Rachel quickly made her way over to where the few vehicles that the Right Arm owned were hidden inside an abandoned warehouse.
Technically, the vehicles were scattered across several warehouses just in case anything happened to one storage. But she and Newt were certain they knew which car Thomas would go for - the jeep. It was one of the few completely enclosed vehicles that was still higher above the ground and good for rough terrain, but also not as big as the one truck that they owned. Owned being a loose term for stolen in this case.
Newt was already waiting, and she could see the shadow inside the car. She smiled as she came up beside him and Newt tucked her under his arm as she leant against the truck beside him.
"What took you so long?" Newt muttered while they waited and Rachel scoffed.
"He's not even here yet - I think that's what we should ask him." She murmured back as she tossed her bag into the back of the jeep. She saw the hint of a smile on Newt's face before they lapsed into silence, waiting.
They didn't have to wait long as not five minutes later, Thomas arrived, hastily zipping up his own backpack. Newt cocked a brow at the dark-haired boy's appearance before he called out, "Where do you think you're going then?"
Thomas started, absolutely surprised when Rachel flipped on the small lamp beside them to reveal herself and Newt to Thomas. The raven-haired boy blinked rapidly before he sighed.
"Newt…"
Thomas trailed off, unsure how to even begin convincing them.
Newt strode forward, warning his friend, "Don't be a twat about it."
Thomas grimaced before he stilled in shock as Newt added, "We're already in."
He took Thomas's bag from the boy's slackened grip while Thomas gaped at the pair. Rachel grinned at Thomas's gawking before jerking her head at the jeep.
"Hurry up - you already kept us waiting." She joked, and that seemed to snap Thomas out of it. Mostly.
"No."
Thomas shook his head and the self-proclaimed non-couple glanced back at him as the dark-haired teen stood his ground.
"No, not this time. Look, even if we find Minho, there's no guarantee we make it back from this."
Both Rachel and Newt raised their brows at Thomas's words in an eerily similar manner. Thomas was beginning to think they spent too much time together, especially when Rachel walked over to the jeep door while Newt replied dryly, "Well, you'll need all the help you can get then, won't you?"
Rachel opened the door at his words, as if on cue; and Thomas realized all his friends must be spending far too much time together when Frypan beamed out from the driver's seat, perfectly timed and set-up.
He began shaking his head again, about to protest, when Rachel piped up, "It's not really your decision anymore, Thomas."
Thomas paused to look at her and then Newt as the blond finished, "We started this together. May as well end it that way, too."
Thomas looked from Frypan's smiling face to Rachel's equally amused one and finally to Newt's firm expression. And he exhaled.
"Okay." He agreed.
His friends smiled before their eyes all steeled in equal determination as Thomas finished firmly.
"Let's go get him back."
It was a much more subdued group that settled into the jeep as Frypan carefully drove them out of the warehouse, the dim headlights of the car providing just enough light for them to get away from the Right Arm base without attracting attention.
Once they were out of range of the base and anything they might crash into, Frypan shut the lights off. Using only the moonlight that shone done on the world below, the former Glader pulled out onto one of the many winding, wild road that wormed its way through the desert sand while Thomas leant against the window in the passenger seat beside him.
"You guys should get some sleep." Frypan suddenly commented as he drove. "We'll all need it if we want to keep driving all the way to the Last City."
"Good idea." Newt agreed quietly from the back while Rachel lifted her head from where she had been resting it on Newt's shoulder. "Let's sleep in pairs though, in case one of us falls asleep while driving."
"I'll stay up with Frypan." Thomas offered as he glanced toward his friends. "You two get some sleep."
"Thanks, Tommy."
Newt leant back while Rachel leant her head back against Newt's shoulder as the pair sat side-by-side. His hand moved to stroke the top of her head - within minutes, she was out like a light.
Rachel walked down a white, brightly-lit corridor in a familiar building that she couldn't recall having been in. The walls were almost entirely made of glass, most looking into other rooms - meeting rooms, laboratories, workstations - but sometimes she could glimpse the view from outside. A tall dark building on the other side of where she was, a blinking red light far in the distance like a beacon in the blanket of night; but Rachel wasn't interested in any of that as she strode stiffly but with purpose down what had at the time been a familiar path.
Rachel turned around a corner, only to stop when she saw a familiar figure blocking her path.
"Teresa."
The name fell from Rachel's lips bitterly, but the darker-haired beauty looked even bitterer as she stared down the younger teenage girl.
"How could you, Rachel?" Teresa asked - no, reproached. "Why would you do that? Why didn't you stop Thomas?"
Teresa paused as Rachel laughed without humour.
"The fact that you have to ask that says everything about you, Teresa." Rachel replied.
She made to walk on, but Teresa grabbed her arm roughly.
"What does that mean?" The older teen demanded, forcefully turning Rachel so that the two girls were face to face. "Why won't you just tell me? You've always been like this. You won't just speak up and say what you think, you sit and you stew silently but this is going too far! You and Thomas are in more than just trouble! So for once, can you not just answer my question directly?"
Rachel's jaw clenched and she raised blazing grey eyes to meet Teresa's worried blue ones.
"You want to know why, Teresa?"
Rachel spoke in a quiet voice that was far more terrible than if she had screamed with the way her anger and despair coloured her every word despite the carefully controlled manner with which she spoke.
"It was because I was sick and tired of seeing people who were once my friends dying; of seeing them suffer and for what? Three years - that's how long it's been. Three damn years, and there's been nothing. Nothing, but pain and fighting and the deaths of hundreds of innocents. I can't even look at myself in the mirror anymore without seeing all their faces as they scream and ask for help, for mercy, for anything that will save them - Mel, Nick, Angie, Lola, Justin, Stephen, Tiffany..."
Rachel had to stop, unable to continue given how much her voice trembled. She ran a hand through her own dark brown hair, unwilling to close her eyes. Because every time that she did, she saw all those girls and boys, screaming and crying as they were slaughtered brutally, limb by limb, and for naught.
Teresa however had other pressing matters on her mind.
"What about Thomas?" Teresa asked, and Rachel just looked at Teresa.
"Thomas?" Rachel repeated questioningly.
"Why would he do it? Why would he betray WCKD as well?" Teresa asked beseechingly.
Rachel just looked at the other girl, her silent stare an answer enough. Teresa's grip on Rachel's arm slackened as she understood.
"He felt the same way as you did." Teresa murmured, before her expression fell.
"But why you? Why didn't he ask my advice?" Teresa whispered.
Rachel looked away. Walking passed the older girl, she answered quietly, "Because he knew you won't ever understand."
Rachel didn't look back at the raven-haired girl as she continued to walk away, leaving Teresa to stare after the younger girl in shock.
The corridor swirled and morphed into a room; or rather a lab. Rachel was sitting quietly as a doctor worked nearby, filling a syringe while a nurse wiped the back of Rachel's neck to prepare her. Beside her stood Ava Paige.
The Chancellor was dressed in her signature all white, but her pale hair was down in an almost painfully-straight curtain. She gazed at Rachel with the look a disappointed mother might have at a reckless, rebellious teenage daughter. But Ava wasn't her mother, and Rachel ignored the look and felt no guilt toward the woman as she sat without protest to face her punishment.
"Rachel..." Ava sighed.
It was quite interesting, Rachel mused to herself. There was once a time when Ava sighing her name like that - so regretful, so disappointed - would have made Rachel feel instantly reproached and even despairing. When she was younger, she had done everything she could to please her foster mother and she had hated feeling like she had failed Ava.
But now, Rachel felt strangely peaceful as she hadn't been in a very long time.
"Why would you and Thomas betray us like this?"
Rachel didn't reply - what was there left to say? Instead, she met Ava's gaze and Ava shook her head at the girl with disappointment when she read the accusation and the unrepentance in Rachel's grey eyes.
"Rachel." Ava said smoothly. "We are going to save lives with this research. Think of all the people we could have saved but you have set us back with your carelessness. Do you truly not see that?"
"WCKD is good." Rachel intoned, but she couldn't quite keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
Ava gazed at her sadly.
"I'm so disappointed in you, Rachel." Ava said softly, her blue eyes soft. "You and Thomas..."
Rachel jerked upright, waking with a start and jolting Newt awake as well. The former second-in-command's arm wrapped around Rachel tightly, protectively, as he instinctively looked around for the cause of her alarm.
"Bad dream?" Thomas asked, glancing back at the pair, and Rachel let out a deep breath.
"Yeah..." She muttered.
Newt relaxed slightly beside her but he couldn't quite keep the worry out of his voice as he asked carefully, "You all right?"
"I don't know." Rachel admitted.
Newt's lips curved down unhappily while Thomas glanced over at them briefly. His expression was thoughtful as he looked Rachel over, before he looked at Frypan.
"I think it's time we switched up." Thomas offered. "You've been driving for a couple of hours already."
Frypan glanced back at his friend and then briefly at the couple in the back before he nodded.
"I'll drive." Rachel added quietly although loudly enough that they all heard her.
Newt examined Rachel as Frypan drew the jeep to a stop, but no-one said anything else. After months together, they had grown used to the familiar pattern that occurred. Frypan was used to the anxious tension that filled Newt whenever Rachel awoke from her nightmares and he let them work things out without his intervention. Rachel suspected from Thomas's own dark circles and the way he seemed to dislike falling asleep as much as she did that the boy knew a little too well how she felt. But he never said anything and this time was no different as the group checked their surroundings carefully before shuffling their seating arrangement around.
Thomas and Frypan settled into the back, each leaning against the closest window, while Newt strapped himself into the passenger seat as Rachel took the wheel. In silence, the group drove onward once more - or mostly in silence. It wasn't long before Frypan's snores filled the jeep but it was only after Thomas finally slipped into a fitful sleep that Newt broached the subject with Rachel.
"What was it about this time?" Newt asked softly and Rachel sighed.
"It was similar to the last dream I had." She admitted, keeping her eyes on the road. "The same building and Ava Paige appeared again to tell me how disappointed she was with me and Thomas. I think it has to do with what Dr. Mary said before, how we gave up the coordinates for all of WCKD's bases to the Right Arm."
"But…?" Newt prompted as Rachel seemed to fall into silent thought. She sighed and glanced back to check Thomas was still sleeping before looking back at the road before them.
"I also saw Teresa." Rachel said softly, causing Newt to stiffen just a little. "Or rather, I remembered an argument I had with her."
"You argued?" Newt asked in a purposefully calm tone that still held a hint of his unease at the mention of the girl that had betrayed them all.
Rachel nodded.
"It was about the same thing - how Thomas and I apparently betrayed WCKD by handing over all of the base coordinates to Dr. Mary." Rachel explained, before briefly recounting her dream.
Newt frowned as she spoke hesitantly and it didn't escape Rachel's notice how he looked surprised before his expression became strained at specific names she disclosed from her dream.
"You knew him then? The boy, Nick?" Rachel asked when she was done and after Newt had digested her words in silence.
Newt sighed and nodded.
"He was the leader of the Glade before Alby." Newt admitted quietly. "He was the reason we pretty much even made it passed the first couple months."
"What happened to him?" Rachel asked quietly, sensing there was something more to the story. Not that she was certain she wanted to know… but at this point, she figured she had enough horrors in her life. What was one more, if in exchange she could learn more about Newt and help him with the burdens he himself carried?
Newt paused for a long moment, as if weighing whether he should share this particular memory with Rachel, before he finally responded.
"It was maybe a year after we first arrived in the Glade. We were starting to run out of ideas on how to escape but still hoping there was another way beside the Griever-filled Maze. Nick suggested that we try going down the tunnel that the Box came up from. He… volunteered to take the risk and we lowered him down the shaft with some rope from the Box."
Rachel remained silent as Newt took a deep, shuddering breath that he let out in a whoosh of air before he finished his story tiredly.
"After a while of lowering him, something felt odd. There was a noise and suddenly Nick stopped responding to us and his rope felt… lighter. Alby ordered us to pull him up and when we did… he was already dead. The bottom half of his body was cut clean through."
Rachel flinched and then shuddered as she pictured the faceless boy sawed in half. And then she pictured the reactions of the rest of the group in that clearing and her heart went out to Newt instantly. At the same time, the self-loathing that had begun the more she dreamt, the more she remembered, about the time from before her memories were wiped reared its ugly head once more, making her voice unbearably tight.
"Newt, I'm so sorry." Rachel whispered.
He heard the darker undertone in her voice, however; Newt had become attuned to it after Rachel began to fall into depression until Newt forced her to talk to him about her dreams.
"Don't do that, love." Newt murmured softly, reaching over to cover Rachel's hand in his own. "It wasn't your fault."
"Apparently that's not true." Rachel reminded Newt glumly, closing her eyes briefly before looking back out at the road as her broken memories haunted her. "We both know that I was a part of it, maybe even helped make those-those-"
"And then you helped free us. All of us." Newt pointed out firmly. "You risked your own life to save us. That proves that you and Tommy are nothing like them."
Rachel didn't look too convinced, but she allowed Newt to help pull her away from the dark thoughts plaguing her mind and her soul. They never quite went away but whenever she was around Newt, they would disappear at least for a while. She could be happy, could breathe and feel at peace. Rachel knew why, but she said nothing, unwilling to risk breaking her relationship with Newt, whatever it may be.
So with a slight exhale, she gave a small smile and simply said, "Thanks, Newt."
She glanced over as she spoke; their eyes met briefly and Rachel noticed as something uncertain flitted through Newt's brown orbs.
"I-" Newt began, before he broke off. He hesitated, and Rachel glanced at him again curiously while she drove.
"What?" She asked, wondering what was making Newt pause.
He seemed to struggle for a brief moment and Rachel asked in concern, "Newt?"
"It's nothing." He sighed at last.
Rachel frowned at that, thinking of how he'd cut himself off before, but Newt just squeezed her hand before letting go as he said softly, "You know I'll always be here for you, right?"
Her heart instantly picked up at his words and Rachel was certain she swooned just a little bit. Trying to keep her voice level, she replied quietly, "And you know I'll always be here for you."
Newt's answering smile made her lose her breath. They didn't say much more that night, but Rachel couldn't help but pray, as the moon streamed its white light down on them, that she had spoken the truth. That she wouldn't be proven wrong. That she wouldn't lose Newt the way she'd already lost too much.