In my Blood

CHAPTER 29 - The Right Arm

It's a woman's voice - loud, aggressive, demanding. She continues to yell orders at Jorge and Thomas, and soon enough another woman's voice joins in. 

"Over there! Move!" one commands. 

"Easy!" Jorge bargains. "Just take it easy, we're moving!" 

"Faster! You three, over here as well!"

I cautiously look over to where the voices are coming from. The two women have their backs to me, but I can see Jorge and Thomas standing with their hands raised in surrender, and Newt, Minho and Teresa are obediently joining them. One woman turns around, and I see she's not even a woman - she's a girl, roughly the same age as me. She has dark hair and a furious glare set on her face. And she's looking right at me.

"You!"

I nod slowly, moving away from the truck, hands raised. The girl has a bandanna across the lower half of her face, muffling her voice slightly. She holds her gun up to me, a rifle. 

"The other three! I see you!" she shouts, nodding towards the truck. Frypan, Brenda and Aris all reluctantly walk towards the girl with fearful expressions. 

"Faster! Come on, move it!" the other girl, a blonde, yells. I walk quickly to the others, letting out a breath when I reach Newt. His brown eyes are filled with fear, but his hands aren't shaking like mine are. 

We look towards the two masked girls with guns. They scan the faces of our large group, not lowering their guns. Then, I see one of the girls halter. She's looking straight towards Aris. 

"A-Aris?" she breathes. Her guns lowers to the ground as she takes her bandanna off. 

"Oh my God, Harriet?!" Aris exclaims. He breaks forward and hugs the girl, her gun falling to the dusty floor. The blonde girl takes her mask off too, gaping at Aris with a disbelieving look. 

"Aris!" she cries, joining the hug. "You're lucky we didn't shoot you, what are you doing here?!" 

Newt exchanges a wary, confused glance with me. I shrug, mouth hanging open as I watch the three embrace. 

"Uh... what's happening?" Minho asks with his eyebrows raised. They look towards Minho, grinning and still in a tight hug. 

"We were in the Maze together!" Aris responds. "This is Harriet, and Sonya." 

The two girls stare at us warily, but look once more to Aris and nod trustingly, giving us slight smiles. 

"Sorry about that earlier," Sonya says awkwardly. "We were just... you know."

"Ambushing us?" Teresa finishes. Harriet and Sonya look to the floor as an uneasy silence fills the air. Harriet, the dark-haired girl, eventually puts her fingers to her lips and lets out a long, clear whistle. 

"We're clear, guys, come on out!" she shouts. Looking up to the mountain, I see several figures stand up, holding rifles and wearing masks. "Come on, I'll show you our base," Harriet tells us. 

She leads us past the cars and trucks, climbing over the ones in front of the tunnel entrance. On the other side is a team of soldiers holding guns, aiming them at our group. 

"It's fine, stand down," Sonya says to them. "He's a friend, and I trust who he trusts." 

The soldiers slowly lower their guns, their beady eyes following us. 

"Wait, so," Aris begins, "how did you two get here?"

"The Right Arm got us out," Harriet answers curtly. Thomas perks up.