As the flaming yellow sparks come to an end the rusty blue door is kicked open by a determined Thomas. Him, Newt and Harriet walk into the crate to see about 60 kids chained to their seats. "Aris." He breaths out, walking up to the much changed boy, but aside from his natural changes he has bruises covering his body. "Hey, you guys ok?" he asks, seeing Sonya sitting next to him.
"Yeah, we're fine." Aris assures.
Newt and Thomas carry on down the crate as Harriet hugs Sonya and Aris.
"It's okay. You guys are safe. All right? Just hang on." Thomas encouraged the sacred teens.
Making it to the back of the train, Thomas turns around to look at Newt. "He's not here."
Too disappointed to reply Newt just faintly nods his head. "I'll go let the others know." he mumbled.
As he walked out of the doorway of the crate he saw a pacing Athena and the others having small conversations, seeing the blonde they all turned to look at him, only Athena just had her back to the group. "Is he here?" Fry asked.
"No he's not." Newt said quietly, before going back in to help the other kids out.
As Fry turned round to comfort Athena he looked to see she wasn't standing there anymore, about to go after her Brenda grabbed Fry's shoulder causing him to look back at her and Jorge, "Give her a bit of space, Hermano."
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Bursting through the door to her and Newts room as she closed the door behind her, leaning back against it she collapsed on the floor sliding down the door, tears falling down her cheeks.
Minutes of crying Athena's breaths became shortened, as it felt like her throat was closing up, she quickly got up and ran into the small attached bathroom, and threw the toilet seat up. Throwing her head into it and her food coming back out through her throat.
Hearing the door behind her she didn't turn to look, hearing the tap run behind her, she then felt someone's hand on her back rubbing circles into it. "Drink this." Newt said holding a glass of water and he was crouched beside her.
Removing her head from the toilet seat she grabbed the drink and took a few sips spitting some back out from the taste. "I'm sorry." she mumbled.
"For what?"
"For letting you down. And Thomas. And Fry. Especially Minho." she had a tear running down her face.
"Love, you have nothing to apologise for, without you god knows how any of us would have thought of a plan. No one blames you, no one resents you, we are all just sad. And I know you are too so come here." he said as he cleaned her face with a towel, and brought her into a hug.
"I love you." she said into his shirt.
"I love you too." he replied, rubbing circles in her back.
"Come on, brush your teeth, then Vince has an announcement for the newbies." he said, pulling her up.
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"All right, listen up!" Vince exclaimed and stood on a stage, Finn stood a bit behind him. "I know you've all been through hell. I wish I could say our troubles are over. But we're not through this yet. WCKD is still out there. And they're not giving up. 'Cause you got something they want. They took you because you're immune to a plague that's wiping out the human race. And they think you're worth sacrificing to find a cure. Well, I don't. So in two days, when we get this tub of rust seaworthy, we're getting the hell out of here. We're going to go to a place where WICKED will never find you. A place you can start over. A place you can call home." As Vince finished his welcoming speech, Finn walked forward seeing Newt and Athena sat in an empty window space at the back, his arm around her waist.
"And," Finn spoke up "I would like to give a hug round of applause for the woman who made the whole plan to save you all, and give a round of applause for Athena!" he shouted.
Athena watched as the whole group of teenagers and adults all looked at her with proud happy smiles, all silently thanking her as they clapped and cheered for their freedom.
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Play - Do I Wanna Know by Arctic Monkeys
"May I help you?" Brenda asked Jorge as he unzipped the ankle part of her jeans looking at her healed Crank bite.
"It looks good." Jorge expressed, "How are you feeling?" he asked.
"Awesome." Brenda replied.
"With that scar and new hair, you look it." Athena replied, slightly sarcastically as she walked into the room and sat on the hood of the car Brenda was leaning on.
"I was just asking." Jorge defended.
"I know, I know, you're just asking. Everybody's just asking. Athena's the only person who after three months has stopped asking, and I mean she has one too and no one is asking her. Don't worry. When I Crank out, you'll be the first to know ok?" she said walking away.
"Well she's immune and you're not!" Jorge shouted after her.
"Really." Athena said, giving him a look.
"I always get the last word in, hermana." He replied.
"Mh-hm."
"But she does have a point, how's yours doing?"
As she moved Newt's red flannel shirt to the side and lifted her black t-shirt up and her black black cotton shorts down slightly, she revealed three whitened out claw marks. "They're fine. Nothing really became of them to be honest. They were just there then the next day they were scarred over."
"The joys of being immune. Some of us don't have that privilege, consider yourself lucky." Jorge said as he went back to working on the car.
"Ye well, there aren't as many perks as you think." she replied.
"What do you mean?" he said giving her his full attention again.she didn't reply she just looked down at her left bandaged up wrist pulling on loose strings. "Athena. What's wrong?"
"Nothing, it doesn't matter, see you at dinner." Athena replied, as she jumped off the car and walked out.
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"Hey, Aris." Athena said walking in, the boy who is now taller than her stood up and engulfed her in a hug. "You doing okay, buddy?" she said quietly.
"A lot better than I was. Thank you for that by the way." he expressed as they released from the hug, she just winked in reply as she went to sit on the table near the window next to Brenda after greeting Sonya.
"Must say though, took you guys long enough to rescue us." He joked.
"It's good to see you, too, bud." Thomas replied. "So what happened?"
"I fought back." Aris started to explain. "Tried to anyway."
"You're lucky you found us at all. They had moved a lot." Sonya confessed. "How did you find us?"
"We know a guy." Athena replied, which was the only answer they needed.
"Any idea where they headed?" Newt asked, which caught Athena's attention.
"All I know is they kept talking about a city." Aris answered.
"I didn't think there were any cities left ." Harriet spoke.
"That's because there aren't." Brenda replied, "Not still standing anyway."
"Wait, wait, wait." Athena said "Aris is onto something, it doesn't go into much description, but the train route goes from a base in Louisiana to a place called Denver, could be the city you're talking about." she explained.
"Okay, wait. What about Minho?" Thomas paused. "Why wasn't he on the train?"
As Aris looked at the ground then at Sonya, Athena stood up straight, "I'm sorry, guys. He was."
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Unfolding an old map onto the table Thomas pointed at a circled area different to the rest, "There, that's it. It's a few hundred miles. Based on the railways, the location Finn got and everything Aris told us, that's gotta be where they're headed. That's where they're taking Minho." he explained. "We take everyone who can fight. Follow the roads where we can. We can make it back within a week." he told Vince.
"A week?" the old man asked. "It took us six months to get here." he said passive aggressively, Athena instantly became annoyed. "We got over 100 kids here now. We can't just hang out here forever after what we just pulled. You wanna wander off to some random point on the map. You don't even know what's there."
"I do." Jorge spoke up from the doorway, Finn behind him as they walked in.
"It's been a few years." Finn started.
"The Last City. that's what WCKD calls it." Jorge expressed.
"Also known as Denver." Athena put two and two together.
Pointing at Athena for the corrected answer he turned back, "It was their whole base of operation, met this one around there a few times too." Jorge said grabbing onto the taller man's shoulder.
"If that city is still standing, the last place you wanna go." Finn said tapping the map.
"That's the lions den."
"It's nothing we haven't done before." Thomas counted to which Finn chuckled.
"Yeah, with months of planning." Vince snapped back. "And reliable information and the element of surprise none of which we have now."
"Vince, I've thought this through."
"The last-time we went off half-cocked I lost everything." Vince expressed. "You remember that?"
"Look," Finn spoke up, "I admire the fight kid, we know it's Minho. But you can't ask to put those kids on the line for one man. We may have won this, but there is no guarantee it will work again." he said mainly looking at Athena.
Before anyone spoke up static sounds came from the radio behind Newt, "Searching the grid now." A quiet voice came from the radio. "A is complete. Scanning B sector now."
"Shit." Athena breathed out.
"Hit the lights." Thomas commanded.
"Let's go! Let's go!" Jorge ushered, as the group ran out the room and he hit the lights off.
"They're getting closer." Brenda said as she, Frypan, Newt and Athena stood at two windows seeing the berge fly over an abandoned city close by.
"Too close." Fry replied.
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