Sticks and Stones

Chapter 2: WCKD

Thomas came back maybe half an hour later, and Newt was alarmed as the grill went flying back across the floor and Thomas crawled in, clearly rattled.

"Thomas?" Minho asked, also picking up on Thomas's panic, but the boy just spun around, muttering hurriedly: "We gotta go."

"What's up?" Minho tried to ask but Thomas just repeated, steadily sounding more and more panicked, saying as he rushed to check the door: "We gotta go, we gotta go! Right now. Come on!"

"What do you mean we've got to go?" Newt asked calmly, trying to get Thomas to actually tell them what was going on, but Thomas suddenly began to strip his bed, saying urgently: "Come on, we've got to go. Come on, they're coming for us!"

Thomas ran back to the door, starting to tie his sheets around the door handle, knotting them and effectively locking the door. Frypan began questioning Aris instead: "What happened in there? Aris, what happened?"

But the younger boy looked just as terrified as Thomas and just stood there, looking shell-shocked. Newt, seeing as they were getting nowhere, tried to get Thomas to focus, saying calmly but firmly: "Thomas, can you just calm down and talk to us."

Thomas didn't stop his frantic antics as he whispered: "She's still alive."

Newt frowned, confused, as Minho joined them, standing behind Newt's shoulder.

"Who's 'she'?" Minho asked while Frypan guessed: "Teresa?"

"Ava." Thomas muttered in terror: "Ava."

"Ava?" Newt repeated in confusion. Thomas didn't respond, still working on tying his sheets firmly onto the door and Newt finally said, completely fed up: "Would you just turn around and talk to us."

Thomas cut in, finally turning around as he shouted in a mix of anger and fear: "It's WCKD!"

Newt's face slacked and fear gripped his heart.

"It's still WCKD." Thomas whispered, moving back towards his bed as he explained: "It's always been WCKD."

He grabbed his mattress this time, pulling it and throwing it onto the door, leaning against it heavily as he fought back his fear. Newt also swallowed his terror as he leaned in to grab Thomas's shoulder.

"Thomas." He said firmly, forcing the other boy to focus on them. The brunette turned to him and Newt demanded calmly but sternly: "What did you see?"

***********

Rachel woke up groggily. Her eyes opened and she found herself staring into unfamiliar brown eyes. She yelped and punched the face, backing up in panic.

"Ugh!" The face groaned and Rachel's eyes focused to see that it was Thomas.

"Thomas?" She asked confused, before she remembered what had happened.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry." She cried, and he just shook his head.

"No, it's fine, just come on!" He tugged her out of the bed, and Rachel looked up in alarm when she heard bashing on the door, hearing Janson's voice yelling orders from behind it.

She looked around and saw all the kids from Group A, including the girl, Teresa, coming closer to her side of the room, backing away from the door.

"We've got to get out of here!" The Asian kid stood in front of the group, pointing a gun at the door. Rachel stared at him.

"Do you even know how to use that?" She asked as she swung her shorts-clad legs out of the bed quickly, while Thomas turned around to look at the window.