We all fired off questions, but Jorge just grabbed his head and shouted at us to shut up. "My head is already killing me! I don't need your yapping to make it any worse." Thomas looked thunderstruck as he stood staring at him quietly. He was probably pissed off that Teresa had left us, along with the rest of their friends.
"Are you sure it was the others?" Brenda asked calmly. Jorge gave her an Are you crazy look.
"Of course I know what those damn kids look like. It wasn't no shitty Cranks I'll tell you that." He grabbed at his head again and groaned a little.
"They left us." Thomas finally managed to spit out. "They just left us to W.I.C.K.E.D." Brenda gave him a sympathetic look, touching his shoulder.
"I'm sure they tried looking for you guys. Right?" She looked to me as if to confirm her theory. I shrugged.
"It doesn't seem likely that Teresa would just leave you Thomas. We all seemed to escape around the same time those alarms went off." I told him. Thomas didn't look so convinced though. Jorge scoffed.
"This kids were fuckin crazy." He muttered.
"Just tell us what happened." Raven said with a small glare. Jorge rolled his eyes and sat down on the crates at Brenda's urging while she began to look at his head.
"The fricken alarms start blaring and suddenly people are shouting over the coms and there's several loud blasts and then those door blows open." He gestures to a different entrance to the far right. How had we not noticed that before? There's a giant hole in the wall. "And Teresa and the rest of your friends storm this place, dragging around Old Andy, a pilot. Shots are fired, I'm trying to get them to calm down and tell me what's happening but some Asian looking girl with dark hair hits me with the butt of her rifle and I pass out."
"Silla." Ashoka says excitedly. I smile at her.
"Why would they escape?" Aris asks suddenly. "Teresa has been.." he pauses, glancing at Thomas before continuing. "She's been W.I.C.K.E.D's little pet, following every damn order they give her. Why would she want to leave?"
"The Swipe." I say suddenly. They all look towards me. "They remember everything. Maybe Teresa convinced everyone that they were better off without W.I.C.K.E.D." I shrugged s little.
"And are we?" Minho demands of me. "You and that other little Nark are the only ones who understand what's going on. You said we aren't safe here. Is that true."
"Of course it's true." I insist. "It's not safe here. They want to start up the trials again, bring in another batch of people if necessary." Brenda nods and in the most serious voice says,
"They think all you subjects are expendable." Minho glares at her, balling his fists.
"Call us subjects again and I'll punch you in the face."
"Punch her and I'll follow through on my threat inthe Scorch boy." Jorge snaps at him. Brenda just rolls her eyes as Newt grabs Minho's bicep and pulls him back a little, towards Thomas.
"Okay, stop the shouting match. Let's just escape, like we panned to. We've done enough standing around and talking."
"Yeah, it's making me nervous just being here." Raven mutters.
"Alright which one is.." Thomas' voice is cut off by a loud screeching sound, the alarms. The hanger doors open wide and reveal several armed guards. Brenda and I manage to act quickly while everyone stands around a bit stunned and just as one of the guards gets a shot off, we fire our Launchers, dropping two of the guards.
"Run!" Raven shouts, grabbing Ashoka's hand and pulling her behind the crates. The guards all duck and we copy their motions.
"Well, now that they know we have guns!" Brenda shouts, reloading her launcher. "What's the next move?"
"Which Berg is yours?" Thomas shouts to Jorge as the guards shoot at us, Newt and Raven laying down some cover fire. As if things couldn't get any worse, Jorge points to the farthest Berg in the hanger.
"That one! It should be easy enough to start up. Start running hermanos!" He takes off like a shot, dodging and weaving through the rest of the scattered crates and underneath the Berg's. Brenda and I turn our attention back to the guards.
"Raven! Ashoka! Go!" I shout at them as I watch one of Minho's shots hit a guard square in the chest. The man convulses from the electric shock. Raven and Ashoka take off. The rest of us, slowly back up, trying to get to the next large stack of crates.
"We're going too slow! Mallory, Aris run!" Thomas shouts. I'm about to argue when Aris grabs my arm and tugs me away.
"Come on! We have to go at some point!" He shouts at me. Reluctantly, I turn my back on the fight and Aris and I take off running. He ducks, barely dodging a bullet that rips through part of his jacket but leaves him unharmed.
"I think they're trying to kill me!" I shout at him, scared.
"They won't! I-" but his sentence is cut off as a Launcher grenade hits him square in back I scream, despite myself and drop to the floor, dragging him behind a crate.
"Minho!" I scream. We're nearly to the Berg but I can't drag him by myself. He glances back and seems to curse under his breath as he gets one last shot off and corms racing towards us. I turn Aris over, his head lolls to the side and he twitches a little.
"What the hell happened?" Minho demands as he lifts up Aris quickly. I take his legs and together, we run towards the Berg.
"He got hit obviously! By a Launcher." We drag him onto the Berg and I'm about to run back out with Minho but he pushes me back.
"Take care of him. We'll be right behind you." I can hear the Berg firing up as Raven and Ashoka rush towards Aris.
"I'm going with you." I say, shoving past Minho and bringing my Launcher back around, getting ready to fire. Minho shouts something but doesn't try to stop me. And it's a good thing both of us decided to go out because it seems that Brenda was hit by a Launcher too. Newt and Thomas carry her past us as we shoot at the advancing guards. Minho and I hop onto the ramp as the Berg begins to ascend.
The guards keep firing at us, trying to get their grenades through the closing door but they all miss and I laugh. "Lousy shots." There's a commotion behind us as Thomas tries to wake Brenda but it won't work. "She'll wake up with Aris in maybe an hour. They're fine Thomas." He looks up at me wildly.
"You were shot." Minho says, glancing at Thomas' arm. His sleeve is stained with blood and he pushes it up a little.
"The bullet only grazed me this time."
"That's still a sizable gash in your arm."
"Is there a medical hanger here?" Raven interrupts. "Or are we planning on leaving them on the floor."
"We could." I say lightly. "But yeah, let's carry them down the hall and to the right. The door at the end should be where the medical room is." Raven and Minho pick up Aris and against my wishes, Thomas carries Brenda with Newt, blood dripping down his arm.
I take Ashoka with me ahead to the medical hanger to prepare the room. We prop open the door as I search for gauze and peroxide for Thomas' wound. There's nothing I can really do for Brenda and Aris except wait for them to wake up. Once the two of them are situated on the beds, I inspect Thomas' arm, the rest of them looking on in silence.
"You guys are creeping me out." I mutter, finishing wrapping up Thomas arm. "Why are you staring at me?" Thomas flexes his arm a little against the bandages.
"They were right in making you a Medjack." He says mildly. It hits me, Clint and Jeff. I miss them.
"Do you know where Jorge is taking us?" Newt asks.
"How would I know? We didn't exactly get to talk about a destination."
"Well, is there somewhere that he would take us to escape from W.I.C.K.E.D? Some place safe?" Ashoka asks hopefully. I almost laugh.
"I don't think a place exists where we would be out of W.I.C.K.E.D's grasp." I remove my gloves and toss them away before sighing and gripping the edge of the metal table. "But there are places to go. Cities that aren't destroyed where people just barely scrape by."
"There are?" Ashoka asks.
"Right, you guys didn't go through the Swipe." I murmur. "Honestly, you should have. Then I wouldn't be explaining all of this to you, you guys would know." They waited for me to continue. "The Scorch is the worst part of the world you could be in when the Sun Flares hit. They're the tropic areas. The mountains and valleys farther north of the equator are relatively safe but every area has dangerous weather patterns."
"Like the lightening storms." Raven asked.
"Not as extreme as that but yes. There's constant flash flooding and high winds and sometimes it's so hot in certain areas your skin burns just by stepping outside for a second."
"So you lied when you said you didn't know about what would happen in the Scorch." Minho asked.
"I didn't lie. I really didn't know. I knew the Scorch was dangerous but I was also under the impression that your group would be in a tunnel system for the most part, like the girls, but something must have changed while I was gone." I shake my head. "Look, I know you guys don't trust me, and you don't trust Brenda or Jorge but we can't think about that right now. Trust aside, we helped you guys escape, again. Okay?" They were quiet and Thomas cleared his throat a little so I focused on him.
"Fine but where to next? Can this Berg track the other one? Teresa's." I nod.
"You want to go talk to Jorge? They're not going to wake up for a while. So you guys should either rest with them or find something else to do." I begin to move out of the room and Thomas follows me. Raven tries to convince Ashoka to sleep as we leave. Her argument is drowned out as we move away.
"Do you think Teresa and the others went to one of those safe places?" I nod.
"It's possible. Munies like us would have an important role. Someone has to keep the Cranks out of the last remaining cities and deal with the ones who turn inside the compounds."
"What? The virus still gets through to the city?" Thomas asked. I gave him a funny look.
"Of course. The cities aren't completely sanitary. The virus would find a way to infect people." Thomas grew silent. I guess he had hoped that when I said safe cities, I really meant safe. Too bad there's really no such thing as safe out here.
A/N:
Hope you're liking the Maze Runner aesthetics I made for them. Sorry Aris and Thomas are literally the same colors but it's because they're like.. Not the same person but have like shared experiences. Thomas and Teresa both have green in their aesthetics (to symbolize their relationship) and Thomas and Brenda both have white in their aesthetics (because, again it symbolizes their relationship). Minho and Mallory meanwhile both share black in their aesthetics.