CH. FORTY - FOUR
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"I never actually found out how exactly you broke your broke your ankle," Gally realizes the next morning, lying his head beside hers on the pillow.
"Well—"
"Wait, let me guess. You blew it up along with chemicals?"
"As if I would."
"You tripped?"
"Close enough."
"You tripped when trying to run away from an angry Alby?"
"No."
"Camil wheeled over it?"
"No."
"Okay, I give up. What happened?"
"...Thomas ran off, so I ran after him, but couldn't keep up, so threw my shoe to make him trip, but he threw it back, and I fell, and then my ankle broke."
Well, someone's gonna die today.
"It's his fault," he realizes.
"Well, yes, but, let's not immediately hurt him before we ask him what he knows—"
Gally gets up, murmuring something about 'already dead'. Quickly, she puts some decent clothes on and runs after him. Fortunately, he has already stopped. Is staring at something in the distance.
"What—"
"HELP!"
Oh, well.
A second later, Gally's making his way to wherever the sounds came from. She can't keep up due to her leg, unfortunately, and almost wants to send her pain to Gally so she won't be the only one to stay behind, but figured out that's kind of mean and a little selfish, so she ends up hopping across the Glade on one leg.
It takes so long that boys are already wandering off when she arrives. "What happened?" She asks Chuck, who's closest by.
His face is pale. Like... really pale, and he seems to be shaking a bit. "Thomas and—"
"Wait. Sit down first," she decides. "I'll get you some water. Or tea?"
Despite the fact she is craving for any information about Thomas, since she remembers him and for sure doesn't exactly like him so far, Chuck goes first. Poor kid's only been here for a week, after all.
After she gave him the water, she sits down in front of him. "Thomas and who did what?"
"He and—"
"Oh my god!" She slams a hand on her mouth. "Did he and Newt—"
"No," he says, shaking his head. "Thomas came running out of the woods. Ben was running after him. He got—" a sharp inhale "—stung."
Her heart just stopped working for a second.
"What?" She blinks.
"Ben's been stung," Chuck says quietly. "He was yelling things about Thomas. On how this is his fault. Why he came here so early—"
"Wait— why did he, though?"
"As a warning," Chuck mutters. He shrugs. "I don't know what that means. He just said that Thomas came to warn and help, but at the same time, he said he works for a certain them."
Warn the Gladers? Help the Gladers?
In what?
Escaping?
But work for WCKD?
She's so busy thinking for a while that she only realizes why Chuck's this upset once he has finished drinking his water.
"He's getting Banished, isn't he?" She murmurs, mostly to herself.
And it physically hurts.
"Yes," Chuck replies, voice hollow. "Tonight."
If that damn boy wouldn't have broken her fucking foot she would've been able to stop the Grievers from stinging Ben, though she threw the shoe at him first so it's kind of her fault, and now she—
Oh, god.
She can control the Grievers.
Which is great.
She could save Ben.
But she can't.
He's been stung and way too past the Gone to be saved. They should've given him the serum earlier.
And that means she'll have to either do something so distracting that she won't even think of the Grievers, or she'll have to send them at Ben.
Her eyes squeeze shut at the thought. She can't. Ben's her friend. Maybe she's a traitor towards him for blocking the exit of the Maze, but he's still her friend.
"Where are you going?"
"Trying to fix this," she mutters. Her leg no longer matters. She runs straight into her hut to grab all the chemicals she needs, and then sits down in the Med Hut to start working.
From looking in her notebook to adding ingredients and then taking her own blood and then going over the recipe again.
She never figured out how exactly she made the serum, or cure, to that virus. But she does know the virus is similar to the after affects of a Griever's stinger. And the serum looks the same too.
If only she knew the whole damn recipe. There's no time to dive into the lake today.
"Jeff," she rushes into the Homestead's first floor, where they must be keeping Ben at the moment. "What's his blood type?"
"I don't kn—"
A million curses leave her mouth. They don't have the material to figure out blood types either.
And if she used her blood for the serum she made against the virus she had, and survived, that means she can only cure a certain group of people. They'll die if they get the wrong blood type inside their body.
So if Ben gets the wrong serum, he'll have even more chance of dying than he did in the Maze.
Frustrated, she buries her head in her hands.
There's a hand on her shoulder, and she smells the wave of cologne. Recognizes it's Jeff, because she made him that cologne. "We can't help him, Joan," he says quietly. "I'm sorry. But there's no time. His screams are already scaring others."
"Well, then they're pussies," she spits out. "If they don't give a fuck about him getting send into the Maze because they won't have to hear his screams again, they're awful people. If they can't handle some screams for a few days just so I can figure this out, then—"
"It won't work," he hisses, then his voice softens. "I'm sorry. He's just— the venom is buried deeply in his body already. We gave him the serum, but it's not working."
"But I've got a cure," she snaps. "I think, at least. I just don't know if I got all the ingredients and the right blood type, Jeff. Don't we have a list of anything anywhere?"
"You can ask Clint."
She doesn't even hesitate. Runs down the stairs so fast that she face-plants, more pain shooting through her ankle and also through her now bleeding nose, and that she nearly bumps into a few Gladers.
"Clint! Blood types!" She almost yells, then sees his confused face. "A list of blood types," she says, a tad calmer. "Do we have that?"
"No, but we asked the Box for tests—"
"Fuck yes! Where is it?"
"Eh, here." He hands her a few of the tests, frowning. "Be careful."
She plops down on the same chair as before. Inspects the packages of the tests.
It takes forty-five minutes to do a test. If her blood type doesn't match with Ben's, it's a waste of time. She'll need more people.
A second later, she has made her way to Alby. "Alby! Would you come with me?"
He looks up, almost unbothered. Next to him sits Thomas, and then Chuck. A Med-Jack is treating Thomas's bloody wrist.
"What are you covered in blood?" Chuck asks.
"Fell down the stairs," she says quickly, not embarrassed in the heat of the moment. "What's going on here? Wait, doesn't matter. Alby, Chuck, even Thomas, come with me."
"I haven't finished his wrist yet," the Med-Jack, Gary, says.
"Then that's a pity."
Thomas stares at Gary. "It'll be fine, right? My wrist?"
With a casual look, Gary shrugs. "We might have to amputate it."
"What?" His body jerks away from Gary so fast that he almost falls off the tree trunk.
"Don't worry, Gary likes to joke about amputating," Alby murmurs.
"Agh!" Even more frustrated than before, Joan grabs Thomas's wrist and pulls him with her.
He yelps. "You're making my freaking wrist worse—"
She squeezes harder. "Whatever. I have to make you bleed anyways. Now you won't need a syringe."
"I'm sorry?"
"Just shut your mouth," she urges, pushing him into a chair. Fast, the girl takes his blood and then also Clint's, and her own, and Ben's.
"What's this—"
"Shut up."
"Polyamides?" Thomas frowns. "Why do you have polyamides?"
She opens her mouth, but it stays half open. "You know what polyamides are?"
"Yeah, sure— and methylimidazole, dicyanodiamide, hexahydrophthalic anhydride and triethylenetetramine— girl, why do you have all of these?"
"I—"
"Wait, vegetable oil-based epoxy resins?" His eyebrows furrow a bit deeper. "Isn't that what most of these are used for?"
"Well, yes, but how do you even know?"
"I don't even know why I know. I just know." He shrugs. "So you're trying to cure Ben?"
"Yes." She nods. "Are you against or for that?"
He pulls a face. "What kind of question is that? For, obviously! You should probably try machine mixing, though. It'll work smoother. And maybe get a cleaner work space. Do y'all have double neck round bottom flasks here?"
"I freaking love you," she peeps, taking his shoulders. "Okay, what do you think's better, pyrethroids or pyrethrins?"
"Pyrethroids are more toxic. Better if you want to extinguish faster, but pyrethrins are better for the environment. Why? You planning on killing the mosquitos here?"
"Well, there's plenty, so maybe." She shrugs. "Moving on— we're curing Ben. Man, I like you now."
"Because I know a few things about chemistry?"
"A few things?" Clint throws hands. "I'm a Med-Jack and I have no idea what language y'all were speaking three seconds ago."
"Oh, shut up," they say in unison, then share a glance.
"Don't steal my sentence," she says.
"I said it first."
"No you didn't, you idiot."
"I thought you liked me— no, you said you love me—"
"Just don't steal my sentences," she says, and manages a chuckle. "Now we wait. Try not to bite nails off from anxiety."
"I already bite my nails off when I don't have anxiety."
"Same," she sighs out. For a while, they're silent. She's thinking about how fast she suddenly likes Thomas, only because he knows chemistry.
But then again, Gally also didn't trust her, and she got very pissed at him, because she had no idea what she even did. Thomas seems like he doesn't know anything, too.
Maybe she shouldn't be assuming too fast. Take easy steps, figure some things out about him, then decide if she trusts him or not.
"I think the tests are done," Thomas then announces.
Nodding, she takes a look. "Okay. Clint's got A. We both have O. Ben's got AB."
"Oh, man that's awesome." The corners of Thomas's lips curve up a bit.
"For Ben's future, definitely," she agrees. "Not for us, though. We can barely receive any blood types! But we can give to everyone else. That's great."
"Yup."
"Typical," Clint comments. "Both in for chemistry and both got the same blood type."
She swallows at the thought of her and Thomas even being remotely related. "Coincidence," she says.
Thomas nods in agreement.