Fire ➳ TDC, Thomas [3] ✓

Chapter {3}

Hastily I threw a few empty water bottles inside my backpack, brokenly gripped them to the point my palm dug into their already bent surface with strength incomparable as I forced my bubbling feelings down, ignoring the stinging of sureness and partially anger which was brought up to the surface. Coiling my fingers around the piece of paper with Thomas' handwriting on, I gripped the packed bag and stood up, mind shattered over the fact he would lie to me like that; even if he did lie, saying goodbye without even seeing me in person was what broke me the most- perhaps I needed to forget it ever happened.

Pushing the thoughts away, yet as if something just carried on pressing my mind in a never-ending bubble of disappointed in myself, anger at Thomas and a wish to prove him I was not in need of his protection, it would not let go even as I stepped outside into the cooler air which bit onto the exposed skin on my cheeks and gray, disappearing smoke wafting through the blueness of the sky above.

I passed people on my way, each pair of eyes lingering on me questioningly as I felt them drill the back of my head, my being disappearing even before they could manage a question and eventually caught up with Brenda, leaning on the side of a car with a book gripped in her hands.

"Hey Brenda." Puffing out some air, I stopped in front of the girl whose eyes had lifted from skimming the pages and found mine in a questioning manner- she dropped the book to her tight, carefully gazed me up and down as her features gained out of a sudden an even more confused look.

Her brows rose slightly. "Going somewhere?" The girl inquired, an essence of sarcasm in her voice.

"Thomas, Fry and Newt left." I breathed out heavily, showing her the wrinkled paper in my hand which surely was far worse than I first found as my palms were rather sweaty in worry and nervousness.

Gingerly taking it she unwrapped the paper and skimmed it over, gaze as if suddenly darkening at the words written before finding me fidgeting to what the girls lips curled into a smile and lightened the previous darkness of her gaze. "We're going after them, right?" Brenda didn't wait for me to answer, just nodded to herself surely and continued speaking. "We are, of course. Come on, Jorge will be here any minute."

She handed me back the letter, grabbed the backpack hanging over my arm and strode to a car she was just leaning over; the vehicle looked rather used, full of bullet holes and cracked glass on its right side, none of which made me half sure it was still functional as Brenda carelessly swept into the back, open part of the car. She nodded me to follow, soon enough I found myself laying my back to the dusty metal in silence bracing us both as the girl on my right checked over her guns.

"Ready to go?" Jorge strode by Brenda and I a few moments later, smiling knowingly yet I did not want in any way to question how did he know where we were going or if he did see three boys leaving the sanctuary before our real one, before Safe Heaven.

Brenda smiled lazily, picked up the last piece of her weaponry. "Always." The girl answered after the brief, only second long silence following the sound of her voice car's engine as Jorge turned it on.

Not even a minute later the car was already on the move, fading in the distance our safe camp whose structures and people disappeared within the thin air as we welcomed the sight of burned mainland, littered with broken vehicles on the road, their color a deep, sick brown and plants whose leaves they had trampled as the rest speeded by.

I still could not think of anything else, but hope all three of them were alright, it squeezing me in worry over and over again as Brenda kept a small smile each time I would look over at her for some type of confirmation which soon grew into a comforting one, never faltering from her lips and eyes with a twinkle of certainity I surely missed in mine.