Hey!"

The maniacal shout came from behind and as fourteen heads all swerved to see who or what was the cause of the noise, Newt threw an arm out in front of me and I sort of attempted to do the same, really, we just ended up smashing into another… I would've taken time to be glad no one noticed had it not been for what happened next.

You see, the sound had come from that blonde crank Thomas had mentioned and as soon as we turned to see him standing on the bottom step, arm-extended, white-knuckled fingers gripping the trigger of a gun aimed right at Tommy. And before anyone could move, he'd pulled the trigger.

The boom was followed by a scream and then chaos erupted.

Minho ran at the attacker, ended up beating him to a bloody pulp and to be honest, I' glad. Slinthead deserved it. I, however, hadn't noticed that until afterward as I was already running towards Tommy.

He'd fallen backwards on impact, but turned mid-air as he reached for the wound and ended up falling flat on his face. I collapsed to my knees beside him, consciously ignoring the look of absolute pain and shock on his handsome features. Clamping my mouth shut and pushing away any squeamish feelings, I helped him onto his back and ignored the blood soaking my hands. He'd been shot near his shoulder, just above that fleshy spot above your armpit. His jaw was clenched, his hand clasped tight around the open flesh, as blood soaked his hand and seeped in between his fingers, staining his kin and his shirt.

His eyes met mine and they were scared, shocked and full of pain. My hands fluttered over his face, brushing back his hair, ghosting over the wound. "It's gonna be okay, Tommy…"

Newt fell to his other side, kneeling, looking down with worried eyes.

"He shot me," was all Tommy could think to say.

I nodded numbly, "We- we gotta stop the bleeding… he's losing too much blood, and we'll have to get that bullet out of him… and, and-uh, cauterize the wound.

"I can get that sucker outta him." Jorge said it. Jorge, of all people, and I was glad at least somebody knew how, because I may have known what we needed to do, but I didn't know how the hell I was going to do it.

"We can't do this here," Newt said, looking down at Tommy sadly.

"Let's get out of this shuck city," Minho grumbled, wiping bloodied and bruised knuckles on his pants and wiping the blood off of his jaw where I'm assuming the crank got a hit in.

"Alright," Jorge began again, moving to stand by Tommy's feet. "Help me carry him."

Once out of the city the boy set to work on building up some sort of shelter from the sun while Jorge and I attempted to help Tommy in whatever way we could.

They worked quickly, and soon enough there was a shabby hut made out of dry wood. It was make-shift and looked as if it could crumble at any second, but it was better than nothing. My hands were stained with Tommy's blood, I noticed as Jorge and I built up the fire. Neither one of us said a word, both seeming to understand exactly what the other was thinking at the moment. At least in regards to Thomas. Newt and Minho had gathered around as well, standing beside Thomas's unconscious form.

I took a deep breath as Jorge pulled out his knife and held it in the steady flame we'd managed to produce. Minho and Newt's eyes grew wide, suddenly understanding what it was that was about to happen. I pulled Tommy into my lap, my fingers gingerly brushing over the blood soaked shirt I'd bound the wound with. Swallowing, I began to unwrap it. "Newt, help me get his shirt off, we need better access to his shoulder, but I don't wanna jostle him too much."

Jorge nodded in approval, this would be better than ripping up his shirt, we were low on supplies as it is.

Minho took his shirt and rolled it into a ball, stuffing into one of his pockets and clenching his jaw, "He's waking up," he noticed glumly.

Looking down, I noticed his eyelids were fluttering. I ran my fingers through his hair like I did to Newt at night when he couldn't fall asleep. "Go to sleep, Tommy… Just go to sleep. We're gonna take care of you… just go to sleep."

Newt nodded in approval as the boy's eyes slid closed once more.

"You better hold him down," Jorge said pulling the reddened blade from the fire. I swallowed nervously, looking to Newt who seemed in no better a condition than I. "Legs and arms."

"This is gonna hurt something awful," I muttered weakly, looking down at his sleeping face.

Jorge then proceeded to dig out the bullet and cauterize the wound, which was the best we could do really. But upon digging out the piece of offending metal, I noticed it was not only covered in Tommy's innards, but was rusty and dirty, covered in who-knows-what and germs. I was suddenly very very worried… We had nothing to treat infections, nothing to help his body fight off whatever had just gained a free ride inside of him. And he was weak as it was.

Newt was the one to pull me away from Tommy's side and force the metal out of my hands, replacing it with his hand instead and pulling me to my feet, "C'mon, its dark now, let's take a walk."

The boys watched as Newt led me away from the sleeping boy and out of the hut.

The night was cooler, dark, but shining with the brightness of the stars.

I breathed deeply, inhaling the fresh air and trying to calm myself. Newt's arm wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me to his side. He pressed his lips to my temple, kissing me softly before resting his head against mine. "He'll be okay. He has to."

I nodded, but didn't trust myself to say a word, so I just leaned against his side and pressed my face into his shoulder, nodding.

Tommy didn't deserve that, and this whole ordeal had freaked me out. I'd admit to that, but it wasn't just the fact that Tommy had been shot. It was the fact that it had happened so quickly, that we'd ben powerless to stop it, that's we been able to do nothing, and that it might not have had to be Tommy. Blondie could have aimed at any one of us, could have shot any one of us. He could have shot me! Which in all honesty, didn't scare me as much as it should have. He could have shot Newt! Or Minho! It could have been any one of us. And that was what scared me, the fact that my life had become a series of near-death experiences and what scared me the most was that there were so few left. I felt horrible thinking like this but the reality was that the larger the group was, the larger the chance was that somebody else would die in the place of Newt, or Minho, or even Tommy. But our group had decreased in size, there weren't many left. We were dying off. And the chances of survival were slimming.

That was what scared me.

That was what had me, clinging onto Newt, because Dear God what if it was him?

Brenda had taken to sitting beside Thomas, holding his hand and staring at his unconscious features with a surprising degree of tenderness and no small amount of guilt and worry. But it wasn't my place to pry. I'd let Jorge worry about her.

I had my own boy to look after and Minho seemed particularly put out at the moment.

I plopped down on the ground beside him and leaned up against him as I watched his features. He was trying to appear just as put out as before, but a smile was tugging at the corner of his lips. "What do you want?" He grumbled, a hint of laughter in his voice.

"I'm fine," I told him with a lopsided grin, "The question is, are you?"

He shook his head, "Fine."

I looked at him unbelieving, pulling away so as to study what could possibly be wrong… besides the obvious that is. Tommy had wormed his way into out little circle and Minho was taking it hard. He protected his friends. He tried to, at least; he tired as best he could. The burns were healing, the scabs that had grown molding back into flesh. He was doing much better than before. The swelling in his jaw where the Crank had punched him was gone, but the skin was discolored and slightly. I reached up a hand, gently touching his chin and turning his head towards me so as to get a better look.

"The swelling's gone down," I told him, "But you've got a nasty looking bruise… It'll be there for a while yet."

"No klunk," he muttered.

I rolled my eyes, "How are your hands?"

He shook his head free of my hands and instead gave me hands, subjecting himself to my little check-up. His hands were callused, but so were mine. Both of us had dirt under the nails, kept short by the only method available to us. Biting them. But whereas my hands were stained red with the blood I'd been unable to wipe off, his were discolored, bruised from the repeated contact against the Crank. His knuckles were purple, and they'd hurt for a while, but he'd be fine.

"Am I fit for duty?" He asked with a sarcastic tone of voice and a smirk.

"Yeah, you're fine," I told him, ignoring the jab, but not missing the opportunity to call him a smart ass.

He only smirked, letting me fall onto his shoulder and eventually drift off to sleep.

Waking up was… strange. You see, I woke up this strange ringing in my ears and it turns out I wasn't leaning on Minho's shoulder anymore but in Newt's lap. Rolling over in annoyance, I pressed my face into the folds of his clothing. But the sound didn't go away. In fact, it got louder. Newt was suddenly wide awake, pushing me off of him with firm hands and pulling me to my feet. The ringing was actually more of a thrumming noise, I realized, rubbing my ears in annoyance. What was that?

"Stop it," Newt grumbled, swatting at my hands, "We can all here it, weirdo, it's not just you."

I blushed slightly, finding his words to be true and I was acting like a complete nutter. He chuckled slightly, his lips curling into a small lopsided grin. And then it fell, just like that. Frowning once again. The sound was deep full of these strange heavy thumps. All the other were moving now as well, scrambling to their feet and looking up at the sky just as Newt and I were.

It was huge, like a plane or a helicopter. I didn't know what to think of it. I seemed the others didn't either.

Jorge called it a Berg.

A/N: Thanks for telling me about the uploading issue, I hope this has fixed that. And I'm sorry I havnt updated in so long. I've been... busy I guess you could say. A lot has been going on, but I will try to update more often. Theres only a few more weeks of achool left so ill be updating g more freq urgently after that probably. ill also try to update Paradise. Thanks to all of you who are still are the real MVPS