Promise Me ➵ Newt [3]

TWELVE | i get infected

When everyone's tags were peeled off thanks to Teresa, Gally gathered us all around to inform us of the plan.

"Newt, Thomas," he said, pointing to them. "You two will join me in posing as some of the WICKED guards. We'll escort Teresa into the building and hopefully get in without any nuissance. 

"What do we do from there?" Thomas asked.

"We find Minho and the other immunes and get them the hell outta there."

"What about the uniforms?" Newt said. "We can't exactly just stroll into the city even with our tags off."

"Well, duh no, shank." Gally rolled his eyes. "You and Thomas are especially recognizable by the WICKED workers. Ava or Janson will have made sure of that. When Teresa goes to work tomorrow she'll smuggle in some of the guard uniforms for us. Won't you, Teresa?"

He glared directly at the dark-haired girl, who was sitting next to Brenda with a look of despair. But she nodded anyway, her blue eyes looking up.

"Good. Brenda, Rosalind-"

"Rose," I interrupted.

"Whatever. You two will be responsible for getting Minho and the immune kids out of the city and back here, at the base. You two will have to steal some form of transport to be able to do that. And again, Teresa will tell us the most convenient escape route for this to happen."

Gally gave her another pointed stare and she sighed.

"Yes," she said listlessly.

"Frypan, just in case Brenda or Rose here runs into some security trouble, you'll have to help defend them - or hell, help get them all out of the city too if it comes down to that."

"Aye, aye, captain," Frypan said, mocking a salute.

"Everyone got a good idea of their role?" Gally said. We nodded, muttering in low voices. Gally looked satisfied. "Good that."

We stayed there for hours and hours finalising our plan and going over the details, only pausing at intervals for breaks, and before we knew it, the sun was rising and daylight filtered into the room. I spotted several of my friends yawning or hunching over, heavy bags hanging from their eyes like bags of stone, but we continued formulating the plan, our determinations of rescuing Minho overpowering our need to sleep.

I myself was racked with exhaustion; the dreams I had earlier before Frypan woke me up had left my brain muddled and confused and the mere three hours of sleep I got were definitely not enough to revive my energy.

When dawn broke through, Gally glanced down at his watch, then at our tired faces.

"Alright, get some rest, all of you," he said. "We're gonna need all the energy we can get these few days."

"When are we going to break into WICKED's base?" Newt asked.

"Whenever we're ready, hopefully by the end of this week," Gally replied.

"This week?" Newt said incredulously. "But that's a little too rushed, don't ya think?"

Gally nodded towards Teresa, who despite her obvious weariness, responded: "WICKED thinks Minho is a rather special, uh... test subject."

"Don't call him that," Newt said sharply, his jaw ticking with slight anger.

Teresa flinched. "Sorry. Um... anyway, they're testing on him more often than any of the other immunes. They think he's the key to finding the cure once and for all. If we don't hurry, he might be exterminated. Trust me, Minho won't last much longer in there if we don't hurry."