𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐅 𝐀 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓 - 𝘋𝘌𝘈𝘛𝘏 𝘊𝘜𝘙𝘌

22 ~ in hot pursuit

Lottie

I watched with a grimace as Newt's body shuddered on the floor, sparking with the electricity from my Launcher, which I was still holding aloft. Underneath Newt, the woman he had been strangling twitched and jerked around, trying to escape the electricity flooding from his body.

I ignored the chaos around me and sprinted towards Newt, jumping over the bodies of dead Cranks who had been unfortunate in getting hit by some of our bullets. Among the dead I saw all three of the Cranks Newt had been with – Donna, I think he called one of them, and the other two men.

I braced myself before I bent to seize the back of Newt's shirt and haul him over my back. The bolts of electricity flickered up my arms and I could feel the numbness and pain spreading across my body, but with adrenaline I was able to ignore it. I was not surprised that I could carry Newt's dead weight on my back. I had grown stronger over the past few months, and Newt had become weaker and frailer with the Flare disease.

Wincing, I hobbled along the wall, focusing all of my energy on not dropping the boy on my back. All of the other Cranks in the room were distracted by my friends in the middle, who were still firing their guns and wrestling with the monsters. There were many who were dead on the floor, though. If we didn't get out of the Palace soon, the whole place would be dead and it would be our fault.

I kept struggling towards the door, planning on leaving Newt out of harm's way before coming back inside and rounding up the rest, but then I heard a mighty roar from my left and Minho came flying into view, swinging a snapping Crank over his head and slamming it on the floor.

"Stay down!" Minho bellowed, spit flying from his lips. The fighting had gotten to his head, as his eyes were shining with desperation and anger.

"Minho!" I shrieked. "Minho, we have to get out of here, or else it's going to be a massacre!"

Minho glanced up at me, nodding in agreement. "Get Newt out of here, I'll go get the others-" he slammed the Crank into the floor once more, letting it fall limp before he turned back towards the battle eagerly. I looked towards the door. It was still so far away, and I wasn't sure how long I would carry Newt for.

"I can't carry him any longer!" I yelled. "It has to be you!"

Minho looked at me in despair before giving a resigned sigh. He came to stand next to me and I twisted my body awkwardly to deposit Newt onto his back instead. He began jogging towards the door ten times faster than I would have, Newt flopping around lifelessly.

I turned from them, hurrying back into the fray to wrangle up my friends. "Jorge!" I yelled. "Brenda, Julian – we have to get out of here before anything goes wrong -" I tried grabbing at them, getting their attention, but to no avail.

"Lottie!" A voice shouted in my ear. I whirled to see Spitfire approaching me, shooting his gun to his left three times in succession before glaring at me with panicked brown eyes. "You don't have a gun! What are you still doing in here?"

"Trying to get everyone to leave!" I exclaimed in exasperation. "We're doing okay for now, but there are hundreds of Cranks in this Palace. They're going to outnumber us eventually-" I broke off with a cry as I felt grimy hands on my back, and suddenly I was on the floor with the creature on top of me. I made an X with my arms, pushing back at the Crank, but it still snapped down at me with its rotten teeth. This one seemed like it had been going mad here for ages.

Then there were gunshots, a spurt of blood, and the monster fell limp onto me. Scrambling, I tossed it away as Spitfire grabbed my hood and pulled me to my feet. His helmet had fallen off, and I could see sweat dripping from the strands of hair that had fallen in front of his face.