Him || The Scorch Trials

Fifteen

"There's only twelve of us." Newt spoke up, pointing out what they were all thinking.

It sounded insane. There had once been so many of them, and now there were so little. And Mara had just let it happen right in front of her dark, almond eyes, now scared with the deceased sculptured into them, clinging to her life.

"So, what, six died in the storm? Seven?" Minho sounded disconnected from their conversation, deep in thought as he spoke.

"Seven," Newt snapped, his grip around Mara squeezing her body with his frustration. Mara looked up to the boy, trying to replace his fumes inside him with a smile. She hated to see him angry, it just spiked up nerves inside of her. He didn't smile, but his anger softened into a lighter tone. "Seven. Unless people ran to a different building."

"Dude," Minho said, fatigue in his voice. "How're we gonna fight our way through this city with only twelve people? There could be hundreds of Cranks in this place for all we know. Thousands. And we don't have a clue what to expect from them!"

Newt let out a giant breath, frustration plastered across. Mara reached out and squeezed his hand. "And that's all you can buggin' think about? What about the people who died, Minho? Jack's missing. So is Winston- he never had a chance. And"-He turned his head to look around the room-"I don't see Stan or Tim, either. What about them?"

"Hey, stop that." Mara interrupted him. "We're all worried about the others, but we can't help it. It is what it is, and we can't change anything. Now, all we can do is get the rest of us back-"

"Back where? We have nowhere to go other than shuck WICKED, and they'll do nothing good for us." Mara sighed in defeat, untangling herself from Newt's arms.

He wasn't going to stop being angry, it was going to be like this for so much longer, and Mara just had to admit that she couldn't save him. He had to save himself, but that didn't look reliable. She still knew that she would fight heart and soul for that boy, and that it was gonna be a rocky journey, but she just needed a fresh approach to him.

"We could've saved them," He continued as she stood up, stretching her legs by walking the length of the wall where no Gladers lay. "We should've saved them from this bloody place. It's like you guys don't get it, you're just focusing on the next move for your own butts. What about the others?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Minho held his hands up to the boy just before Mara, palms facing Newt. "Slim it nice and calm, brother. I didn't ask to be the shuck leader. You wanna cry all day about what's happened, fine. But that's not what a leader does. A leader figures out where to go and what to do after that's done."

"Well, guess that's why you got the job, then." Newt said, everyone awake looking back in shock. A sincere look of apology shook up his anger, giving Mara a moment of hope. "Whatever. Seriously, sorry. I just..."

"Yeah, I'm sorry, too." Minho replied with a mumble, casting his eyes to the floor.

Mara took a deep breath, her brain fried by the sizzling argument dying beyond her eyes. He was falling apart bit by bit, and no one else knew. It took every last part of Mara from blurting out the truth, he deserved to know and he needed to at least be aware of it. But Mara just couldn't bring herself to tell him. He would crumble.

The conversation replayed in her head, but something new had struck interest to her. She changed her path, instead positioning herself beside Minho, who sat in between Thomas and Newt, leaning back so she could see them both.

A look of hurt flashed across Newt's face, but she pushed it aside. She had to think logically, and not emotionally.

"Minho," Mara looked over to the boy who wore a blank expression, covered with the knot of tiredness. "What was that you said about not asking to be the leader? No one made you the leader."

For a second confusion ran through the boy's face, but it was soon cleared up, the gears in his head turning into place. "You weren't here. We found these tattoos on the back of our necks, all with this different information. I'm the shuck leader, Newt's the glue and Thomas here... well, he's to be killed by group B, Aris' group."

The tattoos. Mara didn't know that the boys had them too, she hadn't even thought to ask about it before. WICKED had labelled them, told them what they were supposed to be, and it was completely wrong. Newt must've felt so crushed when he found out, and Tommy... Mara couldn't begin to comprehend what he must've felt. He had been told that he was going to be killed, and that just wasn't right. There was no way WICKED had that much power.

"And I'm the outcast." She told them, a shiver rushing up her spine as the thought of Teresa popped back into her head.

"The outcast?" Thomas finally spoke again, and it was his turn to be confused. As Mara looked over to him, she noticed that Aris had joined them and was now sitting to the left of the boy.

"Yeah, makes sense if you think about it. My shuck mum's a part of WICKED, and I was never meant to be one of you guys. Guess that's enough to be called an outcast." She shrugged. Mara hadn't ever really thought she'd have to explain the tattoo, if anything she thought it was pretty obvious. WICKED saw her as an outcast to both them and the group, she rested in the middle.

A short pause hovered over their small group, soon to be interrupted by Aris, who pointed the conversation towards a different direction. Mara was glad; their conversation didn't seem to be going anywhere, and she hoped that Aris could release the tension between them.

"Ever seen anything like that lightning storm?" Aris asked.

Mara shook her head, not saying anything. She allowed Thomas to take reign of the conversation, sitting still and listening intently.

"Didn't seem natural. Even in my klunky memories, I'm pretty sure stuff like that doesn't happen normally." Thomas said, shaking his head and looking up at the boy beside him.

"But remember what the Rat Man said and that lady told you on the bus," Minho reminded him. Mara furrowed her eyebrows, not quite sure what he was talking about, and Minho obviously noticed. "They were these people we met." He told her before continuing. "Sun flares, and the whole world burning like hell itself. That'd screw up the climate plenty enough to make crazy storms like that pop up. I have a feeling we're lucky it wasn't worse."

"Not sure lucky's the first word I'd think of," Aris muttered.

"Yeah, well."

Newt pointed over to the broken door Aris had smashed his way into in order to get out of the storm not long ago, a great glow illuminating its shattered shards of glass. "Least it's over. We better start thinking about what we're gonna do next."

"See," Minho pressed. "You're just as heartless as me. And you're right."

"Sounds like a plan." Mara smiled lightly. He was right, they needed to get back on their feet as soon as possible. Their main goal was getting to the end, getting to whatever WICKED had planned for them, no matter how they felt about it. If they didn't obey WICKED for the moment, then they'd never get the chance to rebel against them.

"Yeah, we better figure things out before we have a bunch of those crazies show up." Thomas added. "But I'm telling you, we gotta eat first. We gotta find food." His voice was filled with hunger, something Mara was pained to feel.

"Food?"

Mara leapt to her feet with a rabid panic, searching the ceiling for the man's voice. It wasn't a Glader. She looked up with the other Gladers to see a man hovering over the top of a ripped apart ceiling from the third floor of the building, peering back at them. He was a young, Hispanic man, and the mention of food had seemed to fill the entirety of his body with hope and desperation, a wildness of insanity stank from his person.

"Who're you?" Minho shouted up to the man.

With a moment of complete irrationality, the man bounded through the shredded ceilings, soaring towards the ground floor. To Mara's surprise, he managed to save himself before hitting the floor, instead rolling up into a ball and rolling three times before jumping to his feet.

"My name is Jorge," The man announced the small group, almost as if he was awaiting applause from them for his gymnastics. Instead, Mara stood there, dumbfounded by the Hispanic man in front of her, an eerie feeling inside of her. "And I'm the Crank who rules this place."