The Scorch Trials (The Maze Runner Book 2) (34)
CHAPTER
34
The
next thirty seconds were a horrible, horrible thing for Thomas.
The
Crank struggled. Spasmed. Choked and spat. Brenda held him while Thomas twisted
the knife. Pushed it deeper. Life took its time as it drained from the man, as
the light in his maddened eyes faded, as the grunts and the physical strain to
hold on slowly quieted and stilled.
But
finally, the Flare-infected man died, and Thomas fell backward, his whole body
a tense coil of rusty wire. He gasped for breath, fought the sickening swell in
his breast.
He’d
just killed a man. He’d taken the life of another person. His insides felt full
of poison.
“We
need to go,” Brenda said, jumping to her feet. “There’s no way they didn’t hear
all that racket. Come on.”
Thomas
couldn’t believe how unaffected she was, how quickly she’d moved on from what
they’d done. But then again, they didn’t have much choice. The first sign of
the other Cranks came echoing down the hall, like the sounds of hyenas bouncing
through a canyon.
Thomas
forced himself to stand, pushed down the guilt that threatened to consume him.
“Fine, but no more of this.” First the head-eating silver balls. Now fighting
Cranks in the darkness.
“What
do you mean?”
He’d
had enough of long black tunnels. Enough to last a lifetime. “I want daylight.
I don’t care what it takes. I want daylight. Now.”
*
* *
Brenda
didn’t argue. She guided him through several twists and turns and soon they
found a long iron ladder leading toward the sky, out of the Underneath. The
disturbing noises of Cranks lingered in the distance. Laughs and shouts and
giggles. An occasional scream.
Moving
the round manhole cover took some serious pushing, but it gave way and they
climbed out. They found themselves standing in gray twilight, surrounded by enormously
tall buildings in every direction. Broken windows. Garbage strewn over the
streets. Several dead bodies lying about. A smell of rot and dust. Heat.
But
no people. None living, anyway. Thomas felt a moment of alarm that some of the
dead might be his friends, but that wasn’t the case. The scattered bodies were
older men and women, and decay had already set in.
Brenda
slowly turned in a circle, getting her bearings. “Okay, the mountains should be
down that street.” She pointed, but it was impossible to tell because they
didn’t have a clear view and the buildings hid the setting sun.
“You
sure?” Thomas asked.
“Yeah,
come on.”
As
they set off down the long and lonely street, Thomas kept his eyes peeled,
scanning every broken window, every alley, every crumbled doorway. Hoping to
see some sign of Minho and the Gladers. And hoping not to see any
Cranks.
They
traveled until dark, avoiding contact with anyone. They did hear the occasional
scream in the distance, or the sounds of things crashing inside a building now
and then. Once, Thomas saw a group of people scurry across a street several
blocks away, but they seemed not to notice him or Brenda.
Just
before the sun disappeared completely for the day, they turned a corner and
came into full view of the city’s edge, maybe another mile farther. The
buildings ended abruptly, and behind them the mountains rose in all their
majesty. They were several times bigger than Thomas would’ve guessed upon first
glimpsing them a few days earlier, and were dry and rocky. No snowcapped
beauties—a hazy memory from his past—in this part of the world.
“Should
we go the rest of the way?” Thomas asked.
Brenda
was busy looking for a place to hide. “Tempting, but no. First off, it’s too
dangerous running around here at night. Second, even if we made it, there’d be
no place for cover out there unless we made it all the way to the mountains.
Which I don’t think we could do.”
As
much as Thomas dreaded spending another night in this wretched city, he agreed.
But the frustration and worry over the other Gladers were eating away at his
insides. He weakly replied, “Okay. Where should we go, then?”
“Follow
me.”
They
wound up in an alley that ended in a large brick wall. At first Thomas thought
it was a terrible idea to sleep in a place that had only one way out, but
Brenda convinced him otherwise—Cranks would have no reason to enter the alley
since it didn’t lead anywhere. Plus, she pointed out, there were several large,
rusted trucks in which to hide.
They
ended up inside one that looked like it had been torn apart for anything
usable. The seats were tattered but they were soft, and the cab was big. Thomas
sat behind the wheel, pushing the seat as far back as it would go.
Surprisingly, he felt somewhat comfortable once settled. Brenda was just a
couple of feet to his right, settling in herself. Outside, the darkness grew
complete, and the distant sounds of active Cranks came through the broken
windows.
Thomas
was exhausted. Sore. In pain. Had dried blood all over his clothes. Earlier,
he’d cleaned his hands, scrubbing them until Brenda yelled at him to quit
wasting their water. But having the blood of that Crank on his fingers, on his
palms … he couldn’t take it. His heart sank every time he thought of it, but he
could no longer deny a terrible truth: if he hadn’t had the Flare before—a slim
hope that Rat Man had lied —he’d surely caught it by now.
And
now, sitting in the darkness, his head propped against the truck’s door,
thoughts of what he’d done earlier came storming into his mind.
“I
killed that guy,” he whispered.
“Yeah,
you did,” Brenda responded, her voice soft. “Otherwise he would’ve killed you.
Pretty sure that’s doing the right thing.”
He
wanted to believe it. The guy had been fully gone, consumed by the Flare. He probably
would’ve died soon anyway. Not to mention he’d been doing everything possible
to hurt them. To kill them. Thomas had done the right thing. But guilt
still gnawed at him, crept through his bones. Killing another human. It wasn’t
easy to accept.
“I
know,” he finally responded. “But it was so … vicious. So brutal. I wish I
could’ve just shot him from a distance with a gun or something.”
“Yeah.
Sorry it had to go down that way.”
“What
if I see his nasty face every night when I go to sleep? What if he’s in my
dreams?” He felt a surge of irritation at Brenda for making him stab the
Crank—maybe unwarranted when he really considered how desperate they’d been.
Brenda
shifted in her seat to face him. Moonlight illuminated her just enough that he
could see her dark eyes, her dirty but pretty face. Maybe it was bad, maybe he
was a jerk. But looking at her made him want Teresa back.
Brenda
reached out, took his hand and squeezed it. He let her, but he didn’t squeeze
back.
“Thomas?”
She said his name even though he was looking right at her.
“Yeah?”
“You
didn’t just save your own skin, ya know. You saved mine, too. I don’t think I
could’ve beaten that Crank by myself.”
Thomas
nodded but didn’t say anything. He hurt inside for so many reasons. All his
friends were gone. Dead, for all he knew. Chuck was definitely dead. Teresa was
lost to him. He was only halfway to the safe haven, sleeping in a truck with a
girl who would eventually go crazy, and they were surrounded by a city full of
bloodthirsty Cranks.
“You
asleep with your eyes open?” she asked him.
Thomas
tried to smile. “No. Just thinking about how much my life sucks.”
“Mine
does, too. Sucks big-time. But I’m glad I’m with you.”
The
statement was so simple and so sweet it made Thomas close his eyes, squeeze
them shut. All the pain inside him transformed into something for Brenda,
almost like what he’d felt for Chuck. He hated the people who’d done this to
her, hated the disease that had made all this happen, and he wanted to make it right.
He
finally looked at her again. “I’m glad, too. Being alone would suck even
worse.”
“They
killed my dad.”
Thomas
lifted his head, surprised by the sudden shift in conversation. “What?”
Brenda
nodded slowly. “WICKED. He tried to stop them from taking me, screamed like a
lunatic as he attacked them with … I think it was a wooden rolling pin.” She
let out a small laugh. “Then they shot him in the head.” Tears glistened in her
eyes, sparkling in the faint light.
“You’re
serious?”
“Yeah.
I saw it happen. Saw the life go out of him before he even hit the floor.”
“Oh,
man.” Thomas searched for words. “I’m really … sorry. I saw maybe my best
friend in the world get stabbed. He died right in my arms.” He paused again.
“What about your mom?”
“She
hadn’t been around for a long time.” She didn’t elaborate, and Thomas didn’t
push. Didn’t really want to know.
“I’m
so scared of going crazy,” she said after a long minute of silence. “I can
already feel it happening. Things look weird, sound weird. Out of the blue I’ll
start thinking about stuff that doesn’t make any sense. Sometimes the air
around me feels … hard. I don’t even know what that means, but it’s scary. I’m definitely
starting. The Flare’s taking my brain to hell.”
Thomas
couldn’t handle the look in her eyes; he let his gaze drop to the floor. “Don’t
give up yet. We’ll make it to the safe haven, get the cure.”
“False
hope,” she said. “Guess that’s better than no hope at all.”
She
squeezed his hand. This time, Thomas squeezed back.
And
then, impossibly, they slept.
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