"WHY ARE YOU laughing?!" Reggie pointed his index finger at her accusingly, just like her brother did over the cereal incident, "It's awesome, okay! It's a three-syllables name with one-syllable nickname. Come on, France, call me Will."
That only brought more chuckles from her lips.
"Marla!"
"You're jacked in the head, Will."
"YES!" Reggie exclaimed triumphantly, "See, I am destined to be cool."
Frankie smiled. Reggie was one of the few people who could make her laugh freely like this every once in a while.
"Seriously, though. How are you?" Without erasing his cocky smile, Reggie's tone lowered, indicating that the warm-up was over. "Why did those suckers keep us separated for a whole month? You were in a terrible condition after we fight those shuck monsters in the Scorch. We honestly thought that you died and they just didn't have the heart to tell us."
"Shuck?" Frankie raised her eyebrow, "That's new."
"Perks of being locked up with your friends. Don't be surprised if Minho use the word 'sticks' and 'freaks' every once in a while."
"I made a deal to stay isolated until I can walk on my own," Frankie admitted, hugging her pillow tighter.
"What? Why?"
"As you said, I wasn't in a good condition."
She recalled the moment she entered the auditorium, earlier that day. How everybody was gasping, widening their eyes as they saw her crippled leg, orthosis, and fresh raw skin.
"Hey, that's messed up," Reggie frowned, "Whatever condition you're in, we would feel better if you're there."
If her current condition was surprising, she couldn't imagine how her friends would react if they had seen her heavily bandaged body laying hopelessly on a hospital bed.
"No, you wouldn't. I'm just locked up here alone, basically," Frankie shrugged, "Recovering. What about you?"
"Except for the roll call, they let us hang around. It was weird, after everything they put us through. I mean, the food is incredible. There's warm water, freaking games, snacks. We shared stories and joke around every day until we're practically bored of each other."
"Roll call?"
"Yeah... The Third Trial," Reggie quietened, "Did you go through it, too?"
Frankie nodded, "The room with blue lights, isn't it? I felt like I was back in the Maze."
"We all did it. Marie said I was gone for three days. Your boy holds the record —besides you and Thomas, of course. Eight days. I think Newt's was six."
"I was in the simulation for five."
"Not everybody like talking about it. But, from what I gathered, we all face different things and the test ended when you overcame it. If you fought against it hard enough."
Reggie fixed his position in his bed with a grunt before continuing, "Nobody really overcame it, though. I mean, everyone came back scarred. Some had nightmares, some couldn't even sleep. It was... frightening, to some point."
"You good?"
Reggie scoffed playfully, "Why wouldn't I be?"
Frankie looked at him with an eyebrow raised challengingly.
At first he stared back with the same smug smile. But, only a few seconds later, he spilled. "I'm good now. My test was loss. You?"
"Good old insecurity."
"Are you okay?"
Frankie hummed in agreement. Her mind fleeted to her saviour. To that one memory that managed to push her gnawing sense of hopelessness aside and pull her out of the chemically induced hallucination —drunk Minho telling her to snap out of her insecurity. She smiled, "I'm here, so I overcame it, right?"
〰️
FRANKIE SPENT THE whole night catching up and talking with Reggie, about everything.
It was similar to their first few days in the Scorch, when all the two could do besides trying to survive were talk and get to know each other better.
That day felt like a thousand years ago. The Maze felt like a million, while the hazy remembrance of whatever laid before the day she woke up in the Box with nine other boys felt like somebody else's story.
The naive girl who felt triumphant just for eating the last bits of cereal, the driven girl who studied Calculus wearing white W.C.K.E.D. polo shirt with forty others, the withdrawn girl who tried to be independently strong, the suicidal girl —she couldn't believe that all of them were one person. Her.
The two talked about their personal experiences in the Third Trial.
About her surgeries and injuries.
About Minho.
About her orthosis.
About where and how their friends were probably doing right now.
About their past encounters before the Maze Trial began ("I think I've seen you," Reggie frowned, "We sneaked to Group B's dormitory once. Didn't you have the first top, right bunk from the window?"
"That's creepy. Why would a bunch of boys sneak into a girls' bedroom?"
"Newt wanted to see his sister."
Frankie frowned, "Newt has a sister? Here?"
"Yeah... It's Sonya. I wonder how she's doing.")
About their friends.
About the day they were taken under WICKED's wings.
About their families.
About the shucked up world in general.
"My mother's sick," Frankie shared quietly, "They took me away from her and my brother. I don't know if they're still alive or not."
"I think my parents killed each other. I was rescued by some Half-Gone Crank who stupidly believed that 'WICKED is good'." Reggie put his pillow back and leaned on it with both hands placed behind his head, "I guess I see why they're doing this. Why they're really desperate for a freaking cure."
"But they murdered young, Immune children brutally for that."
"I know."
Frankie furrowed her eyebrows in scrutiny, "Reg, you're not turning into Teresa, are you?"
"Sticks, no!" Reggie barked back defensively, "What do you take me for?"
"You sounded just like her."
"I'm saying I get why they're looking for a cure. I don't agree with how they're looking for it," he sighed, "What they did to us was freakishly inhumane."
"Do you... Do you think this is the last test?" Frankie glanced at him, "I don't."
He returned the glance, "Honestly? Me, too. I feel like... Like there's another surprise right around the corner. And then another. And then another..."
"I just... I just want to leave this place and live, like other normal people. In a good place with my good friends, free from Cranks or tests or whatever kind of klunk they might throw at us. Really free."
It was probably one of the sincerest, most desperate sentences Reggie ever heard from her at one go. He never saw her like this —tired but fiery. In the Scorch, they lived day by day like it was their last. She even shot herself to try and make it hers. But the girl next to him seemed like someone whose hope and purpose had just been completely restored.
"Hey, France. First sign of trouble, we get out of this place. Okay? We'll find that safe haven ourselves."
She remembered the Cranks she had lived with. She remembered her mother's manic episode. She remembered the Scorch.
Frankie didn't know anything about the world outside WICKED. She only knew of the horrendous facts Rat Man had thrown at her and her living arrangement with Jorge —deadly, hot, dirty. The thought of living in another Crank compound sent shudder down her spine...
But if there were only two options: comfortable as WICKED's test variable or out in the real world but free, she would definitely choose the latter.
She nodded, "Okay."