Promise Me ➵ Newt [3]

SIXTEEN | frypan to the rescue

I glanced back at the vans in front of us and watched as the guard at the very front of the blockage raised a speaker to his mouth:

"Get out of the vehicle!" He ordered, his voice echoeing through the sirens wailing in the air.

Brenda and I exchanged glances with each other. "You know what to do," she said, handing me an emergency flare.

I nodded grimly and passed her the gun, grabbing hold of the flare. Even though it had been years, I still remembered the time I found Newt jumping off the Maze wall back when we were in the Glade, and how I summoned the flare to save us both. It was practically the same situation now, except this time I was saving Brenda and a whole bunch of immunes whom I had only met for a few minutes.

I stepped out of the bus slowly, careful not to make any sudden movement, with Brenda right behind me as she clutched the gun. I threw a quick glance back at the bus, where the evidently panicking kids were peeking at us through the blue-tinted windows.

"Now step away from the vehicle!" The guard ordered again.

Brenda and I stepped forward, my boots crunching wet gravel underneath me. I could hear the blood pumping through my ears, my heartbeat accelerating.

"Drop the weapons!"

I looked down at the emergency flare I was holding, its cool, metal surface contrasting against the warmth and sweat of my skin. Such a small, simple tool, yet so vital in our escape plan.

"I said - DROP THE WEAPONS!"

I glanced at Brenda beside me. The gun was still gripped tightly in her hand. With one swift, determined look at me, I knew it was time - I raised the flare so that it was pointing up to the dark, indigo sky and pulled the trigger. All heads turned as a red firework shot up into the air, emitting sparks that glowed with a dangerous vibrancy. It whizzed out of sight and exploded midair with a loud bang, casting everything in a strange fiery glow.

For one awkward moment, nothing happened. All heads turned back to me and Brenda, a mixture of confusion and anger in everyone's faces. The guard in front raised his speaker to his mouth again, but before he could say anything, a ginormous shadow as big as a house loomed from behind him and my eyes widened.

Brenda and I ran back to the bus and clambered on right before a wrecking ball crashed through the line of vans and threw the guards aside like ragdolls. The immunes in the bus screamed as the wrecking ball swung toward us - Brenda quickly turned on the ignition and drove us back before we got squashed into a pancake. As the wrecking ball swung away from us, Brenda drove down a side street, the sirens of WICKED's vans fading away behind us as they dealt with the new predicament.

Though I knew he couldn't hear me, I rolled down one of the windows and yelled out into the air, "Thank you, Frypan!", a grin forming on my lips.

Brenda swerved down street after street, glancing back every few moments or so to check if anyone was following us. In just a few minutes, we reached the city walls, their massive height looming us intimidatingly. We got off the bus, the kids looking scared and curious at the same time, and started climbing up the stairs that would take us out of The Last City and into the ruined towns beyond.

-

Frypan joined us out the city walls, looking tired but excited all the same. He tried to high-five the immune kids and when he received no response from them, he clasped his hands together awkwardly and trudged to me and Brenda.

"Was that good or was that good?" He asked, grinning at us.

"Neither," Brenda said. Frypan's face fell, then a grin of her own cracked through her face. "Kidding. You were amazing. You saved us all."