But it was dark. Completely. At some point, night had fallen.
Pushing away his discomfort, letting the exhaustion take over, he shifted until he lay flat, his head propped on someone’s leg—then he was asleep again.
Two things woke him up for good: the glow of sunrise and a sudden rush of silence. The storm was over, and he’d slept through the night. But even before he felt the stiffness and soreness he expected, he felt something much more overpowering.
Hunger.
The light came through the broken windows and dappled the floor around him. He looked up to see a ruin of a building, massive holes ripped in each floor all the way to the roof dozens of stories toward the sky; it seemed that only the steel infrastructure was keeping the whole thing from coming down. He couldn’t imagine what had caused it all to happen. But jags of bright blue seemed to hover above, a sight that seemed impossible last time he’d been outside. Whatever horror that storm had been, whatever quirks in the climate of the earth could cause such a thing, it really did seem to be gone for now.
Sharp pains stabbed at his stomach, which groaned, aching for food. He glanced around to see most of the other Gladers still asleep, but Newt lay with his back against the wall, staring sadly at a blank spot in the middle of the room.
“You okay, there?” Thomas asked. Even his jaw felt stiff.
Newt slowly turned to him; his eyes were distant until he seemed to snap out of his thoughts and focus on Thomas. “Okay? Yeah, I guess I’m okay. We’re alive—guess that’s all that bloody matters anymore.” The bitterness in his voice couldn’t have been stronger.
“Sometimes I wonder,” Thomas murmured.
“Wonder what?”
“If being alive matters. If being dead might be a lot easier.”
“Please. I don’t believe for one second you really think that.”
Thomas’s gaze had lowered while he’d delivered the depressing sentiment and he looked up sharply at Newt’s retort. Then he smiled, and it felt good. “You’re right. Just trying to sound as miserable as you.” He could almost convince himself that it was true. That he didn’t feel as if dying would be the easy way out.
Newt gestured wearily toward Minho. “What bloody happened to him?”
“Lightning strike somehow caught his clothes on fire. How it did that without frying his brain I have no idea. But we were able to beat it out before it did too much damage, I think.”
“Before it did too much damage? I’d hate to see what you think real damage looks like.”
Thomas closed his eyes for a second and rested his head against the wall. “Hey, like you said—he’s alive, right? And he still has clothes on, which means it couldn’t have burned his skin in too many places. He’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, good that,” Newt replied with a sarcastic chuckle. “Remind me not to hire you as my buggin’ doctor anytime soon.”
“Ohhhh.” This came from Minho, a long, drawn-out groan. His eyes fluttered open, then squinted as he caught Thomas’s gaze. “Oh, man. I’m shucked. I’m shucked for good.”
“How bad is it?” Newt asked him.
Instead of answering, Minho very slowly pushed himself up to a sitting position, grunting and wincing with every small move. But he finally did it, legs crossed beneath him. His clothes were blackened and ragged. In some places where skin was exposed, raw red blisters peeked out like menacing alien eyeballs. But even though Thomas wasn’t a doctor and had no clue about such things, his instincts told him the burns were manageable and would heal pretty quickly. Most of Minho’s face had been spared, and he still had all his hair—filthy as it was.
“Can’t be too bad if you can do that,” Thomas said with a sly smile.
“Shuck it,” Minho responded. “I’m tougher than nails. I could still kick your pony-lovin’ butt with twice this pain.”
Thomas shrugged. “I do love ponies. Wish I could eat one right now.” His stomach grumbled and gurgled.
“Was that a joke?” Minho said. “Did Thomas the boring slinthead actually make a joke?”
“I think he did” was Newt’s response.
“I’m a funny guy,” Thomas said with a shrug.
“Yeah, you are.” But Minho obviously had already lost interest in the small talk. He twisted his head around to take in the rest of the Gladers, most of them asleep or lying still with blank looks on their faces. “How many?”
Thomas counted them up. Eleven. After all they’d been through, only eleven were left. And that included the new kid, Aris. Forty or fifty had lived in the Glade when Thomas first arrived, just a few weeks before. Now there were eleven.
Eleven.
He couldn’t bring himself to say anything out loud after this realization, and the lighter moment only seconds earlier suddenly seemed like pure blasphemy. Like an abomination.
How could I be part of WICKED? he thought. How could I have been any part of this? He knew he should tell them about his memory-dreams, but he just couldn’t.
“There’s only eleven of us,” Newt finally said. There. It was out.
“So, what, six died in the storm? Seven?” Minho sounded completely detached, as if he were counting how many apples they’d lost when the packs had blown away.
“Seven,” Newt snapped, showing his disapproval of the cavalier attitude. Then, in a softer tone, “Seven. Unless people ran to a different building.”
“Dude,” Minho said. “How’re we gonna fight our way through this city with only eleven people? There could be hundreds of Cranks in this place for all we know. Thousands. And we don’t have a clue what to expect from them!”
Newt let out a big breath. “And that’s all you can buggin’ think about? What about the people who died, Minho? Jack’s missing. So is Winston—he never had a chance. And”—he looked around—“I don’t see Stan or Tim, either. What about them?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Minho held his hands up, palms facing Newt. “Slim it nice and calm, brother. I didn’t ask to be the shuck leader. You wanna cry all day about what’s happened, fine. But that’s not what a leader does. A leader figures out where to go and what to do after that’s done.”
“Well, guess that’s why you got the job, then,” Newt said. But then a look of apology washed over his face. “Whatever. Seriously, sorry. I just …”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, too.” Minho rolled his eyes, though, and Thomas hoped against hope that Newt didn’t notice because his gaze had fallen to the floor again.
Luckily Aris scooted over to join them. Thomas wanted the conversation to go in a different direction.
“Ever seen anything like that lightning storm?” the new kid asked.
Thomas shook his head because Aris was looking at him. “Didn’t seem natural. Even in my klunky memories, I’m pretty sure stuff like that doesn’t happen normally.”
“But remember what the Rat Man said and that lady told you on the bus,” Minho said. “Sun flares, and the whole world burning like hell itself. That’d screw up the climate plenty enough to make crazy storms like that pop up. I have a feeling we’re lucky it wasn’t worse.”
“Not sure lucky’s the first word I’d think of,” Aris said.
“Yeah, well.”
Newt pointed at the broken glass of the door, where the glow of sunrise had brightened into the same white brilliance they’d grown accustomed to their first couple of days out in the Scorch. “Least it’s over. We better start thinking about what we’re gonna do next.”
“See,” Minho said. “You’re just as heartless as me. And you’re right.”
Thomas remembered the image of the Cranks at the windows back at the dorm. Like living nightmares, missing only a death certificate to make them official zombies. “Yeah, we better figure things out before we have a bunch of those crazies show up. But I’m telling you, we gotta eat first. We gotta find food.” The last word almost hurt, he wanted some so badly.
“Food?”
Thomas pulled in a gasp of surprise; the voice had come
from above. He looked up just as the others did. A face looked down at them from the shredded remains of the third floor, that of a young Hispanic man. His eyes were slightly wild, and Thomas felt a belt of tension cinch inside him.
“Who’re you?” Minho shouted.
Then, to Thomas’s utter disbelief, the man jumped through the jagged hole in the ceilings, falling toward them. At the last second, he crumpled into a human ball and rolled three times, then sprang up and landed on his feet.
“My name is Jorge,” he said, his arms outstretched as if he expected applause for his acrobatics. “And I’m the Crank who rules this place.”
CHAPTER 26
For a second Thomas had a hard time believing that the guy who’d dropped in—literally—was real. He was so unexpected, and there was an odd silliness about what he’d said and the way he’d said it. But he was there, all right. And even though he didn’t seem quite as gone as some of the others they’d seen, he’d already confessed to being a Crank.
“You people forget how to talk?” Jorge asked, a smile on his face that looked completely out of place in the shattered building. “Or you just scared of the Cranks? Scared we’ll pull you to the ground and eat your eyeballs out? Mmm, tasty. I love a good eyeball when the grub’s runnin’ short. Tastes like undercooked eggs.”
Minho took it on himself to answer, doing a great job of hiding his pain. “You admit you’re a Crank? That you’re freaking crazy?”
“He just said he likes the taste of eyeballs.” This from Frypan. “I think that qualifies as crazy.”
Jorge laughed, and there was a definite tone of menace in it. “Come, come, my new friends. I’d only eat your eyes if you were already dead. Course, I might help you get that way if I needed to. Understand what I’m saying?” All mirth vanished from his expression, replaced with a look of stern warning. Almost as if he was daring them to confront him.
No one spoke for a long moment. Then Newt asked, “How many of you are here?”
Jorge’s gaze snapped to Newt. “How many? How many Cranks? We’re all Cranks around here, hermano.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Newt replied flatly.
Jorge started pacing the room, stepping over and around Gladers, taking everyone in as he spoke. “Lot of things you people need to understand about how things work in this city. About the Cranks and WICKED, about the government, about why they left us here to rot in our disease, kill each other, go completely and utterly insane. About how there’s different levels of the Flare. About how it’s too late for you—the ill is gonna catch ya if you don’t already have it.”
Thomas had followed the stranger with his eyes as he walked around the room making these horrible statements. The Flare. He thought he’d gotten used to the fear of having the disease, but with this Crank standing right in front of him, he was more scared than ever. And helpless to do anything about it.
Jorge stopped near him and his friends, his feet almost touching Minho. He continued to talk.
“But that’s not the way it’s gonna work, comprende? Those who are at a disadvantage are those who speak first. I want to know everything about you. Where you came from, why you’re here, what in God’s name your purpose could be. Now.”
Minho let out a low, dangerous-sounding chuckle. “We’re the ones at a disadvantage?” Minho swiveled his head around mockingly. “Unless that lightning storm fried my retinas, I’d say there are eleven of us and one of you. Maybe you should start talking.”
Thomas really wished Minho hadn’t said that. It was stupid and arrogant, and it could very well get them killed. The guy obviously wasn’t alone. There could be a hundred Cranks hiding out in the torn-up remains of the upper floors, spying on them, waiting with who-knew-what kind of horrific weapons. Or worse, the savagery of their own hands and teeth and madness.
Jorge looked at Minho for a long time, his face blank. “You didn’t just say that to me, did you? Please tell me you didn’t just speak to me like a dog. You have ten seconds to apologize.”
Minho looked over at Thomas with a smirk.
“One,” Jorge said. “Two. Three. Four.”
Thomas tried to shoot a look of warning to Minho, nodded at him. Do it.
“Five. Six.”
“Do it,” Thomas finally said aloud.
“Seven. Eight.”
Jorge’s voice was rising with each number. Thomas thought he caught a glimpse of movement somewhere far above, just a blur of streaking shadow. Maybe Minho noticed it, too; any arrogance drained from his face.
“Nine.”
“I’m sorry,” Minho blurted out, with little feeling.
“I don’t think you meant that,” Jorge said. Then he kicked Minho in the leg.
Thomas’s hands clenched into fists when his friend cried out in pain; the Crank must’ve gotten him right in a burnt spot.
“Say it with meaning, hermano.”
Thomas looked up at the Crank, hated him. Irrational thoughts started swimming through his mind—he wanted to jump up and attack, beat him like he’d beaten Gally after escaping the Maze.
Jorge pulled his leg back and kicked Minho again, twice as hard in the same spot. “Say it with meaning!” He screamed the last word with a harshness that sounded crazed.
Minho wailed, grabbing the wound with both hands. “I’m … sorry,” he said between heavy breaths, his voice strained and full of pain. But as soon as Jorge smiled and relaxed, satisfied with the humiliation he’d inflicted, Minho swung an arm out and slammed it into the Crank’s shin. The man leaped onto his other foot, then fell, crashing to the ground with his own yelp, a shriek that was half surprise, half hurt.
Then Minho was on top of him, yelling a string of obscenities Thomas had never heard come out of his friend before. Their leader squeezed his thighs to trap Jorge’s body, then started punching.
“Minho!” Thomas shouted. “Stop!” He got to his feet, ignoring the stiffness in his joints, the soreness in his muscles. He took a quick glance upward as he made for Minho, ready to tackle him off Jorge’s body. There was movement up there, in several places. Then he saw people looking down, people readying to jump. Ropes appeared, dangled over the sides of the jagged holes.
Thomas rammed into Minho, sent him sprawling off Jorge’s body; they crashed to the ground. Thomas quickly spun to grab his friend, wrapped his arms around his chest and squeezed against his struggles to escape.
“There’s more of them up there!” Thomas screamed in his ear from behind. “You have to stop! They’ll kill you! They’ll kill all of us!”
Jorge had staggered to his feet, slowly wiping a thin trail of blood from the corner of his mouth. The look on his face was enough to ram a spike of fear straight through Thomas’s heart. There was no telling what the guy would do.
“Wait!” Thomas shouted. “Please, wait!”
Jorge made eye contact with him just as a few more Cranks dropped to the ground from above. Some of them did the jump-and-roll like Jorge had done; others slid down ropes and landed squarely on their feet. All of them quickly gathered in a pack behind their leader, maybe fifteen of them. Men and women; a few were teenagers. All filthy and dressed in tattered clothing. Most of them skinny and frail-looking.
Minho had quit fighting, and Thomas finally loosened his grip. By the looks of it, he had only a few seconds before a dire situation turned into a slaughterhouse. He pressed one hand firmly down on Minho’s back, then held the other one up toward Jorge in a conciliatory gesture.
“Please give me a minute,” Thomas said, urging his heart and voice to calm down. “Won’t do you people any good to … hurt us.”
“Won’t do us any good?” the Crank said; he spit a wad of red goo from his mouth. “It’ll do me a lot of good. That, I can guarantee, hermano.” He balled both hands into fists at his sides.
Then he cocked his head, barely enough to be noticed. But as soon as he did, the Cranks behind him pulled all kinds of nasty things from within the hidden dep
ths of their ragged clothes. Knives. Rusted machetes. Black spikes that had maybe once been in a railroad somewhere. Shards of glass with red-tinged smudges on their razor-thin tips. One girl, who couldn’t have been more than thirteen years old, held a splintered shovel, its metal scoop ending in a jagged edge like the teeth of a saw.
Thomas had the sudden and absolute certainty that he was now pleading for their lives. The Gladers couldn’t win in a fight against these people. No way. They weren’t Grievers, but there also wasn’t a magic code to shut them down.
“Listen,” Thomas said, slowly getting to his feet, hoping Minho wouldn’t be stupid enough to try anything. “There’s something about us. We’re not just random shanks who showed up on your doorstep. We’re valuable. Alive, not dead.”
The anger on Jorge’s face lessened ever so slightly. Maybe a spark of curiosity. But what he said was “What’s a shank?”
Thomas almost—almost—laughed. An irrational response that somehow would’ve seemed appropriate. “Me and you. Ten minutes. Alone. That’s all I ask. Bring all the weapons you need.”
Jorge did laugh at that, more of a wet snort than anything. “Sorry to burst your bubble, kid, but I don’t think I’ll need any.”
He paused, and it felt like the next few seconds lasted a full hour.
“Ten minutes,” the Crank finally said. “Rest of you stay here, watch these punks. If I give the word, let the death games begin.” He held a hand out, gesturing to a dark hallway that led from the room on the side across from the broken doors.
“Ten minutes,” he repeated.
Thomas nodded. When Jorge didn’t move, he went first, walking toward their meeting place and maybe the most important discussion of his life.
And maybe the last.
CHAPTER 27
Thomas felt Jorge at his heels as he entered the dark hallway. It smelled of mildew and rot; water dripped from the ceiling, sending out creepy echoes that for some awful reason made him think of blood.
The Maze Runner Series Complete Collection Page 45
