The Scorch Trials - James Dashner [54]
“There’s only eleven of us,” Newt finally said. There. It was out.
“So, what, six died in the storm? Seven?” Minho sounded completely detached, as if he were counting how many apples they’d lost when the packs had blown away.
“Seven,” Newt snapped, showing his disapproval of the cavalier attitude. Then, in a softer tone, “Seven. Unless people ran to a different building.”
“Dude,” Minho said. “How’re we gonna fight our way through this city with only eleven people? There could be hundreds of Cranks in this place for all we know. Thousands. And we don’t have a clue what to expect from them!”
Newt let out a big breath. “And that’s all you can buggin’ think about? What about the people who died, Minho? Jack’s missing. So is Winston—he never had a chance. And”—he looked around—“I don’t see Stan or Tim, either. What about them?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Minho held his hands up, palms facing Newt. “Slim it nice and calm, brother. I didn’t ask to be the shuck leader. You wanna cry all day about what’s happened, fine. But that’s not what a leader does. A leader figures out where to go and what to do after that’s done.”
“Well, guess that’s why you got the job, then,” Newt said. But then a look of apology washed over his face. “Whatever. Seriously, sorry. I just …”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, too.” Minho rolled his eyes, though, and Thomas hoped against hope that Newt didn’t notice because his gaze had fallen to the floor again.
Luckily Aris scooted over to join them. Thomas wanted the conversation to go in a different direction.
“Ever seen anything like that lightning storm?” the new kid asked.
Thomas shook his head because Aris was looking at him. “Didn’t seem natural. Even in my klunky memories, I’m pretty sure stuff like that doesn’t happen normally.”
“But remember what the Rat Man said and that lady told you on the bus,” Minho said. “Sun flares, and the whole world burning like hell itself. That’d screw up the climate plenty enough to make crazy storms like that pop up. I have a feeling we’re lucky it wasn’t worse.”
“Not sure lucky’s the first word I’d think of,” Aris said.
“Yeah, well.”
Newt pointed at the broken glass of the door, where the glow of sunrise had brightened into the same white brilliance they’d grown accustomed to their first couple of days out in the Scorch. “Least it’s over. We better start thinking about what we’re gonna do next.”
“See,” Minho said. “You’re just as heartless as me. And you’re right.”
Thomas remembered the image of the Cranks at the windows back at the dorm. Like living nightmares, missing only a death certificate to make them official zombies. “Yeah, we better figure things out before we have a bunch of those crazies show up. But I’m telling you, we gotta eat first. We gotta find food.” The last word almost hurt, he wanted some so badly.
“Food?”
Thomas pulled in a gasp of surprise; the voice had come from above. He looked up just as the others did. A face looked down at them from the shredded remains of the third floor, that of a young Hispanic man. His eyes were slightly wild, and Thomas felt a belt of tension cinch inside him.
“Who’re you?” Minho shouted.
Then, to Thomas’s utter disbelief, the man jumped through the jagged hole in the ceilings, falling toward them. At the last second, he crumpled into a human ball and rolled three times, then sprang up and landed on his feet.
“My name is Jorge,” he said, his arms outstretched as if he expected applause for his acrobatics. “And I’m the Crank who rules this place.”
CHAPTER 26
For a second Thomas had a hard time believing that the guy who’d dropped in—literally—was real. He was so unexpected, and there was an odd silliness about what he’d said and the way he’d said it. But he was there, all right. And even though he didn’t seem quite as gone as some of the others they’d seen, he’d already confessed to being a Crank.
“You people forget how to talk?” Jorge asked, a smile on his face that looked completely out of place in the shattered building. “Or you just scared of the Cranks? Scared we’ll pull you to the ground and eat your