Subject B3 (newt x reader)

Chapter 9

"Hey, what are you doing?" Maria chirps from the kitchen doorway. I take my eyes away from the boiling pot of stew in front of me and smile warmly at the girl as she wonders over to me, her black hair falling neatly around her shoulders and her fringe perfectly in place.
"Just making tonight's supper." I reply, stirring the browny-orange mixture around the pot, watching as the chunks of beef bob around, disappearing under the surface than coming back up again.

"Smells amazing." She says from beside, looking over my shoulder. I can hear a sense of sadness in her voice as she speaks.

"Thanks Maz- hey, are you alright?" I furrow my brows in confusion when I see the girl's eyes going cloudy from tears.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just- I don't want to leave this place, Y/N." She says shakily, a single tear rolling down her cheek. "Everyone's been talking lately about escaping the Coremeum, but why do we have to go? We're perfectly safe here, aren't we? Why should we risk going out into the world when we could stay right here?"

"Oh, Maz." I say gently, putting down my wooden spoon and wrapping my arms around her to pull her into a hug. "I understand you, I really do. Sometimes a little part of me wants to stay here too, but d'you know why it's only a little part of me that thinks that? Because a massive part of me knows that this place isn't our home. We don't belong here, Maria. I know it, and I know you know it too."

Maria whimpers in agreement, her voice muffled by my tank top. I stroke her hair gently as she pulls away from me, sniffling.

"I'll get you out of here." I smile, tilting her chin up slightly so her eyes meet mine. "I promise."

"Hey! Get out of here!" Minho shouts, causing my eyes to flutter open. I turn my head and watch the boy shoo away a bird who's landed on his rucksack, waving his hand frantically around until the bird finally flies away.

Groaning, I stretch my arms over my head and sit up from my sleeping position, just as everyone starts to slowly wake up.

"Ok, we better get moving. No time to spare." Thomas says, rising to his feet barely two seconds after he wakes up.

"Give me a minute." Gzi yawns from beside me. "I'm not a morning person."

"Yeah, well neither am I. But better we leave here quickly before the Cranks come find us again." Thomas replies, slinging his rucksack over his shoulder. Gzi shoots him a look as she rises to her feet.

"How's your ankle, Y/N?" She asks, bending down again to roll up my trouser leg, examining the wound. "Ouch. It's pretty grim."

"Yeah, no shit." I mutter, leaning over to take a look at it myself. The skin surrounding the open wound is dyed red from my blood, and it's still oozing slightly.

"Here, use this." Newt says from next to me. I shift my eyes to him as he removes the red scarf from around his neck, before pushing it into my hand. "I won't need it."

"Are you sure?" I ask, looking down at the fabric in my hand. "I can just use my own scarf."

"My one's already red, and I don't want yours to get all ruined." The boy replies, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"Thank you." I reply, just as Gzi takes the scarf from my hand and begins to wrap it around my ankle. In my peripherals I can see the boy still staring at me, his head tilted slightly. I turn to look at him, and immediately he turns away, clearing his throat as a distraction.

"Ok, all done." Gzi says, tying the ends of the scarf together tightly. "I think you're ready."

"Thanks." I say, holding onto the girl for support as I rise to my feet, stumbling a little.

"Does it feel alright?" Gzi asks, picking her rucksack up off the floor and pulling it onto her shoulder.

"Yeah, it does. Thank you." I reply. "Hopefully it won't get worse when we start walking."

"Ok, let's get out of here." Thomas says, but is cut off by Newt before he can continue.

"Wait, hold on." The blonde boy says, walking over to stand in front of Thomas. "Where are we actually going?"

Thomas's mouth open and closes a couple of times as if he's trying to speak, but the words won't form in his mouth.

"So your silence suggests you don't have a plan?" Newt sighs angrily, running his hand through his tasseled hair. "We followed you out here and now you're saying you have no idea where we're going or what we're doing?"

"I heard Ava Paige talking about some sort of resistance in the mountains." Aris chimes in, causing all eyes to fall on him. "When Thomas and I were in the room, she was talking to Janson about some group up in the mountains that work against WICKED. The Ri-"

"The Right Arm." Thomas finishes for the boy. "I remember that too. If we head up for the mountains and find them maybe they'll take us with them, you know, away from WICKED."

"So that's the plan? People? In the mountains? Mountain people?" Newt says, darting his eyes back between Thomas and Aris.

"Do you have a better one?" Thomas challenges. The blonde opens his mouth to speak, but clamps it shut when he realises he has no counter-argument.

"So, let's head towards the mountains and hope that this 'Right Arm' will be there waiting for a bunch of random teenagers with open arms." Minho says sarcastically, slapping Thomas's chest with the back of his hand. "Great plan, Thomas."

"Oh shut up Minho." Thomas grumbles.

******
I adjust my rucksack to shift the weight on my shoulders as we trudge along through the ruins of the city. I gaze up at the crumbling remains of the once-inhabited buildings and imagine the lives of the people that once lived there, before the Flare or the Cranks drove them away. Or killed them.

"Hey, wait." Thomas says from the back of the group. "Do you hear that?"

I stop in my tracks and look over my shoulder to see the brunette boy looking at us, clenching his jaw slightly.

I listen out for any sign of the noise he might be talking about, but all I hear is the faint breeze whistling through the empty buildings.

"I don't hear anything." Newt says. The rest of the group nod in agreement with him. 

Thomas doesn't reply for a couple of seconds, but suddenly his head snaps up, his eyes wide with fear.

"EVERYBODY HIDE!" He yells, running behind a pile of building rubble. The rest of us quickly follow behind him, crouching down behind the bricks just as a whirring sound echoes throughout the city.

I look up at the sky and watch as three colossal helicopters fly overhead, the whirring from their blades causing the ground to vibrate slightly.

We watch as they fly right over the city into the horizon, until they disappear completely from my sight and the whirring noise dulls to a silence.

"WICKED..." Thomas whispers from beside me. "They're never going to stop looking for us, are they?"

My heart aches at the reality of the boy's words.

We're going to be on the run forever, aren't we? Never completely safe from them, because no matter how much we try and convince ourselves that it's not true, we will always belong to WICKED.