tough world ✔️ | death cure minho

19.2

IT DIDN'T TAKE long for them to get through security and back outside the massive walls surrounding the city. If anything, the staffs they encountered seemed thrilled that they were leaving.

The Berg was right where they had left it, waiting like an abandoned shell of a giant insect on the hot and steamy concrete. Nothing stirred around it, and no sign of life came from within it.

With every second passed not knowing what was happening inside, Minho grew more and more agitated.

"Old man. Hurry up and open it," he said.

Jorge pulled his small control pad out of his pocket and pressed some buttons. The ramp of the cargo door slowly pivoted down, hinges squealing, until its edge landed on the ground with a grating scrape.

Minho had hoped to see Newt come running down that ramp with big smiles on their face, Frankie on his tail, both glad to see that they had returned.

But nothing moved, and his heart sank.

Then his eyes focused and he saw, right there, a lump of person sitting motionlessly on the floor.

"Something's wrong." He sprinted to the door and ran up the ramp before anyone had a chance to react.

He skidded to a stop in front of the figure and kneeled down.

It was Frankie.

Minho grabbed her shoulder and (despite his anxiety, tried his best to) gently shook it. "Holy— Frankie? Frankie, are you okay? What the shuck happened here?"

Frankie lifted her head from her folded hands. By the look of it, she had fallen sleep crying in an awkward position.

She cried.

Shuck, he was gone for so long that she had cried pathetically, on her own, in the dark.

Minho noticed the new set of bruises and cuts, and caressed each of them with his fingers gently.

"You're okay, right? Okay..."

He pressed his lips against her forehead for a few seconds and then pulled her still rigid body into a tight hug, sighing heavily in great relief.

Minho stroke Frankie's head repeatedly as he waited for her to collect herself —but, really, he did it for his own sake. To assure himself that she was there, and that they were back together now.

That he would never, ever let her off his sight ever again.

All this action-packed storyline made him momentarily forget how he felt when he buried Frankie's dead body, or when she left with Reggie to run after Aris, or when she was kept away from him for a month after lying half-dead in his arms.

Now he remembered. And, man, he was beyond terrified.

He looked around the Berg as he waited a little bit more, heart still pounding, hand still moving. Signs of fight were visible everywhere —a fallen chair was peeking out from the pantry. Two small puddles of dried blood sat in the right wing's hallway. There were bullet holes on the ceilings and walls.

What the shucking hell happened?

Frankie should've gone with them. Newt —they could've slipped him in, too.

Or Reggie shouldn't have come. He would be a huge help to their situation.

Finally, he felt Frankie pulling away, followed by a hard punch on his chest.

She threw another punch, then another, then a stinging slap on his arm.

But, unlike the amount of strength channelled through her whacks, her voice cracked, "What—"