Chapter 4 ━━ Personal Assistant

━━━━━━━━☆★☆━━━━━━━━

The next two months go better than she expected it to be. She loves the freedom she's experiencing. The love she's receiving from her aunt is the best thing out of them all. Her memories slowly grow back from an unknown reason as the days pass. Maybe because she was stung by a Shade at her life at Spring and was recovered by a serum WICKED sent with. 

Vera stretches her arms, lazily after finishing her work and walks out of her tent. Her job is to treat the injured. In her point of view, it brings her great pleasure to help people and she didn't want to give up the opportunities when Mary offered her the job. 

The jeeps of RightArm stop right in front of the camp. Sonya and Harriet jump out of it, leading a group of new faces towards the tents. 

And that's when she notices a familiar brunette standing with the group. She's as well as staring at her far from distance with the same curious expression on her face. 

The curiosity taking the best of her, Vera makes it to the group with long steps. The more she comes closer, the more clear she recognises the girl. It's Katherine, best friend. 

"Kat? Is that you?" Vera asks softly, taking the lead of the conversation. 

"Vera?" The brunette, Katherine, calls out and Vera nods with a smile, confirming her identity. She instantly pulls her into a tight hug, squeezing the girl into death. "Oh. Shit." 

"Oh god. Oh god. This is really great!" Vera exclaims, hugging her back. "I thought you died." 

Katherine turns to the Gladers to introduce her friend. "Guys, Tommo this is…" 

"…Vera. I do remember her." Thomas states and nods at the girl. 

Vera smiles at him as the response and sets her eyes on Teresa. "Teresa." 

"Hi." Teresa waves at her. 

"Hey, loser." Another too familiar voice to her choice, who she recognises as her friend from her maze, Chris does a salute at the girl as her eyes land on the group B twins. "Good to see ya." 

"Chris." Vera smiles heartily as she looks between them. "And Aris." 

Katherine's wide eyes glue on the group B twins who share a group hug with the girl. "You guys know each other?" 

"She was in our maze." Aris shrugs. 

"Where's Vince?" Sonya asks the blonde girl. 

Vera points to her right lazily. "Somewhere over there, I think." 

"Who's Vince?" Katherine questions. 

"He's the one who decides if you get to stay." Harriet replies. 

"I thought the Right Arm was supposed to be an army." An Asian boy from Katharine's group of friends says, looking around with a confused look on his face. 

Vera's heart beats in an unusual way at the sight of him. He's too handsome for her liking and seems to be a little older than her and has strong arms and short, black hair. 

"Yeah, we were. This is all that's left of us. Lot of good people died getting us this far." Vince appears from the nearest tent. He scans the group before looking back at Harriet. "Who are they?" 

"They're Immunes. Caught 'em coming up the mountain." Harriet responses. 

"Did you check 'em?" Vince asks. 

"I know these guys, Aris and Chris." Harriet points between Aris and Chris. "I trust them." 

"Well, I don't." Vince mutters. "Check 'em." 

With that, a girl with short hair from Katherine's group of friends gasps in pain and collapses on the floor. 

"Brenda!" The middle aged man from the group is the first to crouch down next to her and examine her. "Brenda, talk to me." 

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Brenda murmurs, her body shaking violently as she takes huge breaths. 

"What's going on with her?" Vince asks and notices the bruise on her leg. He pulls her jeans up to find the nasty bite given by the gone crank. "Crank! We got a Crank!" 

Vera gasps, her hand covering her mouth. If the girl is infected, everyone's life is in danger. But she remembers Mary telling her about a temporary cure. 

She runs back to the Medi tent to find her aunt, burying herself in her work. 

"Aunt Mary. We have a slight problem." Vera says and explains the situation outside the tent before they both rush outside to see Vince pointing his gun at Brenda, where Katherine and Thomas try to pursue him not to kill their friend. 

"Vince, that's enough! Let them go."Mary pushes past the crowd. "Let them go!" 

"She's infected, Doc." Vince states. "There's nothing we can do for her." 

"No, but they can." Mary gestures at the group A twins. A smile forms her face as she looks at the twins. "Hello, Thomas. Katherine." 

Katherine and Thomas share a confused look before turning back at the woman. 

"What? You know us?" 

"Interesting. It makes sense they'd put you both in the maze." The doctor kneels beside Brenda, inspecting her wound. "Though I must admit… I was worried they'd kill you twins after what you two did." 

"What we did?" Katherine asks, still not finding any sense. 

"The first time we spoke, both of you said you couldn't take it anymore… watching your friends die, one by one." The doctor explains and everyone's eyes set on the group twins. "The last time we spoke… you two gave me the coordinates of every WICKED compound, trial and lab." 

"They were our source. We couldn't have pulled all this off without them." Vince mutters, realization hitting him. 

"Take her to the tent. Get these guys some warm clothes." Mary inspects some soldiers and turns to the twins once again. "Thomas, Katherine, come on. I need to get some blood from you both." 

"Follow me." Vera motions the new group to follow her as she leads them to the tent with clothes. As Mary instructs her, she provides them the clothes with a smile on her face. 

The last to collect the bundle of clothes is the Asian boy. He smiles back, taking the clothes. "Heard that you're from Aris and Chris's maze. And also Katherine's best best friend." 

"Yup. I am from group B maze." She replies with a nod. 

"Nice to meet you. I am Katherine's personal assistant." He jokes. 

"Oh. Really?" Vera laughs. 

"Uh huh." He chuckles lightly. "The name is Minho." 

"I am Vera." She says nervously, tugging the hair strand blocking her eyes behind her ear. "And you're terribly funny." 

"And you're terribly pretty." Minho winks at her. 

Vera turns red at the compliment. "Thank you. You don't look bad yourself." 

"More like handsome?" 

"Uh huh." She giggles. "How's the escape from WICKED?" 

"It was a shucking nightmare." Minho replies with a shrug. "How's the life here?" 

Vera furrows her eyebrow with confusion at the word 'Shucking' but decides to let it slide away. "It's all about freedom. You'll love it here." 

"That sounds great." Minho says and notices his friends watching him and grinning. It makes him feel embarrassed a little as well. "I gotta go." 

"Yeah. See you around." Vera smiles, shyly. 

"Don't miss me much." Minho winks before walking towards his smug friends. 

"No promises!" Vera chirps and immediately regrets it. Hoping he didn't hear her, she shakes her head. "What's wrong with me?" 

Vera walks to the medi tent after her work is done at the cloth tent when she hears a commotion.

She looks at the source to notice Chris getting beaten up by a blond boy, probably from Katherine's group of friends. "Holy Finch." 

Katherine quickly thrusts her plate of sandwiches into the dark skinned boy next to her and breaks off the blond from Chris. "What the hell is that?!" 

"He likes you!" 

Katherine's eyes stakes glare at the blond boy with anger bubbling in her eyes."I beg your pardon?" 

"Don't you see the way he bloody looks at you? It's very obvious." The blond boy spats and his eyes darts back to Chris. "I'm gonna kill you!" 

Katherine grabs his hand, not letting him reach Chris, who is now on his feet with the help of Aris. "Newt! Stop it!" 

"I'm gay alright? I like boys. There's no need to hit me." Chris holds his hands in defense and that's the point where Newt relaxes. He looks back at the uncountable number of eyes, watching them. "We're fine, guys. Everything's going good." 

Vera watches as a guilty Newt walks away before whispering something to Katherine as the dark skinned boy follows behind him. 

Everyone goes back to their work as Katherine moves to Chris, observing his face that is bruised. Blood is oozing his nose. 

Vera quickly rushes into the medical tent and pulls out the needed first aid when Katherine walks in with an injured Chris. 

"I know. I got the stuff ready." Vera says, pushing the first aid to Katherine, who is now sitting beside Chris on the bed. 

"How's the fight, tough guy?" Vera asks the bruised guy. 

"Pretty bad. I don't feel my cute face anymore." Chris pouts, only to cringe with pain. 

"Vera?" Katherine calls out. There are things she needs to ask her too even though she feels like this is not the time for it. 

"Yeah?" 

And there she goes with the questions. "How much do you remember? About life before?" 

Vera's face shows nothing more than pain and sighs. "I don't remember much. But the small amount I remember is enough for me to hate WICKED for my lifetime. And I do remember that my mother is the leader who brought nightmares to my friends here." 

"It's not your fault, Vera. None of it is." Katherine comforts the blonde, rubbing her back. The girl is upset and there's nothing she can do about it. 

"I know. But I've been part of it once." She looks down at her feet, feeling ashamed. 

"You can always talk to me." Katherine says to her. "You know that, right?" 

"I know." Vera's face turns into a smile. "But I don't wanna keep your patient who got beaten up by your significant other. We can always hang out later." 

Katherine thumbs up with a grin. "Noted." 

"Alright. I'll be outside if you need me." Vera says before leaving the tent. 

Vera pushes the fabric of the tent to meet up with Mary. "Aunt Mary." 

"Vera, can you check on the infected girl? Give her something to eat. She must be exhausted." 

"Sure." Vera nods, quicking her steps towards the tent with food. She grabs a plate and loads a few bacon and cheese into a plate before entering the tent holding the infected girl. 

"Hello. Hope I didn't wake you up." Vera smiles at her lightly, walking further into the tent. 

"I was already up." Brenda says. 

Vera nods and hands her the plate of food. "It's not much. Eat them all and rest. I'll bring more later." 

"Thank you." Brenda replies before digging into the food. 

"How are you?" Vera asks, leaning into the desk. 

"Not a full term Crank yet." Brenda answers, her mouth full of food. 

Vera opens her mouth to reply when all of a sudden, a whirring catches her attention. She hurries out of the tent to see what it is. 

It's a WICKED berg.