WCKD Love | A Newt Fan-Fiction

Chapter 22 - Immunity

Katya

Ava drags me and my dad toward her office. When we get there, she opens the door, guides us in, and closes it behind us. She walks over to her desk and sits behind it. I take a seat opposite her, and Janson does the same.

"Now, we need to discuss the elephant in the room," Ava says and gestures to Janson. "You obviously have the Flare. There's no point trying to hide it now. We can tell without the blood test we took from you on Monday."

Janson's body stiffens beside me, and his eyes narrow at Ava. "What...blood test?"

Ava smiles at him and grabs some papers off the desk. "Well, as you know, there was a mandatory blood test upon entry to the Last City, which you were uncooperative with. Fortunately, we were able to find another way." Ava leans closer to Janson across the table. "It happened when that poor surgeon tripped over and sliced you with a scalpel. You remember, don't you? You beat him to high Heaven," she says, leaning back again and waving a hand in front of her face. "Anyway, he managed to deliver the tissues he pressed to your arm, as well as the scalpel to the lab and had them tested."

"WHAT?!" Janson jumps out of his seat, and I lean over to stop the chair from toppling backwards. "Why, that two-timing little piece of-"

"Sit down, Janson. You aren't impressing anyone. And don't get mad at the surgeon. He was just following my orders." Ava passes some of the papers to Janson and then some to me. "Now, these papers show Janson's infected blood and the others show Katya's."

I look at the charts and images of what is supposed to be my blood, but I was never good with this medical side of WCKD. "What am I looking at?" I ask, and raise my head to make eye contact with Ava. She tries to avoid looking at my neck, but I catch her gaze flickering. I guess Janson left a mark.

"The two columns in Figure 2 represent how your blood typically reacts, compared to how it reacts when introduced to the Flare virus. If you follow me over here..." Ava stands up and walks through to an attached room; her personal lab. She heads to the desk and beckons me over. On the desk is a microscope and a slide.

Ava reaches over and grabs a tube of blood and two droppers. Opening the tube, she extracts a small amount of blood with a dropper and releases it onto the slide. She then opens a bar fridge under the desk and pulls out a different tube filled with a black-blue liquid. Using the second dropper, Ava extracts this liquid and puts it on the same slide.

I watch as she places it under the microscope, adjusts the microscope's focus, and steps aside. "Take a look," Ava says, smiling slightly. I step forward and peer into the microscope. It takes me a second to understand what I'm looking at, but when I do, my breath catches in my throat.

I stand up and look back over at Ava. "Is that...my blood?" I ask, and Ava nods her head, her smile growing.

"Yes, it is. You're blood is killing the virus, Katya. Only one subject has been able to do that, even under the most harsh conditions. But he's not an option," Ava says, putting her hand on my shoulder. "You are something special. And I'm hoping you will help us."

I step back from her toward the door but run into Janson. He grasps my shoulders firmly, holding me in place. "You can help me get better, Sweetheart. You can help Newt," he whispers into my ear, and my skin goes icy cold. Newt. He needs this.

"Okay, I'll help."

Janson wraps me in a tight hug from behind and cries into my shoulder. "Thank you, Sweetheart. Thank you so much." He quickly stands back up and releases me from his arms. "Now, let's go get her ready," he says, beaming, before exiting Ava's lab and office.

Ava looks at me with pity and follows after Janson. I look back at the microscope and smile to myself. 'I can save Newt. He'll be okay.' I turn around and walk out of the office.

- - -

I'm sitting in a padded chair in a different lab, Ava and Janson watching my blood intently as they cycle it through a machine that separates the immunity from it. When they think they have enough, Ava waits until all the blood is out of the machine and back in my body, then turns it off. She turns to me and smiles.

"You're doing a really good thing, Katya. You're saving humanity," Ava states, patting me on the knee. She helps me out of the chair and over to the table, where she has a dozen tubes of serum. "Now, we'll have to do this quite often. But in just fifteen minutes, we got twelve vials. That's incredible!" Ava turns to me with a glimmer of pride in her eyes. "You've really shown that you are on our side. I hope you'll continue helping us like this."

Janson moves forward and pushes me aside. "Come on Ava, give it to me," he growls, holding his hand out expectantly.

"Slow down, Janson. You'll get it. Just wait."

"I WILL NOT WAIT!" Janson shrieks, pulling a gun out of his back pocket. He cocks it and aims at Ava's head. Ava continues to hold eye contact with him, her expression unreadable. After a couple of seconds, she breaks her gaze and looks at me.

"It's alright, Katya. He's just sick," Ava smiles, but it's just a facade. She's scared. "Now, Janson. Will you please sit on the chair? I think it best you be seated when we do this."

Janson slowly lowers the gun, and his eyes flicker to the chair I was previously seated in. He strolls over confidently and sits down.

"Katya, can you please help me with this? You should learn how your cure is going to help people." I head over to Chancellor Paige, and she nods at me knowingly. I look down at the vials, the blue liquid within glowing in the light. Ava grabs the vials and slyly places them in my jacket pockets.

I look over at Janson, but he's busy staring at his gun in awe. "It's magnificent," he whispers to himself, and a tear slides down his face. "Magnificent!" He holds it up to the sky with both hands.

I bring my attention back to Ava, who grabs a stack of folders and passes them to me. She then picks up a different vial of serum, not one of mine. "Please store these in my office. I don't want Janson to know where they are," Ave whispers in my ear, careful not to let Janson hear her. "Now, Katya, can you please take these files to the records room? We need to add your contributions to history!" She winks at me and ushers me out of the lab.

"Hey, where is she going? She needs to see her father get well," I hear Janson ask. I don't catch Ava's response, but he seems content with whatever she says.

I nod to myself and walk down the hall, chucking the files into a random room along the way. I walk past Ava's office, not slowing down. She shouldn't have trusted me. I need to find Newt. He is my main priority.

As I head back to where I last saw the Gladers, a sudden boom strikes behind me; a gunshot. Chills run up my spine. Ava.