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Thomas accidentally drops his side of the log, and Gally curses as he starts to slide down the hill.
“Damnit, Thomas! You said you had it!”
Thomas struggles down after him and regrabs the end, grunting with the exertion. “I got it now. I got it.”
They continue struggling down the hill until they finally reach the flat, sandy beach.
“Wow,” Newt snorts from his seat on the first log they’d dragged down. “At this point I can’t tell if you’re carrying the log, or if it’s carrying you.”
Gally shoots Thomas a look. “I know I was carrying the log. God knows what this shank was doing.”
For a second, the tension feels reminiscent of the days in the Glade, but then Thomas laughs and gives Gally’s shoulder a good-natured punch, and the illusion is broken.
“What do you think, Newt?” Thomas asks. “Think we need one more?”
Newt looks critically at the fire pit and the size of the stack of logs. “Nah. This looks like enough for sitting and burning. We just need kindling.”
As if on cue, Aris and Minho jog up, each with an armful of sticks.
“Damn, Minho,” Gally snorts. “You two tear down a whole tree there?”
Minho gives him a look, one eyebrow raised, dropping his sticks into the fire pit. Then he walks across to Newt. One corner of his mouth crooks up in that little half-smile of his by way of greeting and Newt can’t help but grin back.
“What’re you two laughing at?” Thomas asks, already starting to ease into a seated position in the sand. He gives them a lazy grin and cracks his back, shaking out his sore arms.
“Nothing,” says Minho. “Just enjoying ourselves for once. It’s weird isn’t it?”
Aris rubs a hand along his stiff neck. “What is?”
“Being happy. Having no worries.”
For half a second, they almost think they might get to bask in the rare emotion, but true to form, Thomas shatters it.
“We aren’t done, you know.”
Newt squints at him, licking his lower lip. “Done with the fire pit?”
“Done with everything. ”
Gally gives them all a look that clearly says he thinks Thomas has lost it.
“I’m serious,” he insists. “We aren’t done yet. We... we have the Cure, just sitting there in a tent, and there’s thousands of people out there who are half or even whole Crank who we might be able to save.”
“There’s no saving a full-term Crank,” adds a new voice. It’s Brenda, walking toward them, a chunk of flint in her hand. She tosses it up in the air and catches it again. “You’re better off just forgetting about it.”
“Bloody...” Newt mutters under his breath, already starting to card a hand through his hair.
As if on cue, Thomas stumbles back to his feet. “We can’t just stay here on a beach forever. And the idea that we could help people and we aren’t? That doesn’t sit right with me.”
Minho leans forward, and Newt gives up all hope of a civil evening. “So what? You want us to feel guilty we got out and others didn’t? Because I know a hell of a lot of people who didn’t, and if I spent every waking minute thinking about that?” Minho spreads his hands in front of himself with a shrug. “We went through a lot too, you know.”
The unspoken mention of the months he spent alone in WCKD’s hands... in Janson’s hands, hangs in the air.
“Minho’s right,” Gally adds calmly. “We can’t let survivors’ guilt drag us down here after we’ve come so far.”
Thomas spins toward him furiously. “Everything you’ve gone through? Do you have any idea what we saw in the Scorch? With...” He hesitates. “With, with Winston? We ran from Cranks and WCKD, and found Jorge, Brenda, and the Right Arm all on our own.”
“And what do you think I was doing? Sitting on my ass? I woke up from being stung, to be surrounded by strangers after the only people I knew on the entire planet skewered me with a wooden spear and left me to die.”
Minho takes in a slightly sharp breath at that one.
Aris clears his throat from where he’s sitting by the fire pit, peeling the bark off a stick. “Can’t we just, I don’t know, have a quiet evening for now? We can’t help anyone tonight, and we certainly all deserve a break.”
“Aris is right,” Newt adds, ever the peacekeeper. “Let’s take it a day at a time. I say we bench this discussion, and tomorrow, Thomas, if you still wanna talk about what to do with the Cure, we can.”
Thomas can’t argue with Newt. Never could. But he still looks at everyone else, as if challenging them one last time.
“Dinner’s ready!” Frypan calls, jogging over with a tray full of a vaguely meat-like meal that actually has a decent smell rising from it.
“Thanks, Fry. But I’m not hungry,” Thomas mutters, and he starts back up the hill toward the tents.
When he’s out of earshot, Frypan looks at the miserable faces in front of him. “Did I miss something?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Brenda manages with a smile. “He’s just being Thomas.” She grabs what looks slightly like a drumstick off the top and takes a bite, eyes widening. “Oh shit, Fry. This is delicious!”
Just like that the tension is broken. Brenda starts up the fire, and they all cheer and yell as the flames build. Gally passes some of his suspicious drinks around, and everyone grabs handfuls of Frypan’s mystery meat.
At one point Gally reaches for thirds, and Frypan laughs and pulls the tray just out of reach. “Hold up there! Gotta save some for Teresa in case she ever feels like leaving her lab tent.”
Gally rolls his eyes but concedes, instead opting to try and sneak one of Aris’ pieces while he’s talking with Sonya. He gets caught, but the attempt sends up laughter all the same.
Stomach full and head slightly fuzzy with Gally’s drink, Newt stretches out better against the log he’s leaning on. Minho dips his head down next to him to whisper in his ear.
“So... You gonna talk to him?”
“Hmm?” Newt hums back.
“You gonna talk to Thomas? We all know the shank won’t listen to any of us.”
“Yeah, well,” Newt scrubs a hand across his face. “I’m not doing it tonight. Seriously, I don’t know how we all manage to completely bugger every nice evening we’re given, but—”
Minho gently pushes his hand back down and slides lower down the log himself. Newt leans forward enough for Minho to sling an arm around his shoulders, and they just sit and look into the flames for a minute.
Minho finally speaks again while the others roar with laughter over Aris’ tipsy attempt to further cook his meat in the fire.
“I think this is a pretty nice evening.”
“Yeah? Do ya?”
“Sure.” Minho tightens his grip around Newt’s shoulders just ever so slightly for a fraction of a second.
“Amazing,” Newt scoffs.
“What?”
“You really think— Are you angling for something here?”
Minho pulls his arms back to himself, hands raised innocently, but Newt is smiling his wide, lopsided smile that Minho really once thought he’d never see again. “I’m only angling for what’s being offered.”
“You were really serious? That night?”
It’s obvious which night he means. That awkward first night after Newt had thrown away his written dying words into the ocean. That night when they had managed to talk about themselves, both individually and as an item, without ever explicitly saying anything concrete.
That night when Minho had claimed he’d needed to take a piss, but really just went outside and cursed himself out for cowardice for so long that Newt later asked if he’d gotten lost on his way back to the tent.
It turned out that making wild, emotional declarations was a lot easier when your life was on the line, you thought you were about to die, and you just think shuck it and say whatever comes to mind.
“Hey,” Newt says softly. “You still in there?”
“Make sure you talk to Thomas tomorrow,” Minho says bluntly. “I’m calling it early.” He gives a half-assed yawn and stands up, stretching his arms and pointedly not looking at Newt. He calls good night to the others, and they chant it back at him with smiles and laughter, and he heads back to his tent in a halfway decent mood.
Next time they’re on the run for their lives, he’s so taking advantage of that adrenaline boost.
He somehow manages to both fall asleep before Newt comes in and wake up after he’s left, and it completely throws off his internal clock and leaves him to groggily stumble out into the daylight.
Minho’s mouth feels as fuzzy as his head, and he swings by the outhouse to squeeze some toothpaste on his finger and freshen up.
He’s in the middle of basically tickling his own tongue when he hears the yelling getting closer.
The outhouse tent flap flies open, and Gally marches in, angry as ever.
“I’m not mad about his motivations,” he snaps at a trailing Frypan. “I’m mad that no one realizes what he’s trying to do to himself here.” He freezes almost comically when he sees Minho. “Morning,” Gally adds, before immediately turning and diving back in. “It’s a suicide mission. Survivors’ guilt, I’m telling you. I’ve seen it before.”
Minho hates being out of the loop. “What’s going on?” he asks after he spits.
Gally waves a furious hand in Frypan’s direction as if saying tell him. “Thomas wants to go back to the Last City.”
Minho doesn’t wait for another word before he’s stomping out of the tent just as angrily as Gally entered it.
The scene down on the beach is complete chaos. Vince and Jorge are side by side, shouting indecipherable words at Thomas, who is barely being held back by Newt’s hands on his chest. Teresa is there too, by Thomas, as usual.
Brenda is tugging at Jorge’s arm, and just over the sandy ridge, Aris and probably every other immune in the safe haven are watching with wide eyes.
Minho slides down the steep slope, letting his athleticism keep him on his feet and not his face. “What the hell is going on here?” he shouts, and everyone spins in his direction.
He bypasses all of them to hook two fists in Thomas’ collar and throw him into the sand. “Frypan says you’re trying to go back ? What’s that about?”
“We have the Cure!” Thomas hollers back hoarsely. This argument must have been happening for a while now. And Minho intends to ends it. “We can help more people, Minho. I can’t just sit here and let them suffer and die.”
“And what about you, huh? Are you gonna die? You think you can make it out there alone?” Minho shushes Thomas’ attempt to speak. “Better question, you think anyone’s going to follow you out there now? When we’ve finally made it to the safe haven?”
“I will,” Teresa says. She doesn’t shout it. Doesn’t even raise her voice above conversational volume. But her certainty is enough to carry it over Minho’s. He more than resents her for that. “I’m going with him.”
“Bloody good show,” Newt snipes sarcastically. “Two of you? They’ll never have a chance against you.” He doesn’t say it. Doesn’t say Crank .
“It’s called Project Failsafe,” she says back, ignoring Newt. “The Flare evolved. It became airborne. I think we can do the same thing with the Cure.”
Brenda lets go of Jorge and steps forward. “What’s Project Failsafe?”
“It was a plan, one we never used, but a plan that was in place should the walls fail. The idea was to get all the top scientists and WCKD personnel on board a Berg, and trigger Project Failsafe remotely.”
“But what is it,” Minho asks again flatly.
Teresa hesitates, tucking loose waves of hair behind her ear. When she speaks again, it’s louder, like she hopes saying it with enough confidence will give her the strength she needs. “It was a compressed gas distribution system, capable of diffusing to hit the entire city. The payload was a toxin that would kill any Crank that inhaled it. Or any uninfected.”
Minho throws his hands in the air and takes a few steps away. “Holy shit. So, what. You wanna kill all the Cranks?”
“No!” Teresa insists. “I want to use the system. Just the system.”
“And fill it with an airborne, compressed gas Cure,” Newt finishes, recognition dawning. “Effectively mass distribute a Cure.”
“And why should we trust you?” Minho asks. “Especially when you’re the one on WCKD’s side in the first place?”
Teresa laughs at that one, face disbelieving. “ What could I possibly gain from risking my life to kill a bunch of Cranks who are just going to die anyway?” She looks down at Thomas who is still sitting quietly in the sand where Minho had left him. “And I was never on WCKD’s side. I was on the side of whoever I thought was in the best position to save lives. All I’ve ever wanted...” She breaks off, choking up. “All I’ve ever wanted was to help people.”
“Okay,” Newt says, shaking his head. “Okay, I’m in. What’s the plan?”
“Sorry, what?” Minho hisses, Vince and Jorge echoing him. “Did I miss the part where we decided this was still a stupid plan?”
Something indecipherable slides across Newt’s face, and Minho’s heart-rate kicks up a few notches with an instinctive adrenaline response.
“Being one of them , was the worst thing I’ve ever been through.” Newt looks from side to side, awkwardly taking in his crowd. He flashes his tongue across his lips, crosses his arms, and turns a burning gaze toward the sand at his feet. “After... After going through all that. Feeling your mind slipping. Being aware that you’re changing but being powerless to stop it. The confusion when you have a moment of clarity and realize that you can’t even recognize your best friends?” He lets out a long breath and pushes back the hair that has fallen in his eyes. “And then to feel that rush. It’s like someone found all the you floating around in space and poured it back into your body again. The Cure works. And I can’t imagine keeping it from anyone who could use it. I’m going with you.”
Newt turns and walks quickly away, hardly even struggling to climb up the hill.
Minho watches him go, then looks at Teresa. “Can you do it? Can you make the Cure a gas and replace the toxin and set off the Failsafe system and everything?”
She nods, and maybe they’ve all grown a lot these past few years, because in that moment she’s so certain of herself that Minho just... He just...
“Fine,” he snaps. “Let me know when we’re leaving. I’m coming too.”
It’s almost worth it just for the tight hug Thomas wraps him in. Minho closes his eyes and rubs Thomas’ back and just tries to breathe.
They leave the next day.
Objectively Minho knows that every day they waste is more lives lost to the Flare for good, but he was kind of expecting a bit of time to enjoy their brief rest period.
Of course, he wasn’t Keeper of the Runners because he couldn’t persevere, so he packs his bag in silence alongside Newt.
The air is slightly damp with that pre-dawn, dewy moisture that comes in off the ocean. It threatens to pull Minho’s hair down from where he’s styled it, but it definitely succeeds with Newt’s.
Without gel to force it into position, his fringe hangs low over his eyes and ears, and gives Minho the distinct urge to push it away. Residual habit from his maze running years, he tells himself. If any of his runners had tried to start their day with their vision obscured he’d have been on them with a pair of scissors in an instant.
The tent flap flies open, and Gally is standing there, face half-hidden in the darkness. Minho expects a fight, but instead, Gally just whispers, “You guys ready?”
“You’re coming too, then?” Newt whispers back.
Gally shrugs, trying to look aloof. “You’ll need protection, and none of you slintheads know how to work a gun the right way anyhow.”
“Good that,” Newt says with a smirk, tapping Minho’s leg and reaching up a hand to help him stand.
It turns out Gally isn’t the only additional member of their party. Brenda, Frypan, and Aris are there too.
“I guess you guys didn’t wonder how you’d get to the Last City when you can’t fly the Berg, huh?” Brenda snorts.
Frypan puts a hand on Thomas’ shoulder and says he’s crazy if he thinks this is what will finally shake his loyalty. “This has to be, at least only the fourth most crazy thing you’ve done.”
Aris admits he isn’t quite sure what he can do to help, but he certainly can’t do much worrying back in the Safe Haven alone.
They pile as quickly as they can into the Berg, then start it up, lifting off into the sky as Vince and Jorge wave worriedly down below.
The flight over is tense with unspoken thoughts. Who’s going? Who stays on the Berg? What happens if they don’t come back?
Newt sits stiffly next to Minho, not even bumping legs, and he can’t help but frown at that. Just how nervous is Newt about all this? Teresa’s Cure essentially made him an Immune, but that doesn’t mean seeing Cranks and running from them isn’t just as terrifying. Hell, Minho isn’t feeling too great about willingly flying back into the very same place he was tortured in himself.
Thomas stands up and walks over to both of them before sitting in between them. If they each throw an arm around him and hug him close, no one else makes any sort of comment.
The flight is long enough that they doze off like that, and Minho comes to with his face in Thomas’ hair. For his part, Thomas has Newt slumped completely against him and has one knee bent to keep him from falling to the floor.
We could have had this forever if we’d stayed, Minho thinks. Then he’s startled by the sudden sentimentality. He slides out from under Thomas and Newt, somehow managing not to wake either of them, and heads for the front of the Berg.
It’s just Frypan and Brenda in there. She’s at the controls, piloting as steadily as Jorge ever taught her, and he’s there bringing her a freshly brewed cup of coffee.
“Hey,” Brenda says when Minho walks in. “You look like shit. Can’t sleep?”
“Slept great actually.”
“Mm. Just look like shit then.”
He doesn’t know her as well as the others do, but she’s got dark rings under her eyes from staying alert and flying for hours, and she’s taking a one-handed sip of her caffeine kick after basically insulting him, and Minho thinks she’s pretty cool after all. He mostly remembers her in snippets.
Their first meeting is blurred and smudged. He’d just been dealt a blow by nature itself, and his brain hadn’t quite come back online yet. He only distinctly remembers Newt and Thomas’ worried faces pressing in above him and then the overwhelming pride of how badass surviving a lightning strike was.
He does remember that she brought Thomas back to them from the Scorch. And he remembers she helped save Newt’s life when he was Cranking out in the Last City.
Minho kind of owes her an immeasurable debt.
Frypan seems to understand every one of Minho’s thoughts as he sips, eyebrow raised, from his own cup.
“How far out are we?” Minho asks.
Brenda checks a few screens on the Berg’s complicated interface. “Not long now. I’d give it about half an hour before we start waking everyone up.”
He nods and sits down next to Frypan, shaking his head when he wordlessly offers him some coffee.
They watch the sunrise outside, the way the golden light seeps across the ground and illuminates the bleak wasteland in a way that’s almost picturesque.
Then Minho sees twisted metal fencing, piles of abandoned vehicles, and the entrance to a tunnel.
“Oh shit,” Frypan breathes. “That’s where we crashed our car on our way to save you, Minho.”
“I think,” Brenda snorts, “you mean that’s where Jorge and I saved your asses before Cranks killed all three of you.”
Minho hasn’t heard this particular story, but he raises an eyebrow at each of them and says he’s heading to wake the others.
Gally rouses easily and instantly. He’s on his feet and alert before Minho can even stand back up himself.
Thomas takes a minute to blink before he’s also energized. He half-lifts Newt to his feet, and they both gather their weaponry and bags.
Minho watches Teresa rub her eyes blearily before he snaps into the same headspace he used to run the maze in. He keeps his breathing deep and calm while tightening the straps of his pack around his shoulders.
Aris grabs walkie-talkies for each of them, and Brenda’s voice alerts them that their drop point is coming up.
The walls of the Last City are still there, mostly intact, but many of the buildings have been reduced to rubble. The bright and shiny veneer of WCKD’s last stronghold has worn off entirely.
“I can’t get you directly over the wall. It’s too small of a target,” Brenda informs them. “I’m putting you over a clearing a few blocks over.”
“There won’t be much cover there,” Gally says back over the comm.
“No choice. It’s that or a potential free-fall into unstable chunks of concrete.”
Gally’s mouth flattens further than it usually is. “Copy that.” He looks at Newt, Thomas, and Minho. “If any Cranks come, we won’t have any other real option than to run for it. We have to reserve as much ammunition as we can for the way back.” He starts fastening his jump cable around his waist. “So if anyone has any reason they can’t run. Now’s your chance to stay behind.”
It’s an obvious dig, and Minho sees the way Newt’s lip threatens to curl.
“We’re all good here,” Thomas answers instead. The furrow between his brows clearly means he’ll have words with Gally later.
“Listen,” Newt finally snaps. “I don’t know if any of you have noticed, but I’ve been running bloody well on my own all this time. I never asked for help in the Scorch when we were climbing the sand dunes. I never needed any help when we were escaping the maze. I have a limp, but I don’t need someone holding my hand every step of the way.”
Gally doesn’t back down. “Minho carried you through most of the Last City during that rescue mission.”
“Yeah, well, I was bloody half- Crank by that time, wasn’t I!”
He said it, Minho thinks, shocked.
After a brief pause, Gally gives a soft hum of respect and concedes. Newt tightens his jump cable a little harsher than normal, but Minho puts a subtle hand on his wrist for support.
Newt takes a deep breath and runs a hand through his hair. “Sorry, Gally. I have a thing about heights, and it’s got me a little wound up.”
“Hey. Don’t apologize. I was out of line myself. Let’s just concentrate on the mission.”
They nod at each other, and the tension dissipates.
“And that , Tommy, is how you can handle conflict in a mature way,” Newt jokes, and Thomas knocks their shoulders as he rolls his eyes.
Minho shoots a look at Teresa, who has been silent all morning. She looks vaguely nervous, hands twisted in the straps of her pack, and he realizes what pressure she must be feeling.
With her makeshift tent lab, she’d single-handedly figured out how to synthesize the crucial parts of Thomas’ blood.
Once she had learned that they wouldn’t have to drain Thomas dry to do it, she’d set about crafting a plan to replace the toxins in Project Failsafe with the Cure in some naive but well-intentioned attempt to save those she felt she had failed before.
They each have a full container of the Cure in their packs, but Teresa is still a key-piece of the puzzle for this crazy idea to succeed.
“Proceed with drop,” Brenda’s voice says suddenly over the radios.
Frypan gives them all a tight hug before joining Aris at the controls. “Good luck you guys!” he shouts as the ramp starts to descend.
Gally walks out most confidently. He and Thomas lock eyes and jump together.
Minho feels his breath freeze until both their lines go taut. “Come on, Newt. Teresa.”
The three walk out to the end, staring over the edge where Thomas and Gally are rapidly descending on their cables.
Minho leaps at the same time as Teresa does, and they might both scream on the way down, but neither would ever admit it. The jolt when Minho’s line goes slack knocks his teeth a little, but he’s lowering so quickly, he doesn’t have time to dwell on it.
Their landings are poor, but at least they stay on their feet. Thomas is immediately there, helping pull them from their jump lines. Less than twenty seconds later, Newt hits the ground, and he might be breathing hard and shaky, but he did it, and Minho can’t help but shoot him a sharp grin.
There’s no time to rest, because as soon as Gally radios that they’re clear and the Berg lifts off, the sound of Cranks can no longer be hidden by the turbines.
They all pull their guns, and Thomas takes the lead. “Head for the wall!” he shouts. “Go, go, go!”
“Oh, shit ,” swears Newt, and over a chunk of twisted cable car to their left leaps a Crank, several more behind it.
Minho slaps Newt’s shoulders to shake him out of it, and they take off sprinting with the others.
Gally fires off an occasional round when one jumps out at them from up ahead, but they have to just run fast enough to avoid the others.
Then three Cranks roar and stumble on unsteady concrete, and the slab smashes down in Minho’s path, effectively blocking him and Newt off from the others.
“Shit, shit, shit ,” Newt hisses again, skidding to a stop.
Minho doesn’t slow down. “Climb!” he yells, one hand fisted in Newt’s pack strap. He grunts with exertion as he lifts Newt enough to get started.
They scramble over the slab, Crank noises seemingly less than a foot behind them. Newt reaches the top first and turns to grab Minho. They lock hands and slide down the opposite side.
The instant their feet hit the ground, they’re running. Gally, Thomas, and Teresa aren’t much further ahead, and Minho gets the feeling that they were waiting for him and Newt even though they weren’t supposed to.
He and Newt are still a decent distance behind the others, and the adrenaline is flying through Minho’s veins in a way he’s almost missed. It sings through his legs like it used to back in the maze.
He’s high on the sensation, and even though he can still hear Cranks all around them, he takes the leap.
“Hey!” Minho calls, and Newt whips his head toward him.
“What?”
“We should be a thing!”
“What in the bloody—”
“Like, you should go out with me! Or, wait, will you go out with me? Please?”
“Minho, I swear on the Glade, you are not doing this right now!”
“Is that a no?”
Newt’s eyebrows furrow until Minho isn’t sure he can still see to run. “It means wait until we aren’t running for our lives to ask me shit like that!”
Minho’s legs move a little faster, a little lighter. It’s totally a yes.
Gally reaches the enclosed ladder and helps Teresa up and in. “Go, Thomas! Go!” Thomas leaps the first foot and a half on his own. “Come on, Minho! Come on, Newt!”
They scramble up, up, up, making the manual climb of the wall. The Cranks aren’t graceful enough to follow. They try to climb, but their twitchy limbs give out, and they crash back down.
At the very top is a heavy, steel trapdoor, and once Thomas snaps the rusting lock off, they clamber up onto the wall. Thomas and Minho shut it and tip a metal rack on top for extra security.
Minho barely has time to wipe his hands off before Newt slams his back into the edge of the wall.
“Yes,” he spits, and Minho can’t help but smile at the fake anger, a coverup for Newt’s actual emotions.
“Yes, what?” Teresa asks, but Newt just gives Minho’s hand a quick squeeze and steps away.
“Okay. We made it. What are we looking for?” he asks, and she drops it.
Gally takes up his position with his rifle, securing the area, and Teresa runs ahead, looking for one of the Project Failsafe boxes.
Up top, the wall is essentially a round track of empty concrete. Occasional locked tanks of machinery are lined up along it, along with some rotting chairs and ammunition clips from past guard rotations. It’s exposed to the sun, sand, and wind, and everyone pulls their scarves or shirt necks over their mouths as they walk on.
Teresa locates the first box, and she rips open the half-broken metal door to see the equipment inside. “Perfect. We got lucky and stumbled onto the lead box. Keep going,” she says. “We have to find the other four boxes and replace the toxins with the Cure instead. It should just pop right out.”
“Should they be evenly spaced along the wall?” asks Gally, and she shrugs.
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
Thomas points in each direction. “Gally and I will head this way. Minho and Newt? Try that side.”
Then they split up, leaving Teresa to rip wires and plug her handheld device into the box.
Minho can’t last more than three minutes before he breaks, voice muffled by his shirt. “Hey. You know you don’t have to say yes. I wasn’t trying to pressure you out there, or catch you off guard.”
Newt knocks their shoulders and hoists his pack a bit higher on his back. “Yeah, figured that out. Why’d you do it then?”
“Needed that push, I guess.” Minho gives a self-deprecating huff of a laugh. “Kinda funny. It’s like those three years in the maze, living off that constant adrenaline high. Now I can’t do anything without it.”
They walk in silence for a little while longer.
“After that night,” Newt starts, “I really thought something was going to happen. But then you left to take a piss and didn’t come back.”
“Sorry.”
“And then. By the fire. I actually asked you if you really were interested, and you zoned out, asked me about Thomas , then went to bed.”
“Shit.”
“Now I didn’t know what to think. I kinda chalked it all up, all your hints and flirting attempts, to having been just an adrenaline-fueled idea to begin with, and now that we were safe and everything had calmed down, maybe you weren’t actually interested.” Newt readjusts his scarf over his face. “I finally had resigned myself to thinking it was all a mistake, and then you ask me again, in the middle of us running for our lives yet a-bloody-gain.”
Minho pauses to briefly check a metal box, but it’s not Project Failsafe, so he keeps walking. “So, I’m not great with expressing emotions.”
Newt rolls his eyes. “Never woulda guessed.”
“Quiet, shank, I’m talking. But I’m really not. I mean, my first memories are all in the Glade. And we had each others’ backs, like brothers, but there wasn’t really a time and place for this... this sort of thing.”
Newt nods at another box coming up. “And this is the time and place? On a mission that could easily get us all killed?”
“Well, it was the time and place. I thought we were done with all this running for our lives shit. We made it to the safe haven. We saved you. We survived.”
“Is that why you did it then? Why you carried me through the Last City when I was Cranking out? Because you have feelings for me?”
Minho had just wrenched open what turned out to be one of the right boxes, when he froze at Newt’s remark. “No,” he said firmly. “Never. Newt, I didn’t carry you because I liked you, or whatever. I carried you because you’re my friend. Given the chance, I know Thomas or Gally or Frypan would all have done the same.”
Newt reached past his head to snap out the compressed toxin bottle. He held it in his hands for a second before gently laying it on the ground.
Rifling through his pack, Minho grabbed the smooth blue container that he knew held the Cure. With some brief difficulty, he snapped it into place in the Failsafe box and double-checked to be sure all the wires were connected. A green light in the corner said everything checked out, and Minho turned around to find that Newt hadn’t backed away at all.
“Uh, hey,” Minho said awkwardly, unsure of what to do.
Newt reached out and tugged down on Minho’s shirt, pulling it down from where he was still holding it over his nose and mouth. Then he pulled his own scarf out of the way.
He hadn’t stepped back yet, and Minho was trying not to do something dumb like accidentally ruin the moment yet again.
“So, Keeper of the Runners. I can kiss you, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Minho said unevenly.
It was an awful kiss. Neither of them had been drinking enough water, so their lips were chapped and dry. Actual sand and dirt was flying in their faces, and the sun was probably going to burn the back of Newt’s neck if he didn’t fix his scarf soon, but it was Newt, and Minho couldn’t help but make the kiss worse by grinning and exposing his teeth.
Newt pulled back at that, and they both fixed their face coverings, laughing.
“Hey, you want another one, you have to make it back to the Berg in one piece,” Newt said in his fake commanding tone, finger pointing at Minho’s chest.
“Better idea. Next one to find a Failsafe box gets another kiss.”
Newt snorted, then coughed as he inhaled grit. “Depends how fast you find it.”
“Hey. You think that was our first kiss?”
“For us together? Or you mean each of us at all?”
Minho slung his pack back on. “At all. I mean, I sure wasn’t kissing anyone in the Glade, so...”
He could tell Newt wrinkled his nose, even if it wasn’t visible. “Bloody hell, I should hope not. We were all disgusting.”
“Why’d you call me the Keeper just then?”
“Was trying to jumpstart your adrenaline so you wouldn’t leave me hanging again.”
Minho actually knocks Newt on the head for that one. “Slim it. Let’s find that second box and get outta here.”
They do, and Minho manages to convince him to give him a second kiss. It’s just as dry and uncomfortable as the first one, but this time Minho cups Newt’s face in his hands, and Newt runs his palms along the small of Minho’s back.
The moment is ruined by Gally’s expletives and rolling eyes as he and Thomas walk up from the other side. “Are you kidding me? We made it all the way around, including the part we had to climb across because Lawrence’s bomb blew up there, and you two have been doing this?”
They try to look properly penitent, but Gally’s angry facade falls first. “About time, you two,” he adds, then adjusts his mask and nods his head to tell them all to get moving.
Thomas can’t hardly speak, his throat gone dry with sand in his mouth, but he smiles widely and wraps Newt in a huge hug that knocks the wind out of his lungs. He rasps a, “Happy for you guys,” to Minho through a coughing fit.
Newt uncoils his scarf and passes it to Thomas, pulling up his shirt neck instead. “It’s fine. You need it more,” he says, pressing it into his hands.
Thomas takes it gratefully and winds it over his mouth and nose.
Teresa is already prepared by the time they reach her again. “Let’s go!” she calls, and Gally helps her push away the metal over the trapdoor.
Then the Crank busts through.
If it isn’t full-term, it will be soon. It’s faster and more athletic than its newer cousins, and the terrifying veiny pallor of its skin is especially off-putting.
Teresa screams and leaps back, and Thomas and Gally are already yelling and drawing their guns.
They shoot at it as it wriggles up out of the enclosed ladder and toward the Failsafe box where Newt is crouched.
“Tommy!” he shouts as it lunges, but it’s Gally who kills it first.
They all gasp for air through shaky lungs as they stare at its twisted form.
“You good, Newt?” Thomas asks.
“Fine... A... A little... light-headed...” Newt whispers almost drowsily. He glances to the side, then jerks in fright. “Shit...” Minho helps him stumble to his feet, even as he’s choking, “Go! Run! Move!”
Then Minho sees it too. It’s a hint of sulfur yellow in the air, rising from a punctured can. The removed toxin bottle, clipped by a bullet.
They’re lucky it wasn’t hit directly, or it would have exploded, Minho thinks in a daze as they run.
Newt’s body is still clearing out the gas in his lungs, so he coughs wildly and stumbles as he shakes his head. It’s eerily reminiscent of his Crank days, but Minho keeps his thoughts to himself, though he’s sure everyone else is thinking it too.
Teresa inhaled some as well, but Thomas has a hand under her arm and is helping her struggle along the wall as they try to get as much space between them and the gas as possible.
It doesn’t help that to run, to choke, or to do both requires sucking in the gritty air. Minho doesn’t think any of them will have voices after this.
At the next box, Thomas and Minho work on breaking open the trapdoor to the ladder, and Gally radios Brenda requesting their pick up.
He directs her toward their new position and a different open area, and then the hatch is open and they’re scrambling down.
“Hey, Teresa,” Gally calls to her. “Is that toxin going to hurt anyone else?”
“It shouldn’t,” she chokes. “It was just the bottle. It didn’t... It didn’t go through the Failsafe system.”
They hit the ground running quite literally, and Minho can hardly suck air through his dirt-encrusted esophagus, but he tries.
Newt is wheezing uncomfortably next to him, and Teresa is hacking on the other side, but they run and run until the area opens up into a flat quad.
The hum of the Berg returning is so beautiful, Minho forgives it for stirring up more dust around them.
Up top, Aris and Frypan must lower the jump cables, and they all start strapping in before the Cranks appear.
Gally lays down cover as Minho and Newt pick off stragglers. Thomas helps Teresa fasten her cable while also supporting her half-limp weight.
The Berg lifts off not a moment too soon as Gally exhausts his clip and has to reload. A nimble Crank makes a wild leap for Minho’s dangling leg, but Newt swings in his direction and kicks it square in the jaw before it can get a grip.
Then they’re up high in the air, dangling in the swirling, sandy air, just laughing and coughing together as they’re hauled up one by one.
Inside, Frypan has water ready, and Aris is there with antiseptic cream for their windburned cheeks and foreheads.
They spit dirt and grime mindlessly onto the floor, and when Brenda runs out of the cockpit, Thomas and Teresa each grab her in a thankful hug.
Frypan helps Gally strip off his pack, protective layers, and weaponry before he sinks to the floor, exhausted.
“I think that’s enough excitement for a while now, Greenie,” he say in a raw voice, and Thomas’ gleeful middle finger is practically a hug for the two of them.
“We have to see...” Teresa’s voice is a near whisper. “We have to see if it worked.”
They all huddle in the front of the Berg, looking out the huge glass window where Minho had first watched the wall approach.
Newt slides up next to him and leans tiredly into his side, but they also interlink fingers and suddenly Minho’s holding Newt’s hand. He squeezes it gently, and it makes Newt look up.
“What?” he asks.
There’s not a drop of adrenaline left in Minho’s body when he smiles back. “I’m kinda angling for something here.”
“And you’ll bloody well get something as soon as we get back.”
Minho squeezes again, and the fingers in his hand squeeze back.
Thomas smiles at them, and Newt pulls him into their small huddle. Frypan rests his hand on one of Gally’s shoulders, and Aris puts his on the other.
Brenda shoots Teresa a smile and nod.
“Okay,” says Teresa nervously. She pulls out her handheld device, the Activate option shining on the screen. She taps it, and it asks if she’s certain she’d like to proceed. “Here we go.”
They look out at the Last City where it’s still crawling with Cranks. They look out at the wall where the Failsafe boxes are loaded with the Cure.
Teresa presses yes.