Their Deadly Design // Minho

The Return

"We won't be here long enough for us to do that. Maybe only a week or so." Jorge replies. The women doesn't reply but the large steel doors at the end of the room open and allow us access to a new hallway. We all move through to the room and the women instructs us to all step into the detector one at a time.

"What does the detector do?" Aris whispers to me. I look over at him startled and shrug.

"I'm guessing it detects things." He snorts as Jorge steps through it. Doors close behind him and Ashoka grabs my hand, slightly startled by what's happened but she doesn't ask questions. A minute later, the doors open and reveal an empty room.

"Now for Ms. Esparza." Brenda gives Thomas a weak smile before stepping into the room. Aris goes after her, then Ashoka, and then I'm called. I glance over at Thomas and Minho before I step into the room. There's a giant wash of air that comes over me and several slow beeping sounds. When the doors in front of me slide open, I find tons of people waiting just beyond the threshold.

"Whoa." I say lowly as I step out. The doors close behind me. I spot Aris, Ashoka, Brenda and Jorge standing off to the side. Ashoka is clinging to a railing and looking over the side and as I walk over I see that she's looking down to the second story for this building. There's so many people, a lot of them have rags over their faces or other types of masks. Theres much conversations and hustle and bustle that I'm a little shell shocked at first.

"What.." I hear a voice behind me say. I glance over at Minho who looks genuinely surprised by the amount of people in the room. Brenda just motions for him to walk over and Minho comes to stand next to me. "What is this place?" He asks. I look around.

"As far as I can tell, a shopping center."

"A what?"

"God you guys should have gotten your memories back." Brenda grumbles as Thomas appears next. He asks the same questions Minho did. "It's a mall." Brenda says, glancing around. "People buy and sell things here. It runs along the outside of the wall." I'm about to ask where we go from here when Thomas says,

"Look." A man in a dark blue jacket, an unsatisfied look on his face, is walking towards us and before we can do anything, he's right in front of Thomas. He regards us all but fixes his eyes on Thomas.

"We heard there were some escapees from W.I.C.K.E.D." If we had brought our guns, I would have fired it by now. "And judging by the Berg you just arrived in, I assume you're part of that group." He rummages around in his pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper. "I advise you to accept what we're offering. You have nothing to be afraid of from us, we only want to help. You'll be protected if you come to us." With that, the man hands Thomas the slip of paper and walks away without another word.

"I thought that was going in a totally different direction." Aris says slowly as Thomas turns to us, the paper now open in his hands.

"What does turn say?" Minho asks him. Thomas eyes run over the message again and he sighs, frowning.

"It says, 'You need to meet me immediately. I'm with a group called the Right Arm. Corner of Kenwood and Brookshire, apartment 2792.' But.." Thomas pauses.

"But what?" I ask. Thomas looks up.

"It's signed by Gally."

----

I start to laugh. Gally? There's no way. Last time I saw him, he was wearing a straight jacket and pulling out what was left of his hair. They all look towards me. "It can't be Gally he's.. He's back at W.I.C.K.E.D. He's gone completely insane." Thomas cocks his head, confused.

"What?" Thomas asks.

"Whose Gally?" Aris questions.

"This shitty kid from our Glade." Minho explains lightly. "What do you mean he's crazy? I mean, we already fucking knew that but how much more crazy can that guy get?"

"W.I.C.K.E.D made him kill Chuck. The mental damage that did to him was insane." Brenda nods.

"After you guys were "rescued" we tried to use Gally again, get him to help us but he wasn't recovering well from what he did. He was tearing out his hair, screaming about bugs in his veins, really messed up things. He was put in solitary but that only made it worse and well... He could actually be out here." Brenda admits.

"What?" I demanded. "How could he be out here?" Brenda sighs.

"He was useless okay? W.I.C.K.E.D. doesn't like useless things so they dumped him."

"Well that doesn't really surprise me." Aris muttered. "But if he's crazy, why is he writing messages to supposed escapees from W.I.C.K.E.D?"

"And what's the Right Arm?" Ashoka added.

"They're supposed to be this underground group of rebels. They're hellbent on bringing W.I.C.K.E.D down." Thomas nodded slowly, folding the note up and putting it in his pocket.

"Sounds like a good reason to trust them."

"What if this is a trap?" Brenda asked. "Maybe W.I.C.K.E.D didn't let him go. Maybe they put him here told him to wait for us." I half glared at her.

"But then that would mean this escape was staged too, by you." Brenda sighs.

"It wasn't. But I'm just saying maybe they anticipated something like this." It wasn't impossible but Thomas was shaking his head.

"No. We're going. I don't want to stand around and debate whether or not W.I.C.K.E.D actually let us go or if we escaped on our own. We'll just have to see when we get there." 

"Well, if you're sure Thomas." I said slowly. He looked towards me, nodding.

"I'm sure."

After grabbing something to eat from the shops scattered around the mall, we got into two separate cabs. There wasn't enough room for us to fit all in one. Jorge gave me a cash card and asked if I remembered the address, which I did. I was about to get in the front seat of the cab when Aris put his hand on my shoulder. "Get in the back with Minho." Glancing to my left, I found that Minho had instructed Ashoka to go with Brenda, Thomas and Jorge. She did so without question and he caught my eye as he got into the back.

I slowly moved out of the way and let Aris sit in the front, giving him the cash card as he told the driver where we were going. I watched Thomas' and the rest of our friends take off down the street as I closed the door. There was soft music playing from the speakers of the car and I looked over at Minho a little uncomfortably, wondering if he wanted something. We hadn't really been able to talk since we escaped. Did he still hate me? Not trust me?

Minho finally looked at me, I had been staring at him for a good minute. He licked his lips and took my left hand from my lap before lacing our fingers together and squeezing my hand. I slid from the right passenger seat to the middle so we were next to each other and watched Aris smirk from his seat up front as I leaned against Minho's shoulder. He didn't say anything and neither did I but that was fine. We'd have time to talk later I hoped.

The building we were dropped off at was dreary looking and rundown. The stairs to the apartment were crumbling and I was slightly worried about someone coming out and jumping us. Thomas knocked on the door to the apartment and everyone waited. The guy that answered the door had scars down his face, a deformed nose and messy black hair. He was glaring at us, face screwed up in a scowl. There was no denying it. This was Gally.

"Well, I'm glad you came because the worlds about to fucking end."