The doors to the facility loom ahead, twisted and half-broken but still upright. Faint emergency lights cast a sterile glow across the hallway, flickering like dying stars.
Sounds of war echo behind me, filling the hallways like a haunting song that will forever embed itself into my nightmares. Sounds of war cries and an explosion that rocks even the stable ground of the huilding I'm limoing inside of.
I stagger inside, my vision leaning on a tilted axis, my blood-slicked hand braced against the cold wall to keep myself upright. Leaving an imprint of my own palm on the smooth surface as my labored breathing fills the empty hallway.
My leg is numb. My breaths are shallow. Everything hurts.
But I've made it.
Against all the odds.
Bloodloss.
Grief.
Pain.
Through the smoke, the blood, the ruins-I arrive at what can only be described as what was one of WICKED's reasearch facilities.
The silence inside is unnerving. Not peaceful. Dead. Every hallway echoes with abandonment, the hum of machinery replaced with eerie quiet. This place once housed answers. Now it feels like a tomb.
Then I hear it-footsteps ahead, slow and steady. Measured.
I round the corner just in time to see Thomas.
He's inside what looks like a central walkway-glass walls not uet shattered, papers discarded from the hastefulness that came with the promise of safety, lights pulsing faintly like a failing heartbeat. And there she is.
Ava Paige.
Standing calmly at the far end of the room, hands not even raised as if the unraveling boy before her could never harm her with Thomas aiming a trembling gun towards her.
I may not be able to see his face because his back is towards me, I can plainly see his entire posture is burning with all the pain he's carried since Newt fell. His arm is steady, but his soul is in chaos-I can feel it from where I stand a couple feet away.
"No..." I gasp, my voice dry and cracked from exhaustion. "Thomas, don't".
He hears me.
His body tenses, just slightly. But it's a sign showing that my voice has reached him in the fog of grief and vengence.
"Thomas, please", I limp toward him, closing the distance with every ounce of strength I have left. "This isn't the way".
He doesn't look at me, not yet. His hand doesn't lower, but his fingers twitch on the grip. His jaw muscles flexing with barely restrained rage.
"She lied, Rose" he says, his voice barely audible. "She used us. And Newt-Newt's gone because of it".
My heart lurches. I reach out, gently laying my hand on his arm, grounding him like he did for me back in the Maze. "I know" I whisper, pain cracking my words. "But you don't have to be like them. You don't have to carry this alone".
Slowly, his eyes flick toward me-broken and wild, like a storm barely held at bay.
"I had a chance" he mutters, voice cracking with something heartbreakingly close to heavy realization "didn't I?".
He looks at Ava now. The gun is still raised.
"Is it true?" he demands, his voice rising. "Could I have saved him?".
Ava meets his gaze without flinching. Her face is pale, tired, but there's no fear in her voice. Only truth.
"You can save us all" she says.
For a long, harrowing moment, nothing moves. My breath catches. I feel the weight of the gun in Thomas's hand like it's in my own.
Then his fingers loosen.
The weapon clatters to the floor.
My chest caves in with relief.
But before I can even exhale and express my gratitude for his compliance to my words-
Thomas speaks again.
"Just don't hurt the others".
My body goes cold.
He's giving in.
He's going back.
I turn to him sharply, my voice desperate. "Thomas, no-"
But it's too late.
A sharp crack echoes through the room.
Ava Paige jolts.
Eyes frozen in wide alarm. Releasing qhatseeems similar to a strangled breath.
Slowly glancing down at herself, drawing our eyes with her own.
A bloom of red spreads across her chest as her knees buckle and she crumples to the floor in a limp heap.
I can't even react fast enough to scream out in terror at the sight. Only able to stand there with wide, stunned eyes and a gaping mouth.
Thomas stares in shock as the smoke clears from behind her.
And then we see him.
Janson.
Emerging from the shadows, calm and composed, the gun still smoking in his hand.
"I always said sentiment would be your downfall" he mutters coldly.
He steps closer towarda me and Thomas. Instinctively, Thomas keeps me behind him, eyes shocked but locked onto Jason.
Before either of us can make a move, Jason quickly kabs at Thomas's neck.
Thunk.
It hits Thomas squarely in the side of the neck.
"Thomas!" I shriek, staggering forward.
Thunk.
A second hits me before I can take another step. The world tilts. The floor slips.
Thomas grunts and yanks out the dart embedded in his neck, but his limbs are already losing coordination. I feel the tranquilizer seep into my veins like cold poison. My muscles go slack. My vision tunnels.
The sound of a gun being kicked away somehow is registered in my ears as the world around me begins to warp-giving way to something close to vulnerability.
Janson steps closer, stepping over our two incapacitated bodies. Not even soaring a second glance to the lifeless body of Ava Paige.
He crouches beside Thomas's slumped form, leaning in with a twisted smirk.
"Poor, Thomas" he says, shaking his head and clicking his tongue as if to show some sickening resemblance to disappointment.
"You should have run" he says.
The last thing I see is the sight of Ava Paige bleeding out just inches from my face. Reaching out towards Thomas instinctively and vainly.
And then everything goes black.
YOU ARE READING
The Extirpated
FanfictionWICKED promised it was the end. No more tests. No more lies. But SHE knows well the statement could never be true. The Scorch was only the beginning. The group will witness horrors that will dominate over the towering Maze Walls. They will endure so...
