James Dashner - The Scorch Trials

Thomas really wished Minho hadn’t said that. It was stupid and arrogant, and it could very well get them killed. The guy obviously wasn’t alone. There could be a hundred Cranks hiding out in the torn-up remains of the upper floors, spying on them, waiting with who-knew-what kind of horrific weapons. Or worse, the savagery of their own hands and teeth and madness.

Jorge looked at Minho for a long time, his face blank. “You didn’t just say that to me, did you? Please tell me you didn’t just speak to me like a dog. You have ten seconds to apologize.”

Minho looked over at Thomas with a smirk.

“One,” Jorge said. “Two. Three. Four.”

Thomas tried to shoot a look of warning to Minho, nodded at him. Do it.

“Five. Six.”

“Do it,” Thomas finally said aloud.

“Seven. Eight.”

Jorge’s voice was rising with each number. Thomas thought he caught a glimpse of movement somewhere far above, just a blur of streaking shadow. Maybe Minho noticed it, too; any arrogance drained from his face.

“Nine.”

“I’m sorry,” Minho blurted out, with little feeling.

“I don’t think you meant that,” Jorge said. Then he kicked Minho in the leg.

Thomas’s hands clenched into fists when his friend cried out in pain; the Crank must’ve gotten him right in a burnt spot.

“Say it with meaning, hermano.”

Thomas looked up at the Crank, hated him. Irrational thoughts started swimming through his mind-he wanted to jump up and attack, beat him like he’d beaten Gally after escaping the Maze.

Jorge pulled his leg back and kicked Minho again, twice as hard in the same spot. “Say it with meaning!” He screamed the last word with a harshness that sounded crazed.

Minho wailed, grabbing the wound with both hands. “I’m… sorry,” he said between heavy breaths, his voice strained and full of pain. But as soon as Jorge smiled and relaxed, satisfied with the humiliation he’d inflicted, Minho swung an arm out and slammed it into the Crank’s shin. The man leaped onto his other foot, then fell, crashing to the ground with his own yelp, a shriek that was half surprise, half hurt.

Then Minho was on top of him, yelling a string of obscenities Thomas had never heard come out of his friend before. Their leader squeezed his thighs to trap Jorge’s body, then started punching.

“Minho!” Thomas shouted. “Stop!” He got to his feet, ignoring the stiffness in his joints, the soreness in his muscles. He took a quick glance upward as he made for Minho, ready to tackle him off Jorge’s body. There was movement up there, in several places. Then he saw people looking down, people readying to jump. Ropes appeared, dangled over the sides of the jagged holes.

Thomas rammed into Minho, sent him sprawling off Jorge’s body; they crashed to the ground. Thomas quickly spun to grab his friend, wrapped his arms around his chest and squeezed against his struggles to escape.

“There’s more of them up there!” Thomas screamed in his ear from behind. “You have to stop! They’ll kill you! They’ll kill all of us!”

Jorge had staggered to his feet, slowly wiping a thin trail of blood from the corner of his mouth. The look on his face was enough to ram a spike of fear straight through Thomas’s heart. There was no telling what the guy would do.

“Wait!” Thomas shouted. “Please, wait!”

Jorge made eye contact with him just as a few more Cranks dropped to the ground from above. Some of them did the jump-and-roll like Jorge had done; others slid down ropes and landed squarely on their feet. All of them quickly gathered in a pack behind their leader, maybe fifteen of them. Men and women; a few were teenagers. All filthy and dressed in tattered clothing. Most of them skinny and frail-looking.

Minho had quit fighting, and Thomas finally loosened his grip. By the looks of it, he had only a few seconds before a dire situation turned into a slaughterhouse. He pressed one hand firmly down on Minho’s back, then held the other one up toward Jorge in a conciliatory gesture.

“Please give me a minute,” Thomas said, urging his heart and voice to calm down. “Won’t do you people any good to… hurt us.”

“Won’t do us any good?” the Crank said; he spit a wad of red goo from his mouth. “It’ll do me a lot of good. That, I can guarantee, hermano.” He balled both hands into fists at his sides.

Then he cocked his head, barely enough to be noticed. But as soon as he did, the Cranks behind him pulled all kinds of nasty things from within the hidden depths of their ragged clothes. Knives. Rusted machetes. Black spikes that had maybe once been in a railroad somewhere. Shards of glass with red-tinged smudges on their razor-thin tips. One girl, who couldn’t have been more than thirteen years old, held a splintered shovel, its metal scoop ending in a jagged edge like the teeth of a saw.

Thomas had the sudden and absolute certainty that he was now pleading for their lives. The Gladers couldn’t win in a fight against these people. No way. They weren’t Grievers, but there also wasn’t a magic code to shut them down.

“Listen,” Thomas said, slowly getting to his feet, hoping Minho wouldn’t be stupid enough to try anything. “There’s something about us. We’re not just random shanks who showed up on your doorstep. We’re valuable. Alive, not dead.”

The anger on Jorge’s face lessened ever so slightly. Maybe a spark of curiosity. But what he said was “What’s a shank?”

Thomas almost- almost -laughed. An irrational response that somehow would’ve seemed appropriate. “Me and you. Ten minutes. Alone. That’s all I ask. Bring all the weapons you need.”

Jorge did laugh at that, more of a wet snort than anything. “Sorry to burst your bubble, kid, but I don’t think I’ll need any.”

He paused, and it felt like the next few seconds lasted a full hour.

“Ten minutes,” the Crank finally said. “Rest of you stay here, watch these punks. If I give the word, let the death games begin.” He held a hand out, gesturing to a dark hallway that led from the room on the side across from the broken doors.

“Ten minutes,” he repeated.

Thomas nodded. When Jorge didn’t move, he went first, walking toward their meeting place and maybe the most important discussion of his life.

And maybe the last.

Thomas felt Jorge at his heels as he entered the dark hallway. It smelled of mildew and rot; water dripped from the ceiling, sending out creepy echoes that for some awful reason made him think of blood.

“Just keep going,” Jorge said from behind. “There’s a room at the end with chairs. Make even the slightest move against me, everyone dies.”

Thomas wanted to turn and scream at the guy but kept walking. “I’m not an idiot. You can quit the whole tough-guy routine.”

The Crank only snickered in response.

After several minutes of quiet, Thomas finally approached a wooden door with a round silver knob. He reached out and opened it without hesitating, trying to show Jorge that he still had some dignity. Once inside, however, he didn’t know what to do. It was pitch-black.

He sensed Jorge stepping around him; then there was the loud flumping sound of heavy cloth being whipped in the air. A hot, blinding light appeared, and Thomas had to shield his eyes with his forearms. He could only squint at first, then eventually dropped his arms and was able to see okay; he realized that the Crank had pulled a large sheet of canvas from a window. An unbroken window. Outside, there was only sunlight and concrete.

“Sit down,” Jorge said, his voice less gruff than Thomas would’ve expected. He hoped it was because the Crank had finally accepted that his new visitor was going to take a rational and calm approach to their situation. That maybe there really was something to this discussion that could end up benefiting the current residents of the dilapidated building. Of course, the guy was a Crank, so Thomas had no idea how he’d react.