He pulled the envelope out of his pocket and ripped it open, then took out the slip of paper. The soft lights that ringed the mirror lit up the message in a warm glow. It was two short sentences:

Kill me. If you’ve ever been my friend, kill me.

Thomas read it over and over, wishing the words would change. To think that his friend had been so scared that he’d had the foresight to write those words made him sick to his stomach. And he remembered how angry Newt had been at Thomas specifically when they’d found him in the bowling alley. He’d just wanted to avoid the inevitable fate of becoming a Crank.

And Thomas had failed him.

CHAPTER 42

Thomas decided not to tell the others about the message from Newt. He didn’t see what possible purpose it could serve. It was time to move on, and he did so with a coldness that he didn’t know he had.

They spent two nights in the Berg, resting up and talking plans. None of them knew much about the city or had any solid connections. Their conversations always returned to Gally and the Right Arm. The Right Arm wanted to stop WICKED. And if it was true that WICKED might begin the Trials all over again with new Immunes, then Thomas and his friends had the same goals as the Right Arm.

Gally. They had to go back to Gally.

On the morning of the third day after their run-in with Newt, Thomas showered, then joined the others for a quick meal. It was obvious how anxious everyone was to get moving after two days of sitting around. The plan was to go to Gally’s apartment and start from there. There’d been a little worry about what Newt had told them—that some Cranks were planning to break out of the Palace and go to Denver—but there’d been no sign of them from the air.

Once they were ready, Thomas and the others gathered at the hatch door.

“Let me do the talking again,” Jorge said.

Brenda nodded. “And when we get in, we’ll find a cab.”

“Fine,” Minho muttered. “Let’s quit this shuck yapping and go.”

Thomas couldn’t have said it better himself. Movement was the only thing that would deaden the despair he felt about Newt and his dreadful note.

Jorge pressed a button and the huge ramp of the cargo door started to pivot downward. The door had only opened halfway when they saw three people standing just outside the Berg. By the time the bottom edge thumped the ground, Thomas had realized that they weren’t there with a welcome banner.

Two men. One woman. Wearing the same metallic protective masks as Red Shirt back in the coffee shop. The men held pistols and the lady had a Launcher. Their faces were dirt-smeared and sweaty, and some of their clothes had been torn, as if they’d had to fight their way through an army to get there. Thomas could only hope it was security being extra cautious.

“What is this?” Jorge asked.

“Shut your mouth, Munie,” one of the guys said, his mechanized voice making his words all the more sinister. “Now step down here nice and easy, or you won’t like what happens. Don’t. Try. Anything.”

Thomas looked past their assailants and was shocked to see that both gates leading into Denver were standing wide open and two people lay lifeless in the narrow alley leading to the city.

Jorge was the first to respond. “You start firing that thing, hermano, and we’ll be on top of you like stink on dookie. You may get one of us, but we’ll get all three of you punks.”

Thomas knew it was an empty threat.

“We’ve got nothing to lose,” the man replied. “Give it your best shot. I’m pretty confident I’ll nail two of you before anybody takes a single step.” He lifted his gun a couple of inches and aimed at Jorge’s face.

“Fair enough,” Jorge muttered, and put his hands in the air. “You win for now.”

Minho groaned. “You are one tough slinthead.” But he raised his hands, too. “You guys better not drop your guard. That’s all I’m saying.”

Thomas knew they had no choice but to go along. He put up his hands and was the first to walk down the ramp. The others followed right behind, and they were led around to the back of the Berg, where an old beat-up van waited, the engine rumbling. A lady in a protective mask sat at the steering wheel, and two others holding Launchers sat on the bench seat behind her.

One of the men opened the side door, then gestured inside with a nod of the head. “In you go. One wrong move and bullets start flying. Like I said, we’ve got nothing to lose. And I can think of a lot worse things than the world with one or two less Munies in it.”

Thomas climbed into the back of the van, all the time working at their odds. Six versus six, he thought. But they had weapons.

“Who’s paying you to steal Immunes?” he asked as his friends clambered in to sit beside him. He wanted someone to confirm what Teresa had told Gally, that Munies were being rounded up and sold.

Nobody responded.

The three people who’d greeted them at the Berg got into the van and closed the doors. Then they aimed their weapons toward the back.

“There’s a pile of black hoods in the corner,” the lead guy said. “Put them on. And it won’t sit well with me if I catch you peeking during the ride. We like to keep our secrets nice and safe.”

Thomas sighed—arguing would be pointless. He grabbed one of the hoods and slipped it over his head. All he saw was darkness as the van lurched into motion with a roar of the engine.

CHAPTER 43

It was a smooth ride, but it seemed to last forever. And so much time to think about things wasn’t exactly what Thomas needed—especially without being able to see. He was nauseated by the time they finally stopped.

When the side door of the van opened, Thomas instinctively reached up to take off his hood.

“Don’t do it,” the lead guy snapped. “Don’t you dare take those off until we tell you to. Now get out, nice and slow. Do us a favor and keep yourselves alive.”

“You sure are a tough shank,” Thomas heard Minho say. “Easy to do when you’ve got six people with guns. Why don’t you—”

He was cut off by the thump of a hard punch, followed by a loud grunt.

Hands grabbed Thomas and pulled him out of the van so roughly that he almost fell down. Once he got his balance, the person yanked again and started leading him away; Thomas was barely able to keep his feet under himself.

He kept quiet as he was led down a set of stairs and then down a long hallway. They stopped, and he heard the swipe of a key card, the click of a lock, then the creak of a door opening. As it did, the murmurs of hushed voices filled the air, as if dozens of people were waiting inside.

The woman gave him a push and he stumbled a few steps forward. He immediately reached up and yanked the hood off his head, just as the door closed behind him.

He and the others stood in a huge room filled with people, most of them sitting on the floor. Dull lights in the ceiling illuminated the few dozen faces that stared back at them, some of them dirty, most of them scratched or bruised.

A woman came forward, her face twisted by fear and anxiety. “What’s it like out there?” she asked. “We’ve been in here for a few hours, and things were falling apart. Has it gotten worse?”

More people started to approach their group as Thomas answered. “We were outside the city—they got us at the gates. What do you mean things were falling apart? What happened?”

She looked at the floor. “The government declared a state of emergency, without any kind of warning. Then the police, the cop machines, the Flare testers—they all disappeared. All at once, it seemed. We got snagged by these people trying to get work at the city building. There wasn’t even time to figure out what was happening or why.”

“We were guards over at the Crank Palace,” another man said. “Others like us had been disappearing left and right, so we finally gave up and came to Denver a few days ago. We got nabbed at the airport, too.”