The Darkest Minds - Fanfiction (Vida x Chubs)

Chapter Three

Vida

For awhile I stared at the tracking device in my hands. I fumbled around with it while Chubs was tapping the steering wheel lightly with his fingers to the beat of the music.

We were a couple hours into the night and I hadn't alerted the tracking device of it's owner's whereabouts. I didn't want to. I didn't think that bastard deserved to live, to be honest. He was a tracker, for God's sake, and he was going to kill us. Or take us to the camps.

But Chubs....I told him I would alert them so that that tracker could live. I looked at it for a few seconds longer and then put it in my jacket pocket, not having touched a single button on the screen. (Except for the one that turned off the device's location, of course.)

I didn't recognize the song coming from the radio speakers but then Chubs started humming and mumbling the words.

I wonder what keeps us so high up....

could there be love beneath these waves....

if we suddenly fall, should I scream out....

or keep very quiet and cling to my mouth as I'm crying

so frightened of dying--

"Wow, that's a depressing song."

Chubs jumped a little as if he had forgotten I was in the car. "It's...about falling in love."

"And being afraid of dying."

"Isn't everyone?"

Silence.

"Not some," I said. "For some, it's an escape."

Chubs chewed his bottom lip. He always did it when he was thinking, or when he was nervous. I didn't get nervous very often, but sometimes Chubs made me a tiny bit nervous. Sometimes I didn't know how he felt.  About....things. Not me, specifically. I mean, not that I cared.

When he had so quickly denied the thought of us ever being....together it kind of threw me off a little bit. I didn't know why -- screw that, I did know why. 

Somehow Charlie boy had crept his way into my heart and stayed there. 

I didn't like thinking about it, though. Mainly because I didn't think he felt that way about me. I think I first realized it when he denied that kid's claims so quickly. I had just...deflated. I couldn't really explain it, but it was like a balloon popping in slow motion and slowly settling on a soft surface, no longer intact. 

And then when he had called us his family. It happened again, although I knew it was going to happen by this point so I was quicker at recovering from it.

I didn't want to be his family, like a sister. Ruby was like a sister to him, but I....I didn't want to be just a sister.

And it pissed me off to no end.

"We listened to this song in the Black Betty when we were driving around, looking for Clancy." He laughed a little bit, "God, we were looking for Clancy. How stupid were we?"

"You didn't know."

"We should've. Then we wouldn't have been in this mess."

"But then you wouldn't have met me," I said smugly, trying to play it off as a joke. "And I know you can't imagine what your life would be like without me." Really I was wondering what he would say in return, how he would say it. Dammit, this was frustrating. I didn't like having...feelings.

It seemed like it took him forever to answer. He laughed a little bit, "Yeah. I," he paused, "probably can't."

I saw his knuckles clench the steering wheel.