Dynasty // The Scorch Trials [Book 2]

SEVEN

"Leah, oh my god, are you okay?" Thomas's voice woke me up. I opened my eyes for a second but scrunched them shut again as a pounding headache emerged. "Calm down, you're okay." Thomas sat me up straight by placing a hand on my back. I rubbed my face. 

"What happened?" I croaked. 

"You passed out, how are you feeling?" Newt knelt down in front of me, placing a comforting hand on my knee. 

"My head hurts," I breathed. Thomas pulled me against him and pressed a kiss to my hair. 

"We have to get going or they'll find us again," Minho spoke, placing his hands on his hips. 

"You're right, what's the plan?" Newt asked. I used Thomas's help to get to my feet again. "You have a plan, right?" 

Thomas slowly shook his head. 

Newt humorlessly laughed. "We followed you out here, Thomas, and now you're saying you have no idea where we're going or what we're doing." Thomas averted his eyes. Newt ran his hands through his hair frustratedly. 

"Wait," Aris spoke up. All eyes shifted to him. "Janson said something about people hiding in the mountains. Some kind of resistance or army." 

"The Right Arm," Thomas muttered. "If they're really against Wicked, maybe they can help us." 

Newt stared at him in disbelief. "People," he said. "In the mountains. Mountain people. That's your plan." 

"Newt-" 

"Guys, check this out," Winston spoke up, a few feet away from us. He was inspecting something on the ground. Minho shined his flashlight on it and it turned out to be several sets of footprints in the sand on the floor. "Someone's been down here." 

We travelled further into the building, finding out it was an abandoned warehouse. Empty jerrycans, shredded clothes, old furniture. Everything inside the building seemed to be covered by a thick layer of dust. 

We went through a garage door and ended up in a secluded room where most of the things inside it were still pretty intact. Frypan found an electric lantern and we found a heap of old clothes in a corner. Thomas heaved himself in one of the jackets and threw another black one in my direction. 

"Let's pack some of this stuff up. We should split up, see what else we can find and we'll meet back here, okay?" he suggested. Everyone agreed and I followed Thomas into a dark hallway. 

"Did you figure out why they were keeping Teresa in a different room than ours?" I spoke up, kicking a thermos lying on the floor. The clank of metal on stone echoed through the room. 

"No, I have no idea," he replied, shining the flashlight into the darkness. 

"She was in the Maze with us. It doesn't make any sense," I muttered. "I don't think she's being completely honest with us." 

"Wh- Leah, she's one of us." He turned around, halting me in my step. 

"I know that but this whole situation isn't sitting right with me." I folded my arms across my chest. Thomas let out a sigh. 

"You know what I think?" he asked. 

"What?"

"I think that you're being overly protective," he said with a suppressed grin. "And I love that about you." 

I stared at him with wide eyes. "Y-You do?" I managed to get out of my throat. 

He smiled broadly. "Of course I do," he said. "I love you, Leah. I loved you from the moment we met." 

"I love you too," I mumbled before pulling him close. We shared a sweet kiss before we continued to wander around the building. After a few minutes, we ran into Minho decided to continue our exploration together as we investigated a big hall with a glass roof. 

"Thomas, all those kids we left behind, I don't want to end up like them," Minho muttered. 

"I know. We're doing our best," Thomas replied. 

"Good," Minho stated. "What are we looking for anyway?"

Thomas sighed. "Signs of life, survivors, anyone who can help us." 

I traced my fingers along a thin metal beam that was supporting a few old hats. It smelled like dust, faeces and rotting cadavers in here and it was making me nauseous. Everything was hidden under a layer of at least an inch of dust and any metal that was still visible was covered in reddish rust. I found an old mirror and wiped the dirt from it, only to be startled by my own appearance. 

"Does he count?" I heard Minho say. I turned around and saw the two boys staring at a corpse sitting in an old armchair. We walked up to him and saw a plastic bag covered his face. Someone had killed him. Someone had put a plastic bag over his head to suffocate him. 

A dirty lamp was standing next to the armchair. "They had power," I mumbled softly as I traced my fingers through the dust, feeling it between my fingertips. Thomas shined his flashlight at something in the distance. I squinted and saw a fuse box that presumably used to provide the power to this place. 

I glanced down and found thick, red cables lying on the floor. I looked at Thomas and Minho with a raised eyebrow and the next moment, we were following the cables. 

We ended up in another room. Inside, it was darker than it had been in the hall. If that was even possible. The cables were covered in cobweb and it smelled like alcohol and rust. Straight ahead of us, stuffed animals were tied to a dark green fence with a warning sign on it. 

The uneasy feeling came back. I didn't like darkness at all and being in an abandoned warehouse, at least I hope it was abandoned, I stopped myself from thinking what would happen if people were actually still here.