Chapter 2:
Thomas knew he should've been keeping his eyes on the road, but he couldn't help but to keep glancing at Newt from the corner of his eyes, a million thoughts racing through his head. His hands were gripped firmly against the leather steering wheel, foot a little heavy on the gas. He briefly turned to look at Newt, he had so many things he wanted to say, but it was like all of his words were getting jumbled and caught in his throat.
Newt was sitting shotgun with the window rolled down, the wind ruffling his golden locks, head propped up with his hand as he stared outward at the dull passing scenery. They hadn't gotten far from the temporary Safe Haven, but the few miles they had wracked up, the ride had been relatively silent. It wasn't necessarily a suffocating kind of quiet, but it wasn't exactly a comfortable one either. Newt could feel the heavy tension that lingered in the air, the unspoken anxiety from both of them prickling his skin. His attention is suddenly pulled from watching the dust kick up alongside the tires, when Thomas breaks the silence.
"I wasn't going to tell you."
Newt wasn't surprised, he had known Thomas for far too long for such a thing to surprise him. It still hurt though, to hear it out loud. More than he thought it would. After all they had been through, everything Thomas had said about doing everything together, it felt like a sucker punch to the gut. It felt like all the progress they had made in the Glade and the Scorch, all the times he's had to prove to Thomas that he wasn't alone anymore, were for nothing.
But then again, it had strengthened their bond enough for Newt to know exactly what Thomas was thinking, without him having to say a word. And Newt liked to think, selfishly, that if anyone else in camp had been standing there at the car, Thomas would have kicked them out. Newt realized, then, that Thomas not telling him about his plan to rescue Minho, hadn't changed anything between them. Thomas hadn't told Newt, but that was okay, because he didn't have to. Newt already knew.
Newt shifts in his seat, blinks out the window without really registering anything for a couple more seconds before his attention shifts back to Thomas. Newt can't help but think Thomas looks like he's falling apart. His hands are trembling in sharp little jerks on the steering wheel, eyes staring straight ahead but not focusing, face twisted up in the guilty expression Newt knows all too well. For a second, Newt's lost, unsure of what to say to make him feel better, and he's suddenly aware of the void that should be Minho's natural, and oddly comforting, sarcasm.
Before Newt can even register it, he's trying to fill that void, attempting to lighten the mood instinctively, words finding their place in the air around his lungs. The words feel right though, natural, like they came from somewhere where things weren't so bad. For some reason, the thought actually makes him feel better. A faint, weak smile briefly flickers across his lips as he says them, "Don't be a twat about it, you know I'm already in."
Thomas smiles too, but it's just as brief, the expression quickly being replaced with a frown. Newt feels like he's failed, and something crushes in his chest, he misses Minho's comfort more than ever. Thomas is suddenly speaking, words tumbling over themselves in such a rush that Newt wouldn't have been able to understand them if he hadn't known Thomas as long as he had.
"I-I wasn't trying to lie to you. I know how much Minho means to you—to us—I just…" Thomas trails off for a moment, eyes darting away from Newt's face, "I just couldn't lose both of you. I can't lose both of you."
"Hey, Tommy, you know he's not gone right? We can still save him." Newt's words sound hopeful, but they feel like a lie as they bubble out of his mouth, like something dark and contagious. It almost seems tangible, this lie, and something hurts all the way down in his stomach. He bites the inside of his cheek, gnaws at it until it bleeds, wondering for a moment if it will wash away the disgusting taste that fills his mouth.
"Yeah...Yeah I know that." Thomas replies, and Newt doesn't think he's ever heard something sound so empty.
"We're going to save him Tommy." Newt continues, his voice not as steady and as confident as he wants it to be, the statement more so a reassurance for himself more than anything else. He gently reaches over and places a hand Thomas' knee. "We'll bring him home."
Thomas gives a vague nod, his grip tightening against the steering wheel. We're going to bring Minho home, he reaffirms to himself with another silent nod, his resolve strengthening.
"And we'll have that bloody threesome you keep going on about." Newt added teasingly, as he gently punched the brunette in the arm, a playful smirk pulling across his features.
Blood rushes to Thomas' cheeks as he decides to look anywhere but Newt's eyes, although he couldn't help but snort out a laugh.
The atmosphere seems to change, the particles around them losing some of that invisible weight Thomas never quite understood. He doesn't know how such a heavy space had settled between them in the first place, something so tangible that it seemed to separate them completely, but it seems to be retreating now. He's glad they are beginning to return to normal, or at least, their own form of it. It's so natural now to just shove away reality, focus on lies and hope instead of facing the truth.
The truth. The truth that no matter how hard they try, Minho might forever be out of their grasp, being tortured as they mourn him while he still breathes, trying to save him in their own self destructive way.
The more Thomas thinks about his plan, the worse it seems, and something panicky settles in his chest. The panic sloshes in his stomach, mixing in with the sadness and guilt that long ago settled there, but it doesn't rise up. He keeps it contained, buried beneath Newt's jokes and Minho's sarcasm, knowing that eventually it will bubble up, but hoping that day isn't until after everyone is safe.
It seems like an unhealthy coping mechanism, shoving all his problems away for as long as he can, struggling to control his emotions until they just bubble up and explode. This coping mechanism is the only one he's got though, now, and as his eyes wander over to Newt, he can't bring himself to regret it. Newt's fluffy hair is poofed up by the wind, and his eyes almost seem to glow in the sun, reflecting golden light. Newt is far from happy, Thomas knows, but he's okay.
And for now, until they can get Minho back, okay is definitely enough.
With a new lightness in his chest, Thomas shifts in his seat, focusing on the long open road as if it's actually leading to something. Because maybe, if he pretends that he knows what he's doing, it'll actually turn out right. Maybe the three of them will end up far far away from this mess, away from WCKD and the Scorch, somewhere secluded and safe that they can actually call home. It's a nice thought, and Thomas lingers on it, making up the details in his head.
Something along the road catches his eye, and he asks, "How many more miles does it say on that upcoming sign?"
Newt squints and skims over the info on the large green road sign, ivy beginning to web at the edges and rust starting to corrode around the corners, the lettering starting to fade. "It's about thirty-five miles until we reach the next quarantine checkpoint. But at the rate you're driving we'll get there in fifteen." Newt laughed teasingly, as he shot Thomas an amused grin.
Thomas' cheeks are stained a tinge darker from Newt's statement, however he doesn't ease his foot off the pedal. "It just means the sooner we'll save Minho." He replies almost defensively, an almost hopeful promise laced in his tone.
Thomas watched out of the corner of his peripheral vision as the blond fiddled with buttons and knobs near the dashboard, pushing and turning stuff experimentally. After a while of his poking and prodding at the radio, music came through the speakers of the car, playing an old cd that had been long abandoned.
Newt turned and shot Thomas a reassuring smile, the vocals and the blend of instruments from the song filling the small space of the car. "Looks like we have some music for the road." He said insightfully as he turned the volume up, the song vaguely familiar, though he couldn't quite place it. Perhaps it had been engraved into his memory from a time before the Maze.
"Coming out of my cage and I've been doing just fine. Gotta gotta be down because I want it all. It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this? It was only a kiss." Newt quietly sang along under his breath to the lyrics, which didn't go unnoticed by Thomas.
After a while, Thomas had began singing along too, and once he'd grasped the lyrics, he'd started to chime in alongside Newt. And for the briefest of moments, they'd forgotten all of the suffering and the loss they'd endured to get to this point, momentarily forgetting the pain of why they were going in the first place. And even if the bittersweet stillness didn't last, they'd enjoyed themselves just like they were two teenagers on a road trip—like it was nothing more than just that; A road trip.
Minho gnaws at his bottom lip, forehead pressed against the seat in front of him, head limply hung over in defeat. Denial coursed through his veins as he ran through his head and replayed over and over again what had happened a few hours earlier. Thomas and Newt had been right there. They had been so close, it had physically hurt. He hadn't been able to see them, but he knows he heard Thomas. He knows they had been just outside his train car—they had to of been. He was so sure they were going to rescue him, so sure that at this current moment his hands would be free of these shackles, that right now he would be gorging on snacks and laughing with Thomas and Newt, that they would be spending every second together to make up for the separation and all of the lost time.
Surely he hadn't imagined everything, right? Surely all of those explosions and the rattle of gunfire hadn't just been a figment of his imagination. There was no way he had hallucinated the whole train car shaking and the loud cacophony of the voices of fellow captives. It was real. It had to of happened. Thomas and Newt had been practically right in front of him. Yet, somehow, he had slipped right through their fingers.
He pursed his lips and tightly squeezed his eyes shut in frustration, despair flooding his chest like a tsunami crashing against the shoreline; he feels like he's drowning in this disappointment.
And it didn't help his sanity that the nightmares had started getting to him lately, to the point where he began to see hallucinations even when he was awake. They tainted his thoughts with poisonous feelings, and they lingered in his head for too long, longer than they should have. It was starting to become difficult to tell the difference and sort out what was real and what wasn't.
But what had went wrong? Why was he still here? Had something happened to Thomas and Newt? Sure Thomas may not of been one for planning ahead, and the plans he did have, were generally half-baked, but something had to of went wrong somewhere in the process.
Minho's muscles tensed as he heard voices carry through the metallic walls, the brusque voices harsh and grating. His stomach twisted and shifted within him as the heavy door to the train cart flung open, light frantically filtering in and swallowing up as much darkness as it could get its hands on. He shielded his eyes from the blinding light, squinting against his darkness-adjusted eyes, to make out two heavily armored WCKD soldiers.
He felt his shoulders involuntarily rise to a shudder as one of them stared directly at him, and despite the visor blocking the guard's eyes, Minho was certain that he was staring dead at him. One of the soldier's footsteps clunked heavily down the small, crowded aisle, turning his head and scanning the faces before him. The guard stopped at the section Minho was chained to, gun hanging armed by his side. Stepping over the poor souls next to Minho, the guard then roughly grabbed Minho's jaws, turning the boy's face from side to side, assessing him. Grabbing ahold of Minho's dark hair, the soldier then harshly jerked his head down, whipping out a scanner and scanning the identification device in the back of Minho's neck. The tracker pulsed and illuminated beneath Minho's skin.
"A-7." The guard read from the screen of the scanner. A deep chuckle rose from the soldier's throat as he let go of the teenager's hair. "Looks like the Right Arm didn't get what they came for. Seems like we'll be seeing them again soon."
"Alright let's load 'em out and wait until the next train gets here. This car's a bust, that explosion did a number on the latch." The other soldier called from the door.
"Make sure you scan 'em so we can take inventory of how many immunes we lost." A guard called from a few seats ahead, wrapping his hands around a blonde girl's hair and roughly tugging her head forward hard enough that her whole body jolted into the seat in front of her. He scanned her neck and called out a number, not releasing the hold on her hair until he was finished. He was rough enough to tug out a few strands of her honey-colored hair, and he looked disgusted as he tried to untangle them from around his fingers.
That didn't stop him from doing the exact same thing to the next prisoner. In fact, he seemed almost rougher than with the last, wrapping both his hands in their silky black hair before he slammed their face into the seat in front of them with a loud enough noise to echo through the entire train car.
"Hey, Thorne, stop damaging the cargo." The guard beside Minho called, but his voice lacked command. It was, rather, soaked in amusement. He went as far to chuckle, the sound twisted and cold. Thorne smirked in response, eyes alighting like broken lightbulbs as he saw he was free to do as he wished. He was even rougher with the next prisoner, and the one after that, and Minho flinched away when the hand appeared near his face. The other guard just snickered, turning away to scan the other half of the train car.
The large hand tangles itself in Minho's dark hair, nails digging into his scalp with much more force than necessary. Minho releases a fearful breath as his head is shoved forward. His mouth collides with the seat in front of him, and he swears his teeth shift, lips getting torn on the edges of them.
He is suddenly struck with the knowledge that he can't breathe, mouth and nose squished tight against the disgusting seat in front of him. He can smell a mixture of sweat and blood, so thick that he can taste the copper and salt, and he instinctively tries to recoil but the hand on his head doesn't budge.
Minho's not sure how long he is held there, but he swears it's too long, because lights invade the back of his eyelids as he begins to get light headed enough to slump forward onto the seat. Then, just as unnatural sleep begins to lurk at the edges of his consciousness, the hand tugs his head backwards so fast that he gets whiplash. Minho is suddenly wide awake, gulping up air faster than his lungs can expand, leaving him wheezing and not altogether gaining that much oxygen.
"I-I've already been scanned." Minho tried to protest, but his voice is so shaky and quiet that he worries the guard can't understand him. He panics for a second, trying to speak through unoxygenated lungs, the words wheezing along with his breath into an uncoordinated sludge that he can't understand.
"Oh I know." The guard replies, voice laced with something dark and predatory. He shoves Minho forward, his face once again colliding with the seat, but this time the rest of him follows. His whole body is held tight against the seat, and panic claws at Minho's chest, the need to escape sending empty adrenaline through his veins. A hand is suddenly tugging at the back of his shirt, and it slides underneath the thin fabric, leaving Minho instinctively arching his back away from the man, only to find himself trapped against the seat in front of him.
The hand slowly makes its way across his spine, before it webs out just below his shoulders, cold fingers stretched out against his skin, nails raking into him. The muscles in Minho's back twitch, tremble in soft little jerks, so out of his control that it leaves Minho shaking. The man leans forward even more, breath smelling like spoiled alcohol as it wafts against his ear. Minho has never felt more helpless.
"You keep asking yourself if your friends will save you." The man breathes, his voice seeming to echo through Minho's head, "You're asking the wrong question. The question is how much of you is really left to save."
With a dark chuckle the man released him, shoving him forward before stepping away. He proceeded to scan the next person, as if nothing abnormal had happened.
Minho's stomach twisted. He should be able to ignore the guard's words, but instead they just echoed around in his head, repeating over and over and over.
Too muddled in his thoughts, the next thing Minho knows, is a gun is pressed to his back, a rough, tight grip clasped against his shoulder, guiding him out of the train car. His feet stumble forward and his knees threaten to buckle as one foot staggers after the other. He's suddenly aware that the shackles around his feet are gone, that the tangled web of chains is more or less absent, aside from the handcuffs that bind his hands. He steals a glance behind him, being met with a guard's visor.
His face twists into pained concentration, indecision and doubt clouding his mind, Thorne's words still etched deeply into his brain. He considers making a break for it and running with all he has, running until his lungs heave and quiver, until his body betrays him and collapses from the effort—and this idea almost kickstarts his legs into overdrive. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, eyes briefly squeezed shut, he repeated a simple reassuring mantra to himself in his head, though Thorne's words left him shaken with doubt, tainting what little hope lingered in his chest.
Convincing himself to follow through, he then desperately wriggled his shoulders and fought against the soldier's grip, Minho's bony elbows digging into any expanse of weakness he can get. Earning a momentary falter in the guard's grip, Minho vigorously thrashed forward, breaking free. His mind was racing a million miles a minute, and his heart was thrashing like a hurricane against his ribcage.
He's overcome with adrenaline, drowning in this makeshift courage and vigor as it floods his veins. Thomas and Newt will find him, they will bring him home, Minho tries to tell himself; but he isn't convinced.
He runs. His legs thrash forward awkwardly, and he stumbles, almost like he's forgotten how to run. Panic settles through his veins as he finds his legs going against him, feet too wobbly and unsteady, legs too abused and broken to fully comply, and pace far too slow. He knows he's not going to make it far. However he keeps pushing forward, keeps tripping over his feet, keeps running like his life depends on it, like he's sprinting in the ever-shifting, ever-changing abyss of the Maze with Thomas.
"We got a runner!" The guard previously holding Minho called as he took aim.
Minho's breath hitched and caught in his throat, eyes squeezing shut in defeat as he felt something blunt and sharp pierce his back and trace across his skin. He knows he should just give up, he knows it's pointless to keep going now that he's been shot, but the feverish hope festering in his chest, almost like a disease, doesn't let him. A sharp cry raises from his throat as he feels the first waves of electricity spark across his skin. He desperately claws forward, body relentlessly staggering onward and traversing through the seemingly infinite, never-ending corridor.
His heart sinks into his stomach as he feels his legs give out from beneath him. His eyes widen with fear and panic, anxiety clawing at his insides and clotting in his veins. This is the moment he knows he's done for.
He writhes in agony as pain traces and resonates through every bone in his body, slicing through every fragile nerve he has. White hot electricity jolts through his veins as he trembles and convulses at its will. It's suffocating him and constricting his chest, squeezing the oxygen from his lungs. He tries to fight the tamed lightning, knowing that this is nothing compared to being struck by the raw force of nature's voltage, but his body is weak and noncompliant.
Darkness ebbs at the edges of his vision, everything beginning to blur into nonexistence. Everything sounds muffled and distorted like he's underwater, his ears ringing like he's been hit with a flashbang, but he can faintly make out a garbled sentence from all of the deafening white noise. The stench of alcohol burns his nostrils as he's jerked up onto his knees by his hair, a guard crouched in front of him.
"You really think your friends are going to want something so broken?"
Minho is suddenly dropped and limply falls to his face against the grimy flooring of the train car, tremors still wracking his body as jolts of electricity rattle his bones. He can feel a heavy weight pressing against his back, grinding mercilessly against his spine, crushing every individual vertebrae—undeniably Thorne's boot.
Through the fading and diminishing clarity of his vision, the last thing Minho sees is his own, admittedly, pathetic reflection in the visor of the WCKD soldier's helmet. And through his fleeting seconds of consciousness, he can't help but wonder, would Thomas and Newt really want him? Even after he's already so damaged and shattered? Even with all of his fragmented and missing pieces?
X~X~X
Minho groans and is met by the loud electric whirr of a WCKD ship as he regains consciousness. His head is pounding with every throbbing heartbeat, and every nerve in his body screams with pain. He blinks trying to clear his bleary vision, the faint coppery metallic taste of blood in the back of his mouth. Glancing around him, he finds that he is aligned in neat rows and columns among the other captives, their faces screwed into expressions just as solemn and as broken as his is. Restraints are locked around his limbs and dust coats his skin as it catches in the wind and blows into his eyes.
Minho's ears prick up in interest as he catches the conversation of two WCKD guards.
"During that heist the Right Arm pulled, we lost a whole train car of immunes, lost about fifty of them, and they hijacked one of our ships."
"Well, they really are causing more trouble than we thought they would. Just like Jansen said." The guard snorts, "Jinxed it for us, the slimy bastard."
The other guard replies, voice low. If Minho hadn't been a runner, hadn't trained himself to concentrate on sound so he could hear every crack and shift of the Maze, then he probably wouldn't have been able to understand him. "Not for long though, they caught one of their cars on the highway. If we have any luck they'll tell us where the Right Arm's base is. We can squash this bug from it's heart."
"You want to go in there?" Newt asks, an eyebrow quirked, lips pursed, his tone laced thickly with disgust and disinterest. He then gestured towards the seemingly endless, dark, lanky tunnel before them. "If I were a crank, I would definitely be there." He could practically smell the grime and raw sewage from here, the lingering scent of decaying flesh hanging heavy in the air. He shuddered as he stared into the empty darkness, only a few faint stretches of sunlight clawing into the mouth of the tunnel.
"There isn't any other way across." Thomas replied, as he tried to eye for an alternate route. "That's the only way through." He looked up at all the surrounding makeshift gates formed from wreckage and debris, his head leaning upwards and back as his eyes skimmed over the steep hills of rugged landscape. Every other way out seemed compromised. He turned and looked back at Newt, locking eyes with sultry coffee brown. "What's a few cranks? We can handle them right?" Thomas says with a nervous laugh as he gives Newt's shoulder a firm squeeze. "That didn't stop us in the Scorch."
Newt glanced back at the tunnel, then at Thomas, something unsettling clumping and twisting in his stomach. He wanted to argue against Thomas, wanted to list off all of the reasons why they shouldn't wander blindly through the tunnel, and he wanted to call Thomas crazy and out of his mind. But he didn't. He bit his tongue and withheld the sharp remarks and the points of reason and logic that threatened to spew from his mouth. From what he'd learned from the Scorch, he knew damn well that cranks congregated and festered in dank, pitch black darkness—and that tunnel looked like the perfect breeding grounds for the infected. If the old, overrun, dilapidated buildings and the seemingly desolate quarantine city didn't say something, then he didn't know what did. These people had to have gone somewhere. Unless you were crazed by the Flare or attacked, why else would you abandon a perfectly good safe haven?
Though as much as Newt hated to admit it, Thomas was right. Unless they wanted to be hiking on foot for the next year and a half, there wasn't really any other choice.
Sensing the hesitation in Newt's eyes, and noticing how tense and rigid the blond's body was, Thomas stepped forward and took Newt's hand, wrapping it in his own. "We're immunes, and if we weren't, WCKD wouldn't have sent us into the Maze. If we're immune to the Flare, what's the worst that could happen?" Thomas attempted to coax.
Newt pursed his lips, shifting uneasily. "And what about Winston? He was supposed to be immune too." Newt murmurs quietly, doubt still lingering in his chest.
Thomas opens his mouth to say something, but no words come out, so he closes it for a moment. Softly, he then suggests, "For Minho?"
Newt sighs as a weak smile briefly tugs at his lips. "For Minho," he says finally with slight reluctance. Minho and Thomas were his kryptonite. He'd do anything for those two, even though one day he knows this unobligated devotion will get him killed.
"Now let's go kick some crank ass!" Thomas calls cockily as he shoots the blond a smirk, revving up the engine as they climb back into the car.
Newt feels his stomach twist and churn, some sort of fear solidifying and tearing through his guts as the car gently pulls forward. Shadows creep like a hoard of spiders along the edges of the vehicle, until all of it's engulfed in the empty void of darkness. Instinctively he turns over his shoulder and watches as the last recesses of tangible light fade away and dwindle into nothingness, fading until the rays are nonexistent. A chill wracks his spine, his shoulders involuntarily raising with a shudder. Panic flies through his veins once he realizes he can barely see the space dead in front of him.
Absentmindedly he finds himself holding his breath, grip deathly tight against his knees, nails digging into the fabric of his pants and knuckles nearly white. His chest is tight like something's constricting around his lungs and squeezing every last drop of oxygen out of him, contracting tighter and tighter with the intent of suffocating him. It's almost like a parasite is siphoning off what little oxygen he can force through his lungs. And he realizes he can't breathe. It's like he's forgotten how to. He's hyperventilating, or maybe he's suffocating—he can't really tell, all that he knows is that his lungs are failing him.
He swallows the hard lump in his throat, his heart pounding and echoing up into his temples. Something icy and venomous clots up his veins, anxiety slowly tearing him apart from the inside out. He's nervous and desperately fidgeting with the hem of his shirt, unconsciously shifting in his seat, trying to focus on anything but the imminent promise of unending ebony. Unparalleled fear and hysteria devour him alive when he comes to the realization that this darkness is going to swallow him up and consume all that he is.
Newt flinches violently as Thomas kicks on the headlights, the small beacons emitting faint luminance. For the briefest of seconds, relief floods his chest. Shaking his head trying to snap himself out of the trance he's terrified himself into, he suddenly remembers the spotlight perched near the floorboards next to Thomas' bag. Reaching over, he grabs ahold of it and flips it on, trying to keep his hands steady enough to not distract Thomas. Instant solace and comfort bubble around Newt's chest as he lets out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Light. Thank God, he internally breathes to himself.
Nyctophobia. Newt had had it for as long as he could remember. He couldn't remember a time when he hadn't been afraid of the dark. Darkness brought out a certain—otherwise absent—vulnerability within him.
Hearing a loud indistinguishable garble of sounds echo through the seemingly infinite cavern from up ahead, Newt subconsciously rolls his window up as a precaution. He momentarily turns and shares a brief look with Thomas, locking eyes. The crank growls again, heaves those horrible screeches through broken lungs. The sound echoes across every surface, making it almost impossible to pinpoint, but Newt swears it sounds close.
Newt wants to say 'I told you so', and the words almost form on his lips, but he stops himself before they tumble out of his mouth. He knows now really isn't the time or place for it, but by no means is he going to let Thomas brush this off.
Thomas spots the crank first, his eyes more adjusted to the darkness than Newt's could ever be. It appears to be just one, though the seemingly endless darkness stretching behind it isn't very comforting, for all they knew there could be dozens of them hidden further in the tunnel. Thomas pulls the car to a stop, and the breaks seem to screech in the silence, tires hissing, engine rumbling in uncertainty as he shifts his foot off the gas pedal.
Something suddenly pounds against the back of the car, and Newt jumps, flinching violently, fear sparking in his nerves. There's a crank there, banging against one of the back windows of the car with bloody hands, face screwed up in some inhuman expression. A black vine curls out of the man's cheek, twisting in and out of the skin before it roots itself into a knot so close to his left eye that it causes the eye to bulge out of his face.
Then suddenly the cranks are everywhere, seeming to vaporize from the darkness, approaching the car from every angle. They are surrounded, so quickly that Newt doesn't even have time to process it before his nerves are doused in adrenaline. The fear-bred energy fizzles on every nerve, but finds no release in the small cramped quarters of the car, and he finds himself shaking, every muscle in his body trembling as it instinctively tries to find a way to use all the extra energy.
Newt's brain is already analyzing the threat, like he's trained it to without realizing. Most of the cranks are way too far gone for anything past basic thought, but a few are still gurgling mismatched words, trying to make sentences through flower-stuffed skulls but not quite remembering how. Newt thinks he might even hear a coherent sentence through all the infection, a grating please help me, but the fear overcomes his empathy faster than he could feel even a tiny pang of guilt.
Newt thinks escape, but Thomas is already two steps ahead of him. He shoves his foot into the gas, floors it, and the old car seems to shudder as it jolts forward, tires squealing in protest. A crank jumps—no, lunges—at the front of the car, clinging to the hood, the thin sheet of metal denting and caving beneath its weight. It's claws scrape and engrave sharp trails into the glass, and it's fists thud against the slick surface with inhuman strength. Thomas fears the windshield will shatter with the amount of pressure that the crank is applying, its craze for human flesh raw and relentless.
The crank screeches out another grating, broken call, heaving through corrupted lungs. Adrenaline shooting and clawing through every single nerve and vein, fear clouding his judgement, in a panic, Thomas flips on the windshield wiper. He wasn't really sure why he thought that would be effective—but in his anxiety induced state his brain was shutting down, and when push came to shove, in the heat of the moment, his plans weren't always the best ones. The small robotic arm uselessly swipes against the windshield, knocking against the crank's cranium in a harmless rhythmic pattern. This only accomplishes staining the window in the thick, sickly black ichor that oozes from every crevice of the crank's decaying body, effectively smearing the tainted blood across the glass, making what little Thomas can see out of the window, blurry and opaque, eliminating translucency.
In a desperate attempt to shake the crank, Thomas quickly jerks the steering wheel, frantically swerving the car as his foot lays down even heavier into the gas pedal. Almost as if in retaliation, the crank's actions only become more vigorous as it practically throws itself into the windshield, a near sickening crack echoing through the interior of the car.
"Shit!" Thomas curses as his eyes are drawn to the steadily forming hairline crack along the edge of the windshield. They need to get this crank off of the car and fast. He grits his teeth, hands trembling as he squeezes his hands against the leather of the steering wheel, knuckles nearly blossoming white. His swerving suddenly becomes even more reckless and violent as it hits him that they need out. He knows their car can't take much more of this. If they don't get out of this tunnel soon, he knows he and Newt will become crank food and be gutted and devoured alive, and this rescue mission will become their funeral. If he can't get out of this graveyard, he knows he'll have failed both Newt and Minho. He shudders at the thought of more or less murdering both of them because of his own careless mistakes. In a last ditch attempt, he surges the car forward and gives the engine and the motor a run for its money, and he floors it with everything the car has, pushing it to its limits.
"THOMAS LOOK OUT!" Newt calls frantically, hysteria settled in his tone, his pupils blown wide as he points at an obstacle the car is barreling straight towards.
But by the time Thomas registers what's happening, it's a few seconds too late.
The car jerks to the side, too quickly for Newt to process anything other than the fact his neck produces a loud snapping sound as his whole body is violently thrown sideways into the car door. There's pain, sharp and sudden, and it reverberates through his bones, stretching across every inch of his body and settling there. Nausea suddenly fills up his chest, vertigo and a familiar fear of falling, as the car shifts again. This time it's upside down, and Newt can't process the fact he needs to protect his head before it is slamming into what remains of the windshield, the rest of his body shoving up against the hood of the car.
The car makes this noise as it settles, the engine giving a pathetic dull whine as it tapers off. Newt's already moving, limbs tangling against each other in his clumsy attempt to right himself. There's glass everywhere, and it sinks into his palms as he tries to balance on the broken windshield. He draws in a shaky breath, immediately regrets it as he breathes in all the dust the car kicked up. He tries not to imagine how dirty the air here really is, thick with spores and death, riddled with micro-particles of glass. His lungs heave and shake, and the wheezes transform into coughs, loud rattling sounds that cause his throat to ache even more.
Newt registers pain, everywhere, but the majority of it resonating from somewhere on his head. His hands instinctively tangle into his hair, and he closes his eyes against the unexpected shower of glass that results from his light pulling and tugging at his tangled locks. His scalp is covered in tiny cuts from the glass, and a few pieces seem to remain in his flesh. He finds himself accidentally shoving the glass deeper into his skin with every tug. At one point his hands touch a much larger wound, one that squishes under his light touch, blood seeping around his fingers. He hisses in pain, instantly moving his hands away.
There's a groan beside him, followed by an unnatural rattle of breath and a series of pained gasps. Thomas. Newt's head snaps around, brain seeming to knock against the side of his skull at the quick movement, sending tiny pinpricks of light that block out what little he can see in the dim lighting. He blinks in an attempt to clear his vision, but it backfires, as dirt and grime fall off his eyelashes and into his eyes.
Thomas looks so abnormally still, devoid of that sense of life, that energy that he resonates without even trying. Thomas is always moving, not necessarily in a hyperactive way, but in a distinctive way. He's always doing something, whether it be bouncing his legs or biting his lips or something as simple as running. Thomas is never this still and quiet, not even in his sleep, and the concern in Newt's chest swells into a panic.
Thomas is breathing, Newt registers, but forgets the fact as soon as it crosses his mind. Newt scrambles over to him, previously numb legs shooting pins-and-needles as the muscles are forced to contract. His hands find their way to Thomas' chest, palms laying flat with his fingers stretched out, attempting to calm his own bubbling concern with the unsteady movement of Thomas' ribs.
Newt can see the moment Thomas wakes, eyelashes fluttering to reveal the expanse of glowing honey-brown hidden underneath. His face muscles tug into a grimace, emotional face showing pain in every single microscopic twitch. His voice sounds like sandpaper when he speaks, "Newt?"
Thomas blinks, confusion evident, hand coming up to Newt's face. The hand settles against his cheek, it's too cold and covered in a layer of grit, but Newt leans into it anyway. Newt speaks, voice breathless with a relieved chuckle, "Thought I lost you there for a second."
"Me? Never." Thomas says, but immediately regrets it. It's become apparent in these last few months that nothing is certain, that no matter how strong their devotion to each other is, they can still be roughly rugged away from each other by strangers and those they would have called friends. Newt recoils from Thomas' statement, tries to backtrack when he sees a familiar sad expression overtake Thomas' features.
The headlights click as they flicker off, plunging everything into darkness. It springs Newt into a panicked frenzy, as he frantically turns around and crawls back over to where he last saw the spotlight. His hands brush against sharp metal and sift through broken glass, unable to register the cuts that result from his frantic attempt to find light.
"Newt! Newt stop, it's okay. It's okay Newt." Thomas says, repeats over and over, hands reaching over to wrap around Newt's arms to pull him away from the broken glass. Newt tugs away from his light grip, the need to find light shifting into a need to escape the darkness. His hands fumble against the car door, struggling to find a handle. He finds none, and in his panic decides to shove his shoulder into the door. Once, twice, his shoulder collided against the door frame. Unsurprisingly the door doesn't budge, but Newt doesn't stop his rhythmic pattern, slamming his weight against the door as hard as he can.
Some inhuman screech calls from the darkness, followed by another, and another. The cries echo and bounce off the walls, making it sound like there are hundreds of infected, the sound multiplying, almost like a beacon to draw more towards them. Newt knows it's cranks but it seems like something else, something more terrifying than he could ever comprehend. His mind plays tricks on him, giving him twisted faces in the dark where there are none. Newt scrambles backwards, falls back against Thomas so suddenly that Thomas heaves out the breath he was holding.
Thomas can't really see Newt, but he can feel the blond trembling, can feel each little involuntary contraction of each nerve, and he can hear Newt's quick, broken breaths.
Fumbling in the darkness for a second, hands reaching blindly, Thomas' hands tangle around the straps of his bag. Frantically, he sifts through the bag searching for the cool, slick, metallic feel of his gun. He wraps his hands around it instinctively once he picks out its texture, and the weight feels comforting and familiar in his hands. Temporarily, he stows it into the holster at his side, as he wraps his hand against Newt's bicep, this time his grip firm and steady.
"Newt, we have to go." Thomas says gently, a slight urgency in his tone, but the authority in the statement is unwavering. He tries not to have an edge in his voice, because he knows it'll only make Newt panic even more, but he's barely able to suppress his own anxiety, a slight trace of fear wrapped around each syllable of his words.
At least one of them needs to stay strong and be the anchor, be that threshold that the other can cling to when they're too weak to keep going, that they can fall back on. And right now, right now, Newt needs Thomas to be that lifeline.
Thomas finds the door handle, shoves his weight against the door as he attempts to open it. The metal screeches against the ground as it opens, a loud sound that will only draw more cranks. Newt is so close that Thomas can feel his breath. Newt's hand is wrapped around the back of Thomas' shirt, and every inch Thomas moves forward, Newt moves closer to him.
Scrambling through the infinite sea of glass, multiple cuts and pinpricks of pain later, Thomas and Newt manage to stumble out of wreckage. Smoke is radiating off in thick, puffed clouds from the hood of the car, the stench of burning electrical wiring heavy in the air. Then they're met with the pungent, undeniable, scent of death and decay. Cranks.
"Shitshitshitshit!" Thomas curses as he draws the pistol from the holster at his side. The lighting is dim, and near nonexistent, but somehow Thomas can make out each and every outline of every broken, mangled body before them, each one closer than the last. He staggers backwards, his shots panicky and careless as he fires a few shots at the growing cluster of cranks, shells ricocheting back at him. He hears the strained, torn, calls of retaliation rise from their corrupted lungs as his bullets pierce through flesh.
He purses his lips as he steals a glance at Newt, teeth gnawing into his bottom lip, filling his mouth with the taste of copper. Something heavy and almost knee-buckling settles and clumps into Thomas' stomach, only making the knots tie faster, the weight only getting heavier as his head runs rampant with all of the ways everything could go wrong. Something poisonous and dark snakes through his veins invading his system, corrupting the embodiment of hope that resonates in his chest, making the flame briefly flicker and fizzle in uncertainty.
Shaking his head, he clears the thoughts from his mind, tries to fight the venom that threatens to drain him of his purely, optimistic hope. He will not let the butterflies that blossom in his chest die. He's not going to give up, he refuses to be broken. He will fight until his last breath, whether it means saving everyone, or whether it means to die trying. He resolves he's going to get Newt out of here, no matter what it takes, and he's going to bring Minho home.
He was tired of seeing all of his friends crumple and die right in front of him when he couldn't do a damn thing about it. He was done watching helplessly from the shadows. Never is he ever going to let anyone else he cares about slip through the cracks of his fingers.
With this sudden surge of intoxicating adrenaline that floods and overflows his veins, his heart kicks into overdrive and batters and crashes into his chest as he finds himself firing bullets left and right, his aim now more controlled and precise. He fires once. Twice. Three. Four. Five times, before he grabs ahold of Newt's wrist and finds the nerves in his legs jumpstarting on their own, muscles moving and contracting on instinct. His legs thrash forward with familiar vigor, and he runs like his life depends on it—because it does—and he runs like he's being swallowed alive by the Maze, with grievers hot on his heels. His breathing comes out steady and controlled, his lungs oxygenated and used to the endurance, and his legs are strong and conditioned to the feeling of his weight pressing and crushing into his calves and ankles, used to the force that rattles his bones with each press forward. His muscles carry him almost effortlessly across the rough, uneven terrain, and for a split second he think they might actually have a chance of making it out unscathed.
Until he remembers Newt isn't a runner.
Thomas nearly chokes on the air he was thriving on just a few mere seconds ago, once he realizes the blond isn't by his side. He risks a glance over his shoulder and he sees Newt has lagged far behind him. Too far behind. Thomas had inadvertently left him in the dust.
Newt stumbles as he struggles to try to catch up, but his legs tremble beneath him, scrawny limbs tangling against each other. His legs ached and his lungs burned with throbbing intensity, however he kept pushing himself forward. His heart was thrashing against his ribcage out of a mixture of over-endurance and pure cold hard fear and anxiety. He could see the stretch of light at the end of the tunnel. It was faint, but it was there.
He wheezed through heavy ragged breaths, the promise of escape from this darkness, the only thing keeping him going. He's convinced his lungs have quit working, convinced that they've collapsed and that he's gulping down empty oxygen. He can feel his muscles giving out, growing weak from the effort, but he keeps thrashing one leg after the other, though he knows he can't go on much farther. He can hear the cranks screeches from behind him, their heavy, clumsy footsteps like thunder clashing behind him.
The next thing Newt knows, he's falling; Crashing towards the cracked pavement, a sinking feeling pooling in his stomach—maybe it's gravity, or maybe it's his organs shifting to be dissolved by the acid in his stomach. He squeezes his eyes shut and swallows thickly, as he feels his foot catch on something. He knows the cranks can't be far behind now, probably less than a hundred feet. In this moment, he realizes he's not gonna make it. He's not going to escape the darkness.
"Newt!" Thomas cries, his voice raw with hurt and concern as he stops dead in his tracks. His pupils dilate as shock overruns his veins, tears threatening to prick his eyes as he watches the first of the cranks lunge at Newt, a crazed sort of hunger in their insanity ridden eyes.
"Run Tommy! Run!" Newt yells, his voice coming out strained and broken—the tone of someone who's accepted the taste of defeat, his vocal cords raw and refusing to comply.
Newt desperately and frantically kicked at the infected trying to claw at his ankles, stumbling backwards as he's suddenly engulfed by the nauseating stench of death. His breath hitches, and for an eternity, he forgets how to breath, choking on his own paralyzing fear. The cranks lunge at him, vigorously trying—and failing—to scrape into his legs, claws slicing into empty air, only managing to snag and rip through the fabric of his clothes, just missing the expanse of bare skin.
They are all over him.
Some sort of forgotten memory heaves into the forefront of his brain, dissipates like smoke, leaving a disgusting taste in his mouth. His limbs thrash wildly, attempting to hold back the weight that crushes him. He can barely see them in the dark, but he can feel them, elbows digging into his ribs, nails like claws as they try to break through the fabric of his jacket. Some sort of disgusting substance drips onto his collarbone as one of them coughs, and he shifts his attention to the crank responsible, wrapping his hands around its arms and trying to shove it away. The crank is so far gone that its skin doesn't even feel like skin anymore, more like hide, thick and rough with veins sticking out like roots from a thousand year old oak tree.
Something clicks in Newt's brain, and he reaches for the holster on his belt. His gun is there, thankfully, but as he goes to reach for it something sinks into the flesh of his arm and he's screaming. The crank is biting him, sinking too-sharp teeth into his arm. He registers pain for a moment, before he loses the ability to register anything. Shock suddenly floods through his veins, washing away all the pain and emotions and rational thought. Newt registers that he's still struggling, scrawny legs kicking of their own accord, arms like toothpicks as they buckle under the weight, but the force behind his movements is gone. A single paralyzing thought rips up into his brain and claws away at all other rational thought, and suddenly, he realizes nothing else matters anymore.
He's going to die down here. He's going to be eaten alive, torn apart piece by piece by nails and teeth. There isn't going to be a body to bury, his flesh and bones stuck in a dozen stomachs, sloshing around with acid and blood. The last thing he sees is going to be decaying flesh and his last breath is going to be infused with the stench of death.
Fumbling hands close around Newt's throat, and he registers that it's nothing more than an accident. Cranks don't have enough thought to suffocate things, or even to kill them, they just feed. The fact that this hand is on his throat, crushing his windpipe, is nothing more than coincidence, sends this strange feeling into his gut.
He's going to die down here.
Darkness seeps into the edges of his vision, and Newt gives up completely, lets his numb limbs fall and his eyes roll back. Newt's spent his whole life chasing death, only for it to sneak right up to him. The teeth in his arm sort of gnaw there for a second, grinding his flesh into chucks. Teeth sinking and sinking into his skin, crushing and crushing until they hit bone. The crank's mouth almost seems to break apart, teeth chipping from the force, decaying flesh and broken jaws not holding up against the pressure, breaking into pudgy fragments of rotten flesh and some sort of long-ago clotted blood. It seems like death itself meshes into Newt's wound, infecting him with some incurable disease.
A pitiful, half anxious-half sarcastic, laugh bubbles from his throat, when he realizes this is how it all ends.
"Newt! Newt!" Thomas is screaming, voice falling apart. Thomas sounds so worried that something twists in Newt's stomach. Something unpleasant. Gunfire spurts above him, the familiar bark of Thomas' rusty old handgun. The crank chewing on Newt's arm falls dead, bullet landing squarely through the side of his face, breaking through the mush of its brains and back out through the thin barrier of skull. Dark, clotted blots of toxic blood, spatter onto Newt's skin as the bullet slices through and makes its exit.
Newt thought the crank was heavy before. He thought that his ribs were being crushed under the weight. Newt didn't know what heavy was. Now that the last ounce of the crank's strength has left, sending the completely limp body onto Newt's, he realizes just how heavy a body can be. Newt can hear his own breath wheezing in and out of his lungs with a rattle of broken ribs; but he can't feel it. He can't feel anything.
He doesn't even so much as react as he hears the all too familiar rattle of bullets coming from Thomas' pistol. He hears and feels, more so than he sees, the cranks surrounding him fall dead in their tracks. Their corrupted bodies fall with a dull thud, legs stumbling and getting caught around each other as they take their final, thoughtless lunges at Newt, their bodies still reacting to the last neural impulses, despite already being dead. They collapse around him, and become nothing more than limp, twitching corpses.
Newt squeezes his eyes shut, lips pulled into a thin, tight line as his fingers trace over the deep bite marks engraved into his skin. He gnaws on his cracked lips, biting on them until they bleed, a crushing, crippling feeling pooling in his stomach and reverberating all the way up his esophagus.
He bites back a gag as his fingertips inadvertently sink into the too deep holes, encasing his fingers in raw flesh. He feels bile rising in the back of his throat as the broken skin gives a disgusting squelch, squirting warm, thick, crimson up and around his hand. And he can feel each individual tooth marking carved into his skin. Then there's the shiny slick feel of blood coating his arm, gushing in rivulets from the wound, with the slight dull shine of exposed bone. A violent shudder overtakes his body as he's sent into a fit of vicious, uncontrollable trembling. His stomach violently lurches forward as he retches and dry heaves, his back arching from the effort.
His breaths came out shaky and labored as his lungs rattled, seeming to contract far too much, quivering and breaking something inside him. Hastily, his fingers claw at the remnants of his sleeve as he desperately jerks and tugs at the fabric of his jacket. He refuses to acknowledge he's been bitten, refuses to believe he's infected. More blatantly optimistic than anything, he entertains Thomas' idea that they're both immune, but his stomach still cramps up at the thought, knowing he's lying to himself.
Everything and nothing at all, floods his thoughts all at once, and he feels lightheaded as his stomach gives another involuntary lurch forward. His guts tie and twist themselves up into untieable knots, with his heart mercilessly clashing and colliding into his ribcage, seemingly rattling every bone and nerve in his body.
The crank's weight on him suddenly shifts, and Newt is met with freckles and familiar honey-brown eyes. A hand appears next to his face, and he barely registers it's there as Thomas gently caresses his cheek. Pulling himself from his crouched position beside Newt, Thomas then stands and offers a hand out to Newt as he shoves the crank's body off of the blond with his foot.
Newt takes it, but immediately regrets it as pain shoots up his arm in waves, white hot agony pulsing up and down throughout his veins. He bites back a yelp, a wince slipping past his lips as Thomas pulls him to his feet. His features are twisted and scrunched in pain. He sways slightly, his legs wobbly and unsteady beneath him, knees threatening to buckle again. He's convinced he has vertigo with how badly his vision is swirling. Teeth gritted, he subconsciously nurses his injured arm, gently, and subtlety rubbing at it through the fabric of his jacket.
"You okay?" Thomas asked, genuine concern laced in his tone as he stared into Newt's dark coffee brown eyes, reading into the pain that radiated from them.
Newt purses his lips, and for the briefest of seconds, he diverts his eyes from Thomas', Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed the hard lump in his throat. "I'm fine." He manages, a hint of something else, almost melancholy, in his voice.
About a million thoughts are flitting and racing through his head, but one seems to overshadow all of the others; He's not infected. The Flare isn't starting to trickle into his bloodstream, and it's not corrupting his cells—it can't. He refuses to believe he's going to turn into one of those things. He is immune. He has to be. He holds onto this foolish childish hope, and he clings to it. Without this one, single, tangible little fragment of corrupted hope, he knows he's going to fall apart.
Clearing his throat, almost like he's calling away the muddled thoughts that linger in the forefront of his brain, he turns and locks eyes again with Thomas. "But you're a bloody idiot, and just for the record, I told you so." Newt says with a sigh as he shakes his head, tone more playful than scolding, even a little bit arrogant. He can't help the childish smirk that briefly flickers across his lips. However, it's gone within a matter of seconds.
You should've run, Newt thinks as he stares into Thomas' deep honey-brown irises, but instead something different tumbles from his lips. Gently, he then murmurs, "But thanks for rescuing me Tommy. I appreciate it."
The words had come out of his mouth without a thought, but now they seemed to bounce back at him, ricocheting across his head as he wondered if they were true. Was he really appreciative of the fact he was still alive? The relief pooling in his chest when he was met with Thomas' face was unmistakable. Such a magnitude that it was matched only with his first true brush with death. But the bitterness was there too, hardly contained in his chest, a
need to lash out at his savior for disrupting fate. The feelings were all too familiar, and he almost lets himself get trapped in his own head. He almost forgets that the dull ache in his leg is an old one.
Thomas lets out a breath, small and anxious. Newt's attention snaps over to him, aware that Thomas only lets out those breaths when there is danger. Newt is suddenly on high alert, cursing himself for ever letting his focus falter. Cranks call from behind, loud growls from broken chests. Thomas wraps his hand around Newt's wrist, as if to make sure he doesn't lose him again. "We need to go. We need to go right now."
Thomas begins to run, hand still clasped around Newt's wrist. Newt stumbles behind him, struggles not to fall behind. Thomas' pace is slower than before, so that Newt shouldn't have any trouble keeping up, but Newt's legs feel like lead, big heavy blocks that trip over every tiny little obstacle in his path.
He is slowing them down.
Newt tries to increase his pace, but every time his feet collide with the ground it feels like the bones in his legs shatter. The muscles in his legs shake and tremble, and he wonders just how long they will hold out before they fail him and he crashes to the ground. He wonders why his lungs stopped filtering out the useful oxygen, instead just drawing in breaths and immediately sending them back out, breathing serving no purpose other than to make his chest burn.
Thomas slows even more, until he's more jogging than running. Guilt crawls into Newt's chest, a fear that his weakness is going to get Thomas killed. Thomas throws his head back, effortlessly, but something that he sees behind them sends him panicking. Thomas lunges forward, shooting forward a few steps but retaining his balance, like half-pouncing without losing his footing is easy. He might have seemed graceful if it wasn't for the fact he was still holding Newt's wrist, causing Newt to fall forward with him, tripping over his own feet and brushing so close to the ground it was a wonder he didn't faceplant.
The light at the end of the tunnel seems to get brighter, like they are approaching the exit. The light seems to spark something in Newt's nerves, hope maybe, flooding him with just enough strength to push the extra few meters. Cranks call from behind them, but less than before, only a stubborn few willing to chase their prey this close to the light.
Newt's vision blurs, feet skidding, and he finds Thomas pulling him closer to keep him from falling. The light seems almost blinding now, less like hope and more like hell, sending his ears ringing and his head pounding. Newt shakes his head, subconsciously trying to shake the haziness away, but all it seems to accomplish is increasing his headache.
Newt stumbled into the blinding light only a step after Thomas. They were panting sharp ragged breaths, lungs heaving and chests burning from the lack of oxygen. They blink through the blinding light, vision obscured from the sharp rays of light and the sweat that pools from their faces, the sun far too bright for their darkness adjusted eyes.
"We did it!" Thomas beams proudly as his hand slides down from Newt's wrist to clasp his hand. In turn he gives it a firm squeeze before he pulls it away. For the briefest of seconds Thomas turns and shoots Newt a playful smirk, and coyly he says, almost a little mockingly, "See, I told you we could handle a couple cranks."
Newt chews on the inside of his cheek, his hand unconsciously thumbing over the wound on his arm through his sleeve, sharp, near unbearable pain resonating up and down his forearm. He wasn't really sure he'd consider that 'handling the cranks', considering both of them had just barely managed to scrape by with their lives. He bites back the sharp snarky remark that threatens to spill from his mouth. He resolves he's not going to tell Thomas about being bitten. He opens his mouth to say something, but instead of his own voice, he was met with a brusque, unfamiliar, booming voice through a megaphone, the voice seeming to echo into the tunnel and ricochet back at them, amplifying it and making it sound that much more authoritative.
"Stand down Right Arm. Drop your guns and raise your hands. You are now in WCKD custody."
Their pupils dilate, hearts racing and thrashing almost painfully hard against their ribcages. On instinct, Thomas cautiously snakes his hands slowly towards the holster on his belt, movements slow and subtle. Carefully he fishes the pistol out, shifting its familiar weight in his hands.
Newt watches this out of the corner of his eyes, and he already knows what Thomas intends to do next, he can already tell by the way Thomas' right foot was shifted slightly forward, and the way his torso was shifted ever-so-slightly to the side, shoulders rolled into a controlled, strict, recognizable form. Newt's fingers graze the cool metal of his own gun, and he brushes his tongue over dry cracked lips. "Tommy, whatever it is you're planning on doing next, it better not be stupid." Newt hisses under his breath slowly as his head momentarily turns towards Thomas, hands clasping around his own handgun as he slides it out of the holster, following Thomas' lead.
"No promises." Thomas murmurs under his breath as he lets out a deep exhale, settling the weight of the pistol in his hands one last time, eyes already settled and locked onto a not very heavily armed WCKD soldier. And without any further hesitation, he fires.
The gun recoils sharply in his hands as he shoots off a handful of bullets, his gun spitting shells back out at him, giving a faint metallic chime as they strike the crumbling asphalt. His bullets hit their mark. The man falls with a thump. Thomas doesn't dwell on the blood, already shifting his aim to another soldier. This one has his gun raised, but Thomas doesn't hesitate, quickly aiming for the soilder's hand but hitting his wrist, shooting fountains of blood into the air as the man doubled over and clutched his wound. It's a graze, but it's a deep one, and Thomas has seen just how many tendons are hidden beneath the skin there.
The other guards are shooting at them, but Thomas is already moving. He jerks to the right, eyes darting in his frantic attempt to find cover. He grabs hold of Newt's jacket, moving to duck behind the nearest car. He manages to shove Newt there, but before he can join the relative safety and the escape route that lurked behind, something hits him like a freight train.
He is knocked over by the force of it, and his shoulder cracks as it collides with the asphalt, the bones seeming to shatter into a million pieces. Something white-hot suddenly manifests in his chest, fizzles across every nerve, traveling through every inch of his body in an instant. His body reacts, crumbling, every muscle twitching uncontrollably. His muscles almost seem to convulse, his whole body curling inward tighter than it should be able to, stretching every muscle and tendon until he can feel them tear.
He thinks run, but before he can say it the alphabet pukes in his head, spilling noises and syllables into some unintelligible gunk that spills from his mouth like drool. He stops breathing as his chest tightens, lungs getting crushed underneath the sharp weight of his ribs, stomach getting tugged inward so much that he instinctively heaves. The electricity fizzles randomly, everywhere and nowhere, jumping from nerve to nerve so quickly that it seems to never leave. His vision darkens and brightens, flickers, like some old tv screen. He can't think but he wonders, wonders if this intrusive electricity is in his brain, jumping from neuron to neuron and frying them.
Then, suddenly, like a flip was switched, his whole body goes still. Rigid. The electricity doesn't leave, it seems to multiply, and the pain evolves him. He can't feel anything else but the electricity, sizzling in his veins like he's on fire. But he knows fire, and this is worse.
He's not sure how long it lasts but he knows the moment it ends, every muscle in his body relaxing so quickly that his eyes roll back. His whole body aches. He can't feel his fingers, and he panics for a second, eyes rolling around as he struggles to see them. He tries to move his fingers, but all they do is twitch, and he's unsure if he made them do that or if they made the decision themselves.
His head pounds, and everything is too bright, even when he squeezes his eyes shut. A hand lands on his arm, and Thomas flinches, his whole body jolting against the light pressure, the ache in his muscles increasing tenfold.
"Thomas! Thomas, are you okay?" The voice is too loud, grating against his ears. It's familiar though, and something about the way the voice talks sends concern echoing in Thomas' chest. Thomas opens his eyes just in time to see Newt get slapped across the face by the side of a gun. It collides against his cheekbone with a steady thump, throwing Newt's head to the side so fast that his neck snaps.
Newt falls to the ground with a steady thump, out cold, golden hair fanned out around him like a halo. The concern in Thomas' chest swells, infusing itself with leftover adrenaline, and he tries to shoot forward to defend Newt but his abused muscles fail him and all he ends up moving is an inch. He's useless, unable to do anything but watch as the soldier leans over Newt. The soldier grabs ahold of the back of Newt's neck, brushing away the golden wisps of hair that had grown just long enough to begin to cover the chip.
Thomas tries to scream in protest, tries to yell at the guard to get off Newt, but all he manages are pained, too quiet whispers. He desperately tries to move, wills his limbs to work, but it seems like every muscle, every joint, every nerve, everything, is fried and noncompliant. It's like he's paralyzed, but the sharp little twitches and jerks his muscles occasionally give seem to suggest otherwise.
He'd vowed to himself that he would keep Newt safe, that he wouldn't let anything happen to him, but it seems like he'd failed to keep that promise yet again. His mind can't help but wander to how many times that promise had been left broken, how many times he had stitched it back together, only for it to fall apart again. How many times this self destructive hope of his to save everyone had done just the opposite, how many times it had hurt the people he'd cared about, and even gotten them killed.
Chuck. Alby. Winston. Newt. Minho.
He dwells on this for too long, and he feels guilt begin to knash its teeth into his flesh, tearing away at his bones and every fiber of his being. It was his fault. He had failed them all in some way or another. It was all because of him. All because he had been too oblivious and blind to the outcomes of his own actions. He feels like he's being torn apart, ripped limb from limb until there's nothing left.
As Thomas watches the guard carelessly throw Newt's frail body to the ground, Newt's unconscious form tumbling limply like rag doll as he strikes the dust, something inside Thomas' chest breaks.
Suddenly his failure hits him like a freight train, and his breath seems to clog up his chest.
He barely even registers it as the same hand starts reaching for him. It's now gripped harshly in his own hair, ripping out dark coffee strands. He feels the chip in his neck burn and pulse with newfound life, sending trickles of pain down the tip of his spine. But the disgusting taste forming in his mouth is much worse than any pain could ever be. He feels his mouth run dry, and it's like he's forgotten how to breath. He's wheezing along through his bated broken breathing, his pupils dilated far too wide. His heart thrums against his ribcage, blood roaring through his ears, his pulse pounding into his temples in tandem. With the soldier's next words, he can't help but feel like he's had his guts scraped out and had them presented to him on a silver platter. He feels sick to his stomach.
"You shouldn't have ever left. You may have been able to run, but there's only so far you can go before you reach a dead end. You can't escape what's everywhere. By the time we're done with you and your little friend, there won't be anything left of you–except corpses maybe. Subject A-5, A-2, you belong to WCKD now."
It's in this moment, Thomas truly realizes how badly he's fucked up. He recoils, or at least he tries to as something blunt strikes his stomach, knocking the wind out of his already too shallow lungs. He gasps and his whole body involuntarily writhes as he tries to gulp down oxygen, though the only thing he accomplishes is choking on it.
"Newt-" he whispers, the syllables getting jumbled and slurred into incomprehensible slush as they leave his lips. Shakily, he somehow manages to wedge his unsteady, numb hand forward. His hand briefly grazes Newt's as unnatural darkness ebbs and corrodes at the edges of his vision. Then suddenly his world is plunged into an expanse of ebony, and he's left submerged, and drowning in his own shadow realm as his last remnants of consciousness fade.
A/N: Are you guys drugged up on angst yet? This is where the path diverges, and we break away from movie canon. Anyways, thanks so much for reading! If you enjoyed this chapter, feel free to leave a favorite, follow, and a review, we greatly appreciate any feedback we get. Also, shoutout to my partner in crime, Leopardfang, for co-writing this fic with me, and putting up with all of my cringy puns and my constant demands to be productive (She probably hates me for it now, but I have no regrets. Sorry not sorry lol). Until the next chapter~
-TheCandyCravingDemon & Leopardfang