Deadly Atmosphere | Aris Jones [3]

6 || Old Foes

Piper's POV

The drive towards the Last City felt long as my nervousness was increasing. There were many things that I was nervous about going in this plan, but they seemed to circle around my brain the closer we got to WICKED. I was certain we were all worried, but showing our fear wasn't the best thing, not when we had come this far.

Once we arrived as close as we could get in a truck, we piled out and prepared for our walk into the lion's den. We grabbed our supplies, hiding them so that we blended in with other people. Of course, going into WICKED, we could only do so much.

I looked over at Gwyneth, who stumbled over, closing her eyes for a moment. "You okay, Gwyn?" I asked with concern.

She opened her eyes and looked at me, nodding her head. "Yeah, I'm fine."

I took her word for it, though, I made a mental note to keep an eye on her, just in case. Even Sonya and Aurora shot me odd looks, implying they noticed it, too.

"Alright, let's move," Jorge ordered. "We can't waste any more time."

We obliged and followed him.

Being outside the walls of the Last City was not how I expected it to be. There were people on the streets, looters, a chaos I wanted to avoid. It was nothing like the Scorch, where everything was deserted and abandoned. Nothing about this was empty or forgotten.

Through the clamoring, Jorge spoke up. "This place has really gone through hell!"

"We just gotta stay together!" Thomas replied.

"We are the voice of the voiceless!" someone's voice echoed throughout the streets from a radio, holding a walkie talkie up to his mouth. "They hide behind their walls, thinking they can keep the cure for themselves while they watch the rest of us wither and rot! But there are more of us than there are of them! And I say we rise up and take back what is ours! Let's bring back a victory!"

The crowd began to cheer as him and his friends rode up in a van, heading down the streets, rallying up as many people as possible.

"Let's keep moving!" Thomas shouted, leading the way this time.

"This is still a mad idea!" Maeve stated.

"We don't have much of a choice now!" I told her.

"Yeah, no turnin' back!" Gwyneth added.

We walked through tents and small tunnels, dodging people and avoiding any eye contact by keeping our heads low. We took small glances at each other, unsure of what to take in what we were seeing.

"That's it! That's our way in!" Thomas said, heading for the only entrance we found inside the city.

In between the walls was one door, reminding me of the walls from the Glen, just without a door in the middle of it.

"Thomas!" Jorge called out, catching up with him. "This is not what you're looking for! All these people trying to find their way in, you think you're gonna find something they can't?"

"Came this far! I'm not turning back now!" he protested.

I rubbed my neck, feeling a bit uneasy as we reached our destination. I knew something was wrong. That was when I looked up at the Berg-like object hovering over us in the sky. I swallowed hard and went on to getting up to the front of the crowd with the others.

"What the hell did we get ourselves into?" Frypan asked.

With people chanting over and over ("Let us in! Let us in!") and us shoving people to get out of our ways, we made it to the front, the trash people were throwing hitting me every once in a while.