Until The Sun Dies

Pt 30:

Panic begins to well up inside you. You quickly flip over onto your back and see that you are now completely surrounded by cranks. You start trying to crawl away, but they're dragging and pulling and clawing at you. There's no way out. You feel a screaming pain rake across your back and let out a blood-curdling scream. Finally, your friends show up. They start shooting the cranks causing them to real back and give Newt room to drag you away from them. Painfully you follow the group retreating away from the cranks. Slowly, one at a time, the cranks drop out of the chase until there is none left. You collapse to the ground on exhaustion. Someone places a trim grasp on your shoulder, you look up expecting to see Newt. But it's Jorge. "What on earth did you do?!" He shouts at you. "I... I saw blood... under the door... I was trying to help." You manage to say between breaths. "Yeah, well you nearly got all of us killed." "Leave her alone!" Newt shouts at him. Jorge and Newt start arguing and the others in the group start taking sides. Surprisingly Teresa takes Jorge's side. While they're arguing, no one notices just how weak you're feeling. You're now on hands and knees, your vision is going in and out of focus and all the sounds around you are starting to fade. You try the best you can to feel you back, you have several scratches down your back, not bad thanks to your jacket, but the burn horribly. You feel a wave of exhaustion fall over you. None of your friends notice as you fall asleep on the sand. "It is not her fault! She was doing what she does best, trying to help people!" Newt screams at Jorge, he's never been this mad before. "No, what she does best is get into bad situations, and one of us has to risk our own lives to help her!" Jorge responds. "Newt calm down, you don't always have to stick up for (y/n)," Teresa says, trying to keep some peace. "Oh and you're on his side now, are you? We still don't know if we can even trust you! For all we know you could be part of WICKED, trying to capture us again!" Newt snaps at her, causing Thomas to get involved. "Leave her alone! She's in the same mess we are!" "Oh, who's sticking up for their girlfriend now, hmm?" Thomas turns bright red with embarrassment and anger. "Uh, guys..." Aris says, in almost a whisper. No one hears him. "Guys!" This time he shouts. "What do you want Aris? If you can't tell, we're a bit busy right now." Newt responds harshly. "Look at (y/n)," Aris says with surprising calmness. All eyes turn on your unconscious body. "What happened!?" Newt shouts as runs over to check your pulse. "Newt? What happened?" Minho asks. "She's alive, asleep I think. But look." Newt responds turning you so your back faces the group. Silence falls on the group as they see where the cranks had clawed you. "No," Newt says in almost a whisper. "What does this mean?" Teresa asks. "She's infected," Jorge says, sounding remorseful, even after everything he had said about you. "I thought that we're immune..." Teresa says trailing off. "Yeah, so did we," Newt says with a soul-crushing sadness in his voice. Thomas explains what happened to Winston to Teresa while Jorge and Brenda talk about what to do next. They decide to wait to move until morning, giving you time to wake up. Everyone finds somewhat decent places to sleep, forming a sort of circle around you. Teresa falls asleep on Thomas's shoulder. Newt comes over to you and lays your head on his Lapland holds your hand as he slowly falls asleep. You wake up in the morning feeling a bit sick to your stomach, everything that happened after you fell asleep last night completely oblivious to you. Newt wakes up when you start moving. "(y/n)! You're awake!" "Yeah, I'm awake... so are you." You say a bit confused. "We weren't sure if you would, you passed out last night and..." You cut him off "I fell asleep, not passed out." "Really?" "Yeah." You chuckle. "But the scratches from the cranks..." "Oh yeah, those. I'm ok for now. They hurt pretty bad, but the jacket protected me pretty well." "What if you..." "What if I turn out like Winston?" "Well... Yeah." "We'll figure out a way. We're closer to the right arm than we've ever been. I'm sure they can help." Newt just nods in response. Everyone else starts to wake up, and you have to tell each one of them how you had simply fallen asleep, leading to many sighs of relief. "Well, we better get a move on, if we want to make it to the right arm before you, well, you know," Jorge says a bit sheepishly after everything that happened last night. The group finds an old truck, apparently called Bertha, it was Marcus's truck. According to Thomas, he was not happy about being parted with it. Everyone files in, Newt in shotgun. You're sitting in the trunk with Brenda and Teresa, seeing as the boys had already claimed the seats. "How are you feeling?" Brenda asks, with almost too much concern. "A little nauseous, but ok." "That's good." "Are you ok. You look pale." You ask. "Of course!" She responds way too fast, and way too happy. She cringes at her own mistake. "What's wrong?" This time Teresa asks. "Brenda bites her lip and pulls the hem of her pants up revealing a bite from a crank. Your eyes widen at the sight and you're about to speak when she says, "Shh, don't tell Jorge, ok? He'll panic. If the Right arm can help you, then maybe they can help me too." You nod silently and share a worried look with Teresa. This is going to be a long trip.