Sympathy for the Devil {Liam Stewart | The Darkest Minds}

4. Wendigoag

The four of them, Liam, Charles, Mags, and the girl who Liam carried out, who the others are calling Zu, run for almost three days without sleep before finding a mostly abandoned hotel, though if you discount the rats, it was just abandoned. They don't speak, apart from asking one another about directions. Mags stays quiet, and takes turns with Liam carrying Zu as they run. With little else to do in her glorified hole in the ground, she passed the time by making herself strong enough to hurt guards physically if they ever tried to take her powers, carrying a little girl was easy.

When they settle, the first thing Mags does is look for a bathroom with running water. Stripping down, she washes herself off and sets about giving her heat-proof jumpsuit a wash after tearing off the unnecessary fabric, making the legs shorter and removing the sleeves; the suit was used to protect her modesty if her clothing got burned up, but she had been suffocating in the full-body thing it had been before.

She managed to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror, now sixteen, though she still looked childish, with a malnourished frame due to her conditions, skin ashy, hair stringy, eyes a frightening red; it didn't look like she had seen a ghost, she was the ghost.

Wrapping a towel around herself, she went to sit outside and let her bodysuit dry, before heading back inside in search of new clothes, and possibly sunglasses. Since being kept underground for so long, even the softest light had her wincing, and as of right now, she had a massive headache from it all.

"I didn't catch your name," it's Charles who finds her halfway in a cupboard, elbow deep in the lost and found. Mags took a moment to pull out a black, short-sleeved shirt before she turned to him. He flinched a little at the sight of her eyes, but his own glowed green as his expression became thoughtful.

"Mags." Her voice had recovered somewhat in the shower after she had gulped down what felt like a gallon of water, but it still wasn't great.

"Okay, well I'm Charles, and my man Liam out there is tellin' us your name is Broken." He informed her, and Mags had to smile a little at that.

"No, I-" She held both her towel and the shirt in one hand, using the other to gesture at her eyes, "I'm broken." She explained as best she could. "What I am, well, what I can do? I'm -broken." After a beat, she whistled out a flame that was barely an inch long, and snuffed it out just as quickly. "-Broken." She repeated as she traced the letters 'RED' in the air. Charles's eyes glowed green once more and he nodded.

"Something happened to you, didn't it?" He asked, and Mags shrugged, but didn't refute it. Many things had happened to her, but something very specific had happened to her mind to make her unable to admit what she was out loud. "Well, you're with us now, Mags. You helped us escape, so thank you." After a beat he stepped away, actually giving her a smile. "Hey, it's getting dark, Zu and Liam are wondering where you are, so after you're all dressed, come up to room two-oh-five." He tells her, and heads off in the direction of the stairs. Mags muses on the conversation for a moment, but ended up smiling as she got dressed.

Upstairs, she finds the door to 205 ajar, and sees Zu and Liam sitting on the bed, while Charles reads an old newspaper on the sofa. Zu, immediately upon seeing Mags, jumps up from where she's sitting and scampers over to the newcomer, tugging her into the room.

"Hey, Broken, it's good to see you all fresh and clean." Liam grins and moves to make space for her on the bed as he sits cross-legged.

"My name's Mags." She tells him, folding up her legs to sit across from both him and Zu.

Liam's face creased with confusion as did Zu's, though he was the one who spoke, "I thought you told me-"

"That's to do with her powers, dude, it's not her name." Charles piped up from behind his newspaper, to which Mags smiled a little and nodded. Zu hummed thoughtfully before standing up and making her way to behind Mags, playing with the older girl's hair and pulling it up into a ponytail and various hairstyles.