After the Death Cure ( The Maze Runner )

Chapter 28

"Come on, Kenzie. I don't want anyone to hurt you," Thomas says as he grabs my arm

"Ow. Ow. What the shuck?" I pull up my sleeve, and he lets go of my arm. I forgot that the woman sliced my upper arm with a piece of glass.

"Sorry. I mean, I don't want anyone else to hurt you."

"It's fine. Let's go." We walk to the first house. Thomas bangs on the door, and a woman peeks her head out.

"Are- are you WICKED?"

"Yeah, we're here to collect immunes, if you'd like to come with us."

"Oh, yes please. Kids come on."

Thomas points to the direction of the Bergs, and touches some of the kids on the back. Those must be deceased parents' kids. There's like fifteen of them. Or Cranks'.

He looks up at me, and I know what he's thinking. We need to search every house.

We reach the next house. I knock this time. Another woman peeks her head out. I see the anger wash over her face. I try to back away, but she's already clawing at me. "Did you kill him!? Where is he!?" I hear the sound of a gun go off. Thomas shot her.

I push her off of me as she falls to the ground. Thomas holds up his gun, and enters the house.

"Cover me." I obey his orders, turn so that we stand back to back, and pull out my gun. "She was alone," he says as he puts his gun in his pocket, "Next." He exits the house, and I follow.

I knock on the door again, and Thomas stands behind me, with his hand on his gun. The door opens. "Hey, we're with WICKED. We heard some of you didn't want the Cranks to kill you if we lost, so we're here to bring you with us. That is, if you want to."

"No, get out of here," the woman says, but before she closes the door, a guy forces it open. He's at least sixteen.

"I'm coming with you guys."

"Sterling, no. Get back in the house."

"Ma'am, I'm sorry, but he needs to come. For his safety. You're keeping him from living," Thomas sounds sincere, but I can tell he's irritated.

"No, I'm not!"

Thomas whispers something to the guy, and he runs off in the direction of the Bergs. I guess he told him to get out of here.

"It doesn't work! You're lying!"

Thomas grabs his gun, but I reach my hand out to stop him, "Go to the next house." He leaves, and I turn my attention back to the crying woman.

"It does work, I promise. Just come with me, we can-"

"No! I tried it! I can still feel it...itching at my brain...the dreams bring it back..."

"Dreams? You mean like nightmares?"

"Yes."

"I had those too."

Her eyes light up, and she looks back at me, "No, not like these."

"They take everything you love, and turn them against you." She doesn't say anything, just stares at me. "Your son? Is that who was in your dreams?"

"WICKED killed him..."

"I can assure you, that won't happen. Come with me, I know how to make it stop."

She hesitates, then looks me in the eyes, "Ok."

"Head that way," I point in the direction of the Bergs, "Find your son, and sit on the same Berg as him." She runs off, and I see Minho walk past her. "Hey Minho! I lost my partner. Come on."

He sprints towards me, and follows me to the next house. I knock on the door. I guess all of the men fought. A woman answers, "You're the girl on the screen."

"Yes, I am."

"Oh good! Come on kids!" It's a small family this time. They run out of the house, smiling and laughing, with no idea of what just happened. I guess they will in a minute. They have to pass the dead bodies to get to the Bergs.

"Well, this is easy," Minho says as I knock on the door. I turn my head to smile at him, which is my mistake. A woman wraps her hands around my neck, and I fall to the earth. She's squeezing so hard, I see little black dots appear in my vision. Minho kicks her off of me, and someone rushes over to help. Melissa. Oh,thankgoodness. Melissa shoots her with a paralyzer, and she twitches and screams on the ground. "Thanks gorgeous," Minho says as he scans her body.

"Um, yeah," she replies as she helps me to my feet. I laugh at Minho's poor attempt to flirt. "I guess you need my help, seeing as you can't even stand on your own two feet."

"I was choked to the ground, thank you," I say sarcastically as she rolls her eyes. I can almost feel the smirk on Minho's face.

"Come on, slinthead. We gotta lot of houses to do," Minho says, and he nudges my arm. Figures I'm the only one he called "slinthead".

The rest of the people either come with us, or don't. No fights, no arguments. It takes at least an hour to gather up everyone, but we finally finish, and load them onto the Bergs after testing for immunity. Some don't pass. I take the group of non-immunes over to the side. There's only about ten of them, "Listen, either you guys are planning to kill us in our sleep, or you can't get rid of the Flare. I'm hoping it's the second one. Any of you have terrible nightmares? You feel as if there is no hope?" They all raise their hands, "Well, I probably should have told you of the dreams in the recording, but, I guess some of the Cranks would use that as a way to get into WICKED. Umm...listen, I had those nightmares, and WICKED helped me get rid of them. We can help you get rid of them too. Just load onto that Berg," I point to a Berg behind me, "and we'll help y'all get things figured out." They wait a few seconds, then walk past me to the Berg. Those poor people...

I realize Newt has been standing behind the crowd, watching me. I walk over to him, "Your face ok?" He reaches up, and lightly touches a cut on his face.

"Yeah, what about your arm?" He points to the blood seeping through my sleeve.

"Oh, yeah. I don't really feel it." He just stares at me, and it makes me feel guilty for lying about the pain. It hurts so bad. "Ok, well, I'll see you next stop." I turn, and walk back to my Berg. That was awkward.

The next trip seems like forever, and the slice in my arm is piercing. It's almost as if the cut makes everything else hurt, so I pull out my remote. I press the yellow button, and purse my lips as the needle shoots into my skin. I hate the click noise that it makes. Scares me every time...