Work Text:
As the cave walls shudder above her, Jo clutches the Chris McLean statuette so hard that her fingernails leave imprints on its surface.
"Everyone get in the stupid carts," she orders her straggling teammates. The Maggots are already seated and ready to go.
Lightning hops in without complaint. After a face-off with the monstrosity formerly known as Ezekiel, he looks worse for wear: scratched up, frazzled, and disoriented. Give him an hour and nasty purple bruises will likely bloom across his arms and face.
Jo doesn't give a shit about that, though. What she cares about is the last member of the Rats who is taking his sweet time getting over to the carts. Brick is walking—walking—with a slight hunch, his arms folded across his abdomen. She expects better from him. He'd always put up a fight in their earlier races, but now he's dragging her down.
"Brick!" She musters up her most venomous tone. "If we lose this challenge because you can't double-time it, you can bet your butt you're gone tonight!"
"Roger that, ma'am." His breath is ragged and his voice wheezy. She hadn't paid attention to him during the scuffle with Zeke and the gophers and the bomb backpacks, but whatever he'd encountered had taken the fight right out of him.
Pathetic.
She has half a mind to scoop him up and carry him over to the mine carts herself.
"Hold this." Jo shoves the statuette into Lightning's arms and stomps over to Cadet Crybaby.
"What," she scoffs, "boot camp didn't prepare you for the real world?" Her hand curls around his left bicep. "Cry me a river. We need to win this stupid freakin' challenge."
She yanks him forward, and Brick yells. His voice quivers with pain. What the hell? Jo drops his arm, stumbles back, and reassesses him. Her gaze drops down to his abdomen. Now she realizes why his arms were pressed up against it. Why he'd been shuffling towards the carts instead of marching. Her gut twists at the sight of the dark stain spreading across his green shirt. The red that inks his pale inner arms.
"Brick?" What is—? How—? Her composure and resolve desert her. She is Jo: ruthless competitor, heartless victor. But this boy, the only tolerable person on this nutso island, is literally bleeding out in front of her. "What happened?"
"Ah, had to help Mike out. Got entangled with a gopher. Nothing to worry about—" Brick's voice hitches and the veins of his arms protrude as he tightens his grip on his gut. "Ma'am. In any case, we have to complete our challenge."
The other competitors yell from the minecarts, but Jo doesn't register a single thing they say. Brick is injured, brutally. Worse than that, there is a pit in her stomach she can only chalk up to—to empathy. To caring about someone other than herself. For a moment she stares at him and all she can picture is him: on the ground, unconscious from blood loss, probably dead. Injured because his ridiculous cadet code mandated he stop and rescue Stickman.
Though she's known Brick for less than a week, the idea is a dagger to her side, like she herself is losing blood. The feeling is foreign, which only makes it worse. If he doesn't die here in this mine, she is going to kill him herself.
She steels herself and, without a word, scoops her arm under Brick's legs. She picks him up, grunting under the weight of carrying a whole 'nother person. Brick hisses in agony.
"Ma'am?" he whispers in painful confusion.
"I fricking hate you."