27
THE LAST CITY
⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆
Thomas slammed the map down on the oak table and pointed at a circles area repeatedly, "There, that's it. It's a few hundred miles. Based on the railways and everything Aris has told us, that's where they will be heading. That's where they are taking Minho," Thomas watched as Vince's face fell ever so slightly, "We take everyone who can fight, follow the roads where we can, we can make it back within a week."
"A week?" Vince replied questioningly, "It took us six months to get here, we've got over a hundred kids here now. We can't just hang out here forever, after what we just pulled. You wanna wander off to a random point on the map? You don't even know what's there."
Rosa was about to open her mouth but Jorge beat her to it after silently entering the room, "I do. It's been a few years, but I've been there. The last city, that's what WICKED called it. It was our old base of operations. If that city is still standing, that's the last place you'd want to go, hermano. That's the lion's den."
"It's nothing we haven't done before," Rosa pushed off the wall and sticker her dagger in the middle of the circle on the map, "That is where we are going to take them down."
Vince scoffed, "Yeah, with months of planning. Reliable information. The element of surprise. None of which we have now."
"Vince, I've thought this through-"
Vince cut Thomas off harshly, "The last time we went off half-cocked, I lost everything. Do you remember that? Look, I know it's Minho," his voice softened quickly, "But you can't ask me to put the kids on the line for one man. I won't do it."
The radio started to stutter from behind the group, her eyes went wide before she started to shout at Jorge and retrieve her dagger from the table, "Hit the lights!"
Whilst Thomas and Vince ran off in one direction, Rosa ran off with Newt and Maria to make sure the new arrivals weren't terrified.
⋆
Rosa felt Thomas shift from beside her on their bed in the tent that they had set up in the bunk room, it gave them privacy and it helped her sleep at night when he was beside her. She looked up to see him pulling on his jacket and tying his shoes, "Tommy?"
He turned and kissed her head gently, "I can't leave him out there."
She nodded and rubbed her eyes, jumping from the bed and doing the same. She pulled her jeans over her legs and shoved some items into a bag, she felt his eyes on her. "What? You know you couldn't do it without me."
"I know, I just didn't want to wake you," she slowly nodded, not believing what he was saying. She knew deep down that Thomas didn't agree with how Rosa wanted to take WICKED down, by having her kill her own mother. He couldn't let her live with the eternal guilt that would have come with it. If he had to do it, he would.
They both unzipped the tent and walked out into the room filled with bunks and hammocks, all of them filled with sleeping Right Arm members. They quietly shut the door behind them and climbed up the stairs outside. They thought they had successfully made it out of the camp without being made until Newt's British voice filled the air, "Where do you think you're going then?"
He switched a light on to reveal him and Marie, both fully kitted out. Rosa scratched the back of her hair, "Newt. Marie-"
"Don't be a twat about it," Newt replied as he stepped up to them, "I'm already here. Come on."
He took the bag from Thomas' hands and turned around, already starting to walk away from them. Thomas and Rosa shared a quick glance before she chased after him, "No, no. Not this time. Look, even if we find Minho there is no guarantee that we make it back."
Still ignoring what they were trying to say, he opened the from door to show that Frypan had been sitting in the front of the truck the whole time, "Well, you need all the help you can get then. Look, we started this together and we may as well end it that way it too."
Rosa turned to look at Thomas, she knew that they needed all the help they could get if they wanted Minho to make it out alive. But she had no idea what was going on in his mind, "Okay. Let's go get our boy."
⋆
Rosa felt the truck come to a stop and her eyes fall open one more, the journey had been bumpy and tiring and she found herself drifting in and out of sleep ever so often, her hands never once dropping from the wooden heart pendant from around her neck.
"Mornin' sleepyhead," Marie smiled over to the girl as she braided her red hair behind her head, Rosa looked up to see Newt watching the redhead with a smirk on his face and her cheeks blushing when she noticed. Her eyebrow raised knowingly at the two.
"Good morning," Thomas opened the door for her as they all stepped out from the vehicle in front of a dark tunnel, she couldn't help but feel anxious at the sight of it.
"You want us to go in there?" Newt asked Thomas as he stopped a small distance from the mouth of the tunnel, "I don't want to come across as too negative, but if I was a Crank that is exactly where I would be."
Rosa smiled at Newt rested his elbow on his shoulder, "That, my dear friend, is why you always carry more than one weapon at all times," she pulled the leg of her trousers up to show the smaller pistol in her boot and a dagger strapped to her calf, she also had the more obvious weapon in the halter around her thigh and a larger knife on her belt, "We should be good."
He sent a small smirk to her as she stood next to Frypan and they both looked wearily into the cave just as Thomas started to speak, "I don't think we have much of a choice."
"Alright, I get shotgun," he informed Thomas as they all piled back into the car with Frypan driving seeing as he was one of the only good drivers in the group, the others had learned from the Right Arm but were never as good as he was. Thomas sat next to Rosa who also had Marie on the other side of her.
They began to drive through the tunnel with the headlights on full beam, "Where do we go?" Frypan asked to break the silence.
"Just take it slow, Fry," Maria muttered as she continued to rest one hand on the roof of the car to steady herself and the other to hold a torch that directed out of the window and onto the walls and other broke down cars.
"Wow, wow, wow," Newt whispered as the car suddenly came to a halt, Rosa looked out of the windshield to see a figure standing alone in the middle of the road with the same dead, robotic movements as Cranks. They watched it groan and cough, confirming their initial thoughts.
"It's okay, it's just one," Thomas muttered to the others but in reality, he was just trying to calm himself down, "Just take it slow, we can go around him. We'll be fine."
"Take it slow," Frypan steadied himself, "Take it slow."
They all turned off their flashlights so that the headlights of the truck were the only source of light as the vehicle began to move slowly once more, Newt slowly rolled his window up.
Marie gasped back as a face was pushed up against her window, that of a blonde female. Who as very much alive, "Please, help me. Please. Please!"
Rosa directed her own torch to Thomas' window to see a Crank clawing at the window. As if on cue, more and more Cranks started to bang on the windows, fear erupting from her chest but she managed to subdue it for the time being.
"Floor it, Fry!" Rosa shouted at him as her hand instinctively found the hilt of the knife on her belt just in case.
"Hold on!" he shouted and began to press on the gas pedal just after a Crank jumped on the hood of the car and started to punch the glass, cracking it in the centre.
"Come on, Fry! Shake him!" Thomas called out as the car swerved from side to side to try and knock the creature off, and they did. But it managed to hold on to the metal on the top of the truck and start to hit Frypan's window.
"Hang on!" he called out and veered to the right so the Crank was hit off from the side of the vehicle.
They all looked back to see if it worked, it did. But as they looked to the front once again they all set eyes on a small ramp in the road, "Fry!" Marie called out as the truck went flying upwards and landed on the roof with a thud.
Rosa collided harshly with the metal roof and found herself landing in an awkward position, she groaned and pulled herself into a sitting position to point her torch at Thomas to check him over and then doing the same with Marie. "Is everyone okay?" she coughed.
She received various grunts and coughs from the others, "Guys, cover your eyes," Thomas muttered before kicking his boot through the glass of the window and making it smash. He was the first to crawl out through the window and then he was followed by the two girls who helped each other.
Rosa groaned and put her hands on her knees, taking deep breaths due to the pain in her back and legs. "Fry, climb over," Marie helped the two boys still in the truck. They were soon out of the vehicle and now standing helplessly in the tunnel.
"You okay?"Thomas as Newt as the two girls joined their side, "Fry are you good-"
He was cut off by a wail from a Crank that started to run at them, Thomas' eyes went wide as Frypan still hadn't made it out of the truck yet, "Fry! Frypan hurry up! Fry!"
"Wait a second," he shouted back.
Rosa's hand shot to the holster on her thigh for the pistol but it was gone, she turned around to see it several feet behind them from the crash and decided on running to the gun as the others shouted for Frypan. Just as she skidded along the floor and grazed her knees, she felt the metal in her hand. She jumped up to one knee and shot several times at the Crank as Frypan pulled his own gun from the car.
"Nice shot guys," Thomas breathed out as the body fell to the floor, Rosa got up to her feet and dusted her knees off from the dust. Another screech echoed through the tunnels.
Their torches lighted up down the tunnel to see an army of Cranks coming their way, "Run!" they all screamed in unison, Fry, however, started to blast his gun several times down the tunnel before running with the others.
"Stop!" Marie screamed to halt the group.
Rosa's eyes continued to adjust to their surroundings; cranks in each direction. They were trapped.
⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆
Enjoy!