A/N: Hello everyone. Next Chapter is up! Hope you enjoy.
Chapter 6
'Put him down.' I call, trying to find a torch or something to give us a bit of light.
'Watch his head.' Aris says. Fumbling in my pack, I finally find a torch.
'Who's got a light?' Teresa asks, panic seeping in. I flick it on and point it right at Minho.
'Minho!' We are all crowding round, trying to get him to wake up.
'Come on, come on.' Newt whispers.
'Minho?' I say.
'Minho?' Aris.
'Come on, Minho.' Frypan.
'Come on, man.' Jak.
'Come on. Breathe.' I say.
'Urghh.' A groan of pain comes from Minho. We all sigh in relief before chuckling at him.
'There he is. There you go.' Aris says sitting back slightly. I smile at his concern. He's known us 4 days and yet he cares enough to risk his life.
'Here you are. Are you okay?' Thomas says, helping Minho sit up.
'What happened?' He groans. I laugh a little bit.
'I think you got struck by lightning.' A small grin comes onto his face.
'Oh.' We all chuckle, before moving to get him standing.
'Nice and slow.' Newt says. The boys pull Minho to his feet. I give Minho a grin.
'You okay?' He nods
'Yeah. Oh, my God.' I pull him into a hug.
'Don't scare me like that again, okay?' I whisper before pulling back.
'What would you do without me?' He smirks. I roll my eyes.
'What would we do?' I answer sarcastically. The guy's chuckle.
'Hey.' Teresa whispers. I turn around to see her staring out into the darkness.
'What?' I snap. 'Oohh.' I think to myself. That was a bit harsh. I guess I'm still a tad raw from our discussion.
'What's that smell?' She says mainly to herself. Flicking on her torch, she jumps back when she comes face to face with a crank. After a couple of seconds of sheer panic, I notice it is chained up.
'Behind you!' I spin around as another crank reaches out to grab me. Pushing back into a tight circle, we're all faced with dozens and dozens of chained up cranks.
'Oh, shit! Oh, my God.' Thomas yelps as another gets too close for comfort.
'I see you've met our guard dogs.' A young woman's voice makes us all look over to the left. Stood at the front, I squint my eyes to try and see where she is. A light flicks on above her head outlining her silhouette. If I wasn't so freaked out, I'd be impressed.
'Who's that?' Frypan whispers from behind me. She begins to walk through the cranks like it's nothing. I smirk, I think I'm gonna like her.
'Stay back! Stay back!' Minho shouts as she gets closer. I put my hand on his arm, telling him to calm down. We can see her now, her short dark hair making her look quite fierce. Her clothes are well worn and yet still are quite stylish. A long jacket that reaches down to the back of her knees swishes as she walks. Getting scarily close to a crank, she finally reaches us. An amused smirk marks her face. I know I look impressed. She knows it too. She catches my eye and winks. I chuckle as she brings her attention to the others.
'You guys look like shit.' She sasses. I roll my eyes. I can hear the others breathing heavily and trying to avoid the cranks. I grab Newt's hand and smile a little. He tries to smile back; unsuccessfully I may add.
'Come on. Follow me.' Newt's firm grip prevents me from moving to follow her. She turns around and raises an eyebrow. 'Unless you want to stay here with them.' She mocks gesturing round to the cranks. I chuckle a bit and pull at Newt's hand forcing him to follow me. Carefully avoiding the cranks I follow the girl through the doorway and up some stairs. She leads us into the main opening in the warehouse, which is filled with people. Men, women, old, young, all together, all staring at us.
'Oh, my.' Frypan says from behind me.
'Come on, keep up. Jorge wants to meet you.' She calls from the front. We walk up another set of stairs. People like the corridor we are now walking through. Barrels of fire light the way. It also makes our audience look 10 times more terrifying.
'Who's Jorge?' Thomas asks.
'You'll see. No one's come out of the Scorch in a long time. You've just got him curious. And me, too.' She flirts looking over her shoulder at Thomas. I flick my eyes back to Newt's and grin. I'm definitely gonna like her. Something I don't like however it the growing number of people now following us through the warehouse. If it comes down to it, we are vastly outnumbered.
'Anyone else starting to get a bad feeling about this place?' Newt whispers to us.
'Let's just hear him out. See what he has to say.' I say quietly before following the girl up another set of stairs.
'Jorge, they're here.' The girl says before flopping onto a sofa.
'Shshshsh.' The man now in front of us, is focused on what looks to be some sort of radio. Although whatever he was listening for, I'm pretty sure he's just lost it.
'Damn it.' Called it. He stands up before turning around and putting his hands on his hips.
'Do you ever get the feeling the whole world's against you?' He says with a sigh. Fucking tell me about it.
'Three questions. Where did you come from? Where are you going? How can I profit?' He grabs some sort of jug and a glass before waiting for us to answer. 'Don't all answer at once.' I smirk. Is sassiness a necessity around here?
'We're headed for the mountains. Looking for the Right Arm.' I say, putting on a tone of strength. The crowd behind us laughs at this.
'You're looking for ghosts, you mean.' He replies with a smirk. 'Question number two. Where did you come from?'
'That's our business.' Minho says from over my shoulder. Jorge shrugs before several of the men grab us.
'Hey!'
'Get the hell off me!'
'Get the hell off me, man!'
Hands grab the side of my arms. Without thinking I sink myself down below his waist making it harder to move me. I turn to my left slightly and elbow him straight in the gut. Janson's face flashes before my eyes. 'Don't touch me.' I shout. His hands loosen on my arms so I shake out of their hold and kick him in the stomach. He flies back into the shocked crowd of people. Another two guys grab me forcing me to the floor. I struggle for a minute before seeing the girl walking up to Thomas with some sort of device.
She shoves his head down, 'Shut up, you big baby,' before scanning his neck. A faint blue mark lights up on it under the device.
'What is that?' I ask, looking up at her. She is looking at the device, stunned.
'You were right.' She whispers walking over to Jorge and handing it to him. I don't like the smile that is currently stretching onto his face. The men let the others go but keep me on my knees.
'Right about what? What is she talking about?' Thomas shouts.
'I'm sorry, hermano. Looks like you're tagged. You came from WICKED. Which means... you're very valuable.' The hands on my shoulders are getting tighter and tighter. Oh fuck.
'Good plan, Kira. "Just hear what the man has to say." Really working out for us.' Minho says sarcastically. We are currently tied, by our feet, to a ceiling. That's right. We're hanging. By our feet. Over a massive drop. Luckily my gun had been moved to the zip up pockets of my jacket before we got here.
'Shut up, Minho.' Thomas says. 'Maybe I can reach the rope.' Minho and Thomas both try to bend up from the waist to grab the rope around their feet. I chuckle a bit as they both flop down unable to reach.
'Enjoying the view?' Jorge emerges out of the shadows and stands in front of us holding a cane with a brass dog's head on it.
'What the hell do you want?' I snap, pissed that he tied us up.
'That is the question.' He chuckles. 'My men want to sell you back to WICKED.'
'Well your men are idiots!' I snap again. He nods slightly.
'Yes well, life has taught them to think small.' I try to nod, but it's very difficult to nod upside down. 'I'm not like that. Something tells me that you're not either.'
'Is the blood rushing to my head or is this shank not making any sense?' Minho calls snarkily, obviously as annoyed as I am.
'Tell me what you know about the Right Arm.' I narrow my eyes at him.
'I thought you said they were ghosts.' Newt pipes up.
'I happen to believe in ghosts. Especially when I hear them chattering on the airwaves.' So that's what he was listening for. The Right Arm. 'You tell me what you know, and maybe we can make a deal.'
'The last time I told you our plan, you ended up tying us up. Why should we should we tell you anything?' I say, confused at what his game is. His hand moves towards the lever holding us up. Shit. 'We don't know much.' I try again. Jorge grabs the lever and pulls it. We drop down a metre or so, before he pulls it back.
'Okay! Okay, all right. They're hiding in the mountains. And they attacked WICKED. They got out a bunch of kids. That's it. That's all we know.' Thomas shouts. Idiot. He wouldn't kill us. He needs us. Either to get to the Right Arm or to sell to WICKED. Either way were not worth anything dead.
'Yo, Jorge. What's going on?' The tall bloke I kicked earlier walks in at this point looking confused to find him talking to us.
'Me and my new friends were just getting acquainted. We're done now.' Jorge says with a smirk. He's covering. He's gonna help us. I can tell.
'Hey, wait. You're not gonna help us?' Thomas calls. Dammit, Tommy. Read his body language.
'Don't worry, Hermano. We'll get you back to where you belong. Hang tight.' He laughs before walking off.
'Ha Ha.' I shout, 'Fucking hilarious!'
'Hang tight. Dickhead.' I mutter the last bit to myself.
'You better watch the mouth on you, girly.' The tall guy says. 'Else we'll have to wash it out.'
I smirk. 'How's your stomach. I didn't hit ya too hard, did I?' The man growls before turning round and leaving.
'Must you aggravate him?' Frypan mutters. I laugh.
'Where's the fun in not?' He sighs before turning his head towards Thomas and Minho who are trying to work out how to free us. I look up at the rope around my ankles. Slowly I bend up, reaching my hands towards the rope. No that's not happening. I lean back down before looking at the lever. A plan starts to form in my head. I grin.
'Guys, I think I've got it.' They all look at me eyebrows raised. 'Teresa, I'm gonna swing and push you into Minho. Minho you grab her. Then push her as hard as you can towards that bar.' I point at one of the bars surrounding the lever. 'Teresa, you need to catch hold of that, turn yourself over and pull the lever.'
'What?' Minho shouts. 'Then we will all go.'
'Only enough so that you touch the ground. Then you push it back to stop us falling. Untie yourself and then use that…' I point to a metal pole at the side with a rounded hook on the end, 'To pull us up. Okay?'
'Okay. I got it.' Teresa says confidently. I nod.
'Minho, ready?' I ask.
'Yeah.'
'Okay.' Reaching out towards Teresa, I grab her hand. 'Ready?' I whisper to her. She nods. 'Alright.' With all my strength I push her towards Minho, causing me to go spinning in the opposite direction making my head hurt.
'Gotcha.' Minho says as he catches her. 'Okay. One, two, here we go.'
'Ready.' Teresa whispers.
'Three.' Minho pushes Teresa as hard as he can. She swings towards the bar, just missing it by a couple of centimetres.
'Ah!' Minho shouts in frustration.
'Oh, shit.' Newt says.
'Come on, Minho. Push her harder!' Thomas says. Minho catches Teresa as she swings back towards him. Pushing her again, she just misses.
'Once more,' I shout. 'This time.'
'This is it. One... two... three!' Minho says, pushing Teresa once more. She swings across the room, and catches onto the bar.
'Yes!'
'Yes!' The boys celebrate as Teresa pulls the bar down just enough to be able to untie her ropes.
'Okay. Teresa, hurry!' I say, pointing to the pipe.
She runs to the pipe and hold it out so I can reach it. Pulling myself over the edge, Teresa undoes the bindings on my feet. I slump down on to the floor, before jumping up and running to get another pipe. After a few minutes, Thomas, Minho, Newt and Jak are free. Whilst I'm over to Frypan, lights fill the room.
'Shit! They've found us.'
'Good evening! This is the World Catastrophe Killzone Department.' Janson's voice echo's over a loudspeaker. I look over a Newt, who is already looking at me. Putting my focus back into the issue at hand, I manage to get Frypan over the side.
'We have your compound completely surrounded. You find yourselves, through no fault of your own... in possession of WICKED property. Return them to us unharmed and we'll consider this a simple misunderstanding.' I'm getting really sick of that man's voice!
'Or you can resist...and every last one of you will die. It won't be long before the Flare wipes out the rest of us. The hope of a cure lies in your hands. The choice is yours.'
By the end of Janson's little speech, we are all free and moving towards the exit.
'Okay. Let's go, let's go.' Thomas says as we all reach each other. Turning towards the exit, we stop suddenly. The tall guy from earlier is stood in front of us. Standing behind Newt I carefully unzip my pocket and grab my gun.
'We're not trying to cause any trouble, okay? We just got to get out of here.' Thomas says holding his hands up in the air.
'Is that so?' The guy brings out his hands from behind his back. In one hand is a walkie talkie and in the other, a gun. He points the gun at us before bringing the talkie to his lips.
'Janson, I got 'em for ya. I'm bringing 'em down. Don't shoot us. Come on. Let's go. I said let's go.' He says getting closer and closer to us. Before I can react Thomas lunges at the man, grabbing his gun. The gun goes off as the man throws us back.
'You little bastard!' The man cries before advancing. Sensing my shot (pun intended) I push Thomas out the way and shoot. Straight into the heart. Bullseye. The man sinks to the floor. I take a deep breath before saying, 'Come on.' Everyone looks at me in shock. 'It's not just a decoration,' I snap motioning to the gun. 'Come on.' As we begin to move again, the girl form before appears. I hold up my gun.
'For fuck's sake. You're not here to stop us as well are you?' Her eyes go from the gun, to me, to the body behind me. She shakes her head.
'No, I'm here to help. Come on.' I take another breath and let my gun fall by my waist.
'Thank god, I wasn't sure if I could shoot you too. That was guy was a dick.' She laughs before moving away. Following closely we run up some stairs to see Jorge running towards us. A song starts loudly playing over the loudspeakers. I turn to the girl.
'What is going on?' She turns with a grin.
'You'll see. Come on, this way.'
'Brenda! Hurry! We don't have much time! Let's go, let's go, let's go!' Jorge runs up to a wall and pushes. The wall flies upon showing some sort of zip line leading from this building to another.
'Right this way!' He shouts, gesturing proudly at the line.
'You gotta be kidding me.' Frypan says, looking at the line in displeasure.
'Plan B, hermano. You kids wanna get to the Right Arm? I'll lead you to them. But you're gonna owe me. Follow me!' And with that he grabs on to a piece of cloth and jumps. I poke my head round the corner to see him flying along the line to the other building.
'All right! Let's go!' Brenda shouts, pulling down more cloth. I nod quickly.
'Come on! Everyone, go.' I push Minho towards Brenda. Looking at me, he grabs onto the cloth and jumps out.
'Thomas, you next.' He does the same. Frypan. Jak. Aris. Teresa.
'Newt, you go next.' He shakes his head. I roll my eyes, before kissing him on the cheek.
'Just go. I'm right behind you.' He sighs, before nodding and pushing off. Brenda quickly runs past me away from the line.
'Brenda! Where you going?' I shout before chasing after her. Jorge is gonna get us to the Right Arm. Brenda matters to Jorge. Protect Brenda. I race after her back to Jorge's office.
'Brenda, come on. What are you doing?' She rattles through drawers, obviously trying to find something. 'Come on. We gotta go!' I shout. She stops suddenly, grabs something out of the drawer and spins around.
'I got it. Come on.' We race back towards the line, but get cut off by guys with guns.
'Shit. WICKED!' They obviously saw the others escaping. Brenda and I pull out our guns and begin to fire at the figures.
'Take cover!' One of the men shouts.
'Go! Go!' Brenda shouts pushing me towards a door at the back of the room. I duck down whilst bullets come flying over the top of our heads.
'Shit!' I shout as one bullet gets a little too close.
'Come on, hurry! We're running out of time!' Brenda shouts running in front of me. We run across a bridge at the very top of the warehouse.
'What does that mean?' I scream, getting no answer. More bullets fly towards us. I thought the idea was to take us alive!
'Here, follow me!' She screams, making her way onto a support beam.
'Are you kidding me?!' I shout behind her, making my way onto the beam anyway.
'Come on!' Balancing on a beam is hard to begin with. When you have guys with guns chasing you; 10 times harder.
'Stop! Stay right where you are!' The guy calls from behind me.
'Shit. No, we need them. You go around. I'll go after them.' Another one says. Trying not to look down or back I keep my eyes trained on Brenda.
'Brenda, where are we going?' I shout.
'Hurry! The song's almost over!' She screams.
'Kid, don't move!' The man says behind me. I ignore him and climb over the beam at the end.
'Somewhere a-walkin' after midnight.
Searchin' for me'
The song finishes, causing me to turn and see what Brenda was so afraid of.
BANG
Huge explosions fill the warehouse. I laugh a little. Clever Jorge!
'Holy shit!' Brenda gasps from behind me. 'We gotta move, the roofs gonna cave in!' I agree as soon as I see it happening at the far end of the building. Running after Brenda, I watch her jump and grab onto a wire in a lift shaft. Taking a quick glance behind me, I run and follow her down. As I fly down the shaft, I hear Brenda at the bottom.
'Come on.'
As soon as my feet touch the bottom, I jump out of the shaft, just as the roof pieces tumble down. Clouds of dust, sand and smoke fill the air causing us to cough. Trying to get my breath back, I sit up.
'Are you okay?' Brenda asks, her voice quite gravelly from the dust.
'Yeah, great.' Brenda shines her torch at the lift shaft. It is full of rocks and debris.
'No, no. How are we gonna get back to the others?' I say looking at Brenda.
'Relax. I'm gonna get us out of here.' She says, before rummaging in her bag and pulling out another torch. Chucking it me she says, 'Here.' I catch it before switching it on.
'Oh shit, Newt's gonna kill me.' I whisper to myself before getting up and starting to look around. 'Why are you helping us?' I ask.
'Trust me, it's not my idea.' Charming. 'Jorge seems to think you guys are our ticket to the safe haven.'
'The what?' I ask, staring at her.
'You know, paradise. Safe from the sun, free of infection. Supposedly, the Right Arm's been taking kids there for years. Immunes, anyway.' She adds bitterly. So not immune then. I'm guessing that's why she's out here and not in the facility.
'And you know where that is?' I ask. If Jorge knows, maybe that's where he's taken the others.
'No. But Jorge knows a guy. Marcus. He used to smuggle kids up into the mountains. If Jorge made it out, that's where he'll be taking your friends.' Brenda movies over to some sort of grate on the floor, covered by a pallet. Throwing the pallet of she starts to pull at it.
'If he made it out?' I ask. He had to have made it out. He's got the others. Newt.
'You ask a lot of questions. Can you just come over here and help me with this? Please.' I walk over and reach for the grate with my left arm.
'Shit.' Brenda says, staring at me.
'What?' I say.
'You're shot.'
'Oh,' I laugh, 'No that's from before I got here, probably just leaking through the bandage, its fine.' I reach for the grate again.
'No,' Brenda says. 'That's new,' pointing at my shoulder. I look down at my shoulder and see blood billowing out onto my shirt.
'Aww, shit.' I say. 'Do you have any bandages in there?' I say pointing at her bag. She shakes her head. I sigh. 'Any shirts.' She nods this time and delves into her bag. 'Any tape?' Again she nods, pulling out some shirts and a reel of tape. Throwing off my jacket I say, 'Okay, I need you to check whether it's a through and through.'
'How do I do that?' She says, panic seeping into her voice. Throwing off my shirt I turn around.
'Is there an exit wound?' I grab one of the shirts and jam it into the wound on the front. She walks up behind me before saying, 'Yeah.'
'Okay, that's good. Now jam another shirt into and over the exit wound and then we'll secure it with tape.'
'Okay,' she whispers getting to work. After 5 minutes we think the wound is wrapped tight enough and I stick my shirt back on. Throwing my jacket on over that, and you can't really tell. 'I'm Kira, by the way. We were never really introduced.' She grins and shakes my outstretched hand.
'Brenda,' she replies.
'Pleasure. Okay, let's try again shall we,' I say with a smirk. She chuckles and we yank on the grate. Slowly it comes open. Pushing it back we hover over the entrance to the tunnels. An echoey screech make me look at Brenda. 'Well, that doesn't sound good.'
'Yeah. Down here they'll be full term. Let's go.' She jumps into the tunnel, with me following straight after.
'Full term?' I query. She ignores me again. She tends to do that when she knows I won't like the answer. We slowly make our way through a small tunnel leading to what looks like a sewer. Graffiti covers all the walls. It's quite cool actually, you know in a creepy, "I never want to come here again" kind of way.
'I think it's this way.' Brenda whispers after peering both ways down the sewer.
'You think?' I follow her, despite my doubts that she knows where she is going. 'Do people live down here?' Water droplets keep hitting the back of my neck causing me to pull Newt's scarf tighter round my neck.
'The Solar Storms forced people underground. Jorge says there's settlements all over these tunnels.' I look around.
'I couldn't imagine living down here,' I whisper.
'Me either.'
'So, what about Jorge? Is he your father?' I ask curiously.
'Close enough. Truth is, I don't really know what he is. He's just always been there. And I've always done what he's asked me to do, no matter how stupid.' She says bitterly.
'So you don't think the Right Arm is real?' I ask looking down at the floor. Screeching from behind us causes up to whip around. After we are sure there is nothing coming we carry on walking.
'I think...hope is a dangerous thing. Hope has killed more of my friends than the Flare and the Scorch combined. Just thought Jorge was smarter than that.' I look up at her.
'Hope is the only reason I'm still alive.' I say. She stops and stares at me. 'What?'
'You don't seem like the kind of person that believes in hope.' I chuckle.
'Yeah, I guess I'm not. But the hope's not for me.' She furrows her brows. 'My friends. My hope…is that they'll survive. That's what keeps me going.' I finish before starting to walk again.
'Uh huh,' she says, before smiling slyly. 'Hope and a certain boy?' I look over at her teasing tone. I chuckle. 'What's his name again? Nick, Nathen…' I laugh at her fishing.
'Newt.' I say simply.
'Right.' She nods. 'What kind of name is Newt?' I smirk.
'It's the one that WICKED gave him.' I laugh.
'And he kept it?' My smile drops a bit.
'WICKED took our memories. I'm the only one who kept my original name, and that's because I was too stubborn to let them change it.'
'They took your…' I nod.
'I remember bits. As does Thomas. But the others. Nothing. Nothing from before WICKED.'
'Shit,' she says. I nod.
'So he's your boyfriend. Newt.' I smile at the smooth subject change.
'I guess so. Kind of. We haven't really had time to talk about it.' I smile. Boyfriend. I wonder what he would make of that.
'Well, he's cute. I'll give you that. Even if he does have a ridiculous name.' We both laugh again before reaching a fork in the tunnel.
'Damn.' I start to walk slowly down one. Seeing a light and fresh air coming from the end I say, 'Hey, I think it might be this way. Brenda? Brenda?' I can't see her.
'I'm over here.' Her voice comes from round the corner. Walking over to her she points at something on the wall. 'Look at this.' What looks like vines, have climbed up the wall, although getting closer, I see that they are not plant material.
'What the hell is this?' I ask, looking over to her. The vines cover every inch of wall, working its way down the tunnel. They are red-ish in colour and are letting off a really awful smell.
'I don't know.' She whispers. A squeaking comes from a tunnel next to us causing us to back away. My heart pounds in my chest so hard, I swear Brenda can hear it. A rat comes into the light causing us to let a sigh. I snigger at the fact that we were so scared over a fucking rat. It walks forward and topples off the edge of the tunnel, causing it to come sprawling out on the floor. It picks itself up and walks over getting a bit too close to Brenda for comfort. She kicks it away saying, 'Urghhh. Jesus.' We watch as the rat walks over some of the vines getting closer and closer to the wall. A hand shoots out of the vines grabbing the rat round the stomach. Brenda and I jump back as the vines pull away from the wall revealing a crank.
'Shit.' I whisper putting my hand over my mouth. More and more cranks are appearing now; some from the walls like the first and some from the end of the corridor all converging on the squeaking rat. Keeping quiet we turn around, and come face to face with another. Brenda gasps as I take a torch from the back of her pack and smack it round the face. The crank bends down causing us to be able to pass it. Straightening up, it makes a screeching sound alerting all the other cranks to our presence.
'Go, go, go! Oh, my God!' Brenda shouts as we pelt down my original corridor towards the light. The screeching and moaning of the cranks behind us force us to push harder and move quicker.
'Keep going! We're almost there. Come on.' Making our way into the sunlight we slide to a stop, preventing us from going straight off the edge of the path, into the depths of rubble below. Looking up, I see the cause of the rubble. A skyscraper, broken at the base, has toppled onto another building. Luckily for us this creates a bridge over the gorge.
'Come on! This way!' Brenda shouts, starting to climb up the inside of the building. Glancing behind me, I see the cranks gaining on us. Moving instantly, I race after Brenda, trying to follow where she steps. 'Kira. Come on!' We weave through several fallen pieces of building before reaching an entirely vertical bit. I look in horror at it. Running I can do. Climbing, not so much.
'Okay.' Brenda says as we start to climb. The screeching and snarling of the cranks gets increasingly louder, so I try to increase my pace. My worries are confirmed when 3 cranks appear below me. 'Go, go!' I shout, climbing as quickly as possible.
'Come on!' Brenda shouts. 'Keep going!' Brenda obviously catches her hand on something loose as she screams, 'Watch out!' Pushing myself into the wall a filing cabinet comes flying past me and into one of the cranks causing it and the window it fell through to break.
'Are you okay?' She shouts.
'Yeah. Maybe we shouldn't try that one again.' I say sarcastically, before reaching the top. We reach a set of stairs which are partially broken and are all at weird angle. I think we can still get up them though.
Brenda obviously agrees as she says. 'Come on! Follow me!' Pulling herself up the stairs I follow fast.
'Go, go, go!' A crank decides to take the shortcut and climbs up the middle of the stairs reaching us in mere seconds.
'Woah!' I shout as it appears beside me. Brenda in a staircase above kicks it in the face causing it to lose its balance and fall all the way down.
'Okay, go, go!' I say, as we continue to run.
'Come on!' Brenda shouts as we reach a particularly precarious bit. We are entirely vertical now. Brenda grabs onto a piece of railing to pull herself to the next stair but before I realise, the railing comes loose causing her to lose her grip and slide backwards through a door to the side of me.
'Brenda! Brenda!' She slides backwards screaming, coming to land heavily on a window. That window is the only thing between Brenda and a huge drop. I hear a quiet splinter as she lands, which makes me wince. I have to get down there now! That window isn't gonna hold.
'You okay?' I call down.
'Yeah.' A quiet groan comes from Brenda.
'Hang on, I'm gonna find a way down.' I call, grabbing onto the door frame and trying to find the safest route. This isn't gonna work if were both dead. A crack from below. Brenda is trying to get up. 'No, Brenda, don't move. Don't move!' She ignores me – as usual, as proceeds to try and stand. Sliding down, I grip onto a bit of protruding support beam. Making sure I have a firm grip, I reach hand forward to Brenda who is now fully standing. The glass below her is cracking form frame to frame, every move she makes. 'Come on.' I say, reaching out to her.
'I can't.' She whispers, looking down at the glass.
'Brenda, grab my hand.' I say trying to reach for her. A snarling forces me to look away from Brenda to the doorway up top. A crank had made its way to us and coming after Brenda. 'No, no!' I scream as the crank slides down and knocks Brenda to the floor; or window in this case. A loud crack sounds as the window becomes decorated with splitting glass.
'Kira!' She screams. The crank is on top of her, and there is nothing I can do.
'Brenda!' I shout as she kicks off the crank and scrabbles to get to me. 'Come on, you need to get to me.'
'I can't reach!' she shouts as the crank pulls her back by her leg. The fight between Brenda and the crank is making the glass worse. The crank tries to punch Brenda but misses, punching the glass instead. Grabbing my gun from my pocket, I slide down the rest of the way, onto the next window.
'Come on! Brenda!' I shout. She manages to kick away the crank long enough to grab my hand. Making sure my grip is good, I shoot out the glass from underneath them. The crank falls into the depths as Brenda hangs from my hand. Throwing my gun on the floor, I grab Brenda with my other hand as well. My shoulder screams in pain as I hold her. 'I've got you.' I say as I start to pull her back up. She scrabbles up the side, and leans on some rubble, trying to get her breath back. Sitting down next to her, I wince as my shoulder thrums with pain.
'You okay?' She asks quietly. I nod.
'Yeah, I'm sure it's fine.' After a couple of minutes getting out breath back, we slowly climb back up and though the door at the top. Continuing up the stairs we make it to the top of the building. Looking around I see a fire escape that leads back down to the ground.
'We can get down here. Come on.' I say, as we race down the stairs, desperate to get back to ground level. Coming out at the bottom, we are in a street. Sounds of life make me smile. 'Hey, you hear that?' I turn to smile at Brenda before seeing her collapsing on the floor rooting in her bag. 'You all right?' I ask, as she rolls up her trouser leg. A large bit mark sticks out on her leg. I take a deep breath. That was how Winston got infected. A bite.
'Shit.' She says, before wrapping a ripped shirt around it.
'Brenda...' I whisper.
'Yeah, yeah. I know. Let's just go find Marcus.' She says, before pulling her trouser leg down and getting up.
So at the moment Harry Potter is winning in the polls. I'm very excited and am already batting around ideas.
Hope you enjoyed the introduction of Brenda. I always loved her character and thought that Kira would too.
BookNerd011504: Glad you enjoyed.
lorelei: Your welcome. I love getting reviews and love replying!
Spoonie: How did you enjoy Fever Code?
yasminasfeir1: I'm glad your liking it!
As always,
Have a good week,
Zoe xx
