Twisted

Chapter 41: Crumbling

Magnus led the Immune civilians out. And down the hall, we had tried to put them in groups and told them to watch out for each other. The older ones watching the you get ones. Jasmine was leading the second half of the civilians. The rest of us ushered everyone out, making sure everyone was together.

I refused to succumb to the fatigue. I had been in high drive for a few straight hours already. My body was running on pure adrenaline at this point, and pure stubbornness. We chased the group up the stairs from the basement, one flight, two flights, three, four. I stopped on a landing, trying to catch my breath. If I was breathing hard, Gally was having a harder time, he only had one working lung. I straightened up, a stitch in my side. I tried to give him an encouraging smile, but it probably looked more like a wince.

"Come on! Almost there guys!" I called, my voice was pretty horse.

Down a hall and up another flight of stairs. An explosion sounded somewhere above us, jolting the whole building and throwing me to the floor. Dust choked the air and small pieces of the ceiling tiles landed on the floor around us. Sounds of of things creaking and breaking filled the air. Finally after several seconds of shaking, everything grew quiet and still again.

"Everyone okay?" Thomas called.

"Yeah, were okay up here!" Someone yelled back.

"Keep going! We're almost out!" I screamed.

"The building is gonna come down! MOVE!" Brenda yelled.

I got to my feet and pulled Sophie and Gally to their feet, the stitch in my side was making moving extremally difficult. Every time I tried to take a breath in, it sent a sharp pain through my side into my lungs. But I pushed it down and continued on.

We broke through the door and into the main floor lobby. The floor shook again.

"GO! IT'S GOING TO COME DOWN!" Minho screamed.

We had stopped at the doors, ushering the people through, a small child tripped and landed hard, I dove through the storming people and but Sophie got there first scooped him up and onto his feet.

"Hey!" I called and grabbed a woman's arm. She stopped and turned, panic in her eyes.

"Please help him, he can't run alone." Sophie yelled over the noise. Her eyes turned onto the little boy. Her face softened and she nodded. She took hold of his hand and together they left through the door, and out into the street, following the mass exit of immune people.

"Help!" cried a small voice.

I cursed and turned around, coming towards us was another small child who somehow was left behind. She was still on the other side of the lobby. With a frustrated growl I sprinted towards her. Skidding to a halt I grabbed her hand and pushed her ahead of me, the ceiling was caving.

"Well well well. What do we have here?"

My head jerked backwards with a loud cry of pain escaping my mouth. The girl looked back and screamed in fear.

"Go! GO! KEEP GOING!" I screamed back at her. She listened.

The Gladers all turned around at my wild cry of pain. Janson had somehow snuck his way through the door and I didn't see him. He had a huge handful of my hair, holding me tight. He wasn't alone. Janson was surrounded by WICKED security guards. I counted seven total, on of them had Teresa in a similar situation.

I heard Gally and Thomas curse. Minho, I saw lost some colour in his sweaty face. Janson stopped and cupped his hands to shout over the rumble of another explosion.

"Strange place to find you all when everything's about to come down!" Pieces of metal fell from the ceiling, clattering to the ground, wires sparked and a fire still raged in another room.