Run With Me ➵ Newt [2]

TEN | the explosion

▬Music started playing as we ran through the warehouse, its melody sending a slight tremble through the air.

"Shit, it's starting already," I heard Brenda mutter.

"What's starting?" I demanded. "Who's playing the music? Is it WICKED?"

Brenda snorted and I swore she looked like she wanted to laugh. "WICKED? Girl, the only thing that disgusting organization listens to is the tortured souls of children."

"Then who-?"

"Look," she said sharply, irritation crossing her face. "Once the music stops this entire place will blow up. Do you really want to waste more time staying in this place?"

I gulped. "N-No. Carry on."

On the bright side, I could no longer hear Rat Man's disgusting voice over the intercom, as the music drowned out his voice. We stormed up a flight of staircase and emerged into Jorge's room, where we were taken to see him when we'd first arrived at this place. Jorge himself was hurrying around his tables, beads of sweat clinging onto his wrinkly dark head. As soon as he spotted us, he barked: "Brenda, hurry! We don't have much time!"

He stuffed some stuff into a backpack and slung it over his shoulders. "Let's go, let's go!"

We followed him down a side passageway and watched as he pushed opened a set of doors. A gust of warm wind blew at us, tossing our hairs around. There was nothing beyond the doors except a deep, wide chasm, and a metal zip line hung from where we were to a cliff side on the other side of the chasm.

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me," Frypan groaned.

"You kids wanna get to The Right Arm?" Jorge said, looking around at our expressions of disbelief. "I'll lead you to them. But you're gonna owe me and Brenda."

He tugged down a strip of cloth from the zip line, where it looped around to create a - very unstable, might I add - handle, and grabbed it. And before I could even blink he had looped his hands around the cloth and pushed himself to the edge of the doors.

"Follow me!" Was all he said before sliding down the zip line.

We stared after his receeding figure in the windy haze outside, stunned. We were supposed to do that?

"Alright!" Brenda's stern voice snapped me out of my daze. She pulled down another strip of cloth from the zip line. "Let's go!"

Minho grabbed the cloth first, steadying himself, then pushed off from the doors. I watched as he slid over to the cliffside, where Jorge's tiny figure was standing at. Spotlights danced over Minho and Jorge as the Berg engines increased in volume - Rat Man had spotted us. 

Brenda pulled down more strips of cloth and Frypan went next, then Aris, then Teresa. Brenda let loose a gasp and smacked her forehead. I heard her mutter "Shit, I forgot!" right before she ran back into Jorge's room.

"Brenda, where are you going?" Thomas called out urgently. But she had already disappeared.

"Alright, you two go," Thomas said to me and Newt. "I'll follow her."

"Hurry," Newt nodded, and Thomas ran after Brenda.

"You go first, Rose," Newt said, looking at me expectantly.

I felt my heart lurched and I stepped back nervously. "I-I can't," I stammered.

He stared at me. "What do you mean you can't?" He asked. "Rose, are you - are you scared of heights?"

I nodded, memories of him and I falling off the Maze wall and injuring ourselves surfacing to mind as I stared across the endless abyss before me.

Newt seemed to understand, his face softening. He grabbed my hand and looked me directly in the eye, his blond hair flying around his face in the wind.