Soon enough, we make camp again. It's now nighttime. We all sit around a small fire.
"Never thought I'd say this, but I miss the glade," Frypan says, a tear rolling down his cheek. Everyone nods. I look at Roxy laying in Eli's lap. She pets Roxy as the puppy sleeps. I look into the fire. I just sit there. I don't think of anything in particular. I just stare, tuning out everything around me.
"You alright?" A familiar accented voice asks softly. I break out of my trance and look into his deep brown eyes. Everyone else has fallen asleep.
"Yeah... I just hope this is all worth it. Everyone that's died... I just want it to be over," I say softly, looking at the ground. He places his hand under my chin and lifts my head to look him in the eyes.
"I know. I want this to be over too. But everyone's deaths... they won't have died for nothing. The people that died in our mazes died so we could get out. We did. As long as we keep going, their deaths won't be for nothing," Newt said. I smile. I hug him.
"Thank you..." I say. Minho lets out a sudden snore, startling me, making me pull away from the hug. Newt chuckles.
"We should probably get some sleep," He says. I nod. We lay down and I immediately fall asleep.
I feel someone shaking me awake. I open my eyes and see Teresa standing over me. It's still dark out and everyone is asleep.
"Can we talk?" She whispers. I nod. I get up and we walk away from the others so we could talk without waking them up.
"What is it?" I ask.
"Remember when we talked in the medical room back at the WICKED facility?" She asks. Our conversation comes back to me. I nod.
"Yeah... why?" I ask.
"Well..." She starts. She looks at the floor.
"You don't think they did the right thing, do you?" I ask. Her eyes widen and she looks back up at me.
"No! No, of course not. They tested kids carelessly for a cure. No. What they do is wrong. But... we do need a cure. That part I agreed with," Teresa responded. I nod. Then the same idea I got back at the medical room pops into my head.
"What is it?" Teresa asks curiously.
"You're right we do need a cure. And we need to take down WICKED. I have a plan, but it's extremely dangerous and no one else can know. It's going to be difficult, but it's the best way to get a cure and destroy WICKED," I say. Teresa nods.
"I agree. What's your plan?" She asks. I take a breath, realizing how insane my plan is.
"One of us needs to turn ourselves into WICKED. Go to the facility or walk away from everyone for them to get one of us. We just need to make sure they don't get to anyone else. Just one of us. We have to pretend to be on their side. Help them find a cure. We will both have a communication device so we can keep the other updated. When the person inside WICKED finds the cure or gets close to figuring it out, they'll notify the other." I begin. Teresa's eyes widen but she nods.
"I'll go in. They brought my memories back because they believed I would come to their side. Plus, I have a little experience with medical things so I'll be closer to information on the cure. If you went in, they'd most likely test you again because of venom," Teresa said. I nod.
"Okay. You'd also need to send me information on WICKED. Where they keep the immunes, security and all that. It'll be useful in taking WICKED down and getting the immunes out," I say. She nods again.
"Okay. I'll wait until we get to the right arm. They probably won't notice I'm gone there. I'll go back to the facility. If I somehow manage to get ahold of one of their communicators, I'll call them and tell them I want to help them. I'll walk away from everyone else so they can get me and leave without anyone else getting harmed," Teresa said.
"Sounds good. You sure you're up for this? I can always go instead-" I start.
"No. I'm sure. Everything would go smoother if I went," Teresa replied. I nod.
"Okay. Let's get some sleep." We walk back over to everyone. I lay down and see Newt's awake.
"What was that about?" He asked, still laying down. I lay down by him and turned on my side to face him.
"We were just talking. She got h-" I stop myself.
"She what?" He asked curiously.
"That's her story to tell. It has to do with when I spoke with her in the medical room back at WICKED. Or... that place we thought was safe. She'll tell you all when she's ready," I say. I smile at him. He nods.
"I understand. Now you should get some sleep," He said. He turned onto his back and I could see him close his eyes. I stay in the position I'm in and close my eyes, falling into a light sleep.
The next morning, we started walking again. I picked up Roxy, staying towards the back. Minho walks in the back with me.
"Sleep good last night?" He asks. I can see him smirking slightly.
"Yea..." I look at him suspiciously. "Why?"
"Oh nothing... I just saw you hugging Newt last night," He said.
"You were awake?" I ask. I'm shocked at first, but after a few seconds, I'm really not that surprised.
"Yea. You think I just randomly snore loudly to interrupt cute moments in my sleep?" He asks. I chuckle. "Why were you hugging anyway? Something wrong?"
"No. I just zoned out and talked with him a bit. Got sad and he helped comfort me," I say. He fights back a smirk and nods slowly.
"Okay..." He says.
"What?" I ask. He shrugs.
"Nothing," He says, looking up ahead. I look at him suspiciously.
"Mhm..." We keep walking through the desert the rest of the day. Our water has run out, our food was dangerously low, and the mountains seemed to be getting further away. There was no shelter that night, so we just slept in a circle in the middle of the desert. I went to lay down by Eli, but Minho got there first, leaving the me to sleep by Newt. He smirks at me as I lay down. I roll my eyes. I lay on my back and look up at the sky, eventually falling asleep.
I wake up to Thomas yelling at everyone. I slowly sit up.
"Look!" Thomas points ahead. There are a bunch of lights.
"The right arm?" I ask.
"Maybe," Thomas replies. I share a look with Teresa.
"I-" Teresa starts.
"GUYS WE GOTTA GO!" Minho shouts, looking in the opposite direction of the lights. We all look in the direction he's pointing. She sky in blanketed in dark clouds. Bright blue and white lightning shot down, striking the ground. The storm was getting closer. A lot closer.
We start running in the direction of the lights, away from the storm growing closer with every step we take. By the time we get close to the buildings, the storm is right on our heels. We are now trying to dodge bolts of lightning.
"Minho!!" I hear Thomas yell. I look back and see Minho on the floor. He had been struck by lightning.
I look at the door. We're all still pretty far away from it. Venom reaches out and opens the door, keeping it open. Eli and Thomas help bring Minho inside after the rest of us. Venom pulls back, returning back to me, closing the door. I turn on a flashlight. We all rush to Minho.
"Come on... Minho wake up!" Newt says. Thomas shakes him, trying to wake him up.
"Come on..." Teresa mutters. Minho lets out a groan and slowly opens his eyes. We all sigh in relief.
"What happened...?" He asks.
"You got struck by lightning," Eli says.
"Oh... cool," He replies. We all chuckle a little. We get up.
"Where-" I start.
"Y/n look out!" Teresa yells, just as I hear a noise behind me. I turn abruptly and see a crank grabbing at me. Newt grabs my arm and pulls me behind him.
"It's chained up...?" Eli says, pointing at a chain around the crank's wrist, holding it back. That doesn't stop us from jumping back as another crank makes noise from behind us.
"I see you've met our guard dogs," Someone says. I look in the direction of the voice. A girl with short brown hair stands in the doorway. She walks down towards us, not phased by the cranks grabbing at her. "Come on. Jorge wants to meet you." She says. She motions for us to follow her as she walks back to the doorway. We don't follow, unsure of whether or not to trust her. "Unless you wanna stay with them," she remarks. I sigh.
"You sure we can trust them?" Minho asks.
"Let's just hear this Jorge person out. See what he has to say," Thomas replies. We follow the girl.
"What do you want?" Thomas asks as we walk. Theres a lot of people sitting around fires or sotting in hammocks.
"No ones crossed the scorch in a long time. You just have everyone curious. Including me," The girl responds.
"And who is this Jorge person?" Eli asks.
"You'll see," The girl replies. We walk up some stairs and into a hallway with yellow tinted windows. The brunette girl opens a door to reveal a room with a desk and a couch, with two people inside. One had his back turned to us. The other was a pale girl with bright blue eyes and long, light chocolate brown hair.
"Ever feel like the world's against you?" The man with his back turned says. He turns around. He has dark skin and brown hair streaked with grey. He held a pitcher of water and poured some in a glass. Roxy whined and looked at the water longingly.
"Three questions," The man I'm assuming is Jorge says. "Where are you going, where do you come from, and how can I profit?"
"We're looking for a group called the Right Arm," Thomas explains. I hear a chorus of laughter. I look behind me and see a lot of the men we saw on our way up here had followed us.
"You're looking for ghosts you mean," Jorge says. We all look at each other, confused. "As for my second question. Where do you come from?"
"That's our business," Thomas replies. Jorge sighs.
"Brenda," He speaks. Several men pull us back as on grabs Thomas. Before I can stop him, Venom reaches out and grabs the men holding me. He flings them out the window. I look up in time to see. Brenda (the girl who brought us up here) holding something to the back of Thomas's neck.
"You were right," Brenda says. Jorge eyes me before taking the scanner from Brenda.
"Sorry, hermano. Looks like you've been tagged. You came from WICKED. And that makes you very valuable," Jorge says. The men drag everyone out of the room. Two go to grab me but Jorge stops them. "Leave her." Everyone files out except for Me(and Roxy), Jorge, Brenda, and the girl who was here when we first came into the room. "Devyn, go." The girl shook her head.
"No. I wanna learn more," the girl said. Her voice was fairly deep for a girl's voice, and yet it was still light and... I don't know how else to put it. Feminine. Jorge sighed.
"Fine. Now. What was that thing?" Jorge asked. He didn't seem freaked out. None of the people in the room did.
"That was... Venom. It's a parasite-" I start. WE ARE NOT A PARASITE! I sigh. "I know, venom. Just be quiet right now, okay?" I mutter. We have been quiet a long time! We will talk if we want! I roll my eyes. Jorge eyes me curiously.
"It can talk to you? In your head?" He asked. I nod.
"Yes." I respond. Venom branches out from me so the three people in the room can see him.
"Hi," Venom spoke. No one seemed shocked, just impressed.
"Wow. Impressive. Brenda and Devyn, see what else you can find out from her. I need to go have a chat with our guests," Jorge said. He got up and left the room.
"Where are they? Where is he keeping them, what are you gonna do to them-" I start asking. Devyn gets up and walks in front of me.
"Relax. Jorge's keeping them somewhere. The guys wanna sell them back to WICKED but Jorge thinks you can get us into the Right Arm. You're friends will live. At least... we wont kill them," Devyn said.
"Right Arm... the mountain people that are against WICKED?" I ask. She nods. Brenda opens her mouth to speak when Jorge rushes into the room.
"Pack your bags, hermanas. We're going to the right arm!" Jorge exclaims as he rushes around. Devyn puts a few things in a bag and is done. I grab a glass of water and give it to Roxy, who was laying on the floor. She drank it up eagerly. Venom retreated back inside me. Just then, we heard some loud noises and Janson's voice echoed throughout the building.
"Shit- Brenda, get our guests. Devyn, play my favorite song and take Y/n. We'll meet by the window for plan B," Jorge rushed. Devyn and Brenda nod.
"Why does he want to play his favorite song if we're leaving?" I ask Devyn as she grabs a record.
"The place'll blow up once it finishes," Devyn says loudly. I barely hear her over the noise of helicopters and Janson's voice. We quickly rush out and run to the window Jorge said to meet at. Roxy runs alongside me. Jorge is already there. Brenda and the others soon join us. Jorge grabs something from the ceiling. Its a cloth attached to a zip-line that leads to the building next to us.
"Oh hell no-" Eli starts.
"Plan B, hermana. Now come on, we gotta go," Jorge says. He grabs the cloth and zip-lines to the other building. We all start going down the zip-line. I go after Newt and Teresa goes after me. Venom holds onto Roxy as I zip-line. Eli, Thomas and Brenda are the only ones left. Brenda runs off as Eli is about to go. She and Thomas run after Brenda.
"Eli!" I shout. I turn to Jorge. "Where are they going?!" He sighs.
"Brenda must've forgotten her picture of her brother. It's the only thing she'd go back for. Don't worry, she knows how to get your friends out. She'll be heading to Marcus's place, knowing thats where I'm taking you. Come on, we should get going," Jorge said.
Reluctantly, we all start following Jorge.
Eli's pov
We made it to some underground tunnels. We all turn on our flashlights and start walking. I look at the graffiti on the tunnel walls. The art is actually pretty cool. After a while of walking, we reach a place with multiple tunnels branching off.
"Shit..." Brenda mutters. Great. I look around some more to make sure nothings following us as Brenda and Thomas walk down different tunnels to see which is the way out.
"Hey! Hey, I think I found the way out!" Thomas yells. I walk down the path he went down and see a dull light in the distance.
"Great! Come on. Get Brenda and let's get the hell out of this place," I say. We turn back to find Brenda.
"Guys, over here. I think I found something..." Brenda says. We look over and see gross red and black vines all over the walls of the tunnel. Brenda and Thomas explore the tunnel further.
"Yeah, sure. Follow the creepy path with stuff we don't recognize instead of going down the path with light which could possibly mean a way out. Makes sense," I mumble. I stay where I am, waiting for them to finish. They run back quickly with these gross things following them. Like the cranks, but I could barely tell they used to be people. They were gross and super creepy. We run down the path Thomas found.
"Wow Thomas, you really have a knack for finding Cranks that want to chase us-" I say as we run, having flashbacks from when we ran from the cranks in the mall like place in the Scorch.
"Shut up-" Thomas says as we run. We make it out of the tunnel, but stop abruptly because of a cliff. We look up and start climbing up a pathway next to the tunnel we came out of, going up to some very unstable, abandoned buildings. We rush up some stairs once we're inside the building, running from the cranks behind us. I pull ahead of Brenda. Brenda yells and I look back to see her fall into a room, followed by Thomas. I see a Crank head in after them. I grab a piece of broken metal and rush towards the creature, hitting it in the head. I does nothing but anger it. It lunges at me. I grab the rail and jump off the stairs, holding onto the rail so I don't fall to my death. The crank doesn't follow or try to attack me again, so I pull myself back up. I look into the room in front of me and see Brenda and Thomas fight off a crank. Thomas breaks the glass, sending the crank to it's death. He grabs Brenda's hand to prevent her from falling.
They make their way back up to where I stood. We make our way out of the building and into the city. We stop to rest. Brenda pulls up her pant leg to reveal a crank bite.
"Shit-" She mutters. She grabs a cloth and bandages it up. She pulls her pant leg over the bandage and stands up. "Well, we should get going. We need to find Marcus. Jorge and the others should be getting there soon."
"You okay? You got bit-" I start.
"I'm fine. Now we should get going," Brenda said. I nod and Thomas and I follow her. We reach a building with a few people outside. They look drunk. Actually, I could go for a drink about now.
"You here for the party?" Someone behind us asks. Her blonde hair is pulled into a messy ponytail.
"We're looking for Marcus," Brenda asks.
"Marcus isn't here," Someone says. He had very messy blonde hair and looked like he hadn't slept in a week. To put it nicely he didn't look very put together.
"Where can we find him?" Brenda asked.
"Zone B," The guy replied.
"Zone B, wheres zone B?" Thomas asked. The girl came forward, stopping just behind Thomas.
"Where they burn the bodies," She said. Thomas's eyes grew wide.
"Okay, well we were supposed to meet our friends here. Have you seen them? A group of people, about our age, about 6 people and a dog?" Thomas asked.
"They might be in the party," The guy responded. Thomas nodded and went to go inside.
"Wait," The guy said, moving forward. He held out a bottle with some weird greenish liquid.
"What's that?" Thomas asked.
"The price of admission." Brenda slowly grabbed the bottle and took a drink. She handed it to Thomas. He hesitantly took a drink and handed it to me. I looked from the bottle to the guy.
"This alcohol?" I asked. I kinda hoped it was. I needed a drink. He nodded. I took a drank the rest of the bottle. I didn't mean to. But, I did. I started to get dizzy right away. He put something in the drink. Oops. The creepy guy smiled.
"Enjoy the party." Someone pulled aside some curtains and he pushed us inside.