One By One: A Maze Runner Crank Love FanFic

Chapter 21: Returning Home

The gun shot pierced the silence, as a gunshot always does. It was like the quietness was glass, and the bullet shattered it. When the ringing finally faded away, the glass pieced itself back together. It was silent again.
The needle was stabbed so deeply into Ava Paige's veiny neck that if the serum didn't kill her, Newt was sure the wound would. His hand was covered in black veins. They stood out now more than ever against his pale skin. His knuckles were paper white as they still gripped the vial in a deadly hold.
Thomas had a front seat view of all this. He was lying on his back on the steel floor.
He felt a screaming pain all over his body, but he wasn't aware enough to find the focus of it. That scared him the most. Knowing the gunshot was in him, but not knowing where. He could be shot somewhere vital or just in the foot.
As a new wave of pain washed over him, the thoughts flitted from his mind. It didn't really matter where he was hit. The pain mattered. It made Thomas want to give up. Want to just fall into such a deep sleep that he wouldn't feel a thing.
He felt a thump behind him. He had enough consciousness to hope that it was Ava and not Newt that had fallen beside him.
His eyes drifted shut.
"Shit. This can't be shucking happening!" Newt stood still. He should be pacing, frustrated, racking his head for ideas, but all he could do was stand still.
Ava was lying on the ground. She was convulsing viscously.
So her blood wasn't compatible then. Newt wondered if that could've been him in a alternative situation.
He heard footsteps running down the hallway. Heavy thumps. Newt thought it was more Wicked guards, until he heard the words that told him it wasn't.
"FIVE MINUTES! FIVE!" Stanley hollered, his words echoing down the hallways that were once teeming with guards.
Newt had forgotten. Forgotten Thomas' plan and the real reason they were here.
The bombs.
The bombs had been set to go off at a certain time. And that certain time happened to be only five minutes away.  The gladers were there to drop off the bags with the bombs in them at their designated points and then head back to a hijacked ship.
Stanley ran past the weapons room door but crashed to an abrupt stop when he saw the mess inside.
"Dude. What the shuck happened in here?!" Stanley asked, still panting from running around, warning the last of the gladers still inside the building.
"It's a long story..." Newts raspy voice croaked out. It hurt, from crying, from screaming, from pain. It felt like every single thing that could hurt, did.
"The bombs go off in five. Is he even alive Shuck, he better be alive." Stanley was bouncing on his feet. He had no idea how to handle a situation like this.
"I need to get him out. " Newt avoided the question. He wrapped his arms around Thomas' and hoisted him over his shoulder.
He grunted as the extra weight made his limp ache.
"Let me help-"
"No. Without Minho and Thomas, you're our only runner who's fast enough to warn the rest of the gladers who are stupid enough to still be in these headquarters. Go. "
Stanley gave him a sad smirk.
"You're a pretty stupid yourself, slinthead." He said gesturing painfully towards Thomas' limp body that hung off Newts shoulder. "See you on the other side."
Without further hesitation, he shot down the corridor changing his scream from 'FIVE MINUTES' to 'THREE SHUCKING MINUTES! MEET ME AT THE HANGAR EXIT!"
Newt tried not to think too hard about Stanley's last words to him.
Newt ran as fast as his disability would let him. His whole chest and back were now covered in the warm sticky liquid that was his friends blood.
Newt felt like he was running forever, but eventually he saw a light at the end of the endless corridor. He let out a sigh of relief. The exit.
He bolted outside and saw the rest of the gladers standing anxiously on the ramp of a Wicked berg. At least that meant they were successful in hijacking it. Flying it would be more difficult. Good thing they'd known Jorje before and had some experience by watching him. It wouldn't help much, but it would get them far enough away while the compound exploded.
Which should be around about now.
He heard one of them shout, and the engine of the berg started up. All the gladers on the ramp started screaming at him. Motioning with their hands that he needed to run faster. But he couldn't.
I am not going to die from our own bombs, He thought. Thomas doesn't deserve that. After all we've been through, he doesn't don't deserve that.
He had just reached the steel structure of the loading ramp, when the world exploded around him. He flung Thomas forward, into what he hoped were the arms of a glader and not the hard ramp.
His ears were ringing painfully and the intense heat around him felt like his skin was cooking.
He felt himself being dragged.
Safe.
He let himself black out after that.