' WIRES. '
CHAPTER 005.
ROSES.
"HE'S NOT ONE to put up with questions so don't say anything unless he directly asks you. I'm gonna do the explaining, not you," Gally walked down another hallway, turning left. Neve tried to keep up, a slight feeling of anxiety in her chest at the thought of this Lawrence and his intolerance.
"Whatever you say," Neve nodded, chasing him down the walkways.
Finally, when they had been walking for a few minutes, Gally halted and turned around to face her. "One more thing," he said, holding up his hands, "Try not to stare."
"Oh, baby, trust me. I've seen it all," Neve grinned, "Don't worry, I got it." Gally seemed satisfied with her answer and turned the corner. It was a sunlit room, open and wide. Neve's eyes traced the walls as they walked down the ramp. Roses. Everywhere.
Despite the sunlight, the room seemed rather rigid and dark. Abrupt shadows were cast along the floor. Voices from the main area bounced off the hallways walls and morphed into distorted pieces of conversations.
A man stood at one of the rose bushes, his face obscured by a shadow. The sun shone through a tube full of blue liquid that ran from his arm to a metal stand.
"Well, look who it is," the man drawled. "What do you need this time, Gally?"
"We found a girl out in the Scorch on our way back-"
"Oh, Gally. We're picking up strays now?"
"I was a stray."
"You didn't let me finish." He stepped forward, his face slowly becoming visible. Dark veins curved from his neck to his cheek and across his eye. Neve tried not to flinch as his face came further into the light. The veins weren't even the worst part of it all, it was the absence of his nose. It looked like it had been bitten clean off, in fact, it probably had.
"I want to talk to the girl," he nodded, walking right up to her. Neve froze but never looked away, instead choosing to focus on the healthy side of his face and on the rhythm of her breathing. "What's your name?"
"Neve," she said quickly.
"What a pretty name." It didn't feel like a compliment. "How do you feel about WCKD?" he asked without missing a beat. His foul breath was already invading her lungs.
"Anyone who isn't protected by WCKD hates WCKD. I'm not protected by anyone."
"Good enough for me." He turned back around to look at Gally. "If she causes trouble I trust you'll make the right call," Lawrence said with a slightly manic laugh, picking a gun up off a nearby table and waving it in the air. Just then he turned back to his roses and began to sing an eery song like a long-forgotten nursery rhyme. "Rose took my nose, I suppose. And it really blows." At this moment it was clear that his mind was elsewhere. Gally grabbed Neve's arm and started heading back up the ramp.
"That was way easier than you made it sound like it was going to be," Neve commented, pulling her arm away.
"Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. He's living on borrowed time. He's not crazy yet, but he's bordering on it. All it takes is one wrong step and he'll lose his temper."
Neve nodded. They walked further down the maze of hallways, the voices became crisper and Neve suddenly felt a pang of relief; she was allowed to stay here. A few more steps and something else dawned on her. "So, you're immune, huh?"
"What?" Gally said reflexively, continuing walking.
"You're immune. That's why you're so loose with wearing that mask and that's why WCKD cares about you more than anyone else."
"Everyone's loose with wearing the mask, it doesn't protect you from the Flare."
"I know it doesn't but people wear it to make themselves feel safe, you don't care. You can tell when people are afraid of something and you, you're not afraid of the Flare. What you are afraid of is WCKD. I don't see why you're trying to hide it, you're a lucky one."
"Alright, yes. I'm immune. It's just that being immune has caused more problems than it's fixed," Gally sighed, running his hand over his face again.
"I don't think that's true."
"No? You don't think so?" Gally scoffed. "You really are presumptuous aren't you?" He began walking faster so that Neve had to almost jog to keep up. "Look, now that you have the go-ahead to stay here you can just hang out until someone yells at you to get off your ass. I have to go do a supply count for Tuck, I should've done it an hour ago. Don't touch anyone else's stuff, don't touch any food," he paused, turning to look at her. "Don't touch anything that isn't yours, honestly. And don't ask any questions unless you're asking for directions." He walked off, leaving Neve to do whatever she wanted.
--
The next few days were spent doing what Neve felt was basically nothing. She would sleep on the ground in her ripped sleeping bag and when morning came she'd accept that the next few hours would be spent wandering around alone. Every day there were protests outside the walls. There were fights and half-Cranks singing their melancholic songs. It would have been tolerable if she was someone else, but the empty hours felt torturous to Neve. Odd jobs and conversations about the Flare just weren't cutting it.
"So what can I do?" Neve asked, pulling a chair up beside Tuck. Without the mask, he looked rather unapproachable. He had rough skin and messy light hair with occasional strands of grey. His eyes were a dull brown like dry dirt and his lips looked to be made of sandpaper.
"I cannot believe Gally let you stay," he said, pulling his coffee cup closer to him.
"Believe it," Neve stated.
"What do you want, girl? Why are you here?"
"I want in on your revolutionary world-saving gang shit, I want to help. We're dying either way. I still don't think what you're doing is smart but I can't sit here and do nothing."
"You want to help?" Tuck chuckled, patting her arm. "Go clean the supply room," his laughter suddenly ceased as he pointed to a broom in the corner of the room.
"I'm serious. I want to do something real, something that takes more than the brain of a squirrel."
"No."
"What, you don't think I can?"
"Nope."
"Why?"
"No."
"I'll ask someone else then," Neve huffed, pouring herself a cup of coffee as well and leaning her head against the heel of her hand.
"Who're you gonna ask?"
"Anyone. I'm under the impression that you guys are seriously understaffed. You, my friend, just have a personal problem with me," she said with a sip of the bitter black coffee.
"I don't have a problem with ya, I just think you should stick to doing what's easiest. We don't need ya for this, okay? I get that you're bored but I don't care. We have plenty of people here who just do what they're told and don't have a problem with it. Follow their lead."
"You know I won't."
"Yeah, you're right. That's precisely why I thought we should've sent you on your merry way after the storm passed," he chuckled, shaking his head.
"Because I want to help you with your stupid plan?"
"Because you're relentlessly persistent. Because you don't know how to give it a rest. I knew as soon as I saw you wandering around the Scorch alone. A skinny little girl walking around in the Scorch alone. That means that even though you act like you're the smartest one around here, you're just as stupid. The only difference is that we have a cause, you only have yourself." His words were painfully unexpected for Neve. Another reminder of no matter what gang or group she was affiliated with, she was still incredibly lonesome.
"And you think you do know when to stop? Tuck, we've all already lost. Who gives a damn how smart I act? It doesn't matter because no matter what we do, the Flare's still going to eat us alive. And if it doesn't, the Cranks will." Neve stood up, abandoning her coffee. As soon as she left the room she was forced to sit with the fact that she knew Tuck was right.
He was right about her. He was right about them. Even if these people didn't know each other they were still united by the common struggle, by the common enemy. After a few long minutes of staring at the sand that whipped against the window, she clicked the door to the room back open, grabbed the broom, and left without a word.
skye speaks.
To be honest when I was first writing Tuck I didn't like him but he's growing on me. I feel like him and Neve are kind of similar in some ways.