AU: Chapter is scheduled for revision.

"So you mean to tell us that you told Brenda basically everything that you knew, but you failed to mention the fact that this Marcus guy, who used to be your friend, has possibly switched to the other side for money?" Minho asks, frustrated.
"I didn't want to believe it, hermano." Jorge sighs. "It'd be as if one of you kids turned against us."
I frown at the thought, looking to Teresa with a concerned expression, but she doesn't return the glance, seeming to be deep in thought.
We turn right at the four-way stop, making our way down a road that is packed with various families camping out, bundled in several layers of clothes, sitting around fires, selling and purchasing low supplies of food from one another.
I shudder as I make eye contact with a little girl whose eyes are almost lifeless, her skin pale and hair knotted.
Why is it that I feel afraid instead of pity for these people?
"They look sick..." Newt whispers.
"Because they are, hermano. They're either dying of starvation or just recently caught the Flare."
Newt's eyes widen. "They what?!"
"Do not worry. You shouldn't catch anything as long as they don't bite or claw you, and, trust me, they're not far enough along for that." Jorge says reassuringly.
'Shouldn't'. That's not a very reassuring term.
Newt gently grasps my arm, pulling me closer as he looks around. "I don't care what he says." He whispers, low enough for only me to hear. "Stay close to me, alright?"
I nod, breathing in shakily.
I can feel countless pairs of eyes watching our group as we walk, the hairs on the back of my neck rising.
• • •
As Jorge leads us down road after road, I can see that the people on each street are getting progressively worse and worse, farther along in the stages of the Flare virus.
"There it is." Jorge says, standing in the middle of the road and putting his hands on his hips, looking at the towering building ahead of us, a massive, red banner hanging from the roof to the second story, spelling out Zone A.
The ground vibrates from the loud music pulsing from the building, people crowded around outside the door, laughing, talking, and dancing.
They are definitely much farther along.
"Are they...partying?" Minho asks.
Jorge chuckles, nodding. "Yep. The ill come here to enjoy their last few stages before becoming full-blown Cranks. It's the party of the dead, hermano."
Gulping, I shudder.
Jorge turns to look at us. "Take off your coats." He orders.
"What?" Frypan asks. "Why?"
"You need to blend in, hermano. Hand over your coats, scarves, layers. You need to look like you're here to party and dance your lives away. That means I need your packs, too."
Shaking nervously, I take off my scarf and jacket, and even my sweater, standing in just my tanktop, jeans, and boots and handing Jorge the rest, along with my pack.
Newt passes his coat and scarf to Jorge, but Jorge shakes his head as he takes the jacket. "Keep the scarf, hermano. It'd be a fashion statement in your case."
Newt, face distorting over the strange conclusion, nods, draping his scarf around his neck again.
Jorge averts his eyes to me. "Put your hair down." He orders.
Nodding, I take my hair-tie out of my hair, putting it on my wrist and shaking my head to let my hair messily fall into place.
Newt stares at me, mouth dropping open slightly.
Arms folded, Minho, who now stands in his jeans and black t-shirt, looks me up and down. "Shuck, (y/n), you look good."
Blushing, I laugh bashfully. "Thanks, Minho."
Newt clears his throat, standing taller. "Yeah, uh, you look nice." He says, chuckling nervously as he scratches the back of his head.
I smile up at Newt. "Thanks."
Aris grins at Teresa. "You look good, too."
"Amen to that." Frypan chuckles.
She rolls her eyes, laughing lightly. "Alright, alright, that's enough."
"You kids need to divide up into groups." Jorge says.
I give him a puzzled look. "Wait, you aren't going in with us?"
"I'm taking a different route, hermana. I'm going to find Marcus. You kids need to find your friend and Brenda."
I nod, sighing and putting my hands on my hips.

"So we'll have three pairs." Jorge says.
Minho eyes Newt and I for a second before smirking, but I fail to understand why. "I'll pair us up. I know how to balance out the strengths in this group. Teresa and Aris will be a pair, Newt and (y/n) will be the second, and Fry and I can be the third."
Nodding, Jorge packs our coats and layers into the four bags of ours, piling the backpacks on his back or holding them by the straps. "Alright, that sounds good." He concludes before anyone can protest. "Remember this: blend in, find your friends, and meet me on the top story." With that, he turns on his heels and walks down the road.
Just as before, we watch Jorge leave us, gaping in silent awe and somewhat fear of this mad man.
"Alright, you shanks heard him." Minho says, bringing the group back to reality. "Let's go."
The six of us hesitantly make our way to the building, and, just before we approach the crowd in front of the entrance, Minho nods at Teresa and Aris before they break right.
"Hey, Newt," Minho says, putting a hand on his shoulder, a serious and somber expression on his face. "If I don't come out alive, just remember that I love you."
Newt scoffs, shoving Minho's hand off of his shoulder with an eye roll. "You bloody slinthead."
Breaking his serious act, Minho gives Newt an exaggerated, sappy smile before he and Fry break off to the left.
Taking a deep breath as he looks ahead, nervously staring at the crowd before us, Newt mumbles, "Here we go." Grabbing my hand, Newt pulls me behind him as we walk into the crowd of the ill.
The music shakes the ground, making it nearly impossible to hear the conversations taking place around us. Newt pushes the beaded curtains out of the way of the entrance, and we walk into the building cautiously.
The building, warm from all of the bodies crowded together, dancing and chattering and drinking, seems to disorient me a bit, along with all of the loud music that certainly does not have any actual words that I can make out.
Newt tightens his grasp on my hand, carefully squeezing past people and looking around.
"Do you see any familiar faces?" I call over the music.
Newt looks back to me, shaking his head. "Not yet."
Looking around, I cringe as I see two soon-to-be Cranks messily kissing each other to my right. PDA can be discomforting, but when the people acting out in PDA are on the brink of being living corpses, it makes it so much worse.
Suddenly, a tall, pale boy with longer, dark, curly hair towers over me, breaking my connection with Newt. "Hey, there..." He purrs, his irises a pale grey color, the whites of his eyes bloodshot. The darkening veins are very clear to see through his pale,transparent skin. "Wanna drink?" He asks, holding his glass to my mouth, the liquid a strange, greenish-brown color.
"I- Uh- N-No- No, thank you-" I stutter, eyes widening.
"Come on, you look stressed. It'll help you get your mind off of things."
I shake my head. "I'm fine, thank you..."
He smirks. "But it's the party of our lives."
Newt steps in front of me, eyes cold. "She said she doesn't want any of your drinks, alright?"
The sick boy chuckles, shaking his head. "Alright, alright... Suit yourselves." He says, turning to share his drink with the dying girl behind him who's dressed very provocatively.
"I'm sorry we got broken apart for a moment." Newt says, grasping my hand again and squeezing it reassuringly. "I promise, it won't happen again."
Feeling safe as he holds my hand, I nod. "I trust you."
He smiles weakly before turning back around and pulling me through the crowd.
I feel like a rag doll, getting thrown back and forth by people dancing and shoving past.
We walk past an open door to a small room, stopping to look inside.
The room is packed with people, and I gasp when I realize someone is holding a full-term Crank back, the rotting beast chained up. Another person holds a gun in the air, causing the crowd in the room to cheer in excitement. Cocking the gun, the person aims it at the Crank's head as it lashes and snaps its teeth.
As soon as he pulls the trigger, I yelp, grasping onto Newt, who holds me tightly, watching it play out with wide eyes and his jaw clenched. "Let's keep going." He says over the music, putting his hand on the small of my back and pushing me alongside him protectively as he looks around.
I struggle to glance through the crowd for any familiar faces, simply getting glimpses of more ill people as others walk or dance past.
Another hand grasps my shoulder, and I yelp as someone forcefully yanks me toward them and turns me to face them. A towering, buff Crank with dark skin and pale eyes chuckles as he grasps my right hand and brings my other to his shoulder before pulling me to him by the waist. "Dance with me." He smirks.
Eyes wide, I try to shove him off, but he's too strong. Almost in an inhuman way.
"Oh, come on, dance with me, pretty girl..."
"Hey!" Newt snaps from behind the Crank, shoving him slightly. "She doesn't want to dance with you, buggin' shuck-face, so back off."
The Crank turns around to get a good look at Newt, pulling me along with him and not letting me go. "You got a problem?" He snarls.
"Yeah, I do." Newt says, standing taller. "I have a problem with guys like you harassing girls."
"She wants to dance with me." The man retorts.
Newt lifts a brow. "Oh, really?" He asks, averting his eyes to me as I look back at him. "(y/n), do you want to dance with this man?"
I shake my head rapidly.
"See?" Newt says. "You don't have consent to even be touching her, so let her go and go bother someone else that's enough of a slinthead to dance with you."
Scowling at Newt, the soon-to-be Crank shoves me into the blonde boy before turning around and disappearing in the crowd.
I gulp, watching in disgust as Newt gently grasps my arms from behind.
"These people are insa-" However, before I can finish, I feel Newt's hold get broken, and I quickly turn to see an ill girl wrapping her arms around his neck.
"Why, you look absolutely delicious." She purrs.
I don't know why, but I feel angry beyond the fact that the sick girl is harassing Newt. "He's not food, so don't talk about him like that." I hiss, grabbing Newt's arm and tugging him towards me, but she doesn't break her grasp.
Looking at me suspiciously, the girl slowly smirks. "Why? Are you jealous?"
That angers me even more for some unknown reason. "So what if I am? You didn't get permission to latch onto him, so let go." I growl.
Newt attempts to pry off her arms, but the girl pulls him down to her and kisses his cheek before letting go. "There. Hopefully, I'll be seeing you around again; since your friend here isn't jealous, she shouldn't mind that." She winks at Newt, cackling as she walks off through the crowd.
Clenching my fists, it takes everything in my power to not charge after her.
Shuddering, Newt uses his scarf to aggressively rub his cheek, cringing as he attempts to erase the remains of the girl's kiss.
"I'm sorry she did that." I say over the music. "I should have punched her."
"And risk getting in a fight where you could get clawed or bit? I wouldn't have allowed it." Newt says reassuringly as he grasps my arm.
"But you risked a fight with the guy that was going to make me dance with him..." I mutter, frowning.
Sighing, he rubs his temple. "We need to get back to searching..." He says, returning to the subject at hand.
Nodding, I sigh, too.
I still really want to punch that girl in the face.
• • •
The minutes drag on as we continue our search.
"Thomas?" I shout, looking back and forth. "Brenda?"
"Looking for someone?" A man asks, leaning against the wall.
I gulp as I look in the man's direction, examining his pale skin, sunken in eyes, and his messy reddish hair. His fingers are covered in rings, and he wears two gold chain necklaces around his neck.
Newt and I exchange worried glances.
"No." Newt lies. "We're just looking for something to drink."
"Here," the man says, opening a glass bottle that he pulls out of his coat pocket. "Drink up."
Newt, staring at the man with narrow eyes, slowly takes the glass from the man and takes a swig from it, and I watch in shock.
How could he just drink some strange liquid from a sick guy?!
He cringes, handing the man back the glass as he wipes his lips with his shirt sleeve.
Chuckling, the ill man offers me a drink from the bottle.
Now that Newt's drank it, I guess that I have to, too. I need to blend in.
Gulping, I shakily reach for the glass, but Newt stops me. "She doesn't need any more."
The man lifts a brow. "Really? Neither of you seem...relaxed." He says, seeming suspicious of us not belonging here.
My heart stops.
We're going to get caught.
"Oh, no, she's been completely relaxed; I was killing the mood." Newt says smoothly. "I just needed a bit more of that in my system to take my bloody mind off of things. It's the party of a lifetime, after all."
Smirking, the man looks Newt dead in the eyes. "Then, you two should be partying, yes?" He cackles. "If you don't mind, I enjoy watching young love celebrate their last hours of sanity."
Young love?
Unsure of what to do, I freeze, staring at this sick man in disgust, but, all of the sudden, Newt gently pulls me to him, wrapping my arms around his neck and resting his hands on my waist, holding me closely against him and causing my heart to nearly stop altogether. He leans down and whispers in my ear, "Jorge's first order: Blend in."
I struggle to steady my breathing, subtly nodding as I let Newt guide us in a sway.
I can feel the man's eyes watching us, a creepy grin on his face. It takes everything in my power to not shudder.
Blend in.
Staring Newt in the eyes, I slide his scarf off from around his neck and drop it to the floor, though I make sure it lands right between us so that no early-stage Crank ends up stepping on or stealing it, and I wrap my arms back around his neck, pulling him closer in return.
Newt, closing his eyes, rests his forehead on mine as we dance to the music, and that warm sensation rises in my cheeks again.
I close my eyes, too, waiting for the sick man to leave but also, for some strange reason, enjoying this moment with Newt.
After a few moments, I cup Newt's face between my hands, opening my eyes to meet with his big, brown eyes, heart fluttering.
Wait– Why the actual shuck am I feeling like this?! A Crank is breathing down our necks, and we can't find our friends!
Suddenly, the ill man pats Newt's back. "Have fun, kids." He laughs before disappearing in the crowd.
Waiting a few moments to be sure that we're out of the man's sight, Newt eventually lifts his head, but he doesn't let go of me as he looks around us for Thomas or Brenda.
"Newt?" I mumble, lowering my hands to the back of his neck, once again.
"Hm?" He looks down at me.
Unsure if it's just the dim lighting of the room, I notice that his cheeks appear to be red. "How on earth could you drink that stuff? What if it makes you sick?!" I exclaim, stepping away from him.
Not phased by my outburst at all, he chuckles. "I didn't actually drink that weird stuff." He explains. "I kept my lips closed."
I stare at Newt with narrow eyes until it clicks. That's why he wiped off his lips. "You were blending in to the fullest extent, so you fake cringed? You weren't actually cringing from the drink?" I ask worriedly.
"Of course, I wasn't! Come on, I'm not bloody brainless like Minho." He jokes.
Picking his scarf up from the ground and gently tossing it over his head so that it dangles around his neck, I laugh lightly, smiling up at him. "Well, you did a great job covering things up."
"Thanks," he chuckles, smiling warmly in return.
For a moment, I feel unable to break eye contact with him.
"THOMAS!" A familiar voice shouts from somewhere in the crowd.
Newt and I perk up, looking around quickly. Through the crowd of dancing bodies, I catch a glimpse of Teresa and Aris crouching over a body on the ground. "There!" I shout, pointing before taking Newt's hand and yanking him behind me, shoving through the crowd.
"Teresa! Aris!" I shout over the music as we make our way over to the two of them, realizing that Thomas is the unconscious figure on the ground.
"Bloody Glade!" Newt exclaims, crouching down and taking one of Thomas's arms. "Aris, help me get him up!"
Nodding, Aris does as he says, and the two pick Thomas up carefully.
"Heyyy, shanks!" Minho calls, squeezing through the crowd and walking over with Frypan and Brenda, who's leaning on Minho for support, looking disoriented.
"Minho!" I call, waving them over.
"I'm gonna... I'm gonna stab the next guy that hits on me, I swear... I'll... I'll tear their throat out with my hand; I will..." Brenda slurs, extremely out of it.
Teresa looks at Brenda in concern. "What happened with her?"
"She obviously drank the weird klunk these shanks are drinking." He chuckles. "She's lashing out as if she's been rejected by someone or something."
"Screw you!" She snaps, shoving Minho's face away with her hand before her eyes roll back and she passes out, Minho scooping her up carefully just in time.
"Well, now that the easy part is over, let's move on to the hard part." Frypan says over the music, laughing nervously.
That was the easy part?!
"And that is?" I ask in concern.
"Hiking up five flights worth of stairs with two knocked out people."
• • •
After an excruciating seven minutes of the guys having to trade off on giving unconscious Thomas a piggyback ride or carrying Brenda, we manage to make it to the top, the guys out of breath from passing Thomas and Brenda around.
As soon as we step out into the hall, I spot an open door to one of the rooms at the very end of the aisle. "I think that's where we are supposed to go." I say, sighing in relief.
In perfect timing, Jorge peeks around the doorframe from inside. "About time, hermanos!" He exclaims, rushing down the hall to take Brenda from, now, Frypan. As he carefully takes her into his arms, he nods towards the end of the hall. "This way." He says.
Each taking one of Thomas's arms, Newt and Minho drag the unconscious boy down the hall as we follow Jorge into the room.
As soon as we walk inside, Jorge lies Brenda down on one bed and orders Newt and Minho to lie Thomas on the other.
Examining the room, my face falls as I catch sight of the reddish-haired man from earlier, tied to a chair and smirking at me. "Looks like your kids fooled me, Jorge." He cackles.
"It's not hard to fool you, Marcus." He retorts flatly, walking back over to the man tied to the chair.
Marcus?!
In sync, Newt and I look to each other with wide eyes.
"Wait just a bloody minute; this is Marcus?!" Newt speaks up.
Jorge lifts a brow. "You met him already?"
"Yeah," Marcus chuckles, "I got to watch the two lovebirds dance. Celebrating life... But now I see that they've both got plenty of life to live."
"Wait, what?" Minho asks, looking to Newt, a huge smirk on his face. "Sounds like you two were having some fun."
"We were just blending in, Minho. Like Jorge said to." Newt says, clenching his jaw.
"You may have acted like drunk, partying teens, but you definitely can't fool me with that lie, kid. There's no way that all of that was 'blending in'." Marcus says.
Confused, I look to Newt, who stares at Marcus with cold