Getting my bearings, I could see a crowd of people, survivors by the looks of it, gathered behind the man with the shotgun. Most of them were armed and all of them were wearing a mask or scarf over the lower half of their faces.
"We don't want any trouble," Newt struggled to stand upright next to me.
"Like hell you do." The man with the shotgun aimed at my nose had a rough voice, one that I could tell was used to giving orders.
"You have ten seconds to explain who the fuck you are." Another girl, about Leah's height, sounded equally as mean as the first man. She had a pistol aimed at Newt.
"Easy, we'll talk, just put the guns down," Newt tried.
"Fuck no." She clicked the ammo into place. I was starting to panic. Being immune didn't stop us from dying from a bullet to the skull.
"Put down the damn guns!" I yelled, I wouldn't let them hurt him. They couldn't.
The man in front of me shot at my feet, causing me to yelp.
He reloaded it, "That was a warning, son. Names. Now."
I clenched my teeth. "Eat me."
"Suit yourself," He shrugged, aiming once more for my head.
"Jorge, wait." Another girl emerged from the crowd of people. "I know these idiots."
She slipped her scarf down off her chin and tears swelled in my eyes.
"Cally?!" My hands dropped to my side as she approached to hug me.
She smiled, "Hey, Felix."
She took us in, getting a better look at our injured, especially Minho, who was still unconscious.
"Get me a stretcher, Cole, quick." A boy ran out of the crowd and up the stairs.
"Jorge, Brenda, seriously, put the guns down." Cally waved her hand at them and the girl with the pistol- Brenda- grumbled but put the safety back on and pocketed her weapon. Jorge lowered his firearm but kept it at the ready.
Cally pushed through the Gladers, and started inspecting Minho's wounds.
"What happened?"
"Lightning storm," Thomas said, who hadn't moved from our leader's side since he'd been struck.
Cally nodded, "I can help him."
I was too stunned to think straight, "Cally, what happened to you? Where are the others?"
She waved me off, "Now's not the time Felix."
"She's right," Jorge interrupted. "Your friend will receive care while we discuss things." He nodded at me.
I shook my head, "No, I'm not in charge... Minho's our leader, he-"
"Felix..." Newt was by my side, his eyes were full of sorrow, but I didn't know why. "Take Thomas with you, it's okay."
He had gone crazy, "What?! But I'm not-"
"Looks like they've chosen for you, son." Jorge nodded to the group of boys behind me.
"Guys-"
Frypan shook his head, "We don't have any more leaders, Felix. Talk on his behalf, Felix, please..."
I looked at Minho and looked back at Jorge. "Okay...Thomas, are you coming?"
He looked up with teary eyes, "Oh... yeah."
Jorge nodded at Brenda and Thomas and I fell into line, following her with Jorge bringing up the rear.
***
This building was once an office skyscraper, according to Brenda. And they had made it work for the apocalypse well by the looks of it. Most of the office cubicles had been shed of their original attributes to make dorm rooms for their militia. They had started just as Brenda and Jorge and a few colleagues, but they grew as more survivors crossed through the Scorch.
They had sat Thomas and I in a former meeting room, and they wanted to know a lot.
So we told them.
I wouldn't talk about the millions of ways we attempted to leave the Maze, especially the one that got Nick killed. And Thomas didn't say a thing about the illusions WICKED had tricked us into seeing or the final control room where Chuck was murdered.
Somethings are just too suffocatingly painful to ever mention again.
"Well goddamn. And Cally was with you through all that?" Jorge took a swig of something from a glass bottle.
"Up until the Scorch, yes." I looked down at my hands, which were smeared with dirt stains.
"You boys must be hungry," He said in response. "Brenda here will take you to our pantry. I'm afraid there's not many options but we have enough to share."
"Thank you, sir." Thomas shook his hand.
"Oh god, please, none of that shit. Just Jorge." Thomas nodded.
"Right," Brenda stuffed her pistol in her waistband. "Follow me."
***
Brenda led us down the stairs and into a shelved storage room. There were cans of soups, vegetables, and pasta in sauce on one wall. And on the other there was rows of boxes cereal and dried goods like rice and flour. On the floor there were cases and cases of water bottles and more of the brown glass bottles Jorge was drinking from earlier.
"Bloody hell," I muttered under breath, copying Newt without even realizing it. Thomas laughed at me.
"This is amazing," He said, getting a closer look at the food.
Brenda scoffed, "Yeah. Jorge was one hell of a doomsday planner."
"He worked here?" I asked.
"Owned the coporation." Brenda shrugged. "Grab what you want for your group and I'll take you to them."
Thomas nodded, grabbing cans and stuffing them in a laundry basket.
I nudged the case of brown bottles with my foot, "What's this?"
Brenda chuckled, "Y'all have never seen beer? Shit, I bet you've never been drunk even."
I shrugged, "We made alcohol in the Maze. But it didnt look like this."
Brenda grabbed one, popping it open with her knife. "Here."
I took a sip, it wasn't like something I had tasted before. "Foamy," I noted.
She laughed again and handed me a case, "Take some back to your friends."
I smiled, "Thank you."
She saluted me, "No problem."
I laughed and I could tell she was happy to have company with people close to her age.
***
The Gladers were getting comfortable on a floor of the building that had been converted into a dorm hall. Office cubicles were pushed together to form rooms and there were dozens of hammocks hung up for beds. The hallway was illuminated by fluorescent lights in the ceiling, there wasn't much room to move around and you could tell that this space wasn't used to housing this many people.
"Felix, thank god." Newt greeted me with an embrace. "How'd it go?"
I looked to Thomas, "Well, we aren't corpses, so well, I think."
He rolled his eyes and slapped my chest, "Not funny."
"How's Minho?" I set the case of beer down and took Newt's hand.
The golden boy sighed, "He's alive but he's in a lot of pain. Cally says it's second degree burns." I nodded, remembering that those were the most painful type, because your nerves were still intact.
"We brought food and something called beer," Thomas announced.
I laughed, and grabbed my bottle from before, "Yeah. It tastes quite strange."
Newt smiled and pecked me on the lips, "It's better than nothing. Thanks, Brenda."
She nodded, "'Course. The bathrooms are on either end of the hall, we have running water but it doesn't get hot. Go easy on it. And get some sleep, Jorge will wanna make plans tomorrow." And without another word, she followed the bright red EXIT signs to the stairwell.
I grabbed a can of soup for Newt and I to share and another few beers for us.
"Cally?" I asked him and he took my hand and led the way.
Cally was behind a group of crowded Gladers, who were obviously very worried about their leader, who was unconscious in a cot.
I popped the cap off the beer with my knife like I'd seen Brenda do and offered it to my best friend. With a grimace on her face, she took it.
"I've done what I can for him, he just needs time to heal. He can have more painkillers in the mornin'." She took a long drink from the malted alcohol.
"Thank you, Cal," Newt said.
She shrugged, "Was the least I could do after everything..."
"So you gonna tell us what the hell happened?" My words seemed harsh, but I was worried and confused.
She sighed, "They didn't want me."
"WICKED?" Newt asked. "Why the fuck wouldn't they want you?"
She passed her beer between her hands a few times before answering. "They took us gals west, said we had to find the safe haven. I tried running away and hacking their tech but they caught me. They said I was too much of a threat to them after that, and they tried killing me but..." She shrugged again, this time with a smirk.
I cracked a smile too, "You motherfucker, you escaped."
"I tried to find you guys, but... you were gone before I got there." Minho stirred in front of us.
"Do you know where the others are?" Newt asked.
She shook her head, taking another sip, "After I escaped, they continued on, I thought they'd be with you by now."
"Leah..." Minho croaked in front of us, even though he was still asleep. "Leah, stop."
The poor boy was dreaming something awful.
Cally frowned, "I tried helping them but there were so many of them and they were constantly being watched... and Harriet didn't trust me."
"Harriet?" Newt cracked open himself a beer.
"Harriet and Sonya are from Aris and Rin's Maze. Their leaders I think." Cally adjusted a bandage on Minho's torso.
"How long have you been with Jorge?" I questioned.
She shrugged, "Long enough, I know he seems a bit... trigger happy, but he'd do anything to protect me, which includes taking care of y'all. So long as you don't fuck anything up."
"We don't plan on it," I said.
Cal scoffed, "How often does that plan last?"
I hated to say it, but she was right.
***
The night was the worst one yet, it was downright unbearable.
It surprised me that it was so dreadful, we had a roof over our heads for god's sake. But I had forgotten how to sleep in a hammock without feeling ill.
And I hated to be sick.
What am I saying, everyone hates being sick.
Newt and I tried squishing into one hammock, but it ended up with me waking in the middle of the night with an elbow to my throat, so that was a no-go. I kicked him out and we settleted for holding hands between our two hammocks.
It was definitely weird, having Newt so far away when he consumed my life.
When I woke up in the morning, panic filled my chest as I couldn't immediately feel the warmth of another body next to mine.
But then I got my bearings and saw that my golden boy was just a few feet away from me.
I needed him so badly, and I wasn't sure if I should resent that fact.
I smirked to myself and kicked his hammock with the toe of my boot.
"You must want to die, Felix," He said without even opening his eyes.
I giggled, Newt was awful in the mornings. So I kicked him again.
This time he sat straight up, glaring at me.
"Bite me," I challenged and he leapt from his hammock, coming tackling into mine.
"Newt!" I squealed and pushed him away, he didn't budge. He instead, actually bit me, but not hard enough to hurt.
"You're insufferable," I pinched his side and he finally got up, smiling proudly.
"You asked for it," He grinned.
I rolled my eyes and sat up to kiss him.
"You're lucky you're cute." He pulled me back into him, this time for a hug.
He whispered into my shoulder. "We can't trust them, Felix."
I pulled away from him in shock, and his icey eyes sent a chill down my back.