Dynasty // The Scorch Trials [Book 2]

TWELVE

I flung my arms around Minho's neck. "Don't scare me like that," I muttered as his hands patted my back. I pulled back and wiped the tears from my face. 

"What happened?" he croaked. 

"You got struck by lightning," Thomas replied. 

"Oh," Minho muttered plainly.

We got off the ground and I took the flashlight Newt handed me and looked around. We were in a large building. I could still hear the thunder outside and I was glad we no longer on that battlefield. I inhaled deeply but nearly threw up at the smell of something rotting. 

It reminded me of the Grievers back in the Glade. "What's that smell?" I heard Teresa mutter and the next moment, a loud shriek and two sets of screams, my own and Teresa's, broke the silence. I jumped back as I had stood face to face with an infected person. 

I clasped my hands over my mouth as I shook from head to toe. Thomas rushed to my side. "Are you okay, what happened?" he asked. I pointed a shaky finger toward the person that was invisible again because I had dropped the flashlight. Its shrieks hadn't stopped, though. 

Thomas picked up the flashlight and we saw that the person was held back by a large chain attached to his middle. Lucky for us, the sound of this guy screaming his bloody lungs out had woken up the others and more and more people started to come out, all of them clawing at us. We piled up and backed away as far as we could. Thomas held me behind him as I clung to his arm and I had yet to stop shaking. 

All infected people were being held back by chains, but that wouldn't stop them from trying to get to us. 

"I see you've met our guard dogs," we heard an unfamiliar voice spoke up. I looked around and spotted a figure standing in a lit doorway. A few flashlights were pointed in the direction of the doorway and turned out it was a girl of our age, maybe a little older, who had spoken to us. Her dark hair was cut short and she wasn't tall. I was barely a few inches taller. 

She walked the path where the infected people couldn't come and approached us without getting touched. 

"Stay back," Thomas warned her. She stopped. She cocked her head to the side and smiled. 

"You guys look like shit," she stated, her eyes reflecting the light of our flashlights. She turned around. "Come with me." None of us did. She turned back. "Unless you want to stay here with them?" she said, motioning to the still screeching people surrounding us. 

I glanced around and silently decided we couldn't in here. We stayed close together and I clutched myself to Thomas's arm as we weaved through the path. The girl led us to a large area. My jaw dropped at the sight of other people. Noninfected, healthy people. They were talking and chatting with each other. I would even go as far as thinking that they looked happy. 

"Hurry up, Jorge wants to meet you!" the girl chimed as she walked out in front of us, greeting a few of the people. She took us op a flight of stairs. 

Thomas spoke up first. "Who's Jorge?" 

The girl grinned. "You'll see," was all she said. 

I felt watched as we walked past multiple people. They all stared at us like we were food and that made me feel beyond uneasy. The girl must've noticed our discomfort, because she said, "No one's come out of the scorch in a really long time. They're just curious." That didn't really ease me but it was nice of her to try. "And me too."

More and more people came out and surrounded us. I was walking in the middle of our group but that didn't make me feel protected at all. "Who else is starting to get a bad feeling about this place?" Newt muttered. 

"We should hear him out, see what he has to say," Thomas said. 

I nodded and followed closely behind as we mounted another set of stairs. As we reached the top, my ears picked up the sound of a radio changing stations and the static noises coming from that radio. I heard vague voices but I couldn't understand what they were saying. 

"Jorge, they're here!" the girl called, walking up to the man standing by the radio. He held up his hand and shushed her as he continued to twist the buttons on the radio. The girl plopped down on a couch. 

"Dammit," the man, Jorge, cursed and harshly unplugged a wire from the radio. He turned to us and sighed. He placed his hands on his hips before asking, "Do you ever get a feeling that the whole world's against you?" 

I studied his expression. It didn't appear to be hostile but that didn't mean I trusted him. I mean, he had a basement full of infected people to scare off strangers and intruders like ourselves. 

Jorge broke the silence as no one replied to his previous question, though I had a feeling it had been a rhetorical one. "Three questions." He paused. "Where did you come from? Where are you going? How can I profit?" He grabbed a glass bottle presumably filled with alcohol and poured himself a drink. Since the group remained quiet, he spoke up again. "Don't all answer at once." 

"We're headed for the mountains," I stated, folding my arms over my stomach and stepping out from behind Thomas. Jorge's brows rose as I stepped into the faint light. "We're looking for the Right Arm." A wave of chuckles ran through the crowd surrounding us. I cocked an eyebrow at them. 

Jorge chuckled as well. "You're looking for ghosts, you mean." He sipped his drink. "Question number two, where did you come from?" he asked and I remained silent. If he knew we came from Wicked, he was never going to help us.

"That's our business," Minho spoke up and I mentally thanked him for getting me out of the tricky situation. Jorge scoffed and the next moment, Thomas was harshly pressed against the table in front of us. I shouted for them to let him go as Newt held me back. A man held a scanner to the back of Thomas' neck and he was released the second after. 

"You were right," I heard the girl without a name say as she checked the screen on the scanner. 

"Right about what? What is she talking about?" Thomas rushed out as he sped back to us and pulled me back to his side. 

The girl handed Jorge the scanner and he studied it with an amused expression. Brown glasses were perched on the tip of his nose as he looked down at the lit screen. 

"I'm sorry, hermano, it looks like you're tagged." He looked at us knowingly. I frowned. "You came from Wicked." My heart sunk, we were caught. "Which means," he continued. "You're very valuable."

The other people in the room closed in on us and I pulled Thomas against me, afraid of what was about to come. A large man with a bushy moustache grabbed my arm and yanked me away.