Fire ➳ TDC, Thomas [3] ✓

chapter {10}

"Freeze!" Aside the thumping of my boots clashing against the ground and the evidently uneven rhythm of my heart beating in my ears, one shout of an armed guard came from the back, as he then began firing his bullets at us.

Ducking and avoiding as quick as we could, we ran through the halls blaring in alarms and yelling of those who yet remained in them— only to stop at the far end as we came close to Janson, standing still and with a smirk playing on his lips, a satisfied smile that he had managed to play us so well. My nerves began to tingle a bit, transforming into an evident sight of my eyes narrowing in obvious anger followed by my breath a sequence of broken long and short breaths.

At last, I shook the sight of him off, following three boys inside a room, the only safe place from the incoming waves of new guards and a man, Janson, set on ending once and for all our attempts of escaping. Ducking after every blow of new bullets the guards sent, we slammed the door shut soundly and locking it from the inside, quickly stopped the further advancing of WICKED.

The room was a lab of sorts, many massive structures lining its walls, tables full of vials, glasses and glassware littered by the tall structures and three massive windows looming in my sight— just like that one time in Scorch.

"Newt, come on!" Minho warned the boy, running to a table and flipping it over before setting it against the door hurriedly, blocking it for the men outside as I glanced across the room for any possible ideas putting aside the most obvious, and dangerous one, jumping out of the window.

Looking back at the boys, I shook my head. "There's nothing here to help us." I stated in panic voice small, Thomas immediately shooting me a 'not helping' look as he examined the window, eyes going over it as if wheels spin behind them, evaluating, calculating, deciding.

"There is." He grabbed a tube standing nearby, beaconed us to help him as all three of us grabbed its sides and hurriedly threw it into the glass covering the frame, watching it shatter into pieces and fall to the depth before splashing into water long meters down where it rippled upon the dead shine of stars.

In silence we waited a bit, staring after the tube which had already disappeared from our views. "Okay. Still good?" Thomas questioned seriously. "We might wanna get a head start." He looked at each of us individually, nodding carefully.

"You go first, I'll follow you." I said, encouraging them, my own mind thrown into a considerate calculation when my fears began surfacing again, no matter how that drop was our only route, I still felt anxious and scared something might go terribly wrong. Scrunching my brows briefly, I caught Thomas silently and uneasily gazing at me, gulping on air before letting himself linger on the pool of water beneath.

"Are you sure about this?" Minho asked, looking down at the fall from the window to the water, then at the his friends unsurely.

Shaking his head, Thomas answered. "No."

"Nice pep talk."

Rising his eyes for last time, Newt commented. "Yeah, we're all bloody inspired."

Thomas turned his head back briefly, nodding at me just as the last moments of that door held, sprinting toward the opening at full speed with three other boys in tow. Steeling my nerves, I straightened my shoulders, waiting for a second longer as they had already faded from my sight to hurry forward, my feet deftly thumping against the floor a sound which overpowered the fear in my veins— three steps, two steps, one step.

And then a hand clasped down on my shoulder.

It pulled me back so forcefully, I stumbled the last few steps to the broken window and in a few hopeless motions tangling me to an ungraceful stop as my knees forced me down, instantly buckling, bringing me to a halt as the guards with Janson at their front crowded around, cut off the sight of only possible escape.