She's a crank

Chapter 4: The houses

{Ellie's POV}
Newt and Minho had taken comando, and were walking at the front. We had been walking for around five hours now, and our plan was simple. We would basically just walk towards north for as long as we could keep it up, and whenever we find a "safe" place to rest, we will refill our energy, and then continue to walk. The Scorch was mostly a huge dessert, but we could see some mountains and something that looked like cities in front of us, in direction north. We could see some tall buildings and skyscrapers, which gave us a bit of hope. Me and Thomas were walking in the back, not saying much to each other.
"Guys, we need to stop somewhere." Winston said, letting out a big sigh.
"I can't go on like this any longer." He continued.
"Me neither, I'm gonna faint any second now." A guy named Frank said, and Frypan nodded in agreement. I saw Newt and Minho exchanging looks, and then one of them spoke up.
"Alright then. You see those houses over there? They look pretty abandoned to me. We'll take cover inside of those, rest a little bit and enjoy the shadow" Newt said. Everyone seemed happy with that, so we continued to walk towards the houses.
"Tommy!" Newt shouted over the crowd. He made some hand gestures, showing that he wanted to switch place, so Thomas ran towards Minho, and Newt started to go back, towards me.
"How is it?" Newt asked me, looking concerned. I opened my mouth in an attempt to answer, but my throat was too dry to speak.
"Bloody hell Ellie, you need some water!" He say as he starts to go trough his backpack.
"No, its fine. We shouldn't waste the little water we have." I say with a very raspy voice, sounding like a witch. He doesn't listen and hands me over a bottle.
"Please." He says while holding up the bottle in front of me. I don't want him to worry, so I take a sip of the fresh cold water.
"Thank you" He answers, and he seems a bit more at ease now.
"You need to be in good shape you know. I have a bad feeling about those houses, so we need to stay alert" Newt says, looking really worried.
"You know I can take care of myself" I say, taking out my dagger out of my pocket. Newt gave me that dagger on my first day as a runner, although no one was allowed to walk around with personal weapons.
"Still, we don't know what's out there. And if anything were to happen to you..." He stutters and looks down at ground as we walk. I stop him and put my hands on his shoulders, looking him straight in the eyes.
"I promise you, nothing will happen to me okay? Try not to worry so much." I say and give him a comforting smile. He sighs and we continue forward.
"Alright now, everybody stay alert and be ready for anything." Thomas whispers over the crowd as we approach the houses. 30 meters in front of us were three houses, two of them were the size of a cottage and the other one was a bit bigger, and it had two floors. They were all in a very bad shape, and they looked abandoned. All of them looked like they would fall apart any minute now.
"We'll split up into groups of three and check out the houses. If they seem secure, we'll rest here for a while and then continue to move on." Thomas orders us. I walk behind Gally who enters the bigger house, followed by Newt, Winston, Charlie and Craig.
"I have a bad feeling about this." I hear someone from behind me, and I couldn't agree more. The floor creaks with every step I take. Everyone is dead quiet, the only sounds are the ones coming from the floor and our own breaths. The house consists of 5 rooms. The first one you enter is a bigger room, with a kitchen on the right side and a sofa and dining table at the left side. Next to that one there's a bedroom with a door leading to a bathroom and a staircase leading to a corridor on the upper floor. We spread out and start to investigate the house, making sure that it's empty. I walk up trough the stairs and see two doors on each side of the corridor. I slowly open one door, pointing my dagger towards it. Just as I'm about to take a look inside I hear a petrifying scream from one of the other houses. As if that scream was some sort of attack signal, all hell breaks loose. I hear something breaking downstairs and Gally's scream. As I turn around to run down and help him, I feel someone grabbing my shoulder and pulling me into the dark room that I was about to check out. I let out a panicked scream and start to kick my attacker. I hear how Newt shouts my name from downstairs, and how someone starts to run up the stairs. I try my best to hit my attacker with my dagger, but its hard since whatever it is, it still has a hold on me and I'm in complete darkness. I manage to turn around and hit the attacker in the stomach with my elbow. Someone slams up the door which gives me enough light to see where my attacker is and I manage to throw myself onto her, so that she hits the floor with a loud boom. I see Newt standing in the doorway quickly helping me get back up on my feet again. Together we run down the stairs to help the others. There are 2 cranks there, and one of them has pinned Gally against the wall, strangling him. Without doubt I throw the dagger at the crank, and he falls to the floor.
"Can you breath?!" I ask Gally who gives me a shaky nod as a response. I turn around to see that all of the cranks are on the floor, taken down. I take my dagger out of the cranks shoulder and look at the almost greyish blood that's dripping from it
"We need to get ou-" Newt doesn't get the chance to finish his sentence before the crank from upstairs jumps down on him, pinning him down by the shoulders and drooling into his mouth. Both me and Charlie jump at the crank, hitting and slashing her the best we can. Finally she falls to the side, and Newt crawls away from her, spitting and trying to brush away her saliva. Frypan shows up at the entrance to the house, all sweaty.
"They got Frank... but we've taken the cranks out for now" He says, breathing heavily at the same time. We all get out of the house, and see how everyone else is already outside looking ready to leave.
"Let's run." Minho says, and since no one has any better suggestion, we all run away from the houses.

At first we ran like a bunch of crazy chickens, but after a while it got harder and harder to keep up the pace, so we slowed down. Now we were simply walking forward. Everyone was still in chock and nobody said anything. I could see Frypan's glossy eyes, and it made me feel terrible. He and Frank had been pretty close. I walked next to Gally, and Newt was a few meters ahead of me. I'd seen his face, and it was something I wish I'd never seen. He looked so troubled and he was constantly spitting, probably still disgusted by that crank. It was starting to get late now, and the sky got darker with ever second that passed. The weather was actually quite pleasant, still hot but with chilling winds.
"How about we stop here for some sleep?" Minho shouts and everyone seems to agree with him. We stop in the middle of the dessert with no protection at all, but judging by the faces of us all, no one seems eager to continue walking just to find a "safer" spot. We use our backpacks as pillows and the heat makes blankets unnecessary. In just a few minutes we're all lying on the ground, some of us already asleep. I lay next to Gally, who has his arm around my shoulders. He moves his other hand to one of my arms and examines it slowly. He lets his fingers walk down my shoulder to my wrist, touching several of my scars.
"You know, you shouldn't have hurt yourself like that. Those scars, they make you look... less pretty..." He says, simply staring down at my arm.
"I don't want my girlfriend to look like some suicidal freak."
The moment he says those words, I feel something inside of me breaking down. I have never in my entire life felt so hurt before. A hole is created inside of me, a hole that can never be repaired. I never thought that anyone could say anything like that. The fact that he doesn't care about my well being, but more about my appearance makes me feel so hollow. My eyes start to ache and no matter how hard I try to keep them back, the tears start to slowly fall down my chin. Suicidal freak. Is that what I am? I lie there still, not moving a single muscle. I lie there waiting until he falls asleep. As I hear his first snoring, I slowly lift his arm away from me. I look around and see Newt lying alone around 5 meters away from me. I slowly walk towards him, trembling. He hears me and turns around. A shockwave goes trough his eyes as he sees my face. He looks so worried.
"Please... Can I sleep here tonight?" I ask him trough tears. He simply pats the ground next to him and gives me a comforting smile. I lay myself down and cuddle up against him. With tears in my eyes I fall sleep.

{Newt's POV}
She immediately fell asleep as soon as she laid down. I put my arm around her, and feel her head leaning towards my chest. I look at her face and brush away her tears. I take my free hand and start patting her head, brushing trough her insanely black hair.
What could possibly have happened? What could make her feel this way? Something tells me that Gally did something, he's the only who can make her cry, instead of make her raging. She's too good for him. She deserves so much more. I guess no one is good enough for her, a person equal to her doesn't exist. I look down at her, and I remember a night at the bonfire.