As the door to the helicopter opened, a gust of cold wind flew in and woke the sleeping Gladers. Clara startled, sitting up from where she was slumped against a still-asleep Thomas.
She was too drowsy to process what was going on: the lights, the shouting, and the chaos weren't doing much to help. Frypan tugged gently on her arm then, pulling her towards the open door of the helicopter.
They had landed on a long strip of concrete, which led up to a large warehouse, illuminated by blinding floodlights. They were still surrounded by desert - which seemed to go on forever - and there were hundreds more soldiers all situated around the concrete and the building with guns on the lookout.
What were they protecting it for? Or from?
Clara leaned back over to nudge Thomas awake. He jolted awake in the same fashion she did, blinking confusedly, far too exhausted for it all. His face was still tear stained, and Clara could feel her heart breaking.
"We have to go." She half yelled to be louder than the background ruckus, in a way that let Thomas realise the urgency of it.
Clara let herself be helped out of the helicopter by a frantic soldier, glancing back to see Thomas scrambling to reach the small figurine Chuck gave him before he died. She slowed to allow him to catch up, stubbornly ignoring the men around all yelling at her.
"You gotta go!"
She didn't understand any of it. Obviously, something about the place was dangerous. They were all talking in a way that suggested something around was a threat, and that they needed to be protected.
But what was it?
Clara received her answer when the soldier beside her opened fire on the sand dunes in the distance. She jumped out of her skin, stumbling over her feet and letting Thomas stabilise her as she searched for where the shots were being fired.
On the sand she could see a number of figures all moving in erratic ways: almost inhumanely. Whatever they were, they were the threat. The soldiers were clearly trying to keep them from reaching the warehouse, and the guns seemed to be helping with that quite well.
Clara joined Thomas and their friends in sprinting towards the warehouse building. As curious as she was about the outside, she wanted far more to be in the safety of the building in front of her: assuming it was safe.
She really didn't have the energy for if it wasn't safe.
As the Gladers ran towards it, a number more soldiers ran in the direction they came from, all brandishing guns and yelling orders to one another. Clara could hear more gunshots behind her, but forced herself to push it out of her mind as she reached the doors of the building alongside her friends.
They slipped inside, instantly being met with a gust of cold air and a strong smell of hospitals. Or at least, what Clara imagined hospitals would smell like. It vaguely reminded her of the Med-jack hut, but much more potent.
The inside was exactly what you'd expect of a warehouse: filled with crates, small forklifts and a number of more soldiers and workers milling about the place. And no one was batting an eye at them.
They looked insane. Sweaty, exhausted, all scratched up; yet no one took a single look at them.
After a few minutes of frantically looking around for where they were supposed to go, the Gladers were shunned into a room off a small corridor from the entrance. Inside was a long table piled with food. Needless to say, the Gladers were starving.
It took them no time at all to eat it.
And then, as they were lounging around with stomachs stuffed with rice, cheese, and other foods, they remembered they had been shoved into the room with no explanation. They remembered that they knew nothing about the people who took them there. And they remembered the people they left behind when they escaped in the helicopter.
"What do you think they're gonna do with us?" Newt suddenly asked aloud, intrigue seeping into his tone more than anything else.
"Maybe they'll make us work here." Fry suggested.
"Or become like those soldiers." Winston offered up, and Clara shivered at the possibility.
It was then that the door swung open. Clara rocketed up immediately, desperate for answers, and found herself met with the face of a strange looking man.
He smiled down at her creepily, his sharp features looking threatening and his greying hair telling the girl that he was getting on in age. Clara didn't notice Thomas' glare on the man as he stood beside her.
"You kids all okay?"
There was an awkward silence in which the Gladers all looked at one another. It was the dumbest question they had heard in a long while.
"Sorry about all of this, we had a little bit of a problem."
"Sorry," Clara's tone gave off the impression she wasn't sorry - which she wasn't - but she continued anyway. "Who are you exactly?"
"I'm the reason you're all alive."
Clara had to stop herself from laughing. The other Gladers merely watched him, dumbfounded that he thought for a single second his input into their survival was greater than anything they battled themselves in the Maze.
"And I want to keep you that way, so please, follow me. We'll get you all squared away."
He walked them through the warehouse, past loud electrical components and many workers busying themselves away, seemingly intent on a specific location. Clara couldn't help but wonder what was involved in being 'squared away' as it sounded like they were going to be given trackers and put into prison cells.
Or maybe that was just the girl's pessimistic thoughts.
"My name is Mr Janson, I run this place. It's a safe place - a haven - from the terrors of the outside. But you kids should think of it as a home between homes."
"We're going home?" Thomas' question jolted her from her spiralling.
Janson's face twisted and he shrugged slightly, pointing up to the ceiling where a pipe was sparking, to tell them to avoid it.
"Sort of. Unfortunately, there won't be anything left of where your real homes are, but there is a place for you. Away from the Scorch, where WCKD can never find you again. That sound good?"
"It sounds like pure bliss." The girl muttered in reply.
"Why are you doing this for us?" Minho asked, sharing a glance with a wary looking Newt.
"The world is in a dangerous situation, we're all barely hanging on. You kids being able to survive the Flare is humanity's best chance of not dying out. You may have also known it makes you a target."
Janson led them up to a sliding door, where Clara caught a glimpse of white medical corridors behind it. It was a vast difference from the metallic, warehouse feel of where they were currently.
"Behind here is the start of the rest of your lives. And firstly, we need to do something about that awful smell."
Rude.
Janson wasn't wrong. The Gladers smelled terrible. Being offered a warm shower was the nicest thing Clara had experienced in a while; allowing herself to forget about all the tiring things weighing on her mind and simply just enjoy the water.
She could hear her friends chattering away in the distance: she could tell they were enjoying the warm wash as much as she was. But the loudest thing currently was the silence in the stall beside her.
Clara was worried about Thomas.
He was heartbroken about Chuck of course, but he hadn't had any time to really grieve him. She had no idea how they'd get any time, but if she knew anything, he needed it.
It wasn't healthy to just ignore people's deaths. Clara knew that from personal experience. Ignoring Nick's death was what ultimately led to the spiral she had back in the Glade, and if anything, she didn't want the same to happen to Thomas.
Not much later, the Gladers found themselves in a medical ward. They were scattered about the place: completing tests, getting injections, running on treadmills (which Minho seemed more than happy with).
Clara was waiting for a doctor to come see to her from where she was sat on a patient bed. All of her friends were busy with their own, with Teresa even being sectioned off from them all by a curtain.
She glanced across the hall to Thomas, where he was sat having his own tests being done. He was having blood taken - and a large quantity of it too. He looked uncomfortable by it all, yet somehow still managing to joke about it.
"Sure you got enough there?"
He caught the girl's eyes, and she smiled softly at him. He returned the smile, and she was very suddenly reminded of the kiss they shared not too long ago.
"You must be Clara."
A doctor in a long white coat and scrubs had approached her, waiting for some sign of confirmation. The girl nodded slightly, and the doctor took that as an indicator to close the curtain around her patient bed.
"We're just doing a routine check of you and all your friends, making sure you get the nutrients you were deprived of." They explained, and she smiled back to let them know she understood.
They busied themselves around her, not saying another word, and Clara shuffled on the bed to make herself more comfortable. They eventually took the time to explain they also needed check-ups to ensure they suffered no problems whilst stuck in there and that they were okay to join the others.
It hadn't really crossed Clara's mind before, but the Med-jacks - including her - weren't qualified for their jobs. But honestly, they hadn't done a bad job of it.
Clara completely missed the part where the doctor said others. The doctor didn't realise this, and found her lack of reaction to the bombshell of other kids quite peculiar.
"This will only sting a little." The doctor told her nonchalantly, not waiting a moment before beginning to roll up her sleeve.
She opened her mouth to speak, wanting to ask what was inside the needle, but was interrupted by the sharp pinch of pain that came with having it stabbed into her. She hmphed quietly in protest, but didn't say anything against it; knowing it was only to make her better.
"Just need to examine you now, make sure there's nothing wrong."
There was a hidden expression behind the doctor's eyes as they said that, and Clara felt her chest tightening in suspicion and nervousness. She simply just nodded, as she came to the conclusion she wasn't great at interacting with adults.
She let the doctor inspect her closely: the scratches on her arms, the bruises on her legs, luckily no lasting damage from the accident she had in the Maze. But there was something she didn't anticipate.
"There seems to be something stuck in the back of your neck."
How did that happen?
Clara's hand flew up to the back of her neck, feeling over where the doctor had observed it, and narrowly avoiding whacking them in the face. She couldn't feel anything wrong with it, but if the doctor said so, then there had to be something up with it.
Must've been during the fight with the Griever.
"Can you get it out?" She questioned nervously, taking her hand back down and folding it in her lap.
The doctor gently poked at whatever was stuck inside, eyeing it up closely. They then sat back in satisfaction, already beginning to line up a number of tools beside themselves.
"Yes, I imagine it will be relatively easy to. I just have to give you some anaesthesia to knock you out."
"Knock me out?"
Clara repeated the end of the sentence dumbfounded, and the doctor stared back at her as though she was stupid. She did feel pretty stupid in that moment.
"It's just painless that way."
She nodded, lips tightly together in a line. The doctor busied about preparing another injection, and then gestured for her to hold out her arm. She looked away as she was injected with it, and then let her hand drop down onto her lap as the light-headedness already began to take a hold.
Couldn't they have given me painkillers instead of making me unconscious?
She shifted into a lying position, eyes lazily drooping closed like she hadn't slept in days. She actually hadn't really slept in days, but surprisingly that hadn't affected her yet.
The curtain to the patient area pulled opened then, and she tilted her head to catch sight of Janson peering down at her in intrigue. The doctor turned their attention away from her - where she was nearly unconscious - to talk to him.
"Why are we doing this?"
Clara tried to fight to keep herself conscious while the doctor spoke to the man, but the anaesthesia she had been given was making her increasingly more drowsy. It wasn't long until she was out like a light switch.
"Her relationship with Thomas: that's what makes her valuable to us. Now complete the procedure."
And that's all she caught in the conversation before she floated off into unconsciousness.