Nowhere Girl | The Darkest Minds Fanfic

Across the Universe

We found the camp where Ang was through the map on the tablet. It took us a good half of the day to get there. Though James is usually the second in command in our group, the thought of Ang in danger made him frantic, so Drew had to step up and fill in as the leader. I couldn't say I blame James, though. I would've been acting exactly the same if I were him.

　　We decided that we had to find a shelter so we could do some scouting, but there was not much of a shelter on the camp's parameter. After some search, we found an empty, abandoned warehouse half a mile away from the camp, without too much of stuff blocking its view of the camp. It was perfect, except for one thing.

　　Turned out, the warehouse wasn't empty after all. The moment we hurried ourselves into the warehouse, a gun was pointing at Drew's face.

　　"Who are you and what are you doing here?" The man at the other end of the barrel gritted each word out in a low voice. He was wearing a black baseball cap, which, together with the black bandana, covered up his hair and all the features on his face except for his eyes, which were blue.

　　I had seen those before.

　　"Don't shoot us, please." I held up my hands mid-air as I wedged myself between Drew and the gun. "Our friend is taken into that camp—" I gestured the vague direction of the camp, "—and we're trying to break him out. Just, please don't kill us."

　　I saw his eyes widened a little as he saw me, and narrowed instantly. Just as I thought he was going to shoot, he lowered his gun.

　　I can't believe it worked.

　　He paused for a moment, ran his eyes over each of our faces, contemplated some more, and pulled down the bandana.

　　It was him. Stewart. Or Cole Stewart. Whatever his name was.

　　I felt the earth pulled away from my feet in light speed, and I was left in the complete darkness with him. All of a sudden, the frustration, the guilt, the longing in the past few months devoured me, and I had to fight so hard not to break down right there in front of him.

　　He held my gaze in the light that was almost identical to the way he looked at me back in Leda Corp, right after I healed him, like he saw something inside me, but not me as a person. He didn't recognize me.

　　But something had changed about him. Something more than the scratch on his face, more than those swollen cheeks and bruised arms. Something that was so insignificant yet so fundamental that almost made me question his identity, but I couldn't quite pinpoint what.

　　"Liam," Finally, he turned away and yelled to the back of the warehouse. "You can come out now."

　　As the shadow came out to light from the back of the warehouse, I figured if Drew and James hadn't grasped who Stewart was before, both of them would've realized who these two were by now.

　　"Liam Stewart?" James gasped, and I cursed myself for not stopping him. Stewart lifted his gun again, pointing at James this time. James realized his mistake a second too late.

　　"Do you know him, Liam?" Stewart's voice was low and dangerous.

　　"I don't think so..." Liam replied.

　　"Then how do you know his last name?" He demanded as he held a sharp gaze at James.

　　"We've...seen his profile in PSF database..." James answered his question in stutter.

　　"We wanted to help him a few months back in Philadelphia." I added hastily. We're treading in deep water now. I had to act fast. "We saw someone reported him, and we wanted to help, but we never found him."