Echoes ~ (Book Two of The Elite Series)

Chapter 2

Minho got up after a few minutes, a smile growing on his face.

Thomas had just been escorted into the room, gazing around at everyone and everything, looking as if his brain was still trying to register it all.

Newt and Emma scooted down a little so Thomas could sit between him and Minho, who had slipped back into his spot.

"....and there was this big, loud explosion, and these guys came out of nowhere. Started shooting up the place," Caleb paused, eyes passing briefly over Thomas.

"It was intense," Gideon added, sliding another forkful of mashed potatoes into his mouth.

"They pulled us out of the maze and brought us here." Caleb finished.

"What about the rest?
The other people left behind in the maze, what happened to them?" Newt's question drew Caleb's attention to him.

"I don't know. I guess, WICKED still has them." He replied, seeming almost downcast.

"How long you guys been here?" Newt's next question flew out almost just as soon as the other boy had answered.
Caleb was quick to respond.

"Not long. Just a day or two."
He tured his head in the direction of a table near the far side of the room, everyone else turning to look as well.

A boy was sitting on the end of it by himself, his hood up, sort of leaning on his arms, staring at the table in front of him.
"That kid over there, has been here the longest. Almost a week."

"His maze was nothing but girls." Gideon responded, smirking slightly.

"Really?" One of Minho's eyebrows rose.

"Some guys have all the luck."
Caleb glanced at Newt and Emma.

She felt a flicker of amusement go through her then, feeling Newt's arm go around her waist, and she placed her left hand on where his rested just above her hip, slightly leaning into him.
Ah he's jealous.

All conversation stopped as Jansen, the man from before, made his way to the front of the room, what appeared to be a clipboard in his hands.

"Good evening, gentlemen. Ladies. You all know how this works. If you hear your name called....please rise in an orderly fashion, join my colleagues behind me....where they will escort you to the eastern wing. Your new lives are about to begin."

He listed off the names of five boys, and three girls, all who went up to line up next to the personnel Jansen had indicated, and all of them looking thrilled to have been called.

A groan of disappointment swept through the room.
"Now, now, don't get discouraged," he assured the small crowd. "If I could take more, I would. There's always tomorrow. Your time will come. Go on, eat up."

With that, the kids followed Jansen and the other adults out of the room, through a door on the far right side of a glass window that let them see into a hallway that ran along the cafeteria.

"Where are they going?"

"Far from here. Lucky bastards."

"Some kind of farm. A safe place. They can only take in a couple of people at a time," Gideon explained.

Thomas suddenly left from his seat, eyes on something at the far side of the room. "The hell?"
He breathed.

Teresa was being escorted by doctors through the hallway that bordered the cafeteria.
"Hey, Teresa? Teresa!"

Craning her neck so she could see what was going on, Emma saw Thomas  looking anxious, talking with one of the men at the doors.
But after a moment he returned, looking troubled, in thought.

"What did they say?" Sheasked him as he sat back down.
Although she hadn't known Teresa for very long at all, Emma still felt some sort of connection with her.
Maybe it was because they were the only two girls in the group, she reasoned.

"They need to do more tests," Thomas muttered, eyes drawn over to the partition glass he'd last seen Teresa through.

Pursing her lips, Emma felt sympathy.
The two had clearly started becoming close. With similar attitudes and personalities, Thomas and Teresa made a pretty good match.

For a few minutes the group ate their meal in relative silence, only broken by the occasional small comment.

Reaching her right hand out to take a drink, her left holding Newt's right one, Emma found herself releasing a pained gasp of surprise.

She couldn't move, a hot, white numbing pain lancing up her left side, like lightening. Emma's right hand was gripped tightly around her cup, and she began to shake uncontrollably, water sloshing around in her cup, and all over onto the table.
Terror filled her, as she felt like she had inexplicably become trapped in her own body.

Distantly, she became aware of the shouts of her friends, of Newt, worried faces swimming across her vision.
Suddenly her hand was able to unclench from the cup.
Hand flexing as the metal cup levitated between her fingers, it was then was crushed from an invisible force, before dropping to the table.

Body sliding, Emma fell from her seat at the table, collapsing to the floor, unconscious.

Hey everyone, I am so, SO sorry that it took this long to get an update for Echoes.😖😭😭
To put it shortly, I had alot of crappy stuff go on, but now I'm back with updates.🤓📑📚

Please let me know if you enjoyed this chapter, and what part.
What do you think happened to Emma?
Any suspicions?🤔🧐
I'd love to hear them, and I missed reading and responding to you guys, and....now I'm rambling.
Sorry.😅