Chapter 24:
Thomas spent what he estimated to be half an hour pacing the room. His thoughts very starting to get hazy; likely due to hunger, as his latest meal had been the previous day.
He wished The Right Arm had waited with kidnapping them until after they'd finished their scavenging. Getting attacked and captured was bad enough, but to have it happen on an empty stomach? Well, that was just inconsiderate on their captors' part.
And worse still: he was starting to get very thirsty. A human could survive up to three weeks without food; but in the case of water, it was three days, even less if the human in question had been running, walking, and fighting. What if The Right Arm didn't think of that? Or if they didn't care?
Don't be stupid, Thomas chided himself, they need us, they won't forget.
Of course, he had no idea what kind of shape they needed them in, but it was almost definitely an alive one. Though he supposed they might opt for keeping them in a weakened state to make sure they wouldn't try anything.
Thomas was starting to feel tired. What time was it, anyway? It must have been evening by now, though whether it was late or early he had no idea.
He slumped on the cold floor, leaning against the equally cold wall, and let drowsiness overtake him.
In his dream, he was walking through The Scorch.
Miles upon miles of sand and rubble stretched in every direction.
The sun shone in the middle of the sky, yet Thomas felt as though his whole body had been coated in ice. He wrapped his arms around himself, but he couldn't stop shivering. He clenched his teeth, but they kept chattering. He wanted to curl into a ball on the ground to protect himself from the relentless chill, but he had to keep going. He knew that he was dreaming, but there was nothing he could do about it. He was unable to wake himself up, and he was almost starting to doubt that it was a dream. It was too vivid, and he had a vague feeling of deja vu. It might be because he'd trecked through the scorch before, but it was more than that. Maybe it was part of one of the memories that had been stolen from him by WICKED. He didn't know. All he knew was that he had to keep walking, had to find ... something, someone?
Every once in a while he'd hear something, like a voice, or distant footfalls. He'd turn in a circle, desperately searching for the source of the sounds, but there was never anything there except more sand and rubble.
He kept walking like that for an unknown amount of time. After he'd just passed a collapsed five-story building he heard another sound, louder and clearer than the rest, though still not decipherable. He looked around for good measure and was disappointed (though not surprised) when he didn't see anything besides crushed cement and glass shards mixed with gravely sand. He dismissed it as one of the other incoherent, disembodied voices, but immediately after he'd done that it came again, louder. Thomas stopped walking. The voice repeated itself, becoming more and more insistent. It was coming closer.
Thomas jumped in momentary panic as his arm was shaken roughly by invisible hands.
"Thomas," the voice sounded from right next to his ear.
Thomas' eyes fluttered open as he returned to the real world, in which Minho was crouching over him and shaking his arm impatiently.
"Wake up, you shuckface!" Minho said, evidently not noticing that the shuckface in question was already awake (and not very pleased about being called shuckface).
Thomas lifted his head so he could glare at the other boy. "What is it?"
He was rewarded with a snort. "No need to be hostile, dude. They brought us some food so I decided to wake you up before these savages ate all of it."
"We're not savages. We're hungry," said a girl sitting next to them defensively, then went back to devouring a piece of bread in a rather savage-like manner.
Thomas stood up with a yawn and scanned the room for food. He saw a large box in the middle of the room that hadn't been there before. As he made his way over to it he felt the muscles in his legs ache from overexertion.
Once he'd gotten closer to the box he saw that it contained half a dozen bread rolls. They had a distinct greyish color and would not have looked very appealing if he hadn't been starving.
Though as he was starving, he wasted no time scooping up a piece of bread and sinking his teeth into it.
Once he'd finished his meal he felt full, despite the small size of the roll. He would've felt great, except the dry bread had worsened his thirst, and they had not been provided with water.
He sighed as he brushed breadcrumbs off his clothes. They would be given water sooner or later, he would just have to wait.
He wandered through the room aimlessly for a while, occasionally stopping to converse with one of his friends, though they didn't really have anything to talk about.
Predictably, the door opened before long. Brenda stepped into the room and cleared her throat to get everyone's attention; which was unnecessary as she already had all eyes on her.
"Everyone who needs to go to the bathroom: pair up in groups of three. I'll take one group at a time, and don't even think about trying to escape. Trust me, you wouldn't succeed anyway. Any questions?" She spoke fast, though clearly. She looked around at them, though she seemed to skip over Thomas.
Aris raised his hand, a stony expression on his face. Thomas worried that he would accuse Brenda of betraying them or something like that. He'd mentioned to most of the people in group A that she appeared to be suffering some form of amnesia (though he still didn't know whether or not that was true), as they knew her from when they walked through the scorch together and might feel betrayed. (The girls in the other group had seen Brenda but hadn't interacted with her as much as the boys.) But he hadn't told Aris, who had been with group A when they met Brenda.
To Thomas' relief, Aris only informed Brenda that they needed water, to which she replied that they could drink from the bathroom sinks.
After that nobody had anything to say, so they all divided into groups of three. Thomas and Minho (the latter of whom had come to stand beside Thomas when Brenda came in) made to stand with Newt, though the blond boy was apparently still mad at Minho as he made a point of walking in the opposite direction.
After a minute of scuffling the teenagers were all standing in trios with varying degrees of orderliness.
Brenda gave a satisfied nod before gesturing for the group closest to her to follow.
They returned after a few minutes and it was the next group's turn, then the next's, and so on. The door opened and slammed shut. Once, twice… Five times, then it was his turn to exit the dungeon-like room accompanied by Minho, Aris, and of course, Brenda.
The bathroom looked like your average public bathroom, with a few foul-smelling stalls and a row of sinks at the opposite side of the room. Thomas had to try hard not to rush over to the nearest sink and begin shoveling water into his mouth. As it was, he went to use the bathroom, then he washed his hands. He hadn't realized just how dirty his hands had been until he put them under the running water and layers of dirt and grime were washed off, leaving his palms a significantly lighter shade. He located a soap-dispenser and used a liberal amount of the perfumed foam to get rid of any residual grime and bacteria getting sick was the last thing he needed at the moment.
When he was finally done he turned down the temperature of the water until it became icy cold. He put his hands together under the tap and raised them to his mouth. He relished in the feeling of the cool liquid in his dry mouth. He kept drinking until he was sure he would explode if he continued. He felt much better than before. His head felt clear and the fatigue was completely gone.
Once the other two were finished Brenda led them back to their cell without a word.
The next half hour (or something like that) was uneventful, but just as Thomas sighed out of boredom for the seventh time, the door shot open. There stood Vince, arms crossed and glowering at nothing in particular.
"Time to go. That is, time for Thomas, Isaac..." he trailed off as he looked around the room thoughtfully, his finger pointing from one person to the other as if that would help him decide. "You," he indicated Teresa, "and... you." This time he pointed at a cluster of girls, who all looked confused. "No, not you, the girl with the short hair," he said impatiently as one of the girls stepped forward. Thomas realized that he meant Harriet. The leader of group B looked stricken but said nothing. Thomas guessed it was because she didn't want to leave Sonya, though she was smart enough to know that any protests would do nothing except give Vince leverage.
"But you said-" Thomas began.
"you and four others, yes. you're taking the injured girl with you."
"You can't!" Harriet practically yelled, looking positively murderous. Then she realized her mistake and forced a neutral expression. "What I mean is, it wouldn't be smart to do that, she has a concussion in the best case, she won't be able to travel through the forest or fight cranks. She could die, or at least slow us down," she said in a more reasonable voice.
"'It wouldn't be smart'," Vince repeated, "and you, of course, know better than me. Is that what you're saying?
"No," said Harriet in an unconvincing tone.
"Well, what are you all waiting for?" Vince demanded suddenly, "time to go!"
Thomas hastily said his goodbyes to Minho, then he grabbed Newt (who had been staring into the distance and not made any move towards the exit) by the elbow and walked out of the room. He turned to look at the people remaining in the room, wondering if he would ever see them again.
A sharp intake of breath caught Thomas' attention, he turned to his left and saw Harriet, who was looking incredulously at a group of people he assumed were the ones escorting them to WICKED's base. He didn't recognize anyone except for Brenda. But they weren't what had warranted Harriet's reaction. Sonya was with them. Like before, she was unconscious. A tall, burly man had slung her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Harriet hurried forward and put her hand against her friend's throat, feeling for a pulse. She must have felt one because she relaxed somewhat. She turned to Brenda and started firing questions at her.
Brenda looked at the distressed girl with sympathy as she explained that Sonya was 'just fine', and they were 'only delaying her awakening', though she wouldn't elaborate on the latter.
Maybe it was supposed to serve as a distraction, or maybe it was to make the people over at WICKED let them in faster. Something seemed off, though he had no idea what it was.
"Look, I get that you're worried about your friend, but we need to get going," said Brenda, now looking more annoyed than sympathetic.
Harriet gave her a resentful look before saying: "fine, but she better be okay. And by the way, if we're leaving now, shouldn't we bring supplies?"
Thomas felt a bit embarrassed about not noticing before then that no one appeared to be carrying any supplies. Apparently, Harriet was more observant than him even while she was upset.
"The supplies are waiting for us in a location not far from here, along with three of our colleagues," Brenda explained as she began walking down the corridor. The rest of the group followed, including Thomas.
Another thing I didn't notice. Vince said there'd be ten of them and there are only seven of them here.
"What exactly is this 'location'?" Thomas asked while he waited for Brenda to open the door at the end of the corridor.
"Train station in an abandoned village, we'll take a train to our second base and continue from there."
A second base? It wasn't all that surprising, but he couldn't help but wonder what kind of state the place would be in. The base they were currently in spoke of a lack of resources, and that seemed to be the main base.
The party moved through the corridors, a few of them shining flashlights into the darkness to illuminate their path. Despite that, the corridors were still dark and creepy. Thomas held onto Newt's arm tighter. His friend either didn't notice or didn't mind that Thomas hadn't let go of him. Or maybe, like Thomas, he needed all the comfort he could get.
Thomas felt a bit disappointed when they reached the ladder and he had to let go.
He put his hands on the ladder and began climbing, the rusted metal colder than ever under his fingers.