds must've really thickened and sunk toward the ground, pushing the dust and fog out of their way. The wind had lessened slightly, but the lightning seemed stronger than ever.

Gladers were to the left and right, all heading in the same direction. They seemed fewer in number, but Thomas still couldn't see well enough to know for sure. He did spot Newt, then Frypan. And Aris. All of them looking as terrified as he felt, running, all eyes riveted to their goal, now just a short distance away.

Minho lost his footing and fell, slipped from Thomas's grip. Thomas stopped, turned around, pulled the burnt boy back to his feet, reset Minho's arm around his shoulder. Gripping him around the torso with both arms now, he half carried, half pulled him along. A blinding arc of lightning went right over their heads, pummeled the earth behind them; Thomas didn't look, kept moving. A Glader fell to his left; he couldn't tell who it was, didn't hear the scream he knew must've come. Another boy fell to his right, got back up. A blast of lightning, just ahead and to the right. Another to the left. One straight ahead. Thomas had to pause, blinking viciously until his sight came back. He started up again, yanking Minho along with him.

And then they were there. The first building of the city.

In the gripping darkness of the storm, the structure was all gray. Massive blocks of stone, an arch of smaller bricks, half-broken windows. Aris reached the door first, didn't bother to open it. It had been made of glass that was mostly gone, so he carefully smashed out the remaining shards with his elbow. He waved a couple of Gladers past, then went in himself, swallowed by the interior.

Thomas made it just as Newt did, and gestured for help. Newt and another boy took Minho from him, carefully dragged him backward over the threshold of the open entrance, his feet hitting the sill as they pulled him through.

And then Thomas, still in shock over the sheer power of the lightning bursts, followed his friends, stepping into the gloom.

He turned to look just in time to see the rain start falling outside, as if the storm had finally decided to weep with shame for what it had done to them.

CHAPTER 25

The rain fell in torrents, like God had sucked up the ocean and spit it out over their heads in fury.

Thomas sat in the exact same place for at least two hours as he watched it. He huddled against the wall, exhausted and sore, willing his hearing to come back. It seemed to be working―what had been a complete throb of silence had decreased its pressure, and the ringing had gone away. When he coughed, he thought it was more than just a vibration he felt. He heard a trace of it. And in the distance, as if from the other side of a dream, came the steady drumming sound of the rain. Maybe he wouldn't be deaf after all.

The dull gray light coming from the windows did little to fight off the cold darkness inside the building. The other Gladers sat hunched up or lying on their sides around the room. Minho was curled up in a ball at Thomas's feet, barely moving; it looked as if every shift sent waves of burning pain through his nerves. Newt was there, also, close, as was Frypan. But no one tried to talk or get things organized. No one counted off the Gladers or tried to figure out who was missing. They all sat or lay as lifeless as Thomas, probably pondering the same thing he was―what kind of messed-up world could create a storm like that?

The soft thrum of the rain grew louder until Thomas had no more doubt―he could really hear it. It was a soothing sound, despite everything, and he finally fell asleep.

By the time he woke up, his body so stiff it felt like glue had dried in his veins and muscles, all the machinery in his ears and head was back to fully functional. He heard the heavy breaths of sleeping Gladers, heard the whimpering moans from Minho, heard the now-pounding deluge of water slamming into the pavement outside.

But it was dark. Completely. At some point, night had fallen.

Pushing away his discomfort, letting the exhaustion take over, he shifted until he lay flat, his head propped on someone's leg―then he was asleep again.

Two things woke him up for good: the glow of sunrise and a sudden rush of silence. The storm was over, and he'd slept through the night. But even before he felt the stiffness and soreness he expected, he felt something much more overpowering.

Hunger.

The light came through the broken windows and dappled the floor around him. He looked up to see a ruin of a building, massive holes ripped in each floor all the way to the roof dozens of stories toward the sky; it seemed that only the steel infrastructure was keeping the whole thing from coming down. He couldn't imagine what had caused it all to happen. But jags of bright blue seemed to hover above, a sight that seemed impossible last time he'd been outside. Whatever horror that storm had been, whatever quirks in the climate of the earth could cause such a thing, it really did seem to be gone for now.

Sharp pains stabbed at his stomach, which groaned, aching for food. He glanced around to see most of the other Gladers still asleep, but Newt lay with his back against the wall, staring sadly at a blank spot in the middle of the room.

"You okay, there?" Thomas asked. Even his jaw felt stiff.

Newt slowly turned to him; his eyes were distant until he seemed to snap out of his thoughts and focus on Thomas. "Okay? Yeah, I guess I'm okay. We're alive―guess that's all that bloody matters anymore." The bitterness in his voice couldn't have been stronger.

"Sometimes I wonder," Thomas murmured.

"Wonder what?"

"If being alive matters. If being dead might be a lot easier."

"Please. I don't believe for one second you really think that."

Thomas's gaze had lowered while he'd delivered the depressing sentiment and he looked up sharply at Newt's retort. Then he smiled, and it felt good. "You're right. Just trying to sound as miserable as you." He could almost convince himself that it was true. That he didn't feel as if dying would be the easy way out.

Newt gestured wearily toward Minho. "What bloody happened to him?"

"Lightning strike somehow caught his clothes on fire. How it did that without frying his brain I have no idea. But we were able to beat it out before it did too much damage, I think."

"Before it did too much damage? I'd hate to see what you think real damage looks like."

Thomas closed his eyes for a second and rested his head against the wall. "Hey, like you said―he's alive, right? And he still has clothes on, which means it couldn't have burned his skin in too many places. He'll be fine."

"Yeah, good that," Newt replied with a sarcastic chuckle. "Remind me not to hire you as my buggin' doctor anytime soon."

"Ohhhh." This came from Minho, a long, drawn-out groan. His eyes fluttered open, then squinted as he caught Thomas's gaze. "Oh, man. I'm shucked. I'm shucked for good."

"How bad is it?" Newt asked him.

Instead of answering, Minho very slowly pushed himself up to a sitting position, grunting and wincing with every small move. But he finally did it, legs crossed beneath him. His clothes were blackened and ragged. In some places where skin was exposed, raw red blisters peeked out like menacing alien eyeballs. But even though Thomas wasn't a doctor and had no clue about such things, his instincts told him the burns were manageable and would heal pretty quickly. Most of Minho's face had been spared, and he still had all his hair―filthy as it was.

"Can't be too bad if you can do that," Thomas said with a sly smile.

"Shuck it," Minho responded. "I'm tougher than nails. I could still kick your pony-lovin' butt with twice this pain."

Thomas shrugged. "I do love ponies. Wish I could eat one right now." His stomach grumbled and gurgled.

"Was that a joke?" Minho said. "Did Thomas the boring slinthead actually make a joke?"

"I think he did" was Newt's response.

"I'm a funny guy," Thomas said with a shrug.

"Yeah, you are." But Minho obviously had already lost interest in the small talk. He twisted his head around to take in the rest of the Gladers, most of them asleep or lying still with blank looks on their faces. "How many?"

Thomas counted them up. Eleven. After all they'd been through, only eleven were left. And that included the new kid, Aris. Forty or fifty had lived in the Glade when Thomas first arrived, just a few weeks before. Now there were eleven.

Eleven.

He couldn't bring himself to say anything out loud after this realization, and the lighter moment only seconds earlier suddenly seemed like pure blasphemy. Like an abomination.

How could I be part of WICKED? he thought. How could I have been any part of this? He knew he should tell them about his memory-dreams, but he just couldn't.

"There's only eleven of us," Newt finally said. There. It was out.

"So, what, six died in the storm? Seven?" Minho sounded completely detached, as if he were counting how many apples they'd lost when the packs had blown away.

"Seven," Newt snapped, showing his disapproval of the cavalier attitude. Then, in a softer tone, "Seven. Unless people ran to a different building."

"Dude," Minho said. "How're we gonna fight our way through this city with only eleven people? There could be hundreds of Cranks in this place for all we know. Thousands. And we don't have a clue what to expect from them!"

Newt let out a big breath. "And that's all you can buggin' think about? What about the people who died, Minho? Jack's missing. So is Winston―he never had a chance. And"―he looked around―"I don't see Stan or Tim, either. What about them?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Minho held his hands up, palms facing Newt. "Slim it nice and calm, brother. I didn't ask to be the shuck leader. You wanna cry all day about what's happened, fine. But that's not what a leader does. A leader figures out where to go and what to do after that's done."

"Well, guess that's why you got the job, then," Newt said. But then a look of apology washed over his face. "Whatever. Seriously, sorry. I just ..."

"Yeah, I'm sorry, too." Minho rolled his eyes, though, and Thomas hoped against hope that Newt didn't notice because his gaze had fallen to the floor again.

Luckily Aris scooted over to join them. Thomas wanted the conversation to go in a different direction.

"Ever seen anything like that lightning storm?" the new kid asked.

Thomas shook his head because Aris was looking at him. "Didn't seem natural. Even in my klunky memories, I'm pretty sure stuff like that doesn't happen normally."

"But remember what the Rat Man said and that lady told you on the bus," Minho said. "Sun flares, and the whole world burning like hell itself. That'd screw up the climate plenty enough to make crazy storms like that pop up. I have a feeling we're lucky it wasn't worse."

"Not sure lucky's the first word I'd think of," Aris said.

"Yeah, well."

Newt pointed at the broken glass of the door, where the glow of sunrise had brightened into the same white brilliance they'd grown accustomed to their first couple of days out in the Scorch. "Least it's over. We better start thinking about what we're gonna do next."

"See," Minho said. "You're just as heartless as me. And you're right."

Thomas remembered the image of the Cranks at the windows back at the dorm. Like living nightmares, missing only a death certificate to make them official zombies. "Yeah, we better figure things out before we have a bunch of those crazies show up. But I'm telling you, we gotta eat first. We gotta find food." The last word almost hurt, he wanted some so badly.

"Food?"

Thomas pulled in a gasp of surprise; the voice had come from above. He looked up just as the others did. A face looked down at them from the shredded remains of the third floor, that of a young Hispanic man. His eyes were slightly wild, and Thomas felt a belt of tension cinch inside him.

"Who're you?" Minho shouted.

Then, to Thomas's utter disbelief, the man jumped through the jagged hole in the ceilings, falling toward them. At the last second, he crumpled into a human ball and rolled three times, then sprang up and landed on his feet.

"My name is Jorge," he said, his arms outstretched as if he expected applause for his acrobatics. "And I'm the Crank who rules this place."

CHAPTER 26

For a second Thomas had a hard time believing that the guy who'd dropped in―literally―was real. He was so unexpected, and there was an odd silliness about what he'd said and the way he'd said it. But he was there, all right. And even though he didn't seem quite as gone as some of the others they'd seen, he'd already confessed to being a Crank.

"You people forget how to talk?" Jorge asked, a smile on his face that looked completely out of place in the shattered building. "Or you just scared of the Cranks? Scared we'll pull you to the ground and eat your eyeballs out? Mmm, tasty. I love a good eyeball when the grub's runnin' short. Tastes like undercooked eggs."