A/N: Hey, fellow shanks! I am back! I had a sort of depressing weekend but I am back and in a better mood and I have a new chapter. Thanks to everyoe who's been reading and reviewing and i just want you guy to know you are amazing people and I really appreciate that ou take the time to read and review. I means a lot. Love you guys!

Oh, if anyone reading this likes 5sos and likes wattpad, a friend of mine has a few absolutely amazing stories up. Her username is 'michaelclifford_' look her up! and then tell her 'CopperMax' told you about her.

I also have a Ranger's Apprentice story up if anyone is interested.

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Good, question, I thought, rubbing my eyes and stretching a bit. Situation myself so I sat more comfortably.

"There's only twelve of us," Newt said finally.

What? There were at least forty of us in the glade and twenty of us survived that! And… how many died then? Who was still left?

"So, what, six died in the storm? Seven?" Minho asked, sounding completely detached, calm, like how was simply counting the amount of apples and granola bars we lost when the packs blew away. I wished I could remove myself like that. But I couldn't, I was never good at compartmentalizing my emotions.

"Seven," Newt snapped, showing his obvious disapproval of Minho's cavalier attitude. Newt cared. Sometimes, I thought, too much. But I couldn't fault him for that. "Seven," He repeated, this time in a softer tone. "Unless people ran to a different building."

"Dude," Minho said. "How're we gonna fight our way through this city with only twelve 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 breath. Whether in was in annoyance or disapproval I couldn't tell. "And that's all you can buggin' think about? What about all 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 said, holding his hands up palms facing Newt. "Slim it nice and calm, brother. I didn't ask to be the shuck leader. You-"

"Guys," I interrupted, not liking to see my two best friends in the world going at it. "Come' on." But it seemed my plea went unheard as Minho continued.

"-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, I guess that's why you got the job then," Newt said bitterly. Then he paused, a look of apology washing over him. "Whatever. Seriously, sorry. I just…"

"Yeah, I'm sorry too." Minho said rolling his eyes as Newt's gaze dropped to the floor. I glared at him, nudging his arm. "What?" He questioned quietly, eyes narrowed angrily.

"You know what," I whispered back. "I agree with ya, but you don't have to be a jerk about it."

His shoulder drooped slightly. "Yeah…" his eyes didn't meet mine as he nodded slightly. I smiled weakly at him. He was only doing what he had to… with his usual attitude, of course. And that might make others think he was all well and good, completely fine, but I knew better. And snapping at his best friends was only one of the signs.

I said nothing further as that was when Aris scooted over to us. "Ever seen anything like that lightning storm?" he asked looking at Thomas.

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

"But remember what that Rat Man said and the 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 storms like that pop up. I have a feeling we're lucky it wasn't worse."

"Not sure if luck's the first word I'd think of," Aris said. I nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, well," Minho shrugged.

Newt pointed through the broken remains of a shattered window through with the white light of the rising sun shone through with the same brilliance we'd grown accustomed to since entering 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."

"Yeah, we better figure things before we have a bunch of those crazies show up. But I'm telling you, we gotta eat first. We gotta find food," Thomas said.

Oh…. Food. God I was hungry.

"Food?"

"What?" I gasped, looking upward as that was where the voice had come from. A face looked down from a gaping hole in the third floor. It was the face of a young Hispanic man, though he was older than any of us. His eyes were slightly wild looking as well.

"Who're you?" Minho shouted

And then, to my utter disbelief, the guy jumped through the jagged remains of the flooring, falling. At the last possible second, he crumpled into a sort of human ball, rolled a few times, before spring up to land on his feet.

It was impressive, I had to admit. And I sort of doubted his existence at first. He was just so… unexpected, and almost silly. So… strange. But he was there all right.

"My name is Jorge," He said with his arms outstretched as if expecting applause. "And I'm the Crank who rules this place."

"You people forget how to talk?" Jorge smiled, something which 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. Taste like undercooked eggs."

Minho answered, taking up the 'leader' position and doing a bloody good job of hiding his pain. "You admit you're a Crank? That you're freaking crazy?"

"He just said he likes the taste of eyeballs," Frypan commented. "I think that qualifies as crazy."

Jorge laughed. It wasn't a pretty sound, there was obvious menace. "Come, come, my new friends. I'd only eat your eyes if you were already dead. Course, I might help you get that way if I needed to. Understand what I'm saying?" All humor disappearing from his face, replaced with a look of warning. Like was daring us to confront him.

No one spoke for a term, not a word. Then Newt asked, "How many of you are here?"

"How many?" Jorge asked, eyes snapping to Newt. "How many Cranks? We're all Cranks here, hermano."

"That's not what I meant and you know it," Newt responded flatly.

That's when Jorge began pacing the room, stepping both over and around the other Gladers, eyes flitting from one to the next as he spoke. "Lot of things you people need to understand about how things work in this city. About the Cranks, and WICKED, about the government, about why they left us here to rot in our disease, kill each other, go completely and utterly insane. About how there's different levels of the Flare. About how it's too late for you –the ill is gonna catch ya if you don't already have it."

Jorge stopped in front of us, his feet almost touching Minho as he continued to talk, his eyes lingering on me for a moment. "But that's not the way it's gonna work, comprende? Those who are at a disadvantage are those who speak first. I want to know everything about you. Where you came from, why you're here, what in God's name your purpose could be?"

Minho chuckled, a low dangerous sound. "We're the ones at a disadvantage?" Minho turned his head mockingly. "Unless that lightning storm fried my retinas, I'd say there are twelve of us and one of you. Maybe you should start talking."

Oh, I wish he hadn't said that. It was stupid, and arrogant, but that was beside the point. A comment like that could very well get us killed. Jorge, or whatever his name was, obviously wasn't alone. Who knows how many Cranks were up there, watching us, waiting, maybe even with weapons!

Jorge stared at Miho for a long while, his face carefully blank. "You didn't just say that no me, did you? Please tell me you didn't just speak to me like a dog. You have ten seconds to apologize."

Minho looked at me with a smirk.

"One, two, three, four-"

I jerked my head at Jorge, giving Minho a stern look. Do it.

"Five, six."

"Minho," I grounded out, the message obvious.

"Seven. Eight." Jorge's voice was rising.

Wait- did i- I think so... I'm pretty sure I saw a glimpse of something above us, just a blur, a streaking shadow of some sort. I think Minho noticed it too; and arrogance draining from his face as he glanced at me.

"Nine."

"I'm sorry," Minho blurted out with little feeling.

"I don't think you meant that," Jorge said, kicking Minho in the leg.

He must've hit him in a burnt spot judging by the way Minho cried out in pain. My fists clenched and I would've tackled Jorge right then and there had it not been for Tommy's strong grip on my shoulder.

"Say it with meaning, hermano." I glared up at the Crank. I hated him. Hated him with irrational force. God, I wanted to hit him. He pulled his leg back, kicking Minho again, twice as hard as the last time, and in the same spot. "Say it with meaning!" He screamed that last word with a sort of crazed undertone.

Tommy gripped my shoulder harder as Minho wailed, gripping the wound with both hands. "I'm… sorry," he said between bated breaths. His voice was strained with pain. I wasn't even mad when Minho swung an arm out and slammed it into the guy's shin as he smiled, relaxing. The Crank leaped onto his other foot before falling, crashing into the ground with a yelp, shrieking in surprise and hurt.

And then Minho was on top of him, yelling out a string of obscenities I had never heard from him, or at least… not all at once. He clamped his legs around Jorge, trapping him, before starting to punch. Hard.

"Minho!" I yelled, pulling away from Thomas. "Stop!" I yelled clambering to my feet and stealing a glance upward where I was sure more Cranks resided, ready to kill him where he stood. And there were, people were looking down, readying to jump. And then there were ropes thrown down, dangling over the sides of the jagged holes.

I rammed into Minho with everything I had. I didn't care if I hurt him, as long as he survived this. The both of us crashed to the ground where I quickly spun to grab onto him, wrapping my arms around his chest and struggling to keep him from pouncing back onto the guy. "There's more of them up there!" I shouted. He wrenched me off of him. "Minho, they'll kill you!" I screamed, grabbing onto this shirt and making him look at me. "They'll kill you!"

Jorge had staggered to his feet, wiping a trail of blood from the corner of his mouth. The look on his face was… scary to say the least. I glanced between him and Minho with shaking hands, which were still balled up around the fabric of Minho's shirt.

"Wait!" Thomas shouted, standing between us and him. "Please, wait!"

Jorge looked at him just as a few Cranks dropped down to the ground from above. A few did the jump-and-roll thing Jorge had, but others simply slid down the ropes, landing squarely on their feet before packing behind their leader. There were maybe fifteen of them. Men and women. A few teenagers. All of them were filthy and dressed and tattered clothing. Most were dangerously skinny and quite frail looking.

Minho quit fighting the second time I yelled at him, his body relaxing and his eyes softening. I was sort of sitting on my butt, clinging onto him like some sacred sort of damsel in distress and he was sort of kneeling, leaning over me as that was how I had pulled him. We were both staring at Thomas now, not moving, barely breathing.

"Please, give me a minute," He said, one hand held out at us and another at Jorge in a conciliatory gesture. "Won't do you people any good to… hurt us."

"Won't do us any good?" Jorge said, spitting a wad of blood and saliva from his mouth. "It'll do me a lotta good. That I can guarantee, hermano." His hands were balled into fists at his sides.

And then he cocked his head to the side. It was hardly enough to notice, but as soon as he did the Cranks behind him pulled out all kinds of nasty things from the folds of their ragged clothes. Knives, machetes, black spikes that looked like parts of a railroad somewhere, shards of glass… with red tinges tips I might add. And there was this one girl. She couldn't have been more than thirteen, with string blonde hair and big hollow looking blue eyes. And you know what? She had a splintered shovel in those little dirtied up hands of hers. The metal scoop ended in a jagged edge, like the teeth of a saw.

There was no doubt in my mind that Tommy was now pleading for our lives.

"Listen," he said, "There's something about us. We're not just random shanks who showed up on your doorstep. We're valuable. Alive, not dead."

Jorge's anger seemed to dissipate slightly… maybe a spark of curiosity. But what he said was "What's a shank?"