When Clara woke, her senses were overwhelmed by the bright light invading her eyesight. Blinking slowly, she adjusted to the sun, and found a blonde boy sat on the end of the couch she had been resting on.
Newt was shaking his head at her, but he couldn't push away the relieved smile that came to his lips. She grinned back sheepishly, sitting up so she could shake off her sleepiness.
"You shouldn't have left without us." He scolded, only half harshly. "What if a Crank found you?"
One did, she thought to herself, but it wouldn't help if she mentioned it. Finding herself now frowning, a feeling of guilt was settling into her bones, the adrenaline from what she had done spontaneously the night before having worn off.
"I know, I'm sorry." She cringed, raking her hand through her tangled hair and giving Newt a hopeless expression that she hoped he could understand.
"I was just impatient. Especially with Jorge..." She trailed off, voice getting quieter as she realised he was probably around to hear it.
It was then that she looked up, eyes searching in alarm, for everyone else she was missing. She relaxed upon spotting all of her friends. Even when she saw Teresa hanging over a sleeping Thomas, she could only feel comforted by the presence of them.
"Clara," Newt's tone caused her eyes to snap right back to him. "You've always led us more than anyone here. You didn't have to go alone, we would've followed you. We trust you."
She could see the upset in his eyes, and wished more than anything that she hadn't left without them. But she couldn't take back what she already did.
"I'm sorry Newt. I really am. I wasn't thinking straight and I-" She felt a lump form in her throat as she realised something. "I felt hopeless not looking for them. It was like when Nick got stuck in the Maze. Except this time, I knew there was something I could do to help. It was stupid of me."
She shrugged, eyes darting away as she forced away tears. Newt's gaze had softened, but the frown hadn't left his face. He knew that his friend always wanted to take care of them, but until then, he didn't realise just how out of control she felt when she didn't know if they were okay.
"Just don't leave us again, okay?" He said eventually.
Clara nodded, still not looking at him. Newt caught her off-guard then, tugging her into a half hug. One of his arms settled around her shoulders as the other remained by his side in a weak attempt to appear casual.
She threw her arms back around him, realising how long she had gone without any sort of embrace from her friend. She felt so relieved then, and Newt did too, as the reality of what their lives had become came rushing in and the hug acted as a shield around it all.
"Save some hugs for the rest of us."
Clara could hear Minho's playful pout in his voice. She pulled away from the blonde, Minho not even giving her a chance to breathe before sweeping her into a hug and pressing a sloppy affectionate kiss to her forehead.
She wiped her head, giving him a disgusted look as he smiled back at her proudly. He slung his arm casually around the blonde boy beside him.
"Don't you dare leave us again." He warned the girl, although his tone was more relieved than anything else.
She bit back a smile, looking about the room properly for the first time. Her other friends were sprawled across two more couches, with Thomas and Teresa taking up one for just the two of them. Brenda was eyeing them, whilst Aris and Frypan were watching in fear of what Jorge was doing.
Clara wasn't sure how she didn't notice the man's antics before. In fact, she was slightly concerned about how she had been so oblivious to it.
Jorge was snarling in the face of the man who welcomed her into the party. The man was tied to a chair by rope drawn around his waist and wrists. Somehow, despite his predicament, he didn't look afraid of the yelling man in front of him.
"Where are they?" Jorge demanded. "Tell me!"
"What's going on?" Clara asked Newt in a low voice, leaning forwards on the couch to catch a better look at the bruises beginning to bloom on the man's face, which she guessed was inflicted by Jorge's intimidation tactics.
"Jorge wants Marcus to tell us where the Right Arm is." He responded, a little exasperated.
"That's Marcus?" Clara hissed back.
She wasn't entirely sure why she was surprised. She showed up to his house after all, and he greeted her.
Marcus's face was curled into a sly smirk as Jorge seized the front of his shirt, growing increasingly more agitated as the seconds dragged on. Clara could feel a similar irritation spreading in her chest as she watched the scene.
And so she was easily drawn to something else when Newt's weight beside her shifted away, and the blonde boy had risen to greet Thomas as he woke. Clara found herself doing the exact same, hovering beside her friend as she eagerly peeked at the barely conscious boy to see if he was alright.
She didn't get a second to scan her eyes over him before their gazes met. She felt a pang in her chest, remembering the visions she had seen what only felt like ten minutes earlier. She knew they weren't real, but she couldn't get the images out of her mind, feeling them burned on the back of her eyes.
While her friends greeted Thomas with cheery and relieved statements, she gave him a soft smile that tugged at his heart. She couldn't recognise the look in his eyes, something foreign in their shine that she couldn't quite place.
Because while Clara had envisioned him kissing Teresa, he had kissed Brenda but pictured her.
It was a whole mess.
Feeling her cheeks flooding at the eye contact, Clara shifted her gaze away and back to Jorge. He had thrown a number of punches since they had been distracted.
"Where are they, Marcus?" Jorge pressed, teeth gritted.
"This is Marcus?" Thomas asked, leaning forwards, now enraptured by the scene.
"This kid caught on quick." Marcus said with a smirk, causing Thomas to squirm uncomfortably under his focus. "Are you the brains of the operation?"
"Let me make you a deal." Jorge cut in before Thomas could respond. "We'll take you with us."
"I've burned that bridge long ago."
Clara felt a hand on her arm and then Minho's figure was by her side. He looked calm and collected as usual, but the pinch between his eyebrows told the girl that worry was beginning to settle in his stomach.
"Just me or do you think Jorge's getting nowhere with this?"
And as if on cue, Jorge had kicked over Marcus's chair in one stride, lurching over the man knocked back on the ground and snarling in his face.
"Talk. Talk!"
"Okay!" The word had shot from his mouth in an instant. "Jesus.."
Jorge hadn't moved from where he was leaning over Marcus, spurring him on to start talking.
"They like to move around, but they got an outpost in the mountains. It's a long way away, and you got half of WCKD on your asses." Marcus cracked a smile. "You're not gonna make it."
"Not on foot." Jorge retorted, and Clara could feel amusement bloom in her chest when the next words left Jorge's lips. "Where's Bertha?"
Any trace of happiness was wiped from Marcus then.
"Not Bertha..."
Only a few minutes later, Clara found herself squished into the back of Marcus's beloved car Bertha.
While Newt lounged in the passenger seat beside Jorge, and Minho, Teresa and Brenda all had their personal space in the seats behind them; Clara, Thomas, Aris and Frypan were all confined to the boot of the car. Aris and Frypan were chatting away to Minho, leaving Clara and Thomas sitting at the very back of the car, awkwardly nudging each other's feet with their own.
The first ten minutes of the ride was silent for the two of them. Clara was avoiding every look Thomas shot at her, knowing that Newt had filled him on on what he had missed; namely her disappearance to go and search for him. And for some reason, him knowing that made her cheeks burn with embarrassment.
"You left without everyone?" Thomas broke the silence, his voice quiet enough that the others weren't aware of their conversation.
"I got impatient. Wanted to find you." She said breezily. "Stupid idea."
The ghost of a smile found Thomas's lips, and when Clara glimpsed quickly to him, she found the same on her own. He nudged his foot against hers purposefully.
"You get to Marcus's before them then?"
She nodded.
"I had that drink as well. Knocked me out cold too."
"Did you see visions?"
The question came quickly and took her off guard. She hadn't questioned the possibility of Thomas also seeing things like she did. Her stomach flipped at the thought.
"Yeah, I did." He watched her expectantly. She had to think of a way to put it without exposing herself too much. "I just saw some of you guys..." She hesitated, trying not to cringe. "In WCKD uniform."
"Me and Teresa?"
She glanced away and outside to the open land they were leaving behind. That was all the answer Thomas needed.
He hummed thoughtfully, now watching as the car navigated a narrow road into the mountains. The sun disappeared behind the rocks, casting a shadow on the car and shrouding the road ahead in mystery.
"I, uh-" Thomas's abrupt and awkward voice brought Clara's attention back to him. "I saw something too."
"You did?"
She found herself instinctively leaning in, fully invested in whatever he had to say, when she felt them lurching to a stop. Thomas's eyes snapped away and to the front of the car, his brow furrowing as he tried to work out why it was they had stopped.
Rows upon rows of old, rusted cars laid ahead blocking the road. Jorge cursed quietly under his breath in Spanish, and then breezily urged them all out of the car. Clara scrambled to get out from the back as quickly as possible, having felt a twinge in her leg waiting to cramp up from the inability to stretch.
"Guess we're on foot from here." Jorge concluded, beginning to wander through the sea of abandoned vehicles.
The rest of the group followed. Clara found herself peering into the first car she ended up beside. She noted that nothing about the interior seemed wrong, but the windshield had a small hole in it, from what looked like a bullet. Although the glass surrounding it had cracked and splintered, the windshield as a whole remained intact, only clearly much weaker.
The girl couldn't help but wonder why someone had been shooting at the car.
And then, like she willed it into existence, she heard a shot.
"Everyone take cover!"
"Hide!"
Instinctively, Clara dove down beside the car, flattening herself against the side in an attempt to make herself invisible. Heart pounding out of her chest, the only thing keeping her grounded was the feeling of Thomas crouched beside her.
There was a moment of silence, more intense than she had ever experienced before, and Clara strained her ears and eyes to try and capture any sign of where the shooters were aiming from.
Another shot rang out.
This time, Clara could hear the bullet hit the car adjacent to the one they were resting against. The dent was on the side of the car in plain sight of them.
Thomas gently tugged on her sleeve, jolting her from her trance so she could follow him stealthily moving around the car and to the other side, where they were hopefully hidden from the shooters.
"Shit, be careful." Jorge murmured from the girl's other side.
She narrowly avoided jumping out of her skin at the unexpected figure, wanting badly to question how the hell Jorge had managed to appear right beside her, but refraining. His face was contorted into concern, a heavy frown framing his expression.
"Marcus led us into a fucking ambush."
"Is everyone good?" Clara called out in worry.
Her heart settled slightly when she heard a chorus of responses from her friends. And as she heard their voices, she realised she could glimpse a few of them from where she was, their heads peeking out from the sides of cars or through the windows of the vehicles.
"Where are the shots coming from?" Newt's voice came from behind a few cars over.
If only we knew the answer to that.
"We gotta create a diversion," Jorge said suddenly, pressing a makeshift bomb into her hand. Instinctively, her hand curled around it. "Here. On my count, you throw it, and I'll press the button."
"This is insane." She responded simply.
"Everyone, get ready to run back to the truck! And cover your ears!"
A laugh bubbled from Clara's chest before she was aware of it. Thomas had murmured a soft reassurance in her ear, but it had gone straight out the other side as she felt her nerves kick into overdrive.
"One, two-"
The cocking of a gun, only two feet away, halted everything.
"-Drop your weapon."
The voice was cold and steady. The stranger paused, allowing them a moment to obey, but when none of them moved, they spoke firmly once again.
"I said drop it. Put your hands up."
Clara tilted her head slightly, catching a glimpse of the person threatening them. Although their face was shielded by a bandana, the girl could tell they were young, only her age. Long dark dreadlocks fell over their shoulders, and the gun grasped in their hands was that of a shotgun.
A second person stood just behind her. Hair scraped back into a blonde ponytail, they were also Clara's age, youth pouring from their eyes and evident in the glow of what little Clara could see of their face.
"Up, now!" She snapped.
"Get up, move over there." The first girl continued the other's demands.
Clara set down the makeshift bomb on the ground beside her, before rising to her feet and congregating with her friends. Despite their tired and anxious faces - more than understandable considering - she couldn't help but feel grateful she was with them all. She couldn't imagine doing it all alone, like she could've ended up after the stunt she pulled.
"Keep your hands in the air."
Every sentence the strangers said felt more and more threatening. It was only the blonde girl now, ensuring no one stepped out of line as her friend analysed each one of them.
"Just don't shoot. Please, we're not a threat." Clara pleaded with them, forcing eye contact with the blonde girl, as if begging her to remember her humanity.
"Aris?"
And that simple question had proved her right, since it had come from one of the strangers.
The first girl tugged down her bandana, her eyebrows knitted together in a question as she searched the boy's expression. Clara watched his eyes light up as he took a step towards her.
"Harriet?" Aris's tone of disbelief yet more so relief set Clara at ease.
The girl darted towards to embrace him, laughs bubbling from her chest as she clutched him close. It took less than a second for the other girl to join their hug, sharing their sentiment.
The others looked amongst themselves, and Clara saw the question on each one of their faces; the potential revelation she had just come to herself.
Was this it? Had they made it to the Right Arm?