Together At Last

Chapter 18

Newts POV,

Little Gigi stumbled to the front of the group. She seemed to be drawn to Buggz.
Her eyes told me she was frightened but none the less she surged forward with her chin held high.

Next to Buggz, she look like an insect, small and insignificant.
"Mom." She said.
Nothing more, nothing less. No rhymes, nothin'.
My bottom jaw tumbled open and dropped to the floor at rapid speeds.

Buggz's expression softened. She stooped down so she was level with Gigi, which was quite difficult due to the height difference.
"Darling! Where on the scorched earth have you and your sister been?"
In my arms, Lucy squirmed in discomfort,
"I was worried sick. Come child, give me a nice hug-"
"No." Gigi protested.
Buggz didn't seem to like this answer very much.
She stood up again reached for her with one hand as the other was occupied by strangling Minho. "Gawh, r-run Gigi!" He managed to choke out.
Gigi stepped back, narrowly missing her mothers grasp.

"We won't come! Your a monster and a disaster. You hurt us even before the disease and we wanted to flee! We won't come! I'm done!" With that last rhym, Gigi whipped out her hammer and began to beat it down on a surprised Buggz with so much force it might as well have been an elephant crashing down on her.

It was strange to watch a little girl beat a six foot tall naked woman but we were in cranks territory so it was kind of... Expected?

No one made a move to stop the little girl. Blood splattered everywhere and no one could escaped Buggz's wails. Lucy squeaked and tried her best to hide her face in my shoulder. I tried to calm the little girl the best I could but this time it wasn't as easy.
Min dropped to floor as Buggz's grip loosened, he gasped for air then was snatched back by Tommy.

Eventually, Buggz stilled.
She has been beat until her body was no longer recognisable.

She turned to face us. Her eyes were red, puffy and swollen. They were brimming with tears.
"You are free. You may leave, but hear me now, you will grant us save travels through these Tunnels and leave us in peace or there will be consequences. Now flee and be free!"
The strangest thing of all happened. The cranks bowed to Gigi, kissed their elbows and took off in the opposite direction.
She then turned her attention back to us.
"Come on. What are you waiting for?"

~•~

We walked deeper into the tunnel for a few more hours when everyone began to tire out so we decided to set camp.

"Gigi are you sure it's safe to start a fire in here? It's not gonna blow up or attract anymore cranks?" Tommy was asking.
She sighed.
"I told you nothings going to happen. No blowing up of any kind and I chased the cranks away so they won't be bothering us."
Min walked over to us.
"Yeah, what happened back there G?"

Since the incident, Minho and Gigi had been inseparable. She floated over to him and thrust her arms toward him. Min smiled down at her before grabbing both her arms and swinging her across his back in piggyback style.

"I'll tell you the story from the beginning once we eat and get the fire going. Ok?" She said from Min's back. She was a lot more bossy now and seemed different, granted we've only known her for a few hours. I noticed her rhym was gone, I'd have to ask her about that later.

Tommy came up behind me and kissed me softly on the cheek.
"I'll take her, you've been carrying her all day."
He took a sleeping Lucy from my arms and held her close to his chest.
My arms felt cold without her.
Since I had held the crying girl, I had grown an attachment to her and now I can't imagine life without her despite my previous judgement back in the toy factory.

In truth, when I found out Buggz was their mother, I feared she would take her away from me and that killed me more than anything. I-
"Newt." Tommy called, jarring me from my thoughts.
He sat by the fire with Lucy cradled in his lap. Thomas tapped the seat next to him so I went over to the others.

~•~

"Alright Little G it's story time." Min said with that lame finger gun thing he did.
"You got it big M." Gigi said copying Min's hand gesture from his lap.
I rolled my eyes.
I could hardly tolerate one Minho, what was I going to do with two?!

Gigi sat forward in Min's lap with her legs crossed in front of her.

She sucked in a gulp of air.
"Well, for starters, my name isn't really Gigi. It's Gina. Gigi is the nickname daddy gave me before he died."

"Of what?" Gally asked.

"What you think? The flare." She sighed and shook her head. As she looked back up a pained look lingered on her normally care-free features.

"Before that, mommy and daddy didn't have a lot of money since mommy lost her job. She used to bring the money home so daddy had to watch out for us. He was good and so was mommy, really. But when she lost her job and we had to live in the tunnels," she gestured to the room around us.
"She got real mean. Dad got sick so he couldn't help us when mom hurt us."

To prove her point, Gigi lifted her shirt so we could see a scar runnin' across her stomach and my heart began to ache for her.

"Lucy has one in her hair." Gigi said.
I felt my eyes widen. I frantically searched the little girls head and sure enough, to my horror, a red scar etched its way across the girls head. My girls head. I felt sick and heart broken that these two little girls had to go through all this and at such young ages.

Gigi continued.
"Daddy eventually died when he smacked his head really hard on the wall. Then mom got sick and soon we saw less and less of her as she went crazy. Those people you saw? They were all refugees, mommy said, who asked her for help. When they started getting sick too, mommy controlled them. She called herself Buggz because we all were like bugs living in the tunnels and she was our queen bug. When I got the flare I realised that Lucy Lu and I couldn't stay any longer so I left. We tried to stay as hidden as possible from mommy's people but they kept finding us. I found the toy factory where we were safe, well, at least for a few days. Another one of her bad people found us so I made a deal with a them that if I brought them food each day, they wouldn't tell my mom where we were. Now that she's dead I'm their queen so I can control them."

It seemed odd that a little girl could be sad about being a queen but I understood where Gina's distaste for her title came from.

"Gigi." She looked up at me with teary eyes. "Thank you for sharing your story, that was very brave if you." She nodded at me.
"why aren't you rhyming anymore?" Gally asked and I was tempted to slap the shank.
The poor girl had just shared her life story and by the sound of things it wasn't a good life, now here he was bombarding her with more questions.
Typical.

Nevertheless, she answered him.
"Most of my bad thoughts were my mom. She's dead now so I can worry less. It kinda slowed the sickness."
Gally nodded in response.
"Right."

"Ok well it's been a busy day why don't you get some rest?" I asked her.

She nodded then spread her legs out over Alby so her top half was still stretched out over Min. They looked to each other then smiled down at her.

Next to me, Lucy began to fret in her sleep.
"Shhh." I said as I picked her up out of Tommys lap and placed her in my own.

Tommy frowned at me.
"She was keeping my legs warm."
I laughed quietly then clutched the girl tighter to my chest as I rocked her back and forth.

Their life has been filled with nothing but hardship. They deserved happiness and family and that is exactly what we were going to get them.

A/N: Hello,
I'm sorry if you preferred rhyming Gigi. I thought it was a great idea at time but it was getting harder and harder to create suitable rhymes. Let's face it, I'm not a poet.
I hope you enjoy the story further.
Thanks for reading.
BYE!