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Q: Who's seeing the Scorch Trials as soon as it come out?

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Lori awoke to the sound of rain battering against glass. A memory flashed back to her.

A white room. Screaming. Red dots canvassing parts of the white floor. A woman. Her mother.

The memory made her wary of opening her eyes, yet she knew she had no choice. A place like the Scorch allows no opportunity for fear. You have to push through, or fall behind. And Lori knew, that she refused to die. She needed to know why this was all happening.
There's got to be more to it than just the Scorch and the Flare. There had to be a real reason for sending us out here.

Lori finally slipped her eyes open, scanning the room. Some sort of building. Maybe an office building. She was laying beside Newt, who seemed to be sleeping. And poor Minho, who was struck by the lightening, lays at Thomas' feet, flinching at his every movement. Lori could only imagine the pain he was feeling.

At an attempt to sit up, she partially understood, as a wave of nausea overtook her body. Touching her fingers to her head, she felt something damp upon her hair. Holding her fingers to the light, the substance showed itself to be blood. Of course she was bleeding. When is one of them ever not injured?

The strawberry blonde lies back down, careful not to lay on Newt or wake him up. No one was currently awake, so she decides to attempt to get some more sleep. Unfortunately, sleep refused to bide by her request, so she ended up lying down on the floor in silence until someone else decided to wake up.

The first to wake is Newt, who when she looks up, is staring up at the roof. Lori looks up to try and spot what he's focusing on, but there's nothing up there. Maybe a few holes, where the rain is leaking through slightly, but nothing that interesting that you would stare so intently at.

"You okay?" She inquires quietly, so that she would not wake anyone up.

Newt looked as if he jumped slightly at her words. "What? Oh, uh, I'm fine. Thanks."

Lori pushes herself up against the wall beside him, as he turns his gaze back to the roof once more. "Well, you don't look fine."
Newt smirks, as if she said something amusing. He just continues to ignore her stare, which is clearly turned his way.
"Seriously. How much sleep did you get last night?"

"Not much."

"Not much meaning . . . "

Newt lolls his head to the side with a sigh, "I didn't get any."
Lori's eyes went wide, and just as she opened his mouth, he began speaking again. "And I'm guessing you're about to ask why. To put it simply, if we all sleep, we might not all wake up. I can't risk that. Not with how small a number of us made it this far."

"So, you're scared," Lori asks carefully, before quickly adding, "Not that it's a bad thing. We're all scared, but not all of us are willing to do something about it."

"Of course I'm scared," Newt almost mumbles. "If you ain't scared, you ain't human," he states with a smile. A small memory sparks in the back of Lori's mind. Alby. That sounds like something Alby said back in the Glade.

Before he died.

Newt finally looks Lori in the eyes, "You know, from what I remember, you're the one who scared nice and easy. Still the same?"

Lori chuckles under her breath, "You're hilarious, Newt."

Newt noticeably goes stiff for a moment, and just sits there staring at her for a few seconds. He finally blinks, and gives a small smile, "You know you're jealous."

A small memory scratches at Lori, trying to grab her attention. As she attempts to grab at it, it feels as if it's running from her, yet still hollering for her to catch it. Teasing her.

Eventually, she gives up, realizing the chase is pointless. It's a losing game.
Lori gives Newt a wary smile, before slouching against the wall a little bit.

"What's wrong," Newt questions.

Lori shakes her head in frustration, "I just- I have this feeling that everything is going to get so much worse. Like, right now, we could say it's kind of neutral - considering our situation - but I know that the other shoe is going to drop. Sure, they're leading us to a place which is supposed to contain a cure, but what's going to happen along the way? Will we actually make it? What's the catch?"

"Yeah, I get where you're coming from. Lately, I can't help but worry about the future. And since you got back, I only worry more."
Lori immediately takes this the wrong way, and jumps to defend herself. Newt realizes, and cuts her off, "I swear, I did not mean that how it bloody sounded. I just thought I'd feel less worried with you here."

"So, would you rather I not be here?" Lori asks, a wisp of bitterness seeping into her tone.

"Once again, no, that's not what I mean. What I'm saying, is that, I thought that when you got back, I would be less worried - having you back in my arms - but you're not. You're not back, and you're not in my arms. You are right beside me, yet you may as well be miles away."

Lori doesn't know how to respond, so she doesn't. She just pushes herself up, then slides across the ground the little bit until she's beside Thomas.
"Hey, Lori, what's up?"

"Nothing really. Just wanted to check on you and Minho."

"We're fine. Clara's been lookin' after him for me, so that I could sleep. She's not too bad once you get to know her," Thomas gives her a small smile.

Something about the way Thomas had said it, made Lori feel as if he thought she thought badly of the dark haired girl.
"Are you trying to say something, Thomas? Because I'd rather you just be upfront, please."

Thomas' eyebrows rose as he looked blankly at Lori. After a moment, a light seemed to flick on behind his eyes. "Wow! They went the full mile, didn't they? Making you forget that as well."

"Thomas, what the hell are you going on about?" Lori persists,

The boy shakes his head, his dark hair moving with the motion, "You would have to speak to Newt about that, Lor."

"Right," she mutters beneath her breath.
"Why do all you people speak in riddles?" She groans. "'You're not back', 'they went the full mile', why can't anyone just tell me what they mean for once!"

"Quit complainin'!" Thomas hisses. "Everyone's tryin' to get some rest, and you talking that loud probably isn't helping."

Lori immediately feels ashamed, bowing her head. "I'm sorry. That was dumb of me."

"It's fine, we're all having a bit of trouble adjusting to this situation." Thomas wraps his arm around Lori, and she wriggles over a bit to lay her head on his shoulder.

"Thanks for everything," she whispers.

They sit in silence, waiting for who knows what. But thankfully, the silence is comforting,

Minho wakes with a spluttering groan of pain only seconds later, "Oh, man. I'm shucked. I'm shucked for good."

"How bad is it?" Newt asks from beside Tommy.

Minho stays quiet as he pushes himself off of the ground with the help of Clara, who sits beside him.
There's definitely something going on there, Lori smiles to herself.
Minho manages to cross his legs beneath him, sitting slightly crouched. His clothes are torn and charred, letting his raw and blistered skin be revealed. It seems pretty bad, to be fair, but it also seems like it may not take too long to heal.

Thomas gives Minho a sneaky smirk, "Can't be too bad if you can do that."

"Shuck it, I'm tougher than nails. I could still kick your pony-lovin' butt with twice this pain," Minho says, attempting to look like his usual stone faced self. Key word being attempting.

Lori sat up, pulling her head off of Thomas' shoulder. Thomas looks at her once, before turning back to the boys.
"I do love ponies. Wish I could eat one right now."

At the mention of eating something, Lori's stomach unintentionally grumbled, causing her to lay her hand against it.
"Wait, was that a joke?" Lori gasped in mock horror.

"Yeah, did Thomas the boring slinthead actually make a joke?"

"I think he did," Newt responds.

Thomas shrugs once more, "I'm a funny guy."

"Obviously," the strawberry blonde agrees sarcastically with a smile.
After a moment, the small laughter lit between them all died down, and Lori looked around.
"How many of us are left?"

No one answered, but they all counted. Lori felt like it must have been that no one wanted to admit it. No one wanted to say that there were only thirteen of them remaining, because that would make it feel even more true.

Finally, someone said it out loud. "There's only thirteen of us." They looked over, to see Newt looking down after responding.

"So, what, six died in the storm? Seven?" Minho asks, sounding far away, like he was trying to add up how many they had lost so far. He has been with everyone since the beginning, so that would make it so much harder, Lori points out to herself.

"Seven," Newt spits with spite, unhappy with how Minho was taking the harsh reality of their situation.
He looked over to Lori, before softening both his glance and tone, seemingly seeing the shocked look on her face due to his outburst towards Minho.
"Seven. Unless people ran to a different building."

"Dude, how're we gonna fight through this city with only thirteen 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 drew out a long, frustrated sigh, before looking straight at Minho, "And that's all you can buggin' think about? What about the people who died, Minho? Jack's missing. So is Winston - never had a chance. And" - Newt takes a moment to glance around the room - "I don't see Stan or Tim, either. What about them?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Minho holds his hands up in surrender. "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."

"Okay," Lori finally decides to speak, before a fight breaks out. "I think we all just need to calm down a bit, instead of jumping down each other's throats every chance we get. Fighting isn't going to do anybody any good, is it, shanks?"

The three boys chuckled, "Yeah, the girl's right." Minho sends her a wink, saying that he doesn't mean it in a rude way. "Sorry, man."

Newt nods, also apologizing.

Since the boys were getting along, Lori decided she might go for a short walk around the building. She let the boys know, and stands up, stretching her aching limbs. Before going anywhere, the small girl remembers something she forgot to do. Kneeling down beside Newt, she talks quietly to him whilst the other two boys speak to Aris, "Thanks for saving me. You know, in the storm and all that."

Newt tenses up, his eyes flickering, searching her face. "You're, um, you're welcome."

Lori smiles, before leaning forward and pecking a short kiss on his cheek.

When she turns around, Newt lift his fingers to his cheek, before quickly taking them away when she looks back.
As she walking away from the group, she hesitates, before reversing back a few steps and crouching down beside Clara, who had been silent throughout the whole conversation.
"You wanna come with me?"

Clara looks shocked at Lori initiation of conversation, her mouth beginning to gape like a fish as she is lost for words.
Lori smiles, before standing straight and extending her hand, which Clara accepts with slight hesitation.

Once Clara is on her feet, Lori releases her hand and they walk side by side around the perimeter of the room.

For the first half of the room, they were both silent. Lori felt the tension, and she knew Clara was eager to say something, but she was unsure of what.
"Clara - It's Clara right?" The darker haired girl nods. "What's wrong? Why do you have that look on your face like I'm a Crank or somethin'?"

"I- I just thought that you would still be mad because of what happened back in the Maze," Clara says quickly, spitting the words out as if they were poison in her mouth.

Lori is about to reply, before thinking it through, remembering what Thomas had said about her disliking Clara. Maybe I could use this to my advantage.
She knows that if she asks straight out, Clara will realize that she doesn't remember and clam up. Threading the sentence together in her head first, Lori replies carefully.
"So much happened in the Maze, Clara. Can you, I don't know, specify, what you're referring to?" She asks. She mentally hits herself for sounding so formal. She's gonna know something's up.

"With, uh, with Newt and I. In the forest. A day or two before we escaped the Maze. The - the kiss."
Lori immediately stops walking, shock coming over her. They kissed. Clara and Newt kissed.
But if they're together, why was Newt going on about when he was saying that they had something back in the Maze?
"Lori?"

The use of her name pulls her out of her hypnotic state, "Hm? Oh, I uh, I need to get some air."

Before Clara can reply, Lori is already racing away, walking as fast as her legs will carry her.
She feels her chest tighten and her lungs shrink.
Why was she feeling this way? She doesn't even know Newt, so why is she reacting this way.

After thinking for a moment, she decides it isn't her, it's the old Lori. She thinks about how she has been reacting to everything lately.

"This has to stop," Lori mumbles lowly to herself. "I have to stop."
She takes a moment to let it sink in, the idea of the old Lori, and this new Lori. "I have to decide."

Wiping away a stray tear, the fact of the matter finally hits her.

She either needs to find the old Lori, or prove to everyone that she's gone forever.

She is about to return to the building, and that's when the arms grab her from each side.