monachopsis - maze runner

chapter 28

Chapter 28
Off The Rails

It was a colossally stupid idea, but most of their ideas were colossally stupid. The hot Scorch winds whisked through the open windows of their idling jeep, peppering Florence’s exposed skin with sand. An assault rifle sat across her lap, the safety on and her fingers rapidly tapping the barrel. The wait was agonizing.

“They’re late,” Jorge grumbled, his gloved hands squeezing the wheel. Brenda shook her head from the passenger’s side, checking her watch for the dozenth time in two hours. Florence leaned back against the headrest and let her eyes slip shut. The pressure riding on the next few minutes was turning her stomach and squeezing her temples, and sitting still wasn’t helping.

This plan was the culmination of six months of failures and roadblocks. Any minute, a WCKD train would come flying through the desert carrying valuable cargo - Immunes. And if their intel was correct, Minho would be among them. Their job was to cause enough of a disturbance for WCKD to call in backup, draw said backup away, and high-jack it. Simple-ish on paper, incredibly risky in practice - that seemed to be their specialty.

In the distance, a horn blared followed by the familiar mechanical humming of WCKD. A smile curled Florence’s lips as she reached for the window, locking the scrap metal guards in place. Minho was on his way.

Florence braced her forearm against the window as the jeep hurtled down a rocky hill, jostling her around the seat. They fell in alongside the looming train, hauling a collection of mismatched supply cars. Jorge pressed his foot on the gas and the jeep lurched forward, straining to reach the control car. “Brenda, Flo!” Thomas’ voice crackled over the radio attached to the dashboard. “We’re coming up behind, keep ‘em busy!”

Florence slipped the barrel of her rifle through the gap in the window guards, peering through the scope at the train. Brenda crawled up through the sunroof and braced herself against the rim. “I’m locked in, Bren. You ready?”

“Yes, ma’am.” The adrenaline coursing through Florence twisted her mouth into a smirk and she fired. The girls’ bullets cracked the windshield and the two men at the control board ducked out of view. Florence retracted her weapon and Brenda dropped back through the hatch, both cackling in the sadistic way that only the blazing Scorch could explain. 

The past few months had been treacherous, and the savagery of the desert combined with the atrocities she’d already witnessed had re-aligned something in Florence. There was enough of the Captain left that her friends didn’t worry, but the version of her that had vowed never to harm a living thing had shriveled up and died under the sun. Now all she wanted was her old life back, but that was impossible, so she’d settle for finding Minho. And she’d wreck all the havoc necessary to make that happen.

The jeep barreled over the sand beside the train, crushing tumbleweeds beneath its wheels. Florence stowed her rifle in a concealed pouch beneath the backseat and exchanged it for the pistol at her hip - she had another secured to her thigh, and a small knife tucked in her leather bracelet. Pressing her heels against the back of Jorge’s seat to hold herself steady, she fired through the window guards at the WCKD mercenaries pouring out between the carriages. Jorge fired off a few rounds with a revolver as he drove, bobbing and weaving to make the mercs’ job more difficult.

“Hey, guys?” Florence ceased her fire and pressed her back against the cracked leather seat, flinching as a WCKD bullet struck her shield. “You got company!” Thomas warned. Florence glanced out the back window and saw a Berg hovering over the ground, its propellers kicking up dust.

“We got the Berg!” she shouted to the front, smacking Jorge on the shoulder. “Gun it!” Jorge’s foot drove the gas pedal to the floor of the car and they shot forward, swaying with the movement of the vehicle. Explosives struck the sand around them, sending up clouds of sparks and dust. Florence hunched over and braced her shoulders against Brenda’s seat as the jeep wound through the haze. “These guys have shitty aim,” she scoffed when a patch of brambles several feet away went up in smoke.