That Percy shank was staring at the girl with brown hair and the knife. Brenda, Jorge had called her. She stopped in front of me and stared. I stared back. She sure didn't look insane. Maybe she just wasn't fully Gone then. I shrugged. It didn't matter right then. All that mattered was getting out of this crazy city alive. And making it to the Safe Haven. Whatever that was.
"Let's go." Jorge said. Newt helped me stand up. I put my arm out to Percy, but he shook his head and got up on his own. I was surprised that he could. Brenda was getting awfully close to Thomas. I didn't like the fact that her knife was very reachable from her back pocket. I walked with Newt, and Percy walked a few feet behind us. I still didn't fully trust him, so I kept looking back to see what he was doing. It was mostly just staring down at his feet and looking off to the side.
We followed Jorge down some steps into an underground tunnel system. Brenda and Jorge went into a supplies closet off to the side and the rest of us slumped against the walls. Percy and Thomas sat by themselves, both staring at their feet. Brenda came out and gave something brown and weird looking out of a can to Thomas and stayed to sit by him. He didn't move away. Jorge came out and served the same weird brown stuff to the rest of us. Newt didn't seem hesitant at all to eat it and when he didn't choke to death, I scooped some into my mouth. It actually didn't taste half bad. I ate more. Then the rumbling started. It started out small, then soon the whole building was shaking.
"Run!" Jorge yelled to everyone. I ran after him and so did most everyone else. Except Thomas. I saw Brenda pulling him the other direction of all of us. But before I could do anything, the ceiling collapsed in front of me, blocking me off from them. I had no choice but to follow Jorge, king of the crazies, down a dark tunnel with no flashlight. Not the best option.
As we ran, the ceiling collapsed behind us. Luckily, I was a runner. But Newt couldn't run. I was worried about him. So, I grabbed his arm pulled him on behind me. It was faster than he usually would have run, but I didn't particularly care. Finally, we got to a point where the ceiling stopped following us.
"Okay! Is everyone here?" Jorge called down the tunnel.
"Brenda and Thomas took the other tunnel, in the opposite direction." I informed him.
"What?! Brenda took the other route?! That's the longer, harder way! And there's more Gone Cranks that way!
" Jorge sounded concerned for Brenda. At least he still had compassion. That was a good thing.
"We'll just have to go on without them." Jorge said. I wondered where we were going to go without them. But I still walked on with the rest of the group. Newt was huffing and puffing on my left.
"You okay, shuck face?" I asked him.
"Yeah, I'm fine." He wheezed. I took one last look at him then walked forward, right into Percy. He turned around in surprise. He gave me a closed mouth smile, then turned back to face the front.
"Hey, Percy." I said. "Are you a Crank or not?"
He looked at me like I was the crazy one. "I'm not completely insane! How you could even compare me to these wackos, I don't know. But my friends-" At this his face fell. He turned bright red and frowned, then turned back around.
What's up with him? I wondered. We walked down tunnel after tunnel, hour after hour, turn after turn. It got confusing and boring after a while. I was just afraid that Jorge was trying to get us lost, then attack with all of his Crank buddies. But then there was a staircase, leading up into the light of day. The light was blinding after hours of darkness, but I went toward it because I knew one thing for sure.
It was a way out.