Why Can't I Hate You?

~24~

It felt like they had been gone for hours, and I was only becoming more and more anxious. These people could finish us off in a matter of minutes. They were no grievers. They were real people, people who have lived out here for years.

When they finally returned, Thomas seemed calm, which made me feel at ease. Maybe Jorge was going to let us go.

"Alright, hermano. You punched me with both of your fists, so we're gonna cut a finger off each hand." Jorge spoke to Minho.

Minho shot Thomas a look of fury. I thought he went to talk about letting us go, and the shank wants to cut off two of Minho's fingers. 

"Brenda!" He called to the crowd, and a girl emerged. She looked about our age and was holding a knife carelessly, fiddling with the point of the blade. "The rest of you can go eat while we deal with these lot." 

"We wanna watch the punk loose his fingers." One of them hollered.

"Unless you want to lose all ten fingers, go stuff your stomach's."

A disappointed grunt came from them, and then they left the room muttering.

"You the leader?" Brenda pointed at Thomas with the knife.

"Um, not really?"

"You seem like the leader type." She smiled at him "well come on then, let's go eat."

"You really think I'm gonna follow you anywhere when I've just been threatened to have my fingers chopped off." Minho scowled.

Jorge belly laughed in a way that made him seem sane. "We're not really going to chop your fingers off hermano. Now come."

Confused, we followed them down some stairs into a separate room. Brenda brought us some canned pork and beans, handing us one each. "Eat up."

We sat down and ate. Even cold, it was delicious. We probably would've eaten anything because of how starving we were.

Brenda sat beside Thomas, talking to him. I was too focused on my food, filling the emptiness in my stomach to think about talking. I ate the final bean, wiping my mouth clean.

I caught a glimpse of Teresa, who was eyeing Thomas and Brenda. I, too, was curious to know what they were talking about, so I got up and went over to them. "So, is anyone gonna explain to us what exactly is going o-" I felt the ground beneath me, starting to shake. This didn't feel right. The building around us began collapsing in on itself. "What's going on?"

"Quick! Let's go!" Brenda grabbed Thomas's hand and started pulling him.

"Wait - the others." He stopped her.

"There's no time, Jorge will take care of them. Let's go." She pulled me along too. Leading us underground.

The rubble tumbled down the stairs, blocking the entrance. Searching through my backpack, I turned on my torch to see. We were in some sort of tunnels. "What happened? Why did the building collapse?"

"It was all part of Jorge's plan. To get rid of extra baggage, as he says." She started walking into the darkness.

"He's insane. How can we trust you?"

Thomas turned to look at me. "He made a deal with me. He gets us to the right arm, and we get him in, too."

"You made a deal with a crank."

Brenda stopped walking. "We're not infected. It was just an act to scare you. We're perfectly sane."

"I don't think anyone who will blow up a building with a bunch of people in it can be considered sane, infected, or not."

"He had to do it. We would have never gotten away without them attacking us or following us. Now let's get a move on. The faster we get out of here, the better."

Brenda didn't seem like she knew what personal space meant. She walked incredibly close to Thomas, holding his hand, which he didn't object to. But I think mostly because he didn't want to hurt her feelings. We got to the point where there were two tunnels.

"Thomas, you go check that one out  Y/n we'll go this way."

We headed down the tunnel together. There was an awkward air between us, I just wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible.

"Thomas, he's your friend, right?" Her voice echoed.

"Yeah. Why do you like him or something?"

"There aren't exactly many good-looking boys my age wandering around. I'm surprised you don't."

"He's my friend. Nothing more." I moved my torch around the tunnel.

"Good."

Thomas came back a few minutes later. "It's this way - She flung her arm out in front of us."Wait." She stood, staring into the darkness.

I moved my torch to see what she was looking at. There were black, veiny vines along the floor and up the walls. Then a hand on the floor, followed by a body, crawling towards us. Croaking and snarling.

"GO!" She ordered.

I ran back down the tunnel, turning the other way to the way out. We ran out of the tunnels, into the light. The cranks trailed after us. For dead people, they were bloody fast.

"This way!"  We followed her up the broken building, and one of the cranks fell over the ledge. Still climbing and running away, as the other two persued us. I ran up the metal stairs, one of them broke, and another crank fell down to the ground. Brenda suddenly fell through a door, vanishing from sight.

"Brenda!" Thomas called.

"I'm fine!" She was lying on a glass window, below it a deadly drop. When she pressed her hand on the glass, it started to crack.

"Wait, don't move." Thomas edged his way towards her, and I stayed close behind.

She managed to get to her feet, reaching her hand to Thomas's. Then the crank came back, and Thomas exchanged a frightened look with her.

It slid down onto Brenda, slamming her into the glass. She desperately tried to get away from it, reaching for Thomas's hand again. "I can't reach!" The crank pushed her down again. She pushed it off her, scrambling back to Thomas's outstretched hand, grabbing it just as the glass shattered, sending the crank to its demise.