(Missed you guys! Sorry for the delay I'm writing chapters in pairs nowadays for greater continuity. This one has a lot of exposition and gore that turned out well. Also sets up a pretty heavy Thomesa which I'm almost finished writing. Keep in mind this Jorge is not movie old man Jorge, he is played by Taylor Lautner circa new moon. A HUGE thank you to readers: Adamec, Hannah03.10, and Jack Elia - for the follow AND favorites. Thank you three so much, it means the world to me! Disclaimer, I still do not own Maze Runner. Updated 6/15/18)
Newt sat back down at Thomas and Teresa's dinner table. He squared his shoulders and sat up a little taller than he had been moments before. It was like the respect of his new position as Thomas' second in command was already showing through his body language. Teresa hurried to retake her place next to Thomas who sat at the head of the table. She was anxious to hear what Jorge had to say and was through trying to hide it. After one last glance into the darkness confirmed that Gally was on his way with Minho and Harriet; Jorge closed the door turned and spoke.
"It's about Brenda, and it's complicated amigos."
Teresa spoke.
"You're in love with her, aren't you?"
Both Thomas and Newt had looks of confusion on their faces like what Teresa said to Jorge was so far-fetched it had to be a joke.
"You ain't wrong Teresa, but as I said, it's complicated."
After a long enough pause to confirm Jorge was serious Newt spoke.
"Now I'm not trying to razz ya, Jorge. But that's bloody weird considering you always seemed glad that Tommy boy and Brenda would pal around. Was that an act? Or did you have a change of heart about the girl you treated like I treat my kid sister?"
Thomas nodded.
"Yea, I mean I got the impression you were happy that... Uh, that-she liked me."
Thomas shifted slightly in his chair as he suddenly felt awkward. He knew he was saying this in front of the girl he loved to the guy who supposedly was in love with Brenda. Teresa fired a wry smiled at Thomas as she put her hand on his knee.
"It's ok Tom. I never thought I was the only one who noticed that you're kind of attractive."
Jorge smirked. Something about the look on his face reminded Thomas of Minho. Jorge addressed all of them as he answered Newt's question.
"It wasn't an act hermano. And how I feel about Brenda ain't a recent thing either, to me it feels older than time. But yeah, I was good with Brenda taking a shine to you Thomas."
Thomas spoke flatly.
"If you were in love with her how could you be good with her being interested in me?"
Jorge smiled followed by a genuine laugh as he shook his head.
"Because Thomas, it didn't take me twelve seconds to figure out you were hung up on Teresa. All your boys from the Glade could see it. Hell, WICKED even built the trials around using it to exploit your Killzone trying to make their cure. Who better for Brenda to get attached to than a good guy who's already got it bad for another girl?"
Seeing Newt nod reluctantly seemed to confirm to Thomas that Jorge's explanation was valid. Newt spoke.
"Alright, fair enough. Weird but fair enough. You said something about complications?"
As Newt began talking Thomas felt Teresa's hand shift across his lap and squeeze his other knee under the table. Her voice filled his head.
*I still hate that I hurt you.*
Thomas glanced over to Teresa. The wry smile was long gone from Teresa's face. She looked somber, but Tom could also see something sultry stirring within her vivid blue eyes. Thomas responded with their telepathy.
*I hate that I stopped trusting you back then. I'm just glad we got another chance... Glad you cared enough to give me another chance Teresa.*
Thomas' telepathic words made the sad look in Teresa's eyes disappear into the ether. Evaporating from the heat of an inviting look that made Tom feel like he was seeing her true self. The secret part of Teresa that she'd only ever shared with him. Teresa scooted her chair a little closer to Tom and slid her hand further up his leg.
*If these people weren't here that wouldn't be all I'd be giving you Tom. Right here at this table.*
After what they did last night, Teresa hadn't stopped thinking of him. She was anxious to do it all again. Her fingers searched the top of his faded navy blue khaki pants, the same pair of pants that he wore when they crossed the scorch. Teresa started kneading his flesh from under the table. Thomas' eyes got wider but not so much that anyone other than Teresa noticed.
*Does that feel good Tom?*
Teresa found her answer within the look in Tom's eye. She felt like an out of control teenager, but she was running out of reasons to care. Something about the way Thomas and Teresa looked at each other caught Newt's attention. At first, he took it to be just another amorous glance between his lovestruck friends, but he saw something else he recognized. Newt spoke in a chiding manner.
"Hold on! Hold right on. You two are doing it again!"
Teresa froze like she'd been caught with her hand in the proverbial cookie jar. Her mind was racing to come up with some explanation for her salacious behavior as Newt continued.
"You still have your bloody telepathy thing!"
Both Thomas and Teresa looked relieved for a split second realizing that they hadn't been caught fooling around. Instead, Newt had landed on another secret they had yet to reveal. Thomas spoke. His words were hasty and full of breath.
"Yea, uh yes we do Newt. It started working again at around the same time we activated Syllabus."
"Jesus Tommy-boy! Are you both still swiped? No wonder Minho gets bent about thinking you two are withholding information."
Teresa shook her head as she casually removed her hand from Tom's lap. She spoke to Tom with her mind before answering Newt aloud.
*To be continued.*
"That's just it. We aren't swiped. But something about the Syllabus being keyed to Tom and I is giving us access to the WICKED telepathy network."
Newt didn't look convinced.
"If WICKED is gone how in the hell is there any bloody telepathy network left to access?"
Teresa shook her head.
"I don't know Newt. That's the truth."
"I bet their T network was backed up on one of those quantum computers Ava had me jack. You know, the ones in Medical? Besides, it's the satellites in orbit that make those telepathic connections, and those babies are solar powered. If there's one thing we got enough of, it's sunshine muchacho. They'll probably run forever."
Thomas spoke to Jorge looking more skeptical than before.
"How could you even know that?"
"I picked up a few things from Brenda. Before we went into the scorch, she was Ava's research assistant. I remember her talking about some prototype gizmo they were working on. They called it Interspeak or Innervoice or something like that. Using satellites and line of site was how it was supposed to work. I'm guessing WICKED's telepathy network was that thing except all grown up."
Teresa spoke.
"That's not possible Jorge. Tom and I would have known if Brenda had a research position at WICKED. Especially something high-level working with Ava Paige."
"Who said she was working for WICKED when they did it?"
Jorge paused a beat to let his rhetorical question ring out before continuing.
"Brenda's a genius, amigos. Even before she got what we called the Boost."
Newt spoke.
"And what the bloody hell is the Boost?"
"I'm guessing it's like your swipes except without the mind control hangover."
Teresa interrupted.
"-Also not possible, Tom and I were in the first two people to enter swipe trials at WICKED-."
Jorge interrupted
"-Yea, yea, I'm not trying to steal your first place trophy, Teresa. Hell of a coincidence that it was also conducted by Ava Paige right chica?"
Thomas shook his head and spoke. His voice reflected a full measure of incredulity as he addressed his friend from the scorch.
"Look Brenda never said anything like that to me, Jorge. She was honest with me I doubt she'd have kept something like that to herself."
"Well Thomas you can't tell a story you don't remember, can you? She couldn't remember any of that because Paige altered her memory. Here's another news flash, Brenda ain't the only one boosted, so am I, amigos."
Thomas' face was a mixture of two parts concern and one part disbelief.
"So Aris was right to think you and Brenda were in the trials before Teresa and me."
Jorge smirked.
"I wasn't in the trials Thomas, neither was Brenda. We helped Paige, so it stayed that way. As far as Aris, yea he's a smart guy. His only problem is he's like most of the immunes who made it through the trials; he can't think outside the box. No offense, but you all have PTSD from what happened with WICKED so you get tunnel vision whenever they could be involved. But it's like your talking movie projector said, WICKED was never the only kid on the block."
Thomas spoke.
"You mean the other factions."
Jorge made a finger gun with his hand and pointed to Thomas.
"You got it, hermano."
Teresa spoke.
"So what faction was Paige working for?"
"I don't know. I never got close enough to her to find out. But I had the feeling it was more about getting the resources to do her research than a loyalty thing but whoever she was with when she found us was just as monied up as WICKED. These cats had all the techie toys. Even some stuff I hadn't seen before or since."
Thomas and Teresa had been listening intently, but Newt had been sitting with his arms crossed the entire time looking more skeptical by the minute. He spoke up with a sarcastic voice.
"That's all interesting but why in the name of all things holy, should we believe you? You're some tag along pilot we picked up in the scorch."
Jorge rolled his eyes before responded to Newt.
"Alright vato, where do you think I learned how to fly a berg? Scorch flight school? Ava gave us the Boost so we could get ahead in the scorch. It works using something called adaptable skill hard writing. The chips are interchangeable and can teach you any learnable skill."
Teresa spoke.
"So what? You can slap in a certain type of chip, and suddenly you're a ninja pilot?"
Jorge shrugged lightly.
"Basically yea... After you get plugged in you just know things. It takes your body some time to catch up if it's something like piloting or tumbling. You only get good once you've practiced enough for muscle memory to kick in. My skills are aligned towards kinesiology and spatial orientation. That's how I managed to cannonball through a small hole in the ceiling when we met in Crank City. And how I can pilot any damned thing with or without a cockpit. Comprender?"
Newt looked at Thomas and spoke.
"Are you buying this Tommy?"
Thomas' face was tense. His eyes were focused on Jorge. Finally, he broke his stare and nodded to Newt.
"Yea. Yea I do."
Thomas continued.
"So if your boost or swipe or whatever you call it gives you these abilities, what abilities does Brenda have?"
Jorge nodded and let out a sigh.
"Remember how I said it's complicated? This is where shit gets complicated Thomas. On paper, Brenda's skills are enhanced hand-eye coordination and memory. But Brenda had an eidetic memory even before she got boosted, so her ability to retain information is limitless. Which is cool and comes in handy when you need someone to almost burn down a Flat Trans on short notice with no prior experience. BUT where anyone else loses their abilities once the chips are removed, she remembers."
Teresa interjected.
"But wait, if your swipes were to help you thrive and Brenda was working with Ava Paige the whole time, why wouldn't her retaining abilities be a good thing?"
Jorge got a faraway look in his eyes and looked solemn. His demeanor had been jovial up to this point, but Thomas could practically feel the temperature in the room change as a look of concern came to rest on Jorge's face. He folded his hands neatly and rested them on the table before speaking.
"She had to forget what she'd be leaving behind... I guess since we're putting all our cards on the table here is the deal amigos, and you ain't gonna like it. The night Newt and Teresa came back I had instructions from Ava go back to WICKED and get something important."
Thomas was trying not to jump to conclusions before hearing Jorge out. Newt was already visibly pissed but still holding his tongue, at least for now. Teresa could feel tension spread through her shoulders as soon Jorge mentioned WICKED. Teresa spoke.
"Jorge, I'm not calling you a liar, but after we figured out it was a Griever that came through Flat Trans, I pulled the transport logs. There's no record of you entering Flat Trans that night."
Jorge had a knowing look on his face as he responded.
"Leave it to me to be one step ahead of you Teresa. I crossed back to WICKED during the same cycle that brought you both here so my transport wouldn't get recorded in the data logs."
Teresa and Newt both responded with shock and anger. Newt's face was painted with all the contempt he had stored up for WICKED and now seemed like a good a time to vent.
"You shucking stupid-ass slinthead... All Paige needs to do is ask nicely, and you come calling!"
Teresa shot to her feet and slammed Jorge's gun on the table. She slid it to Thomas before speaking with equal intensity.
"You entered Flat Trans at the same time from the other side on purpose?! That could have killed all three of us instantly! Not to mention you probably corrupted our DNA. If we're lucky, we'll all just die of cancer you shucking asshole!"
"Relax chica. I scanned myself this morning. My genetic code is one-hundred percent intact and if mine is, so is yours."
Teresa felt too angry to express any of the relief she was feeling to hear Jorge claim there were no side effects. Thomas raised his hand signaling all his friends to be quiet before he spoke.
"Jorge, what the fu-"
Thomas cleared his throat and refocused himself.
"What could have been important enough to risk... Risk dying for?"
"Let me tell you..."
(Flash to Jorge's explanation of exactly what happened the night Newt and Teresa arrived.)
After completing transport, Jorge started patting himself down checking for any missing parts finding himself none the worse for wear despite the simultaneous transport he surveyed the warehouse.
"Another WICKED stunt spectacular," Jorge said aloud to himself.
The previously collapsed warehouse supposedly detonated by the Right Arm was in perfect order three weeks later. Jorge couldn't tell if it had been rebuilt, if Flat Trans had been moved to a similar building or if the entire scene he'd witnessed while escaping with the others had been just another ruse. He immediately walked to the far east corner of the warehouse. Jorge could already hear the intermingled screams of full-term cranks and their victims. The blood-curdling shrieks ebbed between predator and prey. Only when the infected would begin eating their living victims would the humans scream more loudly than the monsters devouring them. Jorge wasn't expecting to walk into a full-on assault by the infected, but the murderous symphony echoing through the sealed door above alerted him that was exactly what was happening. He reached behind a fire extinguisher and pulled a hidden lever that revealed a long descending hallway. The fluorescent emergency lighting flickered on revealing a long hallway made from smooth poured concrete. It was wider than it was tall and the low ceiling made Jorge feel claustrophobic even though it was high enough for Jorge to stand up fully with more than a foot to spare. The descending hallway felt like it went on forever. Jorge was nearly at the end of the of the corridor when the emergency lighting kicked on inside a large round stone room with a high dome. Multiple other hallways branched off at regular intervals around the spherical room. Jorge wasn't trying to count, but he could tell there were at least a dozen, maybe more. At the center of the room was a series of devices that looked like deactivated Flat Trans portal. They were arranged like an octagon at the center of the massive room. Each had a staircase approaching the empty portals which looked like nothing more than huge silvery metal frames.
"What the hell is this place? It looks like Flat Trans had sex with a train station in here..."
The sounds of the distant shrieks were growing closer. Realizing he wouldn't have time to begin sorting this out Jorge knew his curiosity would have to take a back seat for now. Staged near the passage he had emerged from was what he assumed was his payload. A large silver pod laying sideways on a gravity jack. Jorge raced up to a slim window on the side of the pod to examine the contents, but he couldn't make out anything within the dark pod. The jack was already hovering and ready to go, but Jorge knew this might be his last chance to give Brenda's memories back to her. It was an opportunity he wouldn't pass up. He punched into a nearby computer and quickly looked at a building schematic.
"Gotcha!"
Jorge pressed his finger to the screen. It depicted a room labeled special projects division. Jorge scanned the room and pressed another button on an adjacent touchscreen unsealing one the nearby doors.
"Ok, two levels up and four rooms over."
Jorge kept repeating the directions as he reached down and drew the gun off his ankle double checking it was loaded.
"-Two levels up and four rooms over."
This time the emergency lighting didn't activate and, under the circumstances, Jorge preferred stealth to speed, so he didn't run as he entered the new corridor. The only sound he could hear was his own breathing. In the distance, he could see a pinprick of dim emergency lighting from to top of a closed door. Jorge had a lighter but was determined not to use it for fear of revealing himself to anyone or anything that might be waiting in the darkness. Denied sight, Jorge steadily felt his way through the darkness. His feet could sense the grade of the ground sloping steadily upward. Each silent step gave him identical telemetry at least until it didn't. Jorge could feel himself stepping into a thick, viscous liquid. At first, it felt like he stepped in a small trickle of something with the consistency of syrup, but with each succeeding step, the puddle grew wider. The path up to the second level was quickly becoming slippery.
*What is this shit? Oil? Some hydraulic fluid?*
Jorge was in such a state of high alert that his own thoughts sounded deafening to him. Suddenly another voice spoke quietly in the darkness.
"...Help me... Please..."
The weak sounding voice startled Jorge so badly that his legs slid out from under him as he tried to plant his feet to jump back. He landed hard on the sloping ground. The impact sounded like a punching bag being slammed by a wrecking ball. The voice continued.
"...They were moving so fast... Not running, sprinting..."
Jorge collected himself and shambled to his hands and knees against the opposite wall. He drew the gun from his ankle and leveled it at the shadowy figured huddled near the wall. He spoke through his best poker face in a clear defiant voice.
"Who are you? What happened here?"
"I'm... Arty. "I-I don't know. We just got overrun. They said the guards had it under control, but suddenly there were so many of them."
The raspy voice was that of a middle-aged man.
"Are you ok?"
"I th-think I'm ok... Oh my God, what is this-ALL-OVER-ME!"
Jorge could only hear the man as he started frantically screaming and thrashing about haplessly in the dark to remove whatever blood was on himself and his clothes. Jorge darted to restrain him.
"Slim it vato!"
Jorge dove across the wide corridor ending up behind the writhing man. He wrapped his hand around Arty's mouth, and the man became still. Jorge spoke again in an emphatic whisper.
"Shhhh! You gotta stay quiet, or you'll lead them straight to us!"
He suddenly felt his hand covered in something thick and wet. A faint metallic smell hung in the air that seemed almost recognizable. Jorge spoke his questioning thought aloud.
"Blood?"
Just then the emergency lights in the hallway flickered on giving him his first view of the man he was trying to save by silencing him. His scalp was a patchwork of pulled out hair and matted lesions. All his exposed skin was trailed with thick black veins like tree roots growing on the outside of his body. And his ripped clothes were so filthy they looked to be held together by dirt more than thread. Jorge pulled his hand away to find it covered with fresh red blood. Arty stared at the young man as Jorge recoiled and took several steps retreating.
"...They were moving so fast... Not running, sprinting... Away..."
The haggard figured leaped to its feet craning its neck, so his twisted smile was perpendicular to the sloping ground.
"But not fast enough-no not near fast enough-"
It dove to tackle Jorge. Jorge countered by trying to use the creature's own momentum to slam him into the opposite wall but lost his footing during the effort. He fell backward into the slippery gore which the emergency lights had now revealed to be coagulating blood trailing down from the room at the end of the hall. Jorge's own momentum had him sliding back the way he came when he heard the unnatural roar of other full-term cranks. Arty had accidentally bitten his own lip so severely trying to get Jorge that the left corner of his mouth hung down exposing half of his lower teeth. The infected crank seemed totally indifferent to the pain.
"So hungry..."
Arty took two long strides towards Jorge and leaped again. Jorge aimed his gun towards the monster who was skidding headfirst towards him along the blood-drenched slip and slide. He steadied himself preparing to take the shot when the doors at the top of hallway burst open with no less than six more infected. The split-second distraction combined with the crank's inhuman speed was just enough to make Jorge miss. The spoiled shot rang out like small bomb echoing in both directions along the tunnel. Arty was instantly on top of Jorge trying to strangle him. Jorge felt like his head was about to explode from the pressure caused by the monster's hands around his neck. Another few seconds and the crank would have pierced his throat with nothing more than its thumbs. He fought and restrained the monsters gnarled grip. Jorge started to gain the advantage by sheer strength alone and forced Arty back. The crank continued snapping its jaws repeatedly just beyond Jorge's nose. The gnashing of teeth abruptly stopped, and Jorge saw Arty attempting to smile at him through his severed face.
"So pretty-we'll eat every part of you."
"Shuck you slint eater!"
Arty's broken smile gave way to him vomiting partially digested blood and human flesh into Jorge's face. Jorge arched his back and kicked off the slippery floor to send the crank tumbling over top of him. Jorge wiped his mouth and leveled his gun for a kill shot. The bullet splashed into Arty's forehead just above his left eye. A fountain of blood and blackened brain matter exploded like a meat balloon. Jorge bolted through the cloud of carnage to retreat. He could hear the cranks from above shrieking and growling as they raced after him. By now he'd abandoned his hope of doing more than just escaping with his life. When Jorge reentered the large dome-shaped room, his heart sank.
"Ay merida, I know my luck can't be this bad..."
No less than ten more cranks were stalking towards him from the far side of the room. Jorge thought aloud as he reloaded his gun.
"That makes ten in front and six behind..."
Some cranks were crawling over the large metal pod still floating on the grav-jack. One began clawing at the darkened window as if it was determined to get into its contents. The pod began to open and out came the largest Griever Jorge had ever seen. The Griever was covered in metal plates dripping with pod mucus. A thin red laser scanned the room, and the Griever's eyes flashed brightly to match. The Griever whipped its tail sending both the cranks who'd climbed onto the pod flying into the concrete wall. The hit with such force Jorge should hear their bones shatter from across the room. The cranks on that side of the room all attacked the armored Griever like bees triggered to swarm after someone threw a rock into their hive.
"Fuck me..."
Jorge ran to a computer terminal and tried to access the door controls. But the sludgy mixture of black blood and gory puke made the touch screen controls unresponsive. Every keystroke Jorge attempted left remnants of murdered crank's last meal. Wiping his hand he tried again with the same result as the six cranks from above tumbled down the hallway into the room. They ignored the Griever and charged directly towards Jorge. He felt an overwhelming instinct to run, but the thought of never seeing Brenda again was more unbearable than getting eaten alive by cranks. Jorge stopped dead in his tracks and scuffed his boots on the stone to clean off the blood. Then he turned slowly to face the charging horde.
"On second thought. Fuck you!"
Jorge proceeded to advance towards the full-term infected firing his last four shots killing as many cranks. The remaining two started cautious circling Jorge unsure if he had any more bullets in his gun. Jorge spoke.
"What's wrong? Scared of fresh meat?"
The first crank screamed with rage and ran at Jorge who stood his ground in front of a glass computer console. The crank picked up speed covering sixty feet in split seconds. At the last moment, Jorge faked left then slid onto the floor underneath the female crank who dove over him crashing through a thick glass screen. The infected woman nearly cuts herself in half writhing to get free from the razor-sharp hole she had embedded herself in. She abruptly stopped moving as the glass severed her spinal cord. Jorge found grabbed a long shard of crystalline glass and wrapped a makeshift handle in a strip of cloth he tore from his pants. He turned to face the last crank welding the glass blade like a sword. The remaining crank was nearly six-foot-six with a bald head and muscular frame.
"She was MINE!" The crank hissed.
Jorge couldn't get the blade up before the mountain of a crank was tackling him backward across the shattered glass. The super sharp fragments of the display were already slicing through Jorge's clothes as he skidded like a sled being driven back by the ravenous crank. The man punched Jorge repeatedly across the face in the last gesture reminiscent of its former humanity before succumbing to the urge to simply try to eat him. Jorge was stunned and disoriented as he watched the blurry image of the giant crank open its jaws wide and lunge for his throat. The next thing Jorge felt was a stabbing pain in his right side as the crank was suddenly lifted away writhing and gnashing his teeth. It was impaled on the tail of the armored Greiver. The metal WICKED death machine swung the nearly full-term crank like a tetherball smashing him headfirst into a nearby wall. The force of impact made it look as though the Flare ridden man had been shoved through the wall. Jorge gaze cleared, closer inspection revealed to him the wall had never given way. That the crank's flesh and bones had simply pancaked against the wall leaving his legs, waist, and everything on the other side of where the Griever's tail impaled him; dangling lifelessly. Jorge scrambled back to his feet and in the direction of the tunnel which leads to Flat Trans. His Flat Trans, the one that would take him back to Brenda and paradise. The Griever cycled another laser scan. Its eyes repeatedly flashed from red to green, then red, then green. Jorge backed away slowly uncertain what was happening.
"Easy big fella... I'll just be going now... Thanks for the assist... WICKED is good or whatever..."
A concentrated laser scan emanated from the Griever focusing on him as he slowly paced backward. The intense light of the scan revealed a tar-like black substance covering Jorge's arms and clothing. Even with his vision blurred from the beating he was just handed he could make it out clearly.
"What is this shit? Brains?"
As Jorge spoke the Griever's eyes cycled back to red and it planted its six feet and began whipping its tail before advancing. Jorge wasting no time bolting towards the door which leads home. He wheeled up the wide sloping tunnel with a low ceiling gaining speed even running uphill. He was determined not to die here. At first, Jorge thought the Griever was going to let him escape unchallenged, but without even looking back Jorge could hear metal piercing concrete as something heavy raced up the long hallway. after him. He emerged from the tunnel and sprinted to the other side of the warehouse coming to a stop in front of the Flat Trans portal. The device began to cycle until a computerized female voice spoke.
"Axcess denied. Transport is restricted to those with immunity status."
"Come on! Come on; I am immune!"
Jorge pulled his jacket and shirt off throwing them clear. He could hear the Griever was nearly to the end of the hallway. The computer voice spoke again.
"Immunity status ver-Axcess denied. Transport is restricted to those with immunity status."
As Jorge stripped off everything except his underwear, shoes and ankle holster, an automated message began to play. It was from Ava Paige. Her prerecorded image was projected on the wall beside the Flat Trans portal.
"Jorge I know this must have been a disappointment to you. I can imagine what you hoped to find tonight but rest assured I have honored our arrangement even if I'm no longer alive to see it through. Isabelle is offsite and safe. She is with friends who can guarantee her a future. Even if, in the final analysis, that future isn't with you. I'm sorry Jorge. Take care of Brenda."
The message blinks out as the computer voice confirmed passage.
"Immunity status verified."
The Griever emerged from the tunnel and leaped onto the wall racing towards Jorge as the portal began to cycle. As Jorge faded through Flat Trans, he knew two things with certainty. The first was he was still being pursued. The second, maybe not today or tomorrow, but he'd be back...
(Flashback to Thomas, Teresa, and Newt looking on utterly speechless.)
Thomas spoke.
"Jorge, who's Isabelle?"
Jorge slumped back into his wooden chair his broad shoulders hanging slack.
"Brenda had a kid, amigos... That's why I risked my life, all our lives, to cross over. It was to try to save another immune, like us. A little three-year-old girl who Paige had been looking out for since we went to work for her."
Newt sighed like he was still upset or maybe he was upset with himself for being angry after hearing Jorge's rational. Jorge leveled his gaze squarely at Newt practically starring through him as he spoke.
"That's how we ended up helping WICKED in the first place. It sure as shit wasn't to do them any favors jackass. We did it to save our daughter..."
(I hope you like it! Next chapter I post will be shorter I promise you! Give me feedback on anything that moves you because it helps me write. Love these characters, love this Fic, Love you guys, you rock.)