Chapter 14 - I almost forgot Bear ngl

I turned in Miriam's direction, I sprinted over to her, helping her up. "What the Hades are you doing Addie?!" Miriam yelped when her foot hit the ground, "Saving you, I'm not losing you" I retorted. Miriam and I started to run, her arm over my shoulder. I tried to help as much as I could while still not dropping Bear. Miriam was limping, she had clearly burnt herself quite badly but we didn't have time to stop and assess the wound. I looked back at the fire for a second. As I watched Miriam's shoe burn up in the inferno my face turned red with the heat, my eyes burning at the bright light, the brightest I'd seen in days. Smoke started to seep into my eyes, tears welled up and my eyes felt like they were burning but we had to keep going. We all turned the corner, stopping to catch our breaths. "What the actual hell Penelope !" I snapped, Miriam slunk down against the wall and I placed Bear down next to her, "What did I do?" Penelope asked. I gave her a look that most of my classmates would describe as a look that gives I am going to gut you like a pig vibes. "You were screwing around and made them start a fire to stop you!" I yelled at her, Penelope glared daggers at me "I was trying to get us out" She snapped back. Miriam let out a loud groan of pain, I froze, looking over at her. The burn was already looking bad, from her foot to her knee was pretty much all red and it was starting to swell and there were a couple blisters on her foot. I could see the pain in her eyes as Miriam tried to keep her foot off the ground. "Are you alright?" I asked, kneeling down next to Miriam "Y-Yeah, I'll be fine…I think at least" Miriam was clearly in pain. "You probably shouldn't be walking on that" I commented "We need to keep moving…does anybody know where we are?" Penelope asked, looking around. I looked around "Nope…Miriam?" I asked, Miriam shook her head. "You still have my dagger right?" I asked Penelope , if she had lost my dagger too, I think I would've just left her here to starve. Penelope nodded "I've got it" She passed me my dagger, I put it back into my shoe, I'm probably going to stab myself doing that in the future but I don't have pockets so screw it. "Let's just…keep going until we see something we recognize," I noticed my arm shaking but stopped it quickly, I didn't want Miriam or Penelope to know I was freaking out. "Alright" Miriam agreed, she tried to get up but cried out in pain "Don't put pressure on your burns" Penelope suggested sharply. I helped Miriam steady herself, she kept her foot off the ground "Do you want me to just carry you?" I asked, "That's probably a good idea" Miriam sounded a little embarrassed. I turned my back to her, helping Miriam get up into a piggyback ride. I held her tightly as Miriam wrapped her arms around my neck "Careful you don't choke me out" I joked "Sorry" Miriam mumbled. "Penelope , you carry Bear, don't drop him" I instructed sharply. "Alright, let's get going you lovebirds," Penelope peeked around the corner where we had been when the fire started "We shouldn't go that way, it's all burnt up and there are still a lot of sparks" She explained. I nodded "We can probably find another route" I tried to stay as positive as possible. I hoisted Miriam up a bit higher, being careful not to touch any of her burns or drop her. This wouldn't normally be something I did but I had ran across a field with people on my back a couple times and I carried my friends a lot, this was just kind of fun and we just liked being idiots together. I missed my friends, and I don't just mean because I hadn't seen them in a while, Valaire had already moved away, I have no clue what happened to Rachel after her parents died, and Selina had just kind of stopped talking to me and Miriam. We started to walk again, trying to find another way around without having to go through the charred area. We came to an intersection, making a couple turns down some paths we didn't recognize. We came across a little base, if you could even call it that, there was some padding down on the floor made of little blankets that I assumed they had gotten from a drop box. I saw Seb and Selina both passed out on the padding. "How big is this maze?" Miriam asked "Yeah, I mean we keep running into people," I frowned "Do we have to bring them with us?" I asked. Penelope shook her head, her black hair bouncing back and forth "I don't think we should, they aren't a good addition and…Seb seems kind of annoying.". Thank the Gods. "But we can't do that, isn't it safer to stick together" Miriam spoke up "They would only drag us down, pretty much everybody back at the base has a skil, I'm unsure either of them would be useful so they'd just be extra mouths to deal with" Penelope retorted. I noticed how she said pretty much everybody had a skill, not that everybody had a skill implying Penelope still doesn't think all our teammates are important. I kind of assumed she was talking about Victoria, Elizabeth, and Bear, who she tried to hold as far away from her as possible without dropping him. We kept going, trying to go as quickly as we could. I felt like something was gnawing at my stomach, my legs felt like they might fail me at any moment. I was just so tired, I heard Miriam yawn but didn't want to look over. I yawned too, Penelope closely following, the yawn passed around the group a couple of times. I wonder why that happens? I mean all the time when I'm working with Basil and Mom to prepare herbs and things in the kitchen, a yawn just kind of passes around. Is it like a psychological thing? Mom…how's she doing? Is anybody helping her out? I don't doubt that Miriam's parents are helping, they always help the families of sacrifices get back onto their feet. Normally me, Basil, and Miriam would help out too. Are Miriam's parents even okay enough to help anybody out? They just lost their daughter only a few years after her mom lost her nephew. We kept going, taking a left before we were able to hear the sound of the fountain. Penelope sighed, I had a feeling she was dreading telling the group that we not only hadn't been able to find an exit, but Miriam had gotten burned too. Even though we did gain a new teammate with Bear, even if I wasn't quite sure he would count for all that much. I didn't know a lot about him and he didn't seem like he had any specific or useful skills. But it would always be good to have more teammates and be able to spread out and check out more directions. Though we didn't have an extra thing of string, wait! The string! Oh my Gods we had forgotten the string, we had been so busy trying to find some way back to our base that we had forgotten the string. "The ball of string" I blurted out "What?" Miriam asked, fiddling with my hair from her spot on my back. Penelope groaned, noticing what I was talking about, "We forgot it didn't we?" She checked. Miriam gasped "Oh Hades" She cursed, I feel like she would actually curse if it weren't for the cameras. "We'll be fine, we could probably just ask Opal or somebody to follow the string and then bring it back" I assured her. If anybody was going to freak out over something like that it was Penelope , maybe Elizabeth but I think Basil should be able to get her under control…hopefully. We kept going, hopefully Elizabeth doesn't murder us all for losing the string.