𝗖𝗨𝗥𝗜𝗢𝗨𝗦, thomas (tmr)

Chapter Eighteen

"Clara?" A small voice interrupted her strides to the thick forest, and she jumped at the sight of the small boy now staring up at her in concern.

"Chuck. Hi."

She knew her face was red and tear stricken, and that as soon as she left, Chuck would rush to tell someone what he had just seen. But in that moment, she couldn't bring herself to care.

She didn't have to be so strong all the time now that she wasn't the leader.

So before Chuck could get in another word, she simply just turned away and continued into the forest. She could hear him calling her name after her, but ignored it. 

Surprisingly, no one came to find her. At first.

She sat in the forest all night, close to where the Map room laid, on a small bed of leaves underneath the branches of a tree. A gentle breeze was passing through the Deadheads - making her shiver - but she didn't want to go back and face anyone. 

But then she was forced to.

She wasn't sure how Thomas had moved so quietly, but sure enough, there he was stood in front of her. He was shivering too, wearing only a white vest and shorts, and he was watching her with wide guilty eyes.

Because for the hours since the Banishing and before he fell asleep, he had been beating himself up for what he said to her. She was right. She had been nice to him from the start, defended him from Ben, allowed him to confide in her with no fear of it getting spilt to anyone else.

And he had turned around and verbally punched her in the gut.

Without speaking, he ran a hand through his sticking up hair, and gestured to the spot beside her. She shuffled over, patting it for him to sit down, and found herself tensing up when he sat down right beside her. She wasn't expecting him to sit so close, to leave only millimetres between them.

"Chuck told me he saw you coming here," He paused, as if he was going to mention that she was crying, but then he didn't. "I wasn't sure if you'd still be, but here you are, I guess."

The tension hung heavy between them, but Thomas seemed eager to dissipate it. Clara was making it hard by not saying anything, but she didn't know what to say.

She simply just nodded, as if to confirm that she was here, and refused to make eye contact. She could feel Thomas' eyes burning into the side of her head, and found it hard to not just give in to the puppy-dog expression he was most likely sporting.

"How's your neck?" He asked, pointing awkwardly, unable to see in the dark. 

Her hand flew up then to rub the skin softly, remembering when Thomas had traced it with his fingers. It freaked her out a little; that her first thought about the injury wasn't when she got it, but about Thomas.

"It's okay." She replied quietly, although her throat was still a little hoarse.

They settled into a silence again, Thomas seeming to gather that she was still frosty with him from earlier. He couldn't blame her. 

"I had more visions."

She had to forget whatever disagreement happened between them now, because this was far more important. She wanted to know if she was in them, or if he learnt more about WCKD, or if he could remember anything else about his life.

"That woman - the doctor - she was there again. She told me again that WCKD is good. And there was this other girl, our age, the voice I heard before."

Clara felt a pang of something in her chest at that. And then quickly she told herself she was being stupid. She had just met Thomas. She chose to ignore the fact it felt like they had known each other much longer.