The Immunity Illness

CHAPTER 15

Thomas stood straighter and stepped in front of Luke. He called out to the twins,
"Stay back!"
They stopped.
"We mean you no harm, Thomas," Iris explained, shuffling her weight from foot to foot. She appeared menacing in the dark. "We overheard the commotion—"
Thomas leapt a foot closer to them and seethed,
"Stop lying to me! Don't act like I don't know exactly who you are!"
Isaac's chest constricted; a flicker of defeat parted through his innocent mask. His gaze shifted to Luke, and in a last-ditch effort, he aimed a bony finger at him and crowed,
"He's your problem, not us. I have no idea what you're talking about."
Thomas chortled dryly. A crackle of thunder echoed overhead. Luke nudged him, whispering,
"What's going on?"
The tallgrass swayed in a mighty gust of wind. Thomas replied in his ear,
"Nothing but crazy-talk. Don't listen to what they have to say." He cracked his knuckles, estimating how well he'd do at throwing a punch.
Iris held her hands out as a shield. "You have to believe us. We're on your side, truly, we are."
"Yeah. He's not." Isaac reflected her urgency.
Scoffing, Thomas looked from Luke to the twins. "Oh, really? This guy, the guy who got half drowned with me five minutes ago?" Luke began to mumble something, but Thomas kept defending him. "Leave the Munies outta this. Face me like adults and quit dodging the truth."
Luke did not want to be ignored. He tapped Thomas out of the way and marched up to Isaac. "What're you trying to prove, man? What's your deal? I haven't seen your face in my life!"
Iris bristled. Her pupils searched hungrily for solutions. "Lies!"
"You're the liars!" Luke hissed. "Are you both insane? Thomas, who are these people?"
The wind howled, and the branches of a tree above them groaned and buckled. Thomas caught sight of a beetle blade's red eyes inspecting the scene from its leaves.
"They're nobody," he persuaded. "You should leave and find some shelter."
At first, Thomas thought he'd gotten to him. Luke tossed his head toward the camp, yearning to return to it. But he stood his ground to snarl,
"What makes you think I'm not on Thomas's side? I just met him."
Iris folded a small object into Isaac's palm. He stuck it in his pocket, responding,
"You're a warning! You're here to end us!" His words became more frayed, disorganized, and far fetched. "I won't stand around while you ruin our mission! We are the future! We're soldiers and we can beat you, do you understand?"
Luke held his position without moving a muscle. "You're out of your minds. Mission? Soldiers? You do realize this isn't a war zone?"
Thomas's heart thudded. Luke couldn't know about this stuff. In a strained tone, he explained,
"Like I said, crazy-talk. Luke, go to the camp. Now."
They exchanged uneasy glances, but Luke obeyed him.
"Will I see you again?" he asked.
"Yes. Now go." Thomas clenched his jaw, giving him a gentle push.
As Luke disappeared into the rainy darkness of the field, Isaac became increasingly unhinged. He murmured quick sentences to Iris, crossing his arms and tapping his foot. Faster than Thomas could register at once, he tore away from his sister and shot for the Hill, hollering to a person that was neither him nor Iris,
"You'll never find a cure like this! You never will!"
A streak of abrasive lightning burst in the sky.   
       "Isaac, you'll never make it, you idiot!" Iris scolded from afar.
Thomas chased the spy at a fleeting pace, splashing into mud puddles and pulverized weeds. His lungs burned for a break, his legs ached from overuse, yet he persisted. He kept running. Isaac veered off from the path to the Hill at the last minute. He zipped over rocks and pebbles, incredibly steady with his footing in order to scale a secluded and steep rockbed behind the knoll. Strands of his black hair suspended in the air, twisting like snakes in the wind. He and Gally shared an eerie likeness, almost as if they were brothers from different worlds. Thomas feared whoever he was—whatever he was going to do.
He glided to a halt and peered at Isaac from the bottom of the rockbed. The older boy clawed at a particular rock, fumbling at a hidden mechanism.
"It's over, shuck-face!" Thomas pronounced.
Isaac whirled around, face scrunched, wielding a pocket knife. He sprang off the rocks and lurched for him with it.
Thomas hurled himself sideways. He gasped, plummeting down the bumpy terrain. An elbow knocked him to trip his balance and he rolled over the wet stones, flipping onto his back. The sharp blade crossed over his midriff. Another spark of lightning lit up the sky. Isaac loomed beneath its glow, skeleton-like, murderous. Thomas lifted his legs and kicked him in the stomach, causing a heaved shriek. A glimmer of silver flew out of his hands. Thomas squirmed across the rockbed to retrieve the knife. When his fingers wrapped around its plastic handle, he smirked in success. Rather than continue the scuffle, however, Isaac gave up and turned to his chosen rock, continuing to pry at it.
The metal shook in Thomas's grip as he teetered to his feet. Angry. He was very angry.
Isaac's efforts weren't for nothing. The massive boulder whistled a pneumatic click, beginning to shift on invisible hinges. A line of white light seeped through its gap, and Thomas learned in awe that it was a Gate, like the one they'd used in the desert. Isaac wrenched at the door, but two things prevented his escape.
One: his body froze mid-stretch, as motionless as a statue. Two: the Gate re-sealed itself, reverting to its original appearance.
Thomas drew in fast breaths, clutching his weapon tighter. A grisly opportunity presented itself when his mind grew foggy and began to pulsate with a surreal hatred. He had the knife and had Isaac right where he wanted him. All it would take was one stab...or one concentrated slice.
Someone won't allow it, though, a tiny voice in the back of his consciousness argued. It was his own. Someone's going to come here and stop you at the last second, or the wind will blow wrong and fling the knife out of your hands. WICKED saves lives. It doesn't waste them.
He didn't listen to the voice. With maddened rage, Thomas drew the knife over his shoulder and thrust it down with the intent of decapitating Isaac's frozen, powerless head. A sturdy hand clasped onto his outstretched wrist. The figure had a name, a face, an identity, but he didn't comprehend that as it stepped in front of him to shield the victim. Thomas yelped at the person and battled to pull his blade away from the immovable hand.
Look at their face, his consciousness nagged at him. He pretended that it didn't exist and punched the figure, yanked at the knife, screeched, kicked, but nothing was working. The figure's other hand gripped onto his shoulder and rattled him, yelling something that was foreign to his ears.
Look at their face.
Thomas pummeled his fist into the person's torso, tired and in pain. The thought to rest never crossed him. He or she eventually snatched the knife from his fingers and tossed it to the ground, and Thomas watched greedily as it skidded far away. That was what Thomas felt like: far away. His brain was on fire and the voice was begging him now,
Look at their face!
He elbowed the figure in the ribs, scratched at its clothing, did everything possible to get around it and attack Isaac. He wailed in exasperation as his endeavor rendered itself impossible. With even more laborious force, he slammed into his blockade.
Buggin' monster, Newt scorned.
Downright slop for brains, Alby jibed.
What a piece of klunk—Chuck.
Waste of shuckin' oxygen—Gally.
You're a psycho, Tommy boy—Aris.
Get a grip, Tom, Teresa spoke stiffly through the fog, unclear to him if it was actually her.
Thomas released a prolonged, anguished cry, and sagged against the faceless figure in surrender.
Look at their face, his own lucid mental voice told him. Thomas moaned and craned his neck to observe who was holding him back from his destruction so securely.
Minho surveyed him with worry, fear, and a bunch of other crestfallen emotions that were very un-Minho-like of him to be showing. Thomas couldn't stand it and buried his face into his chest, bawling out in a strangled manner,
"I feel wrong."
"What happened here?" Minho demanded softly, his eyes darkening.
Thomas pulled back from him, discerning that he was still shaking from his prior fit of rage. He slicked his raggedy hair out of his eyes, thinking hard. "Isaac ran here and I chased him down. He pulled the knife on me and this rock opened. It's another Gate. But the Board prevented him from leaving."
Minho didn't say anything, so Thomas added breathlessly,
"How did you get here in time?"
"I'm not sure," he said, his features going slack. "I was in the camp trying to put some sense into Frypan, and the next thing I know I'm down here while you were..."
Thomas squeezed his eyelids closed, finishing for him,
"...being a Crank."
Minho's gaze switched onto Isaac. His pitch went up an octave. "Did he stab you?"
Thomas almost shook his head, but a series of pinpricks stung on his abdomen. He touched the area and felt his hand soak itself in blood.
"Apparently he did," he breathed, hearing the shock in his voice.
Minho's posture snapped into place, and he transformed into a responsible, serious version of himself that Thomas barely recognized. He muttered for him to sit down and independently grabbed Isaac's body, dragging him off the rockbed toward solid ground. Once he returned, he plopped beside Thomas and theorized sternly,
"We get nightly refills for these Serum vials, right?" He ripped up his shirt to present how the blue liquid no longer flowed through its tube. "They're empty. So, there's a chance we can request for other stuff, like the stuff we got from the Box. You get me?" He eyed Thomas expectantly.
"Yes," he mouthed, hopping on his train of thought. "Medicine, gauze. Some food."
Minho flashed him a lopsided smile, jabbing a finger at the Gate behind them. "Bingo."
Five minutes later, after a session of nagging Teresa in his mind nonstop, the hatch in the rockbed clicked once more. The white light within it replaced itself with a gaping black hole, and Minho slinked toward the opening. A cardboard box slammed him in the ribs. The door neatly hissed shut.
The package landed in the sand in front of Thomas, and Minho pried it apart, pulling out gray capsules, shirts, pants, underwear, socks, a thin blanket, a roll of gauze, some type of pain cream, deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes, granola bars, and a note attached to one of two water bottles that read:

Do not let the Immunes see you use these. Isaac may, however.
Chancellor Paige

"Jackpot," Minho gloated, hurriedly grabbing a bottle and downing it.
A moan sounded behind them as Isaac sunk out of his stance. He frenziedly dove for the knife, but Minho stamped his foot over the blade.
"You have no idea who I am!" Isaac declared. "I can take you down!"
Minho sighed at Thomas. "Permission to knock his lights out?"
"At least until we can regroup at a better hour," he replied. He patted along the ground for the tin of cream and tried to ignore Isaac while he barked,
"You keep your mitts off me! Get away!"
A loaded kick shut him up. Minho pranced over to Thomas again and picked up his water bottle.
"That felt good," he admitted, taking a swig.
Thomas busied himself with applying the cream onto his stomach with a cotton ball. An icy burn seared across the open gash. He closed the tin lid, wrapped himself in gauze, and then buttoned up his shirt.
"We can change in a tent and hide the box here," he notified Minho as he tore open a granola bar. "I'll...tell you about Aris on the way."
"Okay."
Thomas flopped on his back. He dropped his head into the rocky sand and chewed on the flavorless oats, gazing up at the stars. The bright white dots sparkled through the clouds—the storm was finally over. No thoughts came. No emotions. Except the word breaking through his mental wall.
Monster.
Crank was an umbrella term. He was a monster.