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Florence leaned heavily against the wall of the training room, her hand rubbing across her forehead. Arms burning, legs like jelly, breathing in quick, uneven bursts—Florence straightened up and glared at the obstacle course: ropes, bars, and a series of hurdles that seemed much more like instruments of torture than anything remotely useful. "I'm definitely not cut out for this," she muttered, her frustration building.
She wasn't a fighter. She wasn't Teresa, someone who could survive out in the Scorch. She was the girl who sat at a desk, the one with a pencil in her hand, not a weapon.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, slicing through her self-pity. Florence frowned, fumbling to pull it out with shaky hands. She didn't recognize the number that iflashed across the screen, but she answered anyway.
"Hello?"
"Hey," a voice said from the other end—clear and familiar. "It's me."
Florence blinked. "Teresa?
"Who else?" Teresa chuckled, Florence's chest tightening in a way unfamiliar.
"How did you even get this number?" Florence asked, sinking to the floor with her back against the cool wall.
"I asked WCKD to pass it along. I figured it'd be easier than waiting for them to page us through every time."
Florence was caught with nothing to say to that. Her lips pressed together in an unhappy, half-grateful sound, "I guess that does make sense. Why do they have my number?"
"You sound a little breathless," she carried on, amusement leaking into her voice. "What's going on? Are they making you do laps around the compound or something?
"Worse," Florence said, rolling her eyes even though Teresa couldn't see. "I think they're training me to become a super soldier. I'm not very good at it.'' Sarcasm laced her tone.
That won a laugh from Teresa—light, warm, and startlingly infectious. Florence caught herself smiling.
"Let me guess," Teresa said. "You tripped over something."
"I tripped over everything," Florence groaned, brushing a few stray blonde curls out of her face. "Apparently, I don't know how to climb ropes or swing across monkey bars without looking like an idiot."
"You'll get there," Teresa said, voice softening. "Don't be so hard on yourself. You're strong."
Florence's throat tightened at that, and for a moment, she didn't know what to say. Something about the way Teresa spoke, so... sweet, left her feeling both flustered and—well, Florence didn't know what to call it. It wasn't discomfort, but there was a tugging in her chest and a feeling like there were fire ants crawling through her veins.
"Well," Florence finally managed to croak out, deflecting, "I haven't punched anyone yet. That's got to count, at least for something."
Teresa snorted. "At least you've got that going for you."
From there, the conversation got light, easier. Teresa was telling her of Minho's latest antics—how he'd tried to race a crumbling wall and almost got buried alive in the rubble. Florence laughed softly as Teresa did a bad impression of his panicked yelling. Florence wondered what Minho looked like. In fact, she didn't even know what Teresa looked like.
By the time Teresa had finished telling her story, Florence didn't exactly feel like the weight of the world on shoulders anymore. "You're lucky, you know," she said, her voice softer.
"Lucky?" Teresa repeated. She sounded like she really was surprised.
"You got people out there with you," Florence said leaning her head back against the wall. "Friends. It's. different when you're alone.
There was a pause, then Teresa's voice was soft again. "You're not as alone as you think, Florence."
This was an odd thing to hear from someone so far away, but Florence found herself clutching onto the words for dear life, hanging into each syllable.
"I should go," Teresa said after a long second. "I can hear Minho coming over, and I don't want you to have to hear him yelling at me to stop hogging the battery."
Florence laughed softly. "Sounds about right. Take care, Teresa."
"You too," she replied, and then added almost as an afterthought, "It's nice talking with you, you know. Makes things feel a little less lonely. I'm the only girl here, it feels like I'm the third wheel of a group of four."
''I'm sorry about that,'' Florence frowned. ''Hopefully, I'll be able to see you soon, or at least at that raid.''
Florence could hear Teresa's grin through the phone, ''Yeah. Well, I really gotta go now. Bye, Flo'.''
As the call ended with a soft click, Florence stared at her phone for a moment, her chest jumpier than it had felt all day. She wasn't quite sure what to make of Teresa, but she did know one thing—she finally had something worth looking forward to.
She dove head-first back into training. The morning had woken the gym alive—the chaotic buzz of barking instructors, pounding feet. She was not alone in this. Across from her, a brunette girl—who she had overheard had originally been a chef—stumbled through drills, her complaints about her lack of running skills protested just loud enough to hear. Florence couldn't help a snicker at the outlandishness of it all, even as her own legs screamed protest in the face of the pitiless pace.
By the day's end, Florence almost collapsed into her room, ready to fall on her bed, when the little text machine softly beeped to draw her attention. It was almost forgotten, not by Teresa, though.
'Survive training?' blinked the message on the screen.
Florence beamed, forgetting her exhaustion for the moment. 'barely, i swear they tried to kill me.'
The messages flew back and forth like verbal fisticuffs. Teresa had told her more about her newfound pager's origins—a dusty relic she'd found in a disused base, fixed up with much blood and sweat. Florence, in turn, boasted about the time she was 12 and fixed a supervisors broken computer as the IT department were on break.
'Bet you wished you were this handy.' 'Bet you wish you had my stamina.'
Florence kicked her feet giddily at the foot of her bed. Her days had fallen into a rhythm-waking up, paging Teresa, forcing herself to endure hours of brutal training, and then waiting for the quiet of night to talk to Teresa. Florence had asked her once how she managed to keep their calls secret. Teresa had just laughed saying every night she told the boys she needed to go off and do 'lady things', and they let her go without a second thought.
Florence paced her room, unable to sit. Every time she thought of the girl, a warm sensation spread over her chest. It was a little embarrassing, really—the speed at which Teresa had become someone she wanted to call to talk to about every little thing about her day. She constantly found herself grinning over how easily Teresa had laughed off her questions, always so, so... charming. She'd catch herself in her head, replaying little snippets of their conversations, how Teresa's voice had gone soft when she comforted Florence or would slip in the funniest joke Florence had ever heard to cheer her up. Of course, that was stupid—she knew nothing about Teresa, yet for some reason felt like she knew everything about her. She made her forget all the heavy things weighing her mind. Teresa was the magician, Florence seated in the audience, applauding every trick performed, feverently begging to be her assistant.
Florence really liked Teresa. She could tell they were going to be, if not already, best-friends.
