Subject A250: The Flame (COMPLETED)

Fifteen: Cardboard Car

A/N: Sorry, this is a fairly short chapter. The next one should be a lot longer. Listen to the song because it's an absolute jam.

There was another town ahead. Not a big one. Not quite a city. But it was certainly much larger than the mining village they'd come from. It didn't take them long at all to reach it; Trace was a fast walker, and Rose was just teeming with energy. All the time. In fact, she was starting to give Trace a run for her money through her ability to annoy.

"What do you think is there?" Rose asked her. "Do you think people still live there?"

Rose was quite the Thomas with this constant flow of questions she had going.

"I hope not," Trace muttered. The last thing she wanted to do right now was deal with more Cranks. Or add people to their duo. Although, she supposed it would be kind of cool to build up some kind of team. An army.

Ace Army.

Okay, maybe it could be worth meeting people, as long as they didn't kill or maim her.

Or worse, read The Death Cure to her.

Trace shuddered.

"What's that?"

Rose was quite clearly pointing to an abandoned car, lying about a hundred metres ahead, directly in their path. It resided just outside of the town, alone in the dirt. It was surprisingly clean for its current location. Trace admired its resilience. What an inspirational vehicle.

"That would be a car, Rose. Unless someone's just put up a cardboard cutout of a car and left it out here to trick us. In which case, it's very convincing and they did a great job. In fact, they could probably pursue a career in set design."

Rose frowned. "Why would there be a car out here?" she wondered aloud, ignoring Trace's hypothetical career advice.

There were many reasons for the car to be there, none of which Trace wanted to think about. She went with the most obvious:

"It grew there."

Rose gave Trace a quizzical look. "Cars don't grow, Ava."

"Just because you've never seen it happen doesn't mean it's not true. I've been right about this kind of thing before," she said, her mind returning to the existence of Grievlets.

"I'm sure you have."

Trace then suggested they race to the car, taking any opportunity she could to get Rose to stop asking questions. Thankfully, Rose accepted the challenge.

In fact, she rose to it.

Unfortunately that meant she reached the car first, tapping it triumphantly and turning to flash a smug grin at Trace.

"I win!" she announced. Then Rose did the single most-badass thing Trace had ever seen a child do. Ever. Excluding Griever fighting, of course.

Rose punched out the driver's window with her bare fist.

"What the hell are you doing!?" Trace screamed, pulling her back.

"Breaking in," Rose said, completely nonchalant.

"Normal people try the doors first," Trace stated, reaching for the back door and pulling the handle. It opened.

She tried to shoot Rose an I-told-you-so look, but struggled to convey it through her own surprise; she hadn't expected that to work,

"Hm," Rose huffed. "My way still looked cooler."

Trace smiled. "I can't argue with that." This girl was cooler than Trace would ever be. This girl was almost as badass as Minho. Almost. Not quite. But, to be fair, Minho had an unattainable level of badass.

They searched the car, rummaging through the seat pockets and glove box. As Trace pried open the boot, revealing nothing inside, Rose called out from the back seat.

"I found something!"

Trace hurried to her and frowned when she saw a piece of paper in Rose's hands. She was expecting something along the lines of $5 million or a chest of gold, but she supposed this would have to do.

The paper had been folded in a half a few times, and Trace had an inkling of what it was. Her guess was confirmed when she opened it up.

"It's a map," she said, climbing out of the car and holding it out in front of her like a lost tourist.

Rose came up behind her. "I know that place. It's the town I came from. Where my parents lived." She pointed to a city near a small mountain range. "Boa Vista," she confirmed, running her finger along the city's label. "That's what it used to be called before I was born. Before it became part of the Scorch."

Trace had no idea where Boa Vista was, but it was handy to know that places in the Scorch had actual names once upon a time. "Where are we now?" she asked Rose.

Rose pointed to the other side of the mountains. The northern face. Then she traced up to a spot in the middle of nowhere. "This is where Grandpoppy's town was," she stated. "And we walked all the way along here," she continued, tracing as she spoke. "To here."

She was pointing to nothing. There was nothing to indicate there was even a town there. The map was definitely old, but Trace found it a little weird that there wasn't even an indication that anyone had lived there. The city must be very new.

"There's nothing on the map," Rose frowned. "This must be old."

Trace rolled her eyes. "What a stupid map."

'Not as stupid as you two."

The man's voice was gruff and came from directly behind her making her jump. She felt something press to the back of her head and Trace didn't need to turn around to know what it was; for the second time in less than two days, she was being held at gunpoint.