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"It isn't just Minho."
•••
THE ROOM WAS dark and musty, though the smell of mold was not what hit June first when she entered the warehouse alongside Newt. Instead, it was the disagreement that hung in the air and tugged at Juno's heartstrings. It was sitting heavily, waiting to be brought up and Juno wanted no part in it. This meeting was going to be a drag and she knew it immediately; no real outcome would be found tonight.
Leaving Newt's side, June walks across the room quietly to stand beside Brenda. Jorge stands on Brenda's other side and sends the girls a small smile when Thomas struts into the room, a map in hand. He quickly approaches the table in the middle and slams the map down on the table aggressively. "There, that's it." He points to a circle on the map. "It's a few hundred miles." He looks back down at the map. "Based on the railways, everything that Aris told us, that's gotta be where they're headed. That's where they're taking Minho." Thomas looks at Vince, and only Vince. He knows that the older man is going to be hard to convince. "We take everyone who can fight. Follow the roads where we can. We can make it back within a week."
A week was a bit of a stretch — everyone here knew that, though Vince was the only one to scoff and shake his head. "A week? It took us six months to get here. We got over 100 kids here now." The man held a sense of responsibility and Juno could understand. When she was in her maze, she held the same responsibility, paired with maturity. Though not the eldest in her maze, she was one of the older girls and the younger ones looked up to her. Vince was in charge and thus was looked up to, and he had to make a decision for the best of the Right Arm. "We can't just hang out here forever after what we just pulled. You wanna wander off to some random point on the map." He jabs his finger towards the circle on the map. "You don't even know what's there."
"I do." Jorge steps further into the room. "It's been a few years, but I've been there." He nods. "The Last City. That's what WICKED called it." She and Brenda share a look; neither had heard of this before. "It was their whole base of operations. If that city is still standing, that's the last place you wanna go, hermano." Vince finally nods his head, agreeing with Jorge. "That's the lion's den."
"It's nothing we haven't done before." Thomas speaks back to them.
June shakes her head; it was everything they hadn't done before. Never had they attempted to break into a city run by WICKED, instead they had spent their time running from them and then hijacked one of their trains. Nothing more, though that was oversimplifying things. A lot.
"Yeah, with months of planning, and reliable information, the element of surprise, none of which we have now." Vince argues in return, shaking his head quickly.
