YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING WTF NUMBER ONE IN FANDOM I LOVE YOU
As we drove, and I wrote in my tattered leather covered journal, I tried my best to not look out of the window at the world flying by.
My heart was heavy, but the only thing that I could do was shove all of those feelings deep inside the jar so that the only way they could come out was in word vomit form. My journal has seen more of me, and of this long, uninvited journey than anyone else. Even Mae. Some of the things that I haven't told her, only two people know. And one of them is dead. Killed by a Griever trying to save the love of my life so that I possibly wouldn't have to face any more pain than I have already in my short two and a half years of life.
Truth is, I think about the one's that we've lost all the time. The little twelve year old boy who sacrificed himself for the good of the people who had no idea where they were going. I still remember thinking that I was going to lose Mae. When Minho pulled her back and threw the spear right at Gally's chest, he not only saved her life, but he saved mine again as well. I still don't think she knows it was him—her head hit the ground pretty hard. I don't think she really cared who saved her either. The girl was only focused on the draining life of one of her best friends. After all, the last thing that boy did was give her and Tommy something to remember him by. He smiled as he faced his death.
I think that was finally when we realized that this was all real. When a twelve year old got murdered in front of us. Although we had seen a few deaths before then—Ben, Alby, Clint, Jeff—the realization that we were finally out, and we were going to face the world for the first time we can remember really set in.
I remembered that video. Ava Paige faking her own suicide. I remember how I didn't look away.
The reality of all of it seemed like one giant, fat, bloody joke to me.
Trapping kids in a Maze, then waiting for them to find a way to escape day after day. Maybe that's the reason Thomas was sent to us in the Box. Because we were taking too long and not making any progress. The things that changed in those three or four days made me question my sanity. Not just the fact that Ben had gotten stung during the day, or that three people survived a night in the Maze, bringing back another unconscious one, and the fact that another girl showed up. But it was also my buggin' feelings.
My whole life, we had been doing things by a routine. Including when Mae got here. After we got used to the fact that she was the only girl in the Maze, we continued to go about our days like normal. Sometimes it felt like she'd always been there.
But when things started to change, things between us did as well.
The moment I realized I had feelings for her was when the stone doors closed, separating us from each other for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime. We did everything together. Work, eat, our rooms were right next to each other... She had become the part of me I never knew I had been missing.
When I thought I lost her, I lost a part of myself that night as well.
Even though things ended up working out—she came back alive and unharmed, and we eventually got together, I still slap myself in the face for not growing a pair and telling her that I liked her in a friend way sooner. We could've had so much more time to just be with each other rather then running away from something different every five minutes and hoping that one of us didn't die.
I guess that was what we were doing now. I left her in guaranteed safety. The problem is, I was basically signing my own death warrant.
And as we drove through the night, I found myself unwillingly lifting my head to look at the world that continued to turn outside the window, showing absolutely no mercy for the people living on it.
The sun had begun to rise over the horizon, making me think of the person I wanted to rid from my mind right now. I didn't want to forget Mae, I couldn't even if I tried really hard. I just wanted to give the remorse and sorrow I felt for her and myself a break. Ever since I closed the door, leaving her to a clueless sleep, the hole that had been sealed shut inside me opened up once more. I've had to fight off tears a few times, none of which I let my friends see. When he had a pee break at about midnight, Tommy took my spot, and I sat in the back, leaning against the window and shutting my eyes.
I had prayed to all known gods for sleep, but it never came. I didn't expect it to. So after about an hour and a half of dwelling on the blackness that was behind my eyelids, I opened them and took out my journal, turning on the overhead light and writing down everything that sat in the pit of despair.
It was for myself, maybe one day for others, but right now, my journal was meant to stay a secret from everyone else. Mae knows I have one, but she would probably be a little freaked out if she knew about what lurked behind the worn leather covers. She would ask me if I was okay, and she would probably ask why I didn't tell her any of this sooner. I would say that it was because I didn't want her to worry.
But I would be lying.
"How much further?" I asked the two guys who were in front as they held a muffled discussion, looking at the map.
Tommy turned his head towards me, probably surprised that I wasn't sleeping. "Uh...not much farther."
Rolling my eyes, I placed my pen inside of my journal, closing it and gently putting it back into my backpack which sat at my feet. I leaned forward with a sigh, taking it upon myself to glance at the map in the center console.
"According to the map, we've only gone about an inch." I stated, looking back up at the boys, who had began to chuckle. Frypan lifted his head up to the ceiling, letting out another breathless laugh before he switched hands on the wheel. It felt good making people laugh. Especially my friends.
"Was that funny?" I asked them, causing more light laughter. Thomas turned back around, a smirk playing at his lips as he nodded.
"Yeah, kinda."
Nodding once, I relaxed back into my chair, proud of myself.
We drove for another half hour before Thomas finally pointed outside his window, "There. Look."
I crawled over the seat, careful of my leg to see a giant billboard that we had passed. It was dirty and worn, stained form the natural disasters this part of the country must've faced. But the words let me know that we were close to where we needed, and we had moved more than an inch.
MANDATORY INFECTION CHECK
2 MILES
I hummed through my lips quietly and sat back again, placing my fingernails in between my teeth. I didn't know what I was expecting, maybe to feel the slightest bit of comfort that Mae was back at the Right Arm, safe and sound. But I felt anything but that. I was jittery. Unable to sit still.
We drove for about ten more minutes before reaching a checkpoint that looked as though it had been through the bloody ringer. There wasn't a soul in sight—abandoned and rusty cars everywhere. Fry drove through all of the debris as Tommy and I stayed silent, taking it all in. Although we should be used to the dead earth already.
He finally stopped just as we reached a dark tunnel, and we all slowly pushed our doors open, eyes never leaving the blackness that sat in front of us, holding the unknown once more.
I placed my hands on my hips, looking skeptically at the only way to the city. Looking back at Thomas, he had his head down towards the crumpled map in his hands—I wondered if he had drawn the circle in the wrong place and led us five hours in the wrong direction.
"You want us to go in there?" I asked, raising my eyebrows as he lifted his head and stopped next to me. Frypan glanced in my direction, pursing his lips and crossing his arms over his chest, showing the same type of doubt that I was vocalizing. "I don't wanna come across as too negative, but—I mean if I was a crank, that's exactly where I would be."
Thomas pushed his toe into the dirt, almost as if he was a frustrated five year old. He dipped his head down once more and looked at our only sense of direction, shrugging. "I don't think we have much of a choice..."
My heart dropped as I looked back at the tunnel. Stupid WICKED. If they didn't exist then we wouldn't have to be here, and Minho would be completely fine. I wished I could just beat them all up at once.
Sighing, I sucked it up and swallowed my fear. "Alright, I get shotgun."
As I opened up the door to the passenger seat, I leaned over the center console, reaching into my backpack to grab my journal quickly and shove it into the waistband of my pants. I trusted Tommy with everything but being within arms reach of my most prized possession at the moment. Feeling it dig into my skin, I bit my nails as the other guys started to walk toward the truck. If Mae were here, she would tell me to take a deep breath. So that's exactly what I did. In through my nose, out through my mouth.
"Ready?" Fry asked as he slammed the drivers door shut. I impulsively nodded, my mind saying the exact opposite of what I was feeling. But if we got through this quickly, then we would be one step closer to saving Minho and possibly taking down WICKED.
He gently stepped on the gas pedal, causing the car to slowly move forward. I could tell he was nervous as well. I glanced toward Frypan as we entered the darkness of the tunnel, noticing how he immediately started to squint. Suddenly, the car dipped down into a puddle, causing me to let out a startled gasp. I felt a hand on my shoulder from behind, and I waved Thomas off, telling him I was fine without using my words.
"Hand me one of those lights back there, Tommy." I told him, and he did as I asked, turning his body around and pulling a bright lantern from the back of the car. He handed it to me, almost hitting the back of my head. He hissed through his teeth and muttered a quick apology before I grabbed the tool from him, rolling down my window.
Frypan turned on all the lights we had attached to the jeep, they were finally proving to be necessary. I flicked on the switch that turned on the bright white light, shining it along the walls to please my line of sight while Frypan focused on the road ahead of us.
"Well here we go." He spoke as we passed the first abandoned car. It was almost worse in here...the farther we went, the more rubble and rusted vehicles we passed, the harder it became to maneuver through them. I moved my light from the wall to in front of the car, providing him a little more light so it didn't seem so scary.
"Just take it nice and slow." I advised, hardly even listening to my words as I spoke them. I ducked my head down enough to see some of the parts that maybe Fry couldn't see, ready to warn him when something popped out at the three of us.
We drove through the maze of cars for about another minute in silence. My mind was swirling with all the nerves I was keeping in there, and the pain in my ribs where my journal was digging into. I ignored that though, if I made a hiss of pain the boys would probably want to know what it was. Tommy would at least.
As we passed another rusty truck, the feeling grew. The jitteriness that I had been holding in since the moment we had entered the place. I began to tap my foot on the floor or the jeep, and drum my fingers on my knee. I didn't know what it was, but as I took each deep breath, looking out the window at the menacing tunnel ahead, my eyes darted around, almost as if my body knew something that my brain didn't.
The sudden appearance of a creature in front of us made me break from my nervous state. "Woah, woah..." I muttered as Fry held his arm out in front of me as he pressed on the brake, hearing the squeak echo throughout the passage.
This crank was about fifty feet ahead of us, standing as if his top half was numb. Unmovable. I shined my light on him as he growled, showing all of his tattered clothes and the inhumanly looking skin he was wearing. Frypan and I looked back at Thomas, waiting for his signal.
"It's okay," He spoke, pointing his flashlight in front of us. "It's just one, so... Take it slow. Go around him. We'll be fine."
Fry sighed. "Take it slow..."
Famous last words, I thought as I let out a huff through my nose, clicking off my light and rolling the window up. We all kept our eyes on the crank in front of us as we took a minute to gather ourselves. This is exactly what we were afraid of. The unknown. And we were heading into a sea of it, if we already haven't. Cranks were probably crawling in this place. More than one. The only thing that was keeping me from telling Frypan to turn back, was the thought that I would have to face Mae if we ended up going back, and the fact that we left and didn't return with Minho. She and Vince would be furious. I would really rather not get into another fight with her.
The loud yelp of Thomas brought me out of my thoughts, causing my head to fly in his direction. I lurched back in my seat, seeing a woman crank place two clammy hands on the window next to Thomas. She had a wildness behind her eyes that made me want to jump out of this car and start running myself. Her hair was stringy, and her flowery blue dress swayed at her feet. This woman looked like she could've been a mother once, a friend, wife. But the virus ate at her brain until she was nothing but a body with a crazy mind, slamming her hands on a car window, begging for help.
"Please." She murmured at us, banging her palms against the glass once more. She tried the handle—the car was locked. "Help me. Please."
As she finished her sentence, another hand slammed on the window opposite of the woman crank. This man looked like he had reached the gone long ago. He had patches of his hair that were ripped out, and his skin was not a pale color, but more like an orange. He had scratches right under his eyes, and over his nose. His nails dug into the window as I pushed myself as far away as possible, the sounds of his growls muffled through the barrier between him and us.
"Okay, Fry." Thomas spoke as more cranks started to come out from various places around us. My head swiveled in all directions as they started to slam themselves into the windows, jaws clamping shut as though we were their next meal. "We gotta go."
Fry let out a yelp as another creature lurched at the glass closest to him, slamming their forehead against the glass in an attempt to break it. Blood splattered in front of him, and one look at the boy's face told me that he was traumatized in the matter of seconds.
"Fry, go. Go!" I squeezed his shoulder, trying to tell him to hurry at the same time I tried to comfort him.
"Floor it, Fry!" Thomas shouted his name as well.
"GO!"
The driver looked back at us, ignoring our shouts as he screamed. "Hold on!"
He pressed his foot on the gas, making Thomas fly back into his seat while I slammed my head on the headrest behind me. I winced in pain, closing my eyes for a moment before opening them again to see another crank on the hood of the jeep. Obscuring our view, the creature let out a monstrous scream before it clenched its fist and slammed it into the glass, immediately cracking it.
"Shit!" I muttered underneath my breath as Frypan started to swerve, turning the wheel from one side to the other. I held onto the center console while trying to bring my leg up to give me some sense of security so I wouldn't be sliding across the seat like Thomas probably was.
"Fry, shake 'em!" He yelled form the back, sounding flustered.
Frypan clenched his teeth. "I'm trying!"
The crank rolled form one side of the hood to the other, keeping a firm grasp on the overhead lights that I now wanted to smash to bits. The creature moved its way to Frypans window, shoving its fist into the glass once more as he tried to shake it off of us.
"Hang on!" He screamed as he jerked the wheel to the left. The crank suddenly flew off of the window, the growl that was sounding from its mouth turning into nothing but a faint sound in the distance.
I let out a sharp breath through my mouth, turning around in my seat to see the piece of metal Frypan had barely dodged. Just as I felt the adrenaline within me start to subside, I turned around.
"Frypan, watch out!" Thomas screamed from behind me, causing the boy to snap out of his daze and lift his head up.
I didn't even have enough time to take a breath before I felt the car flip to my side. Letting a strong curse word slip through my teeth, I used my arm as leverage as we crashed.
Pinching my eyes shut, I felt myself slam against the door of the car, then the roof. The pain coursed through my body as a dull ache—I was thrown around and entangled with the seatbelt, my head hitting the glass windshield as I clenched my teeth and pulled the belt from around my left leg. Then as quickly as the whirring and the dizziness came, it stopped, and we were upside-down.
Dust clouded around the inside of the car, the foul smell from the inside of the tunnel seeping through the cracks that the cranks had so ruthlessly created. We coughed for a few seconds, the dirt getting into our lungs. If Mae were here, she would be having an awful time.
"Everyone okay?" Thomas groaned, and we all muttered a quiet 'yeah'. I leaned my head on the glass my body was laying on, taking a moment to sit with the ache in my leg and my forearm. At this point, I had felt so much pain—so many things and plans have gone wrong that I was just used to it. We were stuck in an overturned car, our only form of transportation, with about a hundred cranks right on our tails. And yet, when the headlights flickered off, Thomas was still in desperate need to be the one to get us out of the mess he had gotten us into.
"Alright." He muttered. "Cover your eyes."
I did as he told us to, hearing a few seconds of him rummaging about before the sound of glass shattering made me flinch in my seat. I lowered my arms from my face, waving the floating dust out of the way before watching him crawl out through the window he had broken. He laid on the floor, flashlight in hand and his face scrunched together. I coughed again, the need to get out of the confines of the overturned car became too much. The claustrophobia ate at my brain, desperation of freedom becoming like an itch.
As Thomas stood up and tried to open Frypan's side, I maneuvered my body so that I was now sideways to the door, my shoulder pressing firmly against the glass. I squinted my face up in pain as I slammed my body into the car, hoping that it would be enough to finally make the door give way. I grunted with each push, my shoulder throbbing with the pain I was causing myself. On the third try, the door finally flew open, and I rolled out of the car with a yelp.
A sharp pain exploded in my forearm as I fell, traveling all the way up to my shoulder.
"You okay?" Thomas asked me as I stumbled to my feet. I nodded and lifted the sleeve of my jacket up, checking to see where all the pain was coming from. A small scratch was right below my elbow on the inside of my arm. I hissed through my teeth, but shook it off—it was just a scratch.
I did a quick scan over the rest of my body while Thomas tried to help Frypan out of the car. Feeling around my waist area, my eyes suddenly widened when I realized that the most important item was no longer tucked in the waistband. My journal was probably somewhere in the overturned car, and it wasn't with me.
I dropped to my knees and stuck my head back through the door that Fry was fumbling to get out of. I ignored his confused shouts at me, my brain going on tunnel vision to retrieve the leather covered book. Rummaging around the area I was sitting in, I grunted to myself as my arm started to throb. I furrowed my eyebrows—it wasn't a nasty scratch, it shouldn't be hurting this much. But again, I brushed it off and continued to fumble around the car for my journal.
"Newt! I need to get out!" Fry gently pushed my shoulder, and I glared up at him, moving my hands to look under the passenger seat.
"One minute, Fry." I muttered, finally feeling the cold leather buried underneath the chair. "I've got it, just hold on."
"Guys! We need to go!" Tommy shouted from above us.
With one strong tug, I was able to pull my journal out of the chair, and I immediately got to my feet, feeling Thomas' hand clench around my arm, helping me up. I placed the journal and pen back around my waistband, hoping that it stayed there this time instead of falling out.
"Fry, you good?" Thomas asked Frypan, who was still inside the jeep.
Just as I began to massage my arm once again, a loud growl brought me out of my pain induced daze. Tommy and I both looked up, seeing a single crank stumble towards us in an action that looked like it was trying to run. Everything was the same as a few minutes ago. Black ooze spreading out of it's mouth, ripped clothes, the same wild look in it's eyes. I had to admit, I was terrified of these things.
I reached for my gun, feeling how much ammo I had left in it. But when I didn't even feel a magazine inside the weapon, my heart dropped. Why didn't I check before we left?
"Shit."
Thomas huffed through his nose, clearly fed up and tired of all this. But nonetheless, he turned to Frypan, who had just gotten out of the car, and was on his knees, ready to stand. Once he saw the creature heading for us, he bent back down, reaching into the car once more.
"Frypan, we've gotta go. Now!" Thomas began to yell at the boy.
The crank began to get closer, the black ooze that was covering his body was no longer black, but red. Blood. He was only moving one arm, like the other one was hurting him in some way. The growls began to become louder, as did the sound of my heart beating inside my chest. My ribs vibrated with it, the desperation to run increasing.
"Fry, now!" I yelled at him as Thomas began to shout at him as well. The boy continued to rummage about in the passenger seat, and I seriously wondered if he had gone deaf or blind from the crash we all just experienced.
"Hold on!" He screamed at us, clearly not wanting to be yelled at right now.
The crank was now less than ten feet away, and for a moment, I seriously considered leaving my friends and running for my own life. But I stayed, despite the tingle that was starting to erupt in my legs and all over my body.
"Frypan!" Thomas cried, leaning forward and grabbing him by the waist. The boy suddenly stood up, holding a gun. He cocked it once, and right before the crank was about to attack, Frypan fired two shots into its chest, causing the creature to drop to the ground.
We all stared at its unmoving body, Thomas muttering a praise to Frypan instead of reprimanding him for taking so long.
Another growl caused my head to shoot up from the dead zombie, only to see two more running exactly like the one Fry had just killed. One more climbed over the top of the car, and I sighed, knowing that we had to run again.
"Go, go!" Frypan yelled at Thomas and I as he cocked the gun once more, preparing to fire towards the cranks again. The two of us obliged, turning our heads just in time to see the amount of cranks that had begun to run for us in less than a second. More were filing out of their hiding places, hoping to treat themselves to a feast.
Fry began running with us, deciding not to waste all of his bullets right away. Who knew how many he had in the first place. The three of us turned our bodies to the light at the end of the tunnel, not knowing how far we had to run to lose these crazy things.
Once again, we were being swept away by blind fate, not knowing the outcome of an impulsive decision we had made last night. We probably should've prepared better, we hardly had any food. What did we think? That we could just wonder into the city without any problems? We've dealt with this problem too many times. Some people would have thought we would've learned our lesson by now.
But we continued to put our friends above anything. Above ourselves, our safety, our natural needs. No matter the cost. I left Mae behind because it's what's best for her. We were going to save Minho because he's the one whose been enduring the torture that WICKED's brought upon him. After all, blood didn't make a family. And he was ours. So was Mae.
And as we ran once again, hearing the threatening growls from behind as the cranks chased us, I suddenly wished I hadn't left her behind.
"Woah, woah..." Thomas skidded to a stop, holding his arms out in front of Frypan and I. Cranks were now coming form both sides—I guessed that they had heard all of the commotion and decided to see what it was all about.
But we were cornered. Zombies coming from both sides as Frypan raised his gun and turned around, firing at the closest crank. Thomas guided him, telling him which way to shoot before the shots caused me to flinch. I stood there, seeing it all go down with absolutely nothing to do. I was practically shaking as I watched Frypan try to protect us with one single weapon. If Mae were here she would've made sure we had plenty of guns.
"Other way. Other way." Thomas encouraged him as Frypan turned around and fired another two shots at the oncoming cranks from behind us. He cocked the gun once before lifting his head, shouting the words that we were all dreading to hear.
"I'm out!"
I felt like crying. Like dropping to my knees and willing to all known gods that something would kill me before these things did. I've came close to death many times. But none frightened me as much as this. I don't know whether it was the fact that the crazed screams were echoing throughout the tunnel, ringing like a broken bell in my head, or that I didn't have the one person who was able to calm me down in any situation. When I was with Mae, I didn't feel any of that. Life or death, I always felt safe with her. I'd never felt more helpless in my life.
Cranks surrounded us, getting closer by the second. I sighed through my mouth, starting to remember the things in my life that I wish I didn't. My head was a whirl, trying to find a way out while wanting to drop dead at the same time.
But just as I thought that the end was finally here, and I would have to say goodbye to this cruel, cruel world, the sound of an engine roaring caused me to turn my head towards the noise.
A truck mercilessly ran over at least five cranks heading straight for the three of us before it skidded to a stop, and the person I thought I wouldn't see until the Safe Haven popped out from the sunroof.
In that moment, Mae, I knew you were my savior. As I watched you rise out of the hole in the top of the car, looking more beautiful than I'd ever seen, I felt the need to get on my knees and praise you. Give thanks to whomever would listen and tell them how grateful I was that you were either awake that entire time I said my goodbye to you, or you had woken up shortly after. Either way, you saved our lives once more.
"Get in!" She was holding two guns, as per usual, shouting at us to hop inside the car she had come to save us in. Shots fired from the end of her weapon, and I smirked to myself before running toward the vehicle, jumping in the back and ignoring the ache in my body.
Jorge and Brenda were with her in the front, and as soon as Thomas was in the car, he shouted for Jorge to go. The old man stepped on the gas as Mae lowered herself back down into her seat which was right in front of me.
I looked over my shoulder for only a moment at all of the cranks that we were leaving behind before my head bobbed forward, and I was lifted a few inches off of the ground due to a bump we had gone over too quickly. The car was now submerged in the light, no longer in the claustrophobic tunnel that almost ended our lives. My mouth was agape, confused at how these three had managed to get to us at the exact time where we had nowhere else to turn. How did they even know we left?
Turning around to face Mae, she adjusted herself in her seat, checking her ammo before shoving the gun back into her holster.
"You see, I probably should be upset." She murmured, tucking a piece of her loose hair behind her ear as she turned around to face the three of us. "But now I just feel left out."
In an impulsive decision, I lurched my body forward, not hesitating to embrace her into one of the biggest hugs I've ever given her. One hand wrapped around her head, the other one around her shoulders, I was reunited with the love of my life who had once again, disobeyed me. But I didn't care. She was here.
"I'm impressed. You guys almost lasted a whole day." Jorge teased us as I pulled away to give Mae a kiss. But she leaned backwards, and I furrowed my eyebrows.
"You're gonna have to find someway to make up for that shit." She smirked and pat the top of my head before turning around, leaving everyone in the car to giggle at her stubbornness, and probably my offended facial expression.
Brenda turned around in her seat like Mae had previously done, furrowing her eyebrows and shaking her head as through she thought that all of us were extremely stupid. I didn't disagree with her.
Thomas scoffed. "We're sorry. We didn't wanna bring you guys into this."
Maisy turned around once more while Branda and Jorge exchanged knowing glances. "You did not just say that Thomas. I'm gonna pretend like you didn't say that, and I'm gonna pretend that you said that the reason you left us behind was because you weren't thinking. Either that, or all three of you were sleepwalking. At the same damn time."
"Hey, I think what he's trying to say is thanks for saving us." Frypan spoke up from behind Tommy and I, giggling slightly as he said the words.
I looked at Mae once again and shrugged, leaning forward to press an innocent kiss where her collarbone met her neck. She hummed slightly, and I muttered a question I'd been wondering ever since I saw her pop out of the roof of the car. "How'd you know I was gone? Did...Did you hear anything?"
The girl scoffed once more, leaning her head against her headrest and bringing her hand up to touch the back of my head, a nice gesture. "Sometimes I just wake up in the middle of the night. And when I do, you're usually there. This time you weren't."
"Did you have a nightmare?" I asked, slightly upset that I wasn't there to comfort her when she needed it the most. The girl just pursed her lips and cocked an eyebrow, telling me the answer I was dreading to hear.
Just as I was about to respond, Jorge spoke. "Don't get your hopes up. That checkpoint back there, that was the city's last defense. If that was overrun, the chances are the city is too."
I turned my head toward the window, wanting to see the world as it passed by like usual. But what I saw was not what I expected in the slightest. Leaning away from Mae, I devoted my full attention to the stone walls outside the city, which I could only guess was to keep the crazy people from infiltrating WICKED's home base.
"Yeah, unless they figured out some other way to keep the cranks out." I spoke, causing everyone to look out of their window at the same skyscrapers I was witnessing, only with the barrier protecting the ones that needed to be destroyed.
Jorge suddenly slammed on the breaks, causing me to once again, lurch forward as I almost slammed my head into Mae's headrest. He put the car in park, and everyone began to file out. I climbed over the back, using my hands to direct my leg from doing anything stupid and making me fall on my face in front of everyone. I jumped out of the car, taking a few steps toward the end of the cliff we were standing on.
It was quite beautiful. The rolling hills in the distance, the trees swaying with the cool breeze that ruffled the leaves. My bangs blew into my eyes, and I carelessly pushed them out of my face only to have them blow back over my forehead. I rolled my eyes, squinting to see the dull city that seemed so lifeless from up here. The town around it was destroyed, nothing but rubble like the other things we've become so used to. But the actual city, full of glass and buildings that still looked like they were working, all sat untouched within the protection of the concrete walls.
"Funny." I muttered, speaking my thoughts aloud. "Spent two years trapped behind walls tryna break out. And now we wanna break back in..."
"Yeah. Hilarious." I didn't even have to turn around to know whose voice it was. I lowered my head to my chest, smiling at the girl's sassiness as Jorge scoffed.
The footsteps behind me became louder until I felt a delicate hand on my lower back. I turned toward her as she stepped in front of me, her back facing the edge. Mae brought her hand up to gently brush the bangs out of my face like she always did, providing the same amount of comfort that had I had been lacking within the past five hours. I felt clingy now. Like I wouldn't let this girl go even if I had the choice to let her go to the Safe Haven. Now that I knew how it felt to be without her, and how it felt to be saved by her, I didn't wanna bloody ruin that for anything.
But when I saw the distant look in her face, I knew that something was eating at her mind. "You okay?" I asked as she removed her hand from my hair.
Mae nodded. "Yeah, 'm fine. Just something Vince told me before we left."
"You told him you were leaving and he let you?"
"It's not like he could stop me." She shrugged. "I would've still gone to look for you even if you had been gone for months."
I furrowed my eyebrows. "Why?"
Stupid question, I suddenly thought, reading the face that she made at my word. The girl scoffed as if the answer was obvious. "Uh, because you guys mean a hell of a lot for me, and Minho is my best friend. You can't go save him by yourselves you know..."
Pausing, her words sunk into my brain. I should've known that she was gonna come after us, whether she had woken up during the night or not. Minho wasn't only our friend, but he was Mae's as well. I mentally slapped myself in the face for not realizing that she was in the Maze with us as well, and she was closer to Minho than most of the other guys there.
"I'm sorry. I guess I didn't really think how you would feel if we just left you there." I scratched the back of my neck while she looked at the floor, then back up at me. "I just... There's no guarantee that we'll make it back from this, a-and I know that. So I wanted to make sure that you were safe."
Mae shook her head and placed both hands on the side of my face, her thumb gently caressing the scar below my eye I had gotten long ago. She looked into my eyes, speaking words that never failed to ignite a fire within my heart.
"If you go down, I go down with you."
There were moments in my short years of living where I wanted to just lock myself in a closet and never come out. I didn't want to face the world because I was ripped into being alive. And life is pain, and life is horror. Then I saw you. And my god, you were alive and it was spectacular.
Just as I was about to speak to her again, probably to say some cheesy shit that I would regret, or to kiss her, or to tell her that I was completely and totally in love with her, Thomas spoke, bringing us back into the harsh reality that we still had a mission to take care of.
"Jorge. How do we get in?"
The old man turned to him, sighing. "Don't look at me, hermano. Those walls...I guess that's WICKED's answer for everything."
I looked down at Mae, who was now facing the city, the same distant look in her eye as she crossed both arms over her chest, deep in thought. The last time she had an interaction with WICKED, being this close to them was when she was being tortured for days on end, and when she saw her mother murdered right before her eyes.
"Well we're not gonna figure it out from up here." Brenda spoke to all of us as Mae removed her gaze from the buildings ahead.
"Let's go."
//
he is so in love with her i literally can't.
all expectations i have now for a future boyfriend are based on the couple that i created so i guess the only thing i can say now is:
🎶why is it so hard to accept the party is over🎶
anyway
please ask questions abt the characters in the first chapter of TDC part of this book, i really wanna do a q&a at the end but i can't do that if YOU DON'T GIVE ME QUESTIONS TO ANSWER. LITERALLY ANYTHING IDC IF ITS STUPID JUST COMMENT RANDOM QUESTIONS OR ELSE 😡
:) love ya