Echoes ~ (Book Two of The Elite Series)

Chapter 1

Everything can change in the blink of an eye.
Nothing will remain the same as it once was, no matter how hard you try to make things stay the way they were, or how much you wish things were different.

It does no good allowing yourself to dwell on the past, but that is where Emma's thoughts lingered, as the helicopter flew higher and higher, taking them away from the only home the gladers had remembered.
Zart, Alby, Jeff, Clint, Seth, Chuck. They'd lost so many.......

She faintly registered Newt's arms around her waist, the feel of his breath on the back of her neck, and the single tear that rolled down her cheek, but that was it.
Everything else was drowned out as Emma then just let her exhausted, grief worn, battered self slip away into the very welcome, soft blackness of unconsciousness.

Some part of her fought it, as she didn't know these people, or where they were taking them.
But she was just too tired to keep fighting it anymore.

Emma wasn't sure how long she was out, or when she fell asleep, with her mind lazily drifting from one memory to the next, some of them happy, and some now-painful memories.

Her dreams changed halfway, to a foggy, out of focus image. A memory?
But it wasn't one that she recognized, but someway, somehow it was familiar to her....what was it though?

A person was leaned over Emma, and she felt arms around her, an oh-so-familiar melody floating through the dream, but it seemed just out of focus, like static.

And then just like that, the dream abruptly ended, as Emma was suddenly being shaken awake.
"Emmy! Come on love you gotta wake up!"

Brain still murky from sleep, Emma peeled her eyes open, as she was stumbling out onto the sand.
"Wha---" she found herself being pulled by the hand up to standing, men on either side of her and Newt, ushering them towards a tall fortress looking building, a compound.

Orders were being shouted into the air, guns being fired at something beyond the edge of the huge lamplight that flooded a large portion of the sandy areas in front of the building.
Emma picked out lurching bodies, jerking oddly, and once she thought she heard an unnatural, high pitched shriek.

She looked around wildly, the fuzz of sleep disappearing from her eyes as her adrenaline kicked back in, Emma trying to do a quick head count.
Her eyes widened, and she whirled around, muttering eyes with Minho behind them.

"Where's Thomas?!" She yelled over the noise.
Minho, who was only a few feet from the copter then, ran back, ducking under the arms of the men working on leading them to the building.

"Kid what are you doing?!" One of them shouted, but a moment later after Minho was pulled back out of the helicopter, he was followed shortly after by Thomas, who also looked like he was still trying to wake up.

As Emma turned back around, relief coursing through her, she nearly fell again because she hadn't been paying attention.
"Shuck," she said, and she was sure she had somehow gotten sand in her mouth.
The gritty taste was disgusting.
Yech.

"Emmy?"
She coughed as they ran, Newt picking her up. She shook her head, or tried to, shrugging off his concern.

A minute and a half of an intense energy spurt later, and all the gladers were finally inside the huge compound, the metal doors sliding closed behind them, Thomas moved through to the front, looking at everything going on, with something between awe and disbelief in his eyes.

But while the others were staring with wide eyes at their new surroundings, Emma's brain was automatically scanning and assessing it for possible threats. It was something she almost didn't realize she was even doing, the action automatic, subconscious.