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“Everybody get down!” Thomas roared, detonator in hand. He pressed the button, heat flaring behind him as he fell to the ground covering his head.
His ears rang painfully, his hearing temporarily disabled. His eyes found the other Gladers just a few yards away from him. They were feeling the same effects too: stumbling to their feet and clinging onto each other. But they were safe.
Just as Thomas’s senses returned, Janson emerged from the wall of smoke; walking dangerously towards him. He pushed himself into a kneeling position, yelling at his legs to get up, to move but he couldn’t. He only watched dazedly as Janson’s fist raised and struck him across the face. Thomas fell onto the dirt with his back pressed painfully against a jagged rock. He flailed his arms, yelling out when Janson stomped his foot on his stomach.
The man raised a gun as Thomas fought, cocking it back to release a bullet. “What a waste,” he said before taking aim.
Thomas’s eyes locked onto the barrel of the gun pointed between his eyes. He could swear that time stopped at that moment. He couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t see anything other than the weapon in front of him. He thought about his friends who were only a few feet away. He wondered if they were going to watch him die; calling his name over and over until their voices were hoarse, watching his unresponsive body for any signs of life. He couldn’t do that to them.
His vision was then filled by a flash of light. He felt a stinging, burning sensation in his chest, but it didn’t matter. Janson yelled out in pain, his gun hand reaching for his shoulder where a bullet was lodged in the skin. He retreated, firing at the person who shot him. Thomas lied on the ground, breathing heavily even though it stung.
He looked down to see a dark patch growing on his chest. A small hole ripped in his shirt and blood oozed through the fabric. His shaky hands raised to touch the wound, crying out in pain when his fingers jostled the bullet. The next few seconds were a blur for him. Blurry faces hovered over him.
“Thomas!” came the voice of Minho. The Runner was on his right side, his hand gripping his shoulder and shaking him. “Stay awake you slinthead!”
“Get me something to put pressure on it!” he heard Frypan yell.
Through the chaos of the Right Arm camp, Thomas blinked slowly as he tried to focus on the face closest to him. The boy’s lips moved, but he couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in his ears. His face was worried and his eyebrows were scrunched, the warm brown eyes staring at him intensely. He felt soft hands cradle his face.
“...-orry Thomas-” a muffled voice said.
Pain exploded in Thomas’s chest as pressure was applied. Thomas screamed out, trying to reach out and pry the hands off his wound. His wrists were caught by rough hands. He heaved through the pain as he tried to focus on something else. For example, why were his friends hovering over him in the middle of a battlefield instead of protecting themselves?
The warm hands squeezed his cheeks, turning his head to look at the blonde boy kneeling beside him.
“-ommy! Focus on me!” the boy said firmly. “It’s okay, it’s not that bad,” he tried to joke.
Thomas wheezed out, trying to chuckle but coughing up a sticky red substance instead. Newt’s eyes widened in panic as he turned to Minho, his mouth moving again even though Thomas couldn’t hear whatever he was saying. Thomas felt more blood pushing its way up his throat, wanting to break free. He hacked up more blood, allowing it to coat his lips and chin. The hands wiped at the blood on his chin.
“Tommy!”
“We have to move him!”
“Shit, look at him! How are we going to-”
Another set of heavy footsteps came closer before a more gruff voice said, “you two take his legs and you two help me get his chest.”
Hands grabbed under his legs and arms, a person breathing heavily above him. They gripped him firmly, his legs rising off the ground experimentally.
“This is going to hurt, hermano .”
The hands lifted him up in one fell swoop. The pain increased tenfold. The wound burned like a wildfire spreading across his body, igniting his nerves into a field of agony. Thomas screamed, squeezing his eyes shut as he was moved. They moved quickly, but it felt like an eternity before he was placed back down on the ground. The pressure on the wound was back, and he groaned.
“Hey, hey hey! Keep your eyes open Tommy or I swear I’ll bloody kill you myself, you hear me?”
Thomas tried to smile at his friend’s empty threat, but it came out looking like a grimace. He tried to follow Newt’s orders, he really did, but his eyelids were heavy. He didn’t even realize he was drifting off until his eyes snapped open when the pressure was a bit too painful. Newt’s face was right above his, the boy not even hiding the panic and worry.
“Stay awake, you shank.”
His vision had black dots, contorting Newt’s boyish complexion. He blinked slowly.
“Tommy?”
The pain wasn’t even that prominent anymore, more like a dull ache; an insistent itch in his chest. His eyes focused behind Newt, at the starry sky filled with smoke and fire from the battle around them. The small white dots twinkled in the dark night. He wondered if Chuck was up there, smiling down at him. Maybe he’d get to see him smile again.
The Gladers watched with horror as Thomas blinked slowly, a bloody smile on his face before his eyelids fell closed.
“Thomas?” Minho called, his hands pressing harder on the wound in an attempt to get a rise from the boy.
“Tommy!”
They called his name despite no answer being provided. Thomas was pale; too pale for someone who had just spent about a week or two in the Scorch. The red coating his chin and neck looked wrong. Thomas was invincible, he always was.
Newt lowered his ear down to Thomas’ parted mouth, fearing the worst. He nearly cried in relief when he felt a wheeze of a breath tickle his ear. “He’s alive!” he said, his voice cracking with emotion.
They sighed in relief as Jorge came running back with Brenda on his heel, a small box in his hands. She stared at Thomas, nearly hurling at the sight.
“Oh my God,” she breathed. “I didn’t-... I didn’t shoot fast enough.”
“Stop it, Bren. We need to get his shirt off,” Jorge said with an authoritative tone.
The Gladers worked to get Thomas’s jacket and shirt off without jostling the wound too much. Jorge pushed Minho’s bloody hands aside and opened a bottle of disinfecting alcohol.
“Good thing he’s asleep for this. It hurts like a bitch,” he commented.
He poured the liquid on Thomas’s chest, watching the blood wash away onto the dirt and grimacing at the sizzling sound of chemicals working their magic. Brenda stood behind them, eyes furious and determined as she shot down any soldier looking their way. Frypan joined her after grabbing Jorge’s pistol from the man’s holster. Minho and Newt lifted Thomas’s torso up as Jorge instructed. He pulled a pair of tweezers from the box he brought, lowering them close to the wound. They all cringed at the sound of squelching skin.
Jorge found the bullet and pulled it out, more blood oozing from the open wound. “Okay, you, help me wrap him up.”
Minho held Thomas up as Newt and Jorge passed a roll of bandages between each other. The white bandages covered his entire upper torso, already beginning to stain red. They ducked as another explosion resounded from the camp. Jorge finished the bandaging by taping it.
“It’s not safe, we have to get him out of here,” Minho said.
The older man looked around. “Bring him to my car,” he said, pointing to the vehicle he used to crash into that helicopter. “I’ll cover you.”
The two boys nodded, lifting Thomas up once again and running. Any soldier looking in their direction was shot down, and they had a clear path to the car. They made it to the car somehow, and Newt let go of Thomas’ legs to open the backseat door. The two carefully placed Thomas in the backseat and closed the door.
“Freeze!” a soldier yelled. He climbed the hill with his blaster raised at the boys. “Hands in the air-”
Minho rushed forward with anger and kneed the soldier in the chest. The soldier fell to his knees and Minho punched him, knocking him out. He picked up the man’s weapon and turned to a stunned Newt, tossing the gun to him.
“Stay with Thomas.”
“What?” Newt asked dumbfoundedly. He scoffed at his best friend. “Did you hit your head too? Where are you going?”
“To help,” Minho responded before running back down the hill.
Newt sighed at his friend before standing guard at the door, aiming at the soldiers that ran too close to the vehicle. He only had to use the weapon twice before the conflict was over. The berg flew away, leaving roaring flames in its wake. The camp suddenly fell silent, the disbelief of the attack finally hitting them. Newt looked around the camp from his high viewpoint, seeing countless bodies of WCKD and Right Arm alike, people mourning over the fallen. He saw Minho, Frypan, Sonya, Harriet and Vince all next to the bed of a truck, relieved but exhausted faces.
Newt threw the weapon to the ground and ripped open the door to the backseat of the car. Thomas’s chest rose and fell evenly, much to his relief, but the red patch he saw growing through the bandages worried him to no end. He looked back out upon the camp, his eyes searching for Jorge. He found the man talking to Minho animatedly.
“Jorge!” he screamed. The man’s head snapped in his direction as well as the Gladers’. “Thomas is still bleeding!”
He saw Jorge mutter something before running up the hill, the Gladers and Brenda following behind him.
“Help me get him back out, we need to wrap the bandages better,” he said.
He worked with Minho to get Thomas back out of the car and onto the dirt. Jorge cursed under his breath. “We’ve jostled him around too much. He needs to stay in one spot. Bren, I need you to run back down and get the first aid kit.”
“Got it.” She ran back down the hill.
“You, I need you to lift his top half up and stay there-” he pointed to Newt, who was closest to Thomas’s head “-and I need you to help me wrap him up. It has to be tight or the bleeding won’t stop. If he wakes up, don’t stop no matter what he says or does.”
Brenda came bolting up the hill with the small medical box in hand. She handed it to Jorge wordlessly, then walked back down the hill to help with the rest of the Right Arm’s injured, Frypan on her heels. Jorge opened the box and pulled out the roll of bandages again, nodding at Newt to lift Thomas up. He complied, grabbing Thomas under the armpits and lifting. He held his friend up in between his legs, his chest pressed against his back. Thomas’s head lolled to the side, his skin deathly pale.
“Jorge…” Minho said, eyes glued to Thomas’s face. He clearly thought the same as Newt.
“He’s okay. He’ll be fine,” the man said gruffly. “Help me, kid.”
Together, Minho and Jorge began wrapping Thomas’s middle with vigor, making sure there was pressure being applied. Thomas’s breath hitched, his head rising from Newt’s shoulder. He groaned, his hand reaching up to try and stop Minho and Jorge. Minho swatted his hand away.
“Slim it, Thomas. Don’t even think about it,” the Runner said.
Thomas groaned again, louder and more strained. “Min-”
“I said slim it Greenie,” Minho said harshly. Newt sent a look to his best friend, but he knew Minho was just trying to keep it together.
In the midst of Minho’s slight panic, he accidentally touched Thomas’s wound. The boy cried out in pain, reaching out to grab Minho’s forearm in an iron grip. The Runner’s face fell guilty.
“Sorry, Thomas.”
“You’re one unlucky shank,” Newt said with a wobbly voice. He hated watching his friend writhe in pain, his face contorted in agony and mumbling inconsistencies.
Thomas’s heavy breathing agitated the wound even more, causing him to groan. “Bu-... Burns-”
“It’s gonna hurt like a bitch, hermano . Sorry, but you’re just going to have to deal with it,” Jorge said calmly, his eyes showing his sympathy. “You’re a strong kid, you’ll be fine.”
Newt rested his hand on Thomas’s shoulder comfortingly, rubbing small circles into the boy’s skin as they wrapped the wound tight. They managed to rewrap the wound before Thomas lashed out again, gripping Jorge’s hand with the scissors cutting the bandages. The man managed to rip his hand away before Thomas could harm himself further.
“Calm down, kid,” Jorge demanded.
Thomas’s eyes were dilated heavily, reflecting in the firelight. He continued to fight the hands grabbing him, trying to calm him down. His breathing was erratic and his hands kept reaching for the scissors.
“Jorge, what's wrong with him?” Minho asked worriedly.
“I don’t know! It’s probably the blood loss-”
“NO! Don’t shoot!” Thomas yelled, his voice cracking from overuse. “Don’t shoot…”
Newt’s gaze fell to the scissors in Jorge’s hands where Thomas was reaching for. “The scissors, Jorge, he thinks it's a gun. Toss them.”
The man handed the scissors to Minho, and showed Thomas his empty hands. “No gun, hermano . No gun.”
Thomas seemed to calm down, lowering his hands lightly and taking deeper breaths. He let his head fall back, his lips moving as he kept muttering, “don’t shoot, please. Don’t shoot…”
Then, he went limp, his head lolling back onto Newt’s shoulder as the group sighed in relief.
“Okay… now what?” Minho questioned. “We don’t have a doctor anymore to actually look at the wound and… half the camp is still on fire.”
“We help the others. Help give first aid and help put the fires out,” Jorge instructed. “One of you stay here with him, make sure he doesn’t start getting feverish or start thrashing out again.”
With one look, Minho and Newt already decided who’d be staying.
“How am I supposed to stop him from getting a fever?” asked Newt. “Not like we’ve got a bloody ice machine in the back of your car.”
“Just… I don’t know, keep him covered with a jacket or something. Actually, put him back in the car with his jacket on. Make sure he stays relatively warm.”
“Okay… Can you help me put him back in the car before you go?”
The three managed to maneuver Thomas back into the backseat, throwing Minho’s jacket over him. Newt climbed in the trunk of the car, leaning over the backseat to look at Thomas. He seemed fine other than the frown on his face and his eyebrows scrunched together. Newt sighed, falling back into the trunk and running a shaky hand through his hair. A hand that, to his horror, was still coated in Thomas’s blood. It was dry, but he wanted to throw up regardless.
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Thomas was never supposed to get hurt like this. Through their crazed plans so far, Thomas had come out unscathed for the most part. A lot of bruises and cuts but nothing too serious. Newt didn’t really know what to make of their predicament, but it was probably a good thing Thomas was put out of commission in the middle of the fight. Not that Janson shooting Thomas was justified, Newt was just worried Thomas would do something reckless like he always did. Something even more reckless with the bomb, just to get them away from WCKD.
But he was okay. He was in pain, and probably had a few days of bedrest ahead of him, but he was alive. That’s probably all they could ask for in the aftermath of the battle.