Author's note:

I know that I haven't posted for ages, but at least it's summer break now, so I should be able to post more regularly. I was thinking of posting a chapter every other Sunday, so let's see how that works out.

Chapter 40. Shots

Thomas wasn't the only one waiting by the entrance to the second WICKED-facility. He'd found half a dozen anxious faces looking at him as he came into view before they went back to staring at the walls or out the windows. They were from both groups, former captives of the Right Arm and long-term residents of the northern facility. All of them were joined by the same purpose of being the first to see their friends. Thomas was no different from them, sitting down on the floor by the door and wishing for Minho and all the others to get there safely, and preferably soon. Although it was another form of the insufferable waiting, it was much better than lying awake in bed for hours. At least here he would be closer to the action when it came. The room was tense with anticipation and silent but for the tapping of fingers and feet against tables and floors, and the heavy breathing of the one boy who'd fallen asleep a few minutes after Thomas had gotten there. He looked at the boy, slumped forward with his arms and head resting on a table. Thomas' own eyelids were distinctly heavy, but all other senses were insisting on pulling him away from rest. Nervous energy was swirling within him, sending waves of nausea over him every time he looked at his watch and it grew later and they weren't there yet. It was almost four in the morning. If they're not here by then, I'll sleep, Thomas decided. Four o'clock came and went, and his plan to rest went unsuccessful. The sleeping boy had woken with a start, which did not inspire Thomas to slumber.

It was nearly five when the siren blared. It was turned off after the first loud second, but they all knew what this meant. Thomas stood up amidst the voices of fear and excitement. There was a scuffle over the best spot by the windows. Thomas let himself be shoved out of the way, but not before he had seen them: the group of shadows approaching at a run. He hadn't been able to count, but there were definitely enough of them this time. Two people were struggling to get the heavy door open, leaving an empty space by the window next to the entrance. They were closer now, almost by the soon-to-be-opened door, and he could see them better. The sky was still dark, but it wasn't snowing, and Thomas could discern the faces of Brenda and John in the lead. Most of the people behind them were hooded, but it seemed a few hoods had been blown back in the wind because he could recognize their faces. He saw Minho. Feeling his face split into a smile, Thomas tried counting again just in case. At least there weren't too few of them. If anything, there were too many figures out there. The movement must have thrown him off. He gave up on counting.

He heard heavy footsteps from behind as the guards came to take their positions by the door. Only if it came to that, of course. Not that it looked like it would. They had made plans to use the sedative gas if someone they didn't know showed up. He should have felt safe, but uneasiness rose within him. He didn't know how long it would take to prepare the defenses, and he was starting to think that maybe he hadn't counted wrong.

Wrong or not, he couldn't allow any mistakes at this point. He called for the people opening the doors to stop. He ran towards them, to stop them when they wouldn't listen. He heard a yell from behind, from an adult, and knew that he was right.

It was too late. By the time he'd acted, the kids by the door were already pushing it open. He was certain at that point that something was wrong. It was the kind of gut instinct that was always right. The opened door was flung wide by the wind, but Thomas could barely feel the cold. He grabbed the closest boy and dragged him with as he threw himself to the side. Gunshots rang through the night, followed by many more. He was on the floor, the boy on top of him. The boy was clutching Thomas' shirt in fear. No, it wasn't just that. Thomas saw blood; a steadily growing flow of it from the boy's arm. He bit down his revulsion. It didn't look deep, not much more than a graze, but if he hadn't pulled the kid out of the way…

"It's fine!" Thomas tried to tell him, though he had to shout to be heard over the gunfire. The boy wasn't much younger than him, but he whimpered from pain and shock, not letting go of Thomas.

"The door! The door!" Someone called next to him. He saw a girl behind him, rushing towards the wall and pulling at something. Part of the wall shot up into the ceiling, leaving a gap.

"We have to go! Get up!" Thomas told the boy. The shooters were still outside, but there was no telling how long that would last. The fallen body of a guard lay crumpled behind him, a spray of blood on the floor.

The boy stood shakily, and Thomas led him over to the passage, which the others on their side of the room had disappeared through. Looking back, he saw another opening on the other side, and the other kids were gone. They shouldn't have left it open, but there was nothing he could do about it. He urged the kid through the passage, but he himself stayed inside of the opening. His mind was clearing and he could remember his friends, who had been out there with the attackers. He'd seen Minho among them. Where were they now? Had they been shot? Pushed aside? Convinced to pick up arms against WICKED?

He allowed himself one heavy breath before he left the hidden passage and made for the window by the door. Bullets rushed by next to him, but he was safe at the moment.

"Get outta here!" Someone yelled, but he was already at the window, where he could see the Gladers and Glenners, hoods pushed back now. They looked frightened. Some tried to take on the gunmen but were pushed back. Thomas slammed his fist on the window, trusting its sturdiness, and by some miracle, they saw him. Thomas gestured, trying to communicate that there was a safe escape route if they made it inside. He wasn't sure whether he'd meant for them to wait, but they didn't. They threw themselves on the ground and crawled past the feet of the soldiers in an almost orderly line. Nobody wanted them dead, and they were out of the way. They streamed inside, getting up as soon as they could, and running through the passage. Thomas looked at them for a second before turning back to the window. He could see movement in the background, more people running towards them from the forest. He swallowed hard. There was no way to shut the door, and people were still out there. The attackers had finally caught on to their hostages getting away. The last of the kids were hoisted up from the ground to stand as human shields. Shields that could not be hit. Most struggled free. They weren't easy to hold in place, and many were too short to protect the soldiers from bullets to the head. It was still a battle. Thomas could only watch as a girl received a bullet to the chest in the chaos. The man struggled to keep the limp body upright and let down his guard. Another one came to fill his place. It kept going. All of the kids had made it inside except for Minho, though he wasn't far behind. He threw a nasty punch at the person holding him and then threw himself onto the ground, worming his way to safety at a fast pace. Thomas stepped away from the window and grabbed Minho by the arm to help him up and into the passage. He felt around hastily for a way to close the hidden door. He hit something and the door slammed down, shutting out the light of the entry room. The two of them ran through the darkness, towards a light on the other side.

They ended up in one of the corridors near the entrance. Thomas didn't know where to go, instinctively following the running figures of the people in front of him, Minho by his side. The siren had started up again. Three women, armed and dressed in hastily assembled gear, ran past them on their way to help defend the building.

"Get to the Big Room! We're evacuating!" One of them called.

"What!?" Minho called back, confused.

"I know where it is," Thomas said. They were already close, headed in that direction in fact.

"Is it true that everyone's here?" Minho asked. "Alby said that everyone who died is here now."

"The ones from the Maze, but they couldn't save everyone."

"Right. Like Nick, and Chuck. He told me that."

"Where is Alby?" Thomas asked. He hadn't seen him outside with the others.

"Don't know. He had to stay behind. Brenda said that it would be fine."

Brenda. What had she done? Thomas had seen her through the window. She hadn't been fighting, but she hadn't tried to escape either. Had she betrayed them? Maybe John had done it, and she'd had to play along, but then why wouldn't she have followed Minho and the others?

This wasn't the right moment to contemplate or explain, though. As they got to the Big Room, all such thoughts vanished.

The two of them had entered a scene of chaos. A Flat Trans had been set up at the end of the room, and Joan was trying to get the crowd of kids and adults to form a line to the side of it. There were people coming out of the Flat Trans, men and women dressed in the gear of WICKED's guards and carrying guns. A pattern soon became apparent. Every few seconds there would be a pause in the arrival of soldiers, and Joan would let the ones first in line rush through. It was clearly a well-thought-out plan, though it was worrying that it had to be done. He could understand the extra military strength, but if the rest of them had to leave, did that mean they might lose the building to the Right Arm?

"Where's Newt?" Minho asked. "Alby said he was here. Do you think he's gone through already?"

"He could have, but I thought he'd be waiting until the other Gladers were safe," Thomas said. Newt hadn't wanted to be a leader, but he would still have felt responsible for them. He might just have ended up at the front in the chaos, but Thomas thought it best to make sure.

"Hey, Ben," he said, as he saw the boy at the back of the line. "Have you seen Newt? Did he go through the Flat Trans?"

Ben shook his head. "He was down in our dorm with us for a while a few hours back, but I haven't seen him since." He frowned. "A few guys wanted to go wait by the entrance, I thought he might've gone there."

"No," Thomas said. "He didn't say anything about where he was going?"

"Nothing. Do you think he's in trouble?" Ben asked.

"I'm sure it's fine," Thomas said, looking around for Minho, who had disappeared.

He saw Minho, walking towards him from the front of the line. "I asked the lady up front, but she said she hadn't seen him."

Thomas looked at the front and saw that Joan was glaring in their direction.

"What did you say to her?" Thomas asked.

"Doesn't matter."

"That's Joan. She's the leader, and she's Alby's mom. You can't be rude to her."

Minho looked confused.

"It doesn't matter," Thomas said. "We've got to find Newt before someone else does."

They were stopped on their way out by Teresa.

"Where are you going?" She asked.

"We're gonna look for Newt," Thomas said.

"Didn't he go down to the Gladers?" She asked.

"He left. Did he go back to our room?"

"No. I was there until the alarm woke me up, but I never saw him. I'll go search with you."

"They'll need you here," Thomas said. "And we will be back in a few minutes."

"Alright. Stay safe." Teresa clasped his hand for a second and nodded at Minho. Then she returned to the line, helping Joan make it orderly.

Thomas and Minho ran through the corridors. Thomas had an idea about where Newt might be, and he was leading the way to the basement stairs. And they did find Newt in the small room next to the Gladers' dorm, fast asleep on the floor even as they burst inside. Of course he hadn't noticed what was going on. The room was nearly soundproof with the door closed, and he'd been asleep.

Minho shook him roughly. "Wake up, shuckface!"

Newt sat up, startled and surprised to find Minho looking down at him, and then even more confused by the sirens.

"Minho?"

"I know you're glad to have me and my awesomeness back, but we've gotta go," Minho said, helping Newt up from the floor.

Thomas winced as he heard heavy footsteps running around upstairs. This wasn't WICKED's guards running to aid their coworkers; this was the Right Arm breaking through the line of defense. The sound was accompanied by gunfire, though surprisingly little of it.

"What's going on?" Newt asked, now alert.

Thomas explained as they rushed up the stairs. The corridor was empty, but they were careful as they neared the Big Room. Their enemies could be anywhere.

The room was in sight, and it was still empty, though Thomas could hear sounds of fighting around him, echoing through distant hallways. They had reached the Big Room a minute too late. A small circle of guards stood in a circle around the Flat Trans, surrounded by unfriendly faces. They weren't shooting yet. One man saw the trio appearing at the door and stared at them imploringly as if they could get through the crowd to safety. Thomas stood still, at a loss of what to do. He was relieved that the others had gotten away, but he didn't want to imagine what would happen to the three of them if they were caught. Maybe the WICKED-soldiers would be able to take down enough of them, clear a path to the Flat Trans, but nobody was firing.

The standstill was broken when a new soldier stepped out of the Flat Trans. She might have been followed by more reinforcements, but somebody had fired at the mechanism. The Flat Trans was struck in a corner and bent backward from the force as the whole thing crashed to the ground. The shimmering surface of it had burst like a bubble, splattering some kind of see-through goo around it. The people nearby screamed, as if it hurt them, but those screams were soon overpowered by the smattering of gunfire as the fight broke out. It was immediately obvious who would win. Thomas didn't want to leave the soldiers there to die, but he knew that three unarmed teenagers would not change anything. They had to find the nearest exit and get as far away as possible.

Thomas gestured at his friends to follow him. The sounds of their running were drowned out by the battle, but it would only be a matter of time before the fighting was over.

Thomas headed to the lab he'd used earlier to get rid of the first attack a few days ago. There was an exit there, and he knew the code. It wasn't as close as the main entrance, but almost certainly safer. At least there should be fewer bodies to step over.

Their hopes of escaping without notice were shattered as a stream of people passed by in an adjacent corridor, connected to theirs by an open door. The prisoners from upstairs had been released, and they had seen them. They ran, waiting to hear the mass chase after them.

It ended up being only one person, and it was Brenda.

They'd made it to the lab, but were slowed down by unlocking the door. Brenda soon had them cornered, a gun hanging loosely from her hand.

"What do you want? Thomas asked. "Don't tell me you were not part of this."

Brenda spoke quickly. "It is my fault. They have Jorge and they would have killed him if I let everything slip away from them."

"We're not staying here, you shucking traitor," Minho said in a calm, threatening tone. "You're armed, but there's only one of you."

"I'm not here to stop you," Brenda rolled her eyes. "I'm here to stop them from stopping you. Having the building should be enough for Vince —He can find other immunes. You need to go to the second base. Alby's waiting for you there."

Thomas almost thanked her before remembering whose fault everything was. Instead, he put the last of the code into the panel and pushed open the door. Though hot from running and adrenaline, he felt the cold wind that bit at his fingers within seconds.

Brenda sighed before heaving her jacket off and shoving it at Thomas.

"Run, you morons," she urged.

And so they ran for the safety offered by the nearby forest. Thomas expected something to go wrong during that first sprint. He waited for the shouts and the gunfire to come for them as they dashed over the field. They reached the forest unhindered, but that did not slow them down. There was no destination except for 'far away'. They formed a row as they ran, organizing without speaking. Minho was in the lead —experienced runner that he was— making hasty decisions about where to make unexpected turns that would be hard to trace. Thomas and Newt ran behind him, taking note of their path and creating mental maps of where they were. Newt, whose limp put him at a higher risk of falling over the uneven ground, was in the middle, where the other two could easily help him up if needed.

After an hour's worth of running, they slowed to a jog. It was first then that Thomas put on Brenda's jacket, which he'd been clutching in his arms thus far. He had forced the cold out of his mind while running, but its chilly grip tightened around him as he allowed the tension to fade. He did not have much feeling left in his fingers, though a prickling pain remained. The jacket offered some relief, but he wished for gloves and warmer shoes to accompany it.

Another hour and they felt safe enough to stop.

"That was…" Thomas said, not sure what it had been.

"Insane," Minho filled in. "It was insane, and now we have to come up with an insane plan to get out of this insane situation. Where even are we?"

"A forest," Newt said.

"Really? I had no idea!"

"It wouldn't surprise me if you didn't," Newt mumbled, then said: "The question is where we're going."

"The second base, like Brenda said. Alby's there, and—"

"Brenda said," Minho repeated. "When we got out of the plane she said that she was on our side and that we were going to trick the Right Arm. She's a traitor and we can't trust her."

"She let us go, didn't she?"

"It was a trick. They'll be waiting for us at the second base."

"What kind of trick—? She was armed. And there were like twenty people right behind her. What would be the point of pretending to let us go?"

Minho shrugged. "It's probably some sort of mind game."

"Game or not, we can't leave Alby there alone," Newt argued.

"Unless she lied about that too. He could be dead for all we know. A dead bait to lure us into the Right Arm's trap."

"I think you've forgotten just one tiny little thing," Thomas said.

"Which is…?" Minho asked.

"We are out in the middle of a very cold forest."

"Yes. I know. That we are in." Minho put his hand on a tree. "A shucking. Forest."

"And you also know that we have absolutely no supplies and only two jackets?"

"So what? We know that we need to go south and how far. We take turns wearing the jackets. We find food somewhere. Water isn't gonna be a problem," he said, kicking at a patch of damp grass.

"That's still going to take days. Do you wanna go to sleep out here in the forest? It's not going to get any warmer. We're gonna freeze to death."

"Or get killed by Cranks," Newt chimed in.

"Thank you," Thomas said. "See, Minho? Two against one."

"That's not how it works. I'm the leader of the Gladers." He said halfheartedly.

Well, Teresa and I created a group C, and I've decided to make Newt an honorary member. That means we do what we want."

Minho sighed. "Whatever. We can go check the place out. Just stop being weird."

Thomas was not in the mood to be 'weird' anymore. Bringing up Teresa had made him think. Not just about her, but everyone else at the facility. The other Gladers and Glenners. The staff and the scientists. All safely through the Flat Trans, he assumed. He hadn't seen everyone go through, but he hadn't seen them dead on the floor either. The guards were dead, all of them unless some had escaped or been taken prisoner. That girl who'd been shot by the entrance. Maybe she was still there, or maybe the bodies had been taken somewhere else. He pushed down the images of corpses being thrown to feed wolves and Cranks. So many. Why had there been so many of them? He knew that some of the Right Arm's soldiers had hidden amongst their prisoners as they approached the building, but only a few. He supposed the reinforcements had hidden in the forest until the door opened, but why had they opted to send all of their prisoners with the first group? It would have been smarter to keep some behind as hostages. Just one or two familiar faces would have been enough to get the door open, and they would have had more numbers for the initial attack. It hadn't been stupidity, as it might have seemed at first glance. It had been overconfidence in success, and it has not been entirely unfounded. He wouldn't have thought the Right Arm capable of winning against WICKED with twice as many fighters and double the element of surprise. And yet it had occurred that a handful of fighters had been enough to hold up the guards, and then for the whole group to take them all out. Why had that been? There was strength in numbers, but that just put the odds against the winning group. Had they had better weapons? He tried to remember, but all that remained was the sound of firing bullets still echoing in his ears. WICKED seemed like an unbeatable force, the best of the best of everything. So how could they be defeated? He recalled the Right Arm's device that had put WICKED's weapons out of order. They had defeated WICKED and blown up their facility. But that had been in the simulation and only proved the extent of WICKED's ability. Could it be that they were in another illusion? That discussion had taken place before, and he knew not to think too hard about it for sanity's sake. Whatever was going on would reveal itself in due time, and if not, it certainly wasn't his problem. WICKED and the Right Arm could fight it out however they pleased as long as Thomas got the Cure and the freedom of himself and his friends. In fact, he would be relieved to hear them fight as he ran off into the sunset with his friends. WICKED's purpose was finding the Cure, and the Right Arm's purpose was to oppose WICKED. With the Cure found, the two might as well take each other out. Maybe not everyone, though. Not the children, or the innocent civilians in it only for protection from the world. Only the bad people and the soldiers. Though he supposed the soldiers might be civilians. And there was nothing saying the civilians were not bad people even if they did not fight. The Rat Man was just a scientist, but so was Joan, so the groups of people and professions were clearly not good ways of judging who he wanted gone.

It was all very complicated and confusing, and he tried not to think about it. The problem was that thinking was his way of distracting himself from the cold. He tried to cheer himself by thinking that the cold in turn distracted him from serious thoughts, even though he wasn't sure which he preferred. As they had finally agreed, they were headed for the second base, making sure to stay far away from the Right Arm's path between that building and the WICKED-facility to be safe. They had done as Minho suggested and were taking turns with the jackets. Newt had initially protested on the grounds of their predicament being his fault for choosing the wrong place to take a nap. Minho had acknowledged that, yes, they probably would not have been wandering the cold forest had Newt chosen a better place to sleep, but argued that freezing to death would be a very unhelpful thing to do. Also, he'd said that Newt was an idiot. Several times. Thomas had said much of the same thing minus the insults, because he was nicer than Minho.

Thomas was not wearing a jacket at the moment, but they had been running for long enough that the cold wasn't too bad. Other things were bothering him as if to make up for it. His throat was dry, even though they had stopped by a stream to drink not long ago. Hunger gnawed at his stomach and tiredness ached in both his head and his legs. Worse than that was the fear. The sun stood high in the sky, and he was sure that they should have reached the Right Arm's base already. Thomas had been sure that they were going in the right direction, but avoiding any path they could be discovered upon made navigating difficult. If it became obvious that they had gone the wrong way, he knew they would be able to find their way back to where they'd begun; He and Newt had both kept careful watch over where they were going, but the problem wasn't that they were lost. Starting over would mean afternoon, evening, night. Running in the dark and making camp overnight in the cold each presented risks that Thomas wanted to avoid. He supposed they would face similar threats even if they made it to the base, but just getting to the potentially safe place seemed challenge enough for that day. He pushed any thoughts of future or past away to leave space for his immediate problems.

Then, finally, after hours of running, they sprinted up a steep hill and saw something new. Not a tree, or a big rock, or anything nature. A structure that was obviously manmade —a house perhaps— showed through the thick bushes in front of them. Thomas almost wept at the sight of it, for he was sure that they had reached the edge of the small village.

Though he wanted to run even faster, he forced himself to a stop. "Guys, slow down. We have to be careful." His voice was strained from exhaustion, but the other two heard.

They walked the rest of the way to the end of the forest, quiet and listening for any indication of activity in the village. There had certainly been enough time for the Right Arm's members to move to WICKED's facility with what few possessions they could gather, but there was no guarantee they had not been delayed.

When they did not see or hear anyone, they left the safety of the woods and hastily took cover behind what was indeed a house. They walked along the wall and cautiously peered around the edge of it. The gym that was the second base was obscured by other houses, and they walked down the street as far as they dared to a fairly intact house with a door on their side of the street. They stepped inside with caution, to the protests of nobody. Thomas locked the door behind them when they had looked around enough to know they were alone.

He sat down on a sofa with a sigh of relief. The sofa made an eerily similar sound and released a cloud of dust. They were safe. For that moment, they had won. It could end at any time, though. Somebody might be walking around the street looking for supplies, be it the Right Arm or a Crank. The house was fine except for a caved-in section of roof on the second floor, but there was no telling how much it could withstand. What good was locking a door that could be ripped off its hinges? The place looked like it had been looted already, so at least it would be unlikely for the Right Arm to come knocking. The other two sat down, too weary to do anything.

They remained unmoving until it was getting noticeably darker. Minho got up, insisting they search the building for anything useful. They searched together, one room at a time, moving slowly and finding little of value. They spoke in sudden bursts of energy at random points throughout a longer silence. The day's events were sinking in as they were out of immediate danger and fear, and this was the way it worked apparently.

The silence hung over them as they returned to the living room with their findings, which consisted of a few bedsheets and a moth-eaten blanket. Inside was not much warmer than outside, but Thomas had stopped caring much about it. Nor did he feel the thirst and hunger he knew were there. He recalled the gunshots, the blood, the bodies and the running. In the silence, he could hear the sounds of battle, and every time he closed his eyes he saw death.