Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Part One

T h e  F i r s t  G l a d e r

TRACKLIST

Side A

First Love, Late Spring – Mitski

“So please, hurry, leave me. I can’t breathe. Please don’t say you love me.”

Say Don’t Go – Taylor Swift

“I said I love you, you said nothing back.”

All I Want – Kodaline

“But if you loved me, why’d you leave me?”

Astronomy – Conan Gray

“Stop trying to keep us alive, you’re pointing at stars in the sky that already died.”

The Loneliest – Maneskin

“You’ll be the saddest part of me, a part of me that’ll never be mine.”

Chapter Text

The end of the world came first.

Then the dark, then the cold, and then nothing. There was just pitch black, empty space, a cold void that left her floating in the darkness - falling, falling, falling.

She couldn't remember the day the world ended. In fact, she couldn’t remember much of anything at all. Her mind was a blank slate, a piece of parchment once filled with information that had been recently erased.

Her eyes, which had been squeezed firmly shut – by her own will or by force, she wasn't quite sure – slammed open.

More darkness.

For a moment she wasn't sure whether or not her eyes were still closed, because the blackness that pressed against them was so empty that it actually hurt to look at it. It was everywhere, and the panic choked her. Was she blind? Was she dead? Was this what death felt like, everything and nothing all at once?

Just when she thought her eyes would burst from the stars dancing behind them, something swam into her vision: the faint outline of crates and boxes and holy hell were those bodies?

She was pressed against something. Something both hard and soft at the same time, and warm in a way that made her feel sick.

And it was moving.

No, not moving.

Breathing.

Scrambling away from the body beneath her, she tried to put some distance between her and the presumably unconscious figure she was lying on, but the way their limbs were tangled together and the small confinements they were trapped in made it almost impossible.

Her hands landed behind her, and she used the grip on the freezing metal below her fingers to pull herself further away, until – she collided with another body, and then another, and then another.

There was flesh everywhere, the sound of breathing, hot air, skin on skin – she felt sick.

How was it possible that she was hot and cold all at the same time?

Just as the panic threatened to consume her, there was a groan from behind her – a deep, throaty sound – and the figure she had found herself tangled with upon waking up began to stir.

"What – oomph!" The stranger's head collided with the bars when they shot upright. She would have laughed if it wasn't for the terror thrumming through her veins and the nausea pressing at her throat, building its way up from her stomach. She was shaking uncontrollably when she found a corner to nestle in.

The figure in front of her was very obviously male, if the bulky shoulders and outlines of solid muscle had anything to say. His voice was gruff, deep, and she couldn't decide whether or not to be terrified or overjoyed that she wasn't alone in this.

But there was another problem – now her lack of memory or clue what was going on wasn't the only danger to her. She may not remember much, if anything, about herself, but she was fairly certain that if this stranger was to attack her she wouldn't last two seconds. 

"What the hell is going on?" His voice was laced with confusion and fear.

There were other groans – sounds of shuffling as the other bodies seemed to rise from their slumber like zombies reaching from the grave. A collection of voices broke the air.

"What the hell?"

"Who the hell are you?"

"Where are we?"

"Who am I?"

"Would you idiots please shut up? My head is pounding."

She opened her mouth to insert her own opinion, but all that left her was a strangled sort of sob. Idiot, she thought bitterly, way to make a great first impression. Throughout the darkness, five pairs of eyes landed on her, and she felt all the blood drain from her face.

It was too hot in there, the room was too small, there were too many people – there was hardly room to breathe, and every time she did her arms would brush against someone else's and a new wave of nausea would make its way to her throat.

The stranger who had woken first, all muscles and bad attitude, inhaled deeply before speaking. "Alright, someone had better explain what the hell is going on here."

"I think if any of us knew that we wouldn't be panicking as much as we are." One of the other boys snapped, gripping his hair. The first boy opened his mouth furiously, but the blurry outline of a gangly teenager spoke up.

"Who the hell are you idiots anyway?"

"I don't know, you dickhead, I can't remember anything."

"Me neither. Is this – is this normal? This can't be normal. We're gonna die, aren't we? Holy shit we're gonna die-"

Muscles spoke up again. "So none of us can remember anything? We just woke up trapped here?"

"Where exactly is here?" She spoke up for the first time. She expected more sarcastic responses, but was met with silence. The darkness pressed on her eyes again. "H-hello?"

"We heard you the first time, dumbass."

"Then give me an answer, dumbass." She snarled.

"We're not gonna get anywhere if we keep bickering like a bunch of five years old, we just need to put our heads together and–"

The room began moving. The entire room, crates and humans and all, rattled dangerously thrice before lifting into the air at a speed that knocked her onto her side and made her crash into the body next to her. She scrambled away, sure she was going to faint, as shapes moved around her in the darkness like smoke.

Metal ground against metal and made her wince against the noise, and a lurching shudder shook the floor. There was the harsh sounds of chains and pulleys, like the working of an old steel factory, and it bounced off the walls with a hollow, tinny whine.

She could vaguely hear the voices of the boys around her shrieking in fear and panic - one of them was throwing up in the corner - and the blast of freezing air that hit her as the room spiralled towards the heavens made goosebumps appear on her arms.

Tears began to roll down her face. Bright lights, white and eerie, started flashing from somewhere behind the walls, illuminating sections of the room in dizzying streaks.

"Are we in a box?!" She shrieked as she scrambled to her feet, but the rattling of the crate they were trapped in sent her tumbling to the floor again. The skin on her hands and knees bled.

As quickly as it started, everything stopped moving. Silence enveloped them once more. The sudden change jolted her and tossed her into the wall behind her.

"What – what just happened?" The gangly boy asked.

"I have no clue."

"Okay, someone needs to figure out what the fuck is happening right now."

She rolled her eyes, climbing to her feet. The first thing she wanted to do was get out of that goddamn box and put as much distance between her and those strangers as possible. "Does anyone know how to get out of here?"

"Everyone feel around for a way out." Muscles ordered, climbing to his feet. Most of the boys, although they varied in height, were too tall to comfortably stand in the limited amount of space they found themselves in, and so were in charge of feeling around the edges of the box and the walls in order to try and find a way out.

Along with one of the shorter boys, she was in charge of searching the roof.

It was a lot easier said than done in the pitch black.

Her fingers caught in a groove in the centre of the roof, something shaped suspiciously like a handle. "Hey, guys. I think - I think there's something here. Someone come help me get this open."

"What did you find?" Muscles asked, edging towards her.

"It feels like a handle, but I'm not quite sure."

"You think this thing opens up from the top?"

"I think we should find out." She shrugged. "On three."

Light cracked into the box, along with the glorious smell of fresh air as the doors swung open.

The sky was a piercing blue, not a single cloud staining the surface. The light from the sun was practically blinding, and she lifted a hand to shield her eyes. The air was neither cold nor warm, tepid and mild.

"Jesus Christ, that's bright." A voice came from behind her.

Now that the darkness was no longer an issue, she glanced around at her companions, failing to recognise any of them.

Muscles, as she had taken to calling him in her head, looked to be around seventeen years old. He was dark skinned and powerful, with a jaw traced with slight stubble. His dark eyes seemed to critically analyse whatever they landed on. He stood beside the gangly boy, who looked to be around sixteen; freckles smudged his cheeks, thick brown hair wild and curling around his ears.

A red headed boy was crouched in the corner, his pale face white and smothered with freckles, and the boy beside him looked to be about sixteen. Thick dark hair curled around his face and a strong jaw. The final boy – all pale skin and wide blue eyes, no older than twelve – looked terrified.

And she didn't know any of them.

Muscles reached up and hoisted himself from the box, grunting slightly as he did, and the others were quick to follow his lead and venture into the unknown.

"You coming, pipsqueak?" He looked down at her, offering her a hand. She was quick to take it, but something about the feel of his skin pressed against hers made her stomach roll, and she retracted her palm quickly when her feet landed on solid ground.

"What on earth is this place?" The redhead asked, green eyes wide as he glanced around.

Frowning, she did the same.

They stood in a vast courtyard of sorts, several times the size of a football field, it seemed, a great big expanse of land that stretched an equal distance from where they stood in every direction. The floor of the courtyard was mostly grass, but there were patches of huge stone blocks and cobblestone dotted about towards the edges, many of them cracked and filled with long grasses and weeds.

In one corner, there was an odd, dilapidated building, made of wood and practically falling to pieces. A collection of benches sat inconspicuously out front. Where there should have been windows there were instead two twigs crossed over each other.

Yes, because that's going to do a world of good against insects and the bitter cold, she thought. If there was a bitter cold at all. The weather felt fabricated almost, stale.

A few trees surrounded it, their roots like giant hands digging into the rock for food. A forest full of thick, towering oaks stood proudly in the other corner and stretched to a few metres short of where they stood, creating a dense, dark woodland.

In another corner of the field there was nothing - just empty space cordoned off by what looked to be fencing that had been thrown together at the last minute. The final corner of the courtyard was filled with wooden pens holding a collection of sheep and pigs and cows, and the air reeked of dirt, manure, and pine.

Her eyes travelled skyward, and a choked gasp caught in her throat.

Towering over them, menacing in their extreme height and overall size, were four walls. Four gigantic slabs of cracked stone overflowing with ivy, parted by an even gap directly in the centre of each, all stretching towards the heavens and caging them inside their new prison.

The six sole inhabitants of glade shared a look, faces taught with terror, only one question running through each of their minds.

"Where the hell are we?"

Chapter Text

Day One

"George."

She turned her head to face the boy that had spoken, only to find the tall, brown haired teenager staring at them with narrowed eyes.

"What did you say?" She asked.

"George. My name is George."

She sucked in a breath and turned to the others, who all looked equally bemused. "How – how do you remember?"

"I don't know. It just – it just came to me. It feels right." He nodded to himself. "My name is George."

She bounced on the balls of her feet as her brows furrowed, and Muscles turned his attention away from the towering walls to stare at them all. She was startled at the annoyed look twisting his dark features.

"Well, George, it's a real pleasure to meet you and all, but if we could focus our attention on figuring out where the hell we are that would be much appreciated,” he snapped.

George opened his mouth furiously to respond, and the red headed boy that was standing beside her shook his head in exasperation.

"Okay!" She butted, raising her hands. "Let's all calm down here. We are in the same boat, and someone is starting to get their memory back. This could be a good thing. Does anyone else remember their names?"

The five boys stood for a moment in a concentrated silence, before the red haired boy took a deep breath. "Luke. I think – I think my name is Luke." He was fiddling with something around his neck — a gold chain. It glinted in the sunlight.

She inhaled deeply through her nose and screwed her eyes shut, trying with all the desperation in her body to cling onto some form of relic from her life – a name, an age, where she was from, what she was doing there. Did she have siblings? A family? Pets? Friends? – but it all came up blank, as if her entire existence had started when she woke up in that box.

"I got nothing." Muscles shook his head, looking disappointed.

"Me neither." She mumbled.

The dark haired boy shook his head, and the child that was with them just looked sad.

"There has to be a reason we can't remember. Did – were we in an accident? Did our memories get wiped?"

"This isn't a movie, pipsqueak." Muscles snapped, and she narrowed her eyes.

"You got any better ideas, asshole?”

"You guys really need to watch your language." The kid spoke up for the first time since arriving, and she took the opportunity to look at him properly for the first time.

He was short and rail-rod thin, as if he was in need of a good meal, and his cheeks were rosy with the bloom of innocence and youth. His brilliantly blue eyes, which she suspected had once been filled with wonder and excitement at the world, were dull. The emptiness in them hit her like an arrow to the heart.

"I don't give a shi-"

She shot Luke a glare.

"I don't give a fu-"

She raised her eyebrows.

"Well… shuck.”

She cocked her head at him. “... Seriously?”

"As adorable as this little conversation is, I think the sun’s going down. Maybe we should take a look around before it gets too dark," George suggested. "We should split up, make it easier to cover more ground."

"None of us elected you the leader, champ." Muscles snarled.

"Well someone has to step up and do something!”

"Oh my god, would you idiots please shut the hell up?” She rolled her eyes. “We do what George suggested. If anyone finds something, just shout."

Grumbling with annoyance, the group dispersed – Muscles left on his own, a grumbling vessel of bad attitude and ego issues, and Luke trailed after him, shooting them an apologetic look. George paired up with the black haired boy and headed towards the walls to take a closer look, which left her and the young boy to explore the building.

The building itself was barren and void of life, and a quick sweep of it determined that they were the only ones to inhabit it. The place was split into four sections: half of the room was sheltered under a rickety wooden roof and filled with at least a dozen hammocks that swung from the beams supporting the ceiling, and there was a space to the left of that room which led to the benches.

There was a stove crammed against the wall and an open space in the wall opposite to look out across the eating area. An outhouse occupied the space a little way off to the side of the building, and a set of extremely crooked stairs led off to an upstairs room, which had a single bed and was lined with shelves.

"What the hell is this place?" She asked, and the boy simply shrugged as he bounded towards one of the hammocks.

"I call this one!"

"You just woke up and now you wanna go back to sleep?" She laughed, leaning against the hammock opposite his. It felt soft underneath her fingers.

"I’m tired. All this emotional distress is hard work.” Silence settled heavy and awkward, and he clicked his tongue. "So...."

"So." She said back.

"Not much to talk about when you can't remember anything." He shook his head, blonde curls bouncing against his temple. The ceiling creaked above them, and the distant sound of birds pierced the air.

She reached forward to fiddle with a loose thread from the hammock. "I guess not. At least we have a place to sleep – I wonder who built all this stuff."

"Well, whoever they are, I thank them. Wouldn't want to be kipping in the cold when night time comes." The young boy whistled.

"Which seems to be sooner rather than later. How long were we in that box, do you think?"

The boy frowned, and when she looked into his eyes she was startled at the stark fear staring back at her.

"Hey." She caught his attention. "Don't be scared. It's alright. There's nothing here that'll hurt you."

"Yeah? How do you know that? You know as much as I do." The boy scoffed.

Her heart sank. Who in their right minds would put an innocent child in a place like this, with no memory of who they are and where they came from? It was sick, sadistic – she hated them, and she didn't even know them.

"Because I'll protect you, duh. No matter what."

He looked over at her dubiously, eyes flitting over her body almost mockingly, and bit the inside of his cheek to hold in a laugh.

"No mocking," she said sternly, only a little offended. "Or I'll be sure to remind you of it when you come running for help."

"Hey! You better come see this!" George's voice carried over from the walls, arm raised to get their attention.

Sharing a bemused glance with the boy, she got to her feet and made her way across the courtyard as fast as her legs could carry her and over to where they stood facing the wall. "What's up?" She panted.

Her young friend had given in running and was now making their way over to them at a leisurely stroll, looking thoroughly annoyed at being expected to sprint.

"Check this out." George raised a finger and pointed it at the gap between the walls, and she followed his gaze to see a pathway that seemingly led to another giant wall. "It forks off at the end, and then again, and then again. There's so many twists and turns."

"It's like a maze," the other boy mused quietly.

"Why would there be a maze connected to a giant field?" She asked, brows furrowed. "And does it loop all the way around? What about the other openings?"

"I don't know, shank, I'm just telling you what I can see." George rolled his eyes.

"Really? Shank? You’re creative today.”

"Well your funny little friend seems to find it amusing, and the more colourful language I would have chosen has apparently been vetoed by you lot already."

"How far in did you go?" She asked.

"Not too far. Didn't want to get lost, but by the looks of things it goes on for miles." The stranger replied, dark eyes troubled.

She frowned as she took a step forward, rolling her shoulders. The maze walls towered over her, spewing with ivy and vines and moss, the stone cracked and crumbling high in the air. Strings of ivy looped from one side to the other, and the three crows leering down at her screamed their shrill warnings from above.

She heard Luke and Muscles join the entrance, and heard the young boy calling out for her, his voice unsure.

"It's fine,” she called back. "I'm nearly at the end." She heard someone jogging towards her, and turned her head in time to see Luke join her side.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

"I could ask you the same question. We don't know what's out here, little lady. This doesn't feel right,” he replied. They were at the end of the passage now, and she glanced to the left to see another hallway and then a fork in the path, presumably followed by another.

She felt claustrophobia settling in just looking at it.

"What the hell is this place?"

"You're asking the wrong person." Luke took a step forward, but the golden chain around his neck snagged on a branch of ivy that was swinging in a breeze they couldn't feel. "Shit—" He struggled to get it loose. "Can you help me with this thing?"

She nodded and stepped forward, fingers trembling slightly as she reached up on her tiptoes to try and untangle the chain. The metal on her fingers was cold, smooth, not like the rough calluses of flesh, she reminded herself as she tried to avoid touching the skin on Luke's neck.

They finally got it loose, but the chain had snapped, and Luke caught it in his fingers before it hit the ground. "Aw, damn it." He went to put it in his pocket, only to realise he didn't have any. "Shit — do you have a pocket?"

She patted her side and nodded, holding her hand out for the chain. The light weight was barely noticeable as she tucked it away.

A sudden beeping sound split the air, coming somewhere to their left. There was a flash of movement, and Luke yelped as what looked like a lizard scuttled across the wall, his eyes widening as he latched onto her arm.

Something about the touch made her stomach roll, and blood rushed to her ears as she shook him off. "Don't touch me,” she said, wincing at the way her voice cracked.

Luke shot her a strange look before moving forwards to examine the lizard that was crouched on the wall. There was something about it that made her uneasy – perhaps it was the way its brilliantly red eyes glowed and flickered, almost like a camera, or the way its metallic body rippled and whined as it scuttled across the stone, its movements mechanised and rehearsed.

"What in the unholy hell is that?" Luke asked, leaning forward to inspect it.

He reached out a hand to poke it, but the lizard let out a rather high pitched shriek that sounded almost like clockwork and lunged, its razor sharp teeth grazing his finger and splattering blood against the wall.

Luke hissed in pain and withdrew his hand, sucking on the shallow wound as he glared at the lizard. She frowned at the device, inspecting the eyes – the air felt thick and heavy. This was a camera, she was sure of it, which could only mean one thing.

Someone was watching them.

"Hey!" She called into the camera. "We need help! We don't know where we are, we need a search and rescue." If she expected an answer, she certainly didn't receive one, and a thick silence followed her words.

Luke blinked. "I don't think that worked, if I'm being honest."

She sighed, tilting her head to the side. "Do you think it's the people who put us here?

"Who else? Dodgy bastards." Luke sent a rather crude gesture in the camera's direction and turned back in the direction of the entrance, where the other four teenagers were waiting anxiously.

"You shanks find something?" Muscles asked – apparently making up random words and adding them to the English language was going to be a thing now – and she nodded.

"A camera!" She yelled back to them. "We think it was put here by the people who did this to us!"

"I hope you showed them that we aren't happy with them!" George called, and she turned around to see Luke pulling funny faces at the lizard and sticking his middle fingers up at it.

"I think we have that covered!"

"Well what do you think the–"

A noise – a horrible, heart-stopping, blood-curdling noise – split the air in half and shook the earth violently. The ear-splitting sound of stone sliding across stone, a wretched, grinding, agonising crunch, and then the earth around them shifted as the walls, those horrible horrible towering walls, began to close right at the entrance to the presumed maze.

The doors were closing. They were closing.

The other gladers let out an assortment of yelps and cries, and Luke let out a curse as he darted forward, clasping her hand in his. The skin on skin contact made something in her brain twitch violently, but she pushed the feeling back as much as possible as they took off at a sprint.

They were so far away.

Too far away.

She may not know where they were, but one thing was for certain: she didn't want to be trapped there. Neither, apparently, did Luke, who was swearing profusely under his breath.

"Fucking run, pipsqueak!" Luke yelled over the roaring of her heart in her ears, and the two ran like their lives depended on it towards the exit of the maze.

The doors were closing, faster and faster and faster and faster, and George and Muscles were yelling, and the red headed boy was shaking violently, and the young lad was crying, and there were so many things happening at once she didn't know what to do.

The stitch in her side was agonising now, and she felt tears welling up in her eyes as they neared the end of the corridor. The doors to the maze were thick, and would take seconds to get through – seconds they didn't have as the doors got closer and closer together, cutting off more and more light.

Luke began panting, and cast a desperate gaze in her direction as they finally reached the doors.

She lunged through, fingers clawing at the entrance, the stone pressing in on either side of her ribs. She turned sideways now, trusting that Luke was behind her, and thrust out her arm as Muscles and George leapt forwards to pull her through.

But they were too far away, and her fingers grazed theirs as the walls pressed in on her completely – the heavy stone was crushing her ribs; she heard one of them pop under the pressure, accompanied by an agonising pain in her chest.

Just as the dark began to close in on her, she felt a hard push from behind and she was shoved through the gap, landing hard in a crumpled heap on the grass. Her head smashed onto the ground, and the last thing she heard was George screaming Luke's name, and then the darkness hit her.

Chapter Text

All he could do was watch.

The blonde boy stood in front of the monitor, hands trembling against the table in front of him as he watched the screen, bile rising in his throat. The Beetle Blade scurried after the two runners, and his heart lurched in his throat when the girl began to try to scramble her way through the maze doors.

She wouldn't make it, not like that, and for a moment he was sure he was about to watch her die.

Luke, grainy and miniscule on the screen, let out a cry and gave her a hard push before darting backwards. The maze doors sealed shut, leaving the two parted by the thick stone. The blonde ran a hand through his hair, brown eyes wet as he watched the boy he had known for years now get trapped in the one place he had no hope of surviving.

The Maze was a death trap – everyone knew it. If you got stuck in there, you didn't even bother to try to get out. You were dead either way.

They had made sure of that.

There was a whirring noise, accompanied by a snarl and the telltale growl of the man made monsters that prowled the maze's halls, and the boy in the video tensed up, his face bone white.

He watched with terror thrumming through his blood as Luke stumbled further into the Maze, rounding the corner and–

His hand slammed on the button, turning off the video footage right as Luke let out a blood-curdling scream. He knew what came next, and didn't want to see it. Didn't want to see another person he cared about die.

He felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder and glanced up into the eyes of a woman with pale blonde hair. "Come, Newt." She said, her tone clipped despite the sympathy in her steel eyes. "You know you aren’t supposed to be in here. Let's get you back to your room. The others are waiting for you."

"He's dead, isn't he? Luke. He's dead now." Newt asked, voice uncertain and scared. He hated how young he sounded in that moment, like the child who had been dragged into the facility kicking and screaming with his sister in tow.

"It would appear that A27 was the first to realise the dangers of The Maze Trials, yes." Upon seeing the heartbroken look on the sixteen year old's face, the woman in the lab coat raised a hand to cup his cheek. "We knew this would happen, Newt. But he was a necessary sacrifice. One of many to come, unfortunately. We all know why we had to do this."

Newt's blood ran cold at the thought of one of those sacrifices being the girl in the glade, his girl, his best friend, but speaking out wouldn't do any good.

She was already in the glade, she didn't remember anything – didn't remember him – and pretending otherwise would cause more harm than good, no matter how much her absence cut into him like a blade. He wanted her back, damnit, safe and beside him.

"Come." The woman ordered curtly, opening the door.

Casting one longing glance at the final monitor, which showed the motionless body of the girl sprawled on the ground with the others frantically moving around her, Newt left the room, leaving the woman alone.

Ava Paige surveyed the monitors, as if looking for anything out of place, before closing the door behind her.

"And remember, Newt. WICKED is good."

Chapter Text

Day Two

There were bodies everywhere, motionless and heavy, heaped in piles as far as the eye could see.

Flesh bloated, eyes bloodshot, faces veiny and crusted with black blood, limbs missing and torn from sockets, stretched at unnatural angles.

Wheezed breaths left her in sobs, her hand stretched towards the sky, towards light.

"I'm alive!" She whimpered, voice getting lost in the wind. "I'm alive! Please, I'm not one of them, I'm not-"

She was crushed underneath two bodies, her clothes torn and bloodied, the smell of rotten flesh permeating her senses until she was dizzy.

All she could feel was their rotted, bloated flesh on hers, pressing in from all angles.

They were everywhere, the world was burning, she was trapped, alone, desperate-

When her eyes opened for the second time, she noticed one fundamental difference between this and the last time she woke. There was a memory, barely there, a small dent in the blockade in her mind, but a memory nonetheless.

Who were those people? Why was she surrounded by corpses, and why did they look like that? No human should look like that, like they were rotting from the outside in, all fundamentally wrong.

Her name.

She remembered her name.

"She's awake." A voice came from her left, and she turned her head to see Muscles and the young boy sat beside her bed. The child was holding her hand, and dark bags smudged under his eyes. He looked as if he'd aged ten years in a day, and her heart lurched.

She felt sick – from the head injury or the pressure of his palm on hers, all she could think about was that damn memory, but either way she removed it under the guise of holding her head and moving into a sitting position.

She cast her eyes around the room, and saw that she was lying in the bed in that single room in the wooden building they had found earlier. One glance out the hole in the wall that passed for a window revealed that the sky was pitch black and riddled with stars.

Holy fuck her ribs hurt.

She winced, raising one hand to cup her side, and let out a groan. "What the fu- shuck, happened?" She asked, and Muscles leant back in his chair, crossing his large biceps over his chest. His dark skin was slightly paler than usual.

"You conked your head when the doors closed. Wouldn't wake up."

Memories of what had happened assaulted her, and her eyes widened. "Luke-"

"Didn't make it out." He said bluntly. Her stomach rolled with nausea. "He pushed you out, saved your life. You would have been a pancake if it weren't for him."

"I'll have to thank him the next time I see him then."

The young boy leant forwards in his chair, curly hair bouncing across his forehead. "You gave us all a real scare. Even this shank was worried. You conked your noggin’ real hard."

"Where's George and that other dude?" She asked.

"Out by the doors. They haven't opened since they closed."

"Which was when?"

"Hours ago. You've been out nearly the whole night. Got no way of knowing, but we reckon it's gonna be dawn soon. We tried to call out for Luke, but he didn't answer," Muscles said quietly. A crease had formed between his brows, and he ran a hand over his bald head in worry.

"Do you think they'll open again?"

"Lord knows." He shook his head, and a dark silence enveloped the shack, thick and heavy with unspoken words and terror.

"He's... he's alright, isn't he?" The young boy asked. "Luke, I mean. He's alright, right?"

"'Course he is." She smiled soothingly at him, but feared that the strain around her eyes undermined the comfort she was trying to offer. "He just got locked in there, that's all. Until we figure out a way to get the doors open again, the worst thing he has to worry about is lack of food. But he can eat when he gets back." She didn't fancy bringing up the severe lack of anything edible on their side of the walls. "He'll be fine, there's nothing out there."

Speaking of food, how the hell were they going to eat?

She nodded her head, looking a lot more confident than she felt, and decided promptly to change the subject.

"I – I remembered my name. Not that it's very helpful," she said. "It's Ada. Not sure if it means anything to you or something, but yeah."

"Ada." The young boy nodded. "It suits you. I still can't remember shuck about who I am, but this shank remembered his name when you were out." He kicked Muscles' shin, and the dark skinned teenager responded by thwacking him upside the head.

"Names Alby." He nodded curtly.

"Pleasure to meet you." Ada grinned, and he smiled back, looking the most polite and well mannered as she had seen him so far.

She glanced out the window, seeing the beginnings of dawn start to unfurl as the sky lightened to a deep purple. Her stomach gave a reminding grumble of her starvation.

"Do we have any food?" She asked, and Alby stood up. She followed his lead, wincing slightly at the pain that flashed through her skull and rib, and the younger boy followed as Alby led the way out of the room.

"We were thinking about checking that box we came up in. George said he remembered seeing crates and boxes and stuff in there. Might be something useful in them."

When they reached the exit of the building and made their way across the glade, the sky was lightening at a rapid rate to a light purple. She realised with a jolt that she must have been out for longer than she thought if the sky was already getting lighter - it had barely been dark when she almost got trapped in the maze.

She could distantly spot George and the other boy pacing by the north doors, gripping their hair and conversing in frantic whispers. She shuddered, unease prickling across her skin. Poor Luke was trapped all alone in that maze for the night, and although the temperature may not have changed a degree since the previous day, who knew what was lurking in the corridors of that place. With what she had seen, anything was possible.

The guilt rose inside her before she could stop it.

Luke had sacrificed himself for her, not knowing who she was or if he would survive, and he had still pushed her through those doors when he could have just as easily saved himself. He made a choice, and though she was glad to still be walking the earth, she still trembled at the thought of whatever could be happening to him right now because he chose to put her over himself.

Alby and the young boy didn't look like they were blaming her though. They were both obviously exhausted, with dark splotches staining under their eyes and their movements sluggish from lack of food or water, but their expressions were painfully blank. She couldn't figure out what they were feeling at all, and that unsettled her more than it should have.

The box was in the centre of the glade, and Ada, Alby, and their young friend made their way towards it quickly. They reached it within less than a minute, and Alby hauled the doors open.

Dozens of crates and boxes littered the inside, leaving very little room for much else, and she wondered briefly how the hell all six of them had managed to fit.

"Jesus Christ, there's a lot of baggage in here."

"Yeah, hopefully they've got something decent to eat in them. I'm starving. Help me get these things out."

The three of them began to haul the crates out of the box and onto the grass, and Alby cracked each one open with a large rock he found on the ground.

"Oh, thank the gods."

Three of the boxes were crammed with food, ranging from fresh fruit, breads, vegetables, and raw meat, all neatly separated. Another contained dozens of bottles of water, but there was a tap in the kitchen that she had spotted earlier, so Ada wasn't too worried about hydration.

There were a few boxes with spare clothes and medical supplies, basic necessities such as bandages and salve.

"Oi, George! Other kid I don't know the name of yet! C'mere!" She called out, and the two made their way over to them.

"I remembered my name,” the dark haired boy said, and although the news should have inspired joy his eyes were heavy with sadness. "My name's Carson."

"Ada." She tried to smile, but it looked more like a grimace as Carson nodded once before glancing down at the assortment of food and whistling.

"About time,” he said as he dug into a loaf of bread. "Any longer and I think I may have starved."

"Don't be so dramatic,” George huffed. "You can last a week with no food. It's the water you've got to watch out for."

Ada hummed in agreement around a mouthful of bread and cheese. Beside her, the younger boy was dramatically attacking his own loaf and guzzling mouthfuls of water until she had to pry them away from him in fear of him throwing up.

"Hey! I was eating that!"

"If you don't slow down you're gonna be sick."

"Yes mom." The young boy rolled his eyes. Ada stuck her tongue out at him in response. There was a heavy silence, a pregnant pause, and George looked out to the maze doors with a miserable expression.

"What do we do now?" He asked, and Ada bit the inside of her cheek in thought.

"There's not much we can do. The sky's getting lighter now, and it would probably be best if we could get an idea of what time it is, maybe then we can keep track of the doors if they open and close at certain times."

"Good idea." Alby nodded, discarding his apple core in the grass beside him. "I can get to work on finding a place for all this food to go so it doesn't go stale or melt or something."

Carson stood to his feet, shaking out the cramps in his legs, and jerked his chin towards one of the old sheds attached to the main building. "I'm gonna go see if there's anything in there, take a good look around. If there's any weapons or supplies or something it'll be useful to know where they are."

"Smart." Ada nodded, a curled tendril of fiery hair spilling into her vision. She reached up impatiently to move it away. "What do you say little fella?" She looked down at her young friend. "Wanna go take a look at those walls?"

The boy nodded, and together they set off across the Glade and towards the monstrous walls, towering in their might and glory. In the early daytime, shadows danced in the cracks in the old stone, and the ivy swayed in the light breeze. The innocent gesture was somehow threatening, although perhaps that was because she was considering everything as a threat ever since she woke up in that box.

"How do you think they made these things?" The boy asked, wide eyes flickering with curiosity. "I mean, can you imagine how much manpower and time it would have taken to construct an entire maze? Especially one of this size and height." He blew out a breath through his round cheeks. "It's fascinating, isn't it?"

"You like building things, huh?"

His face dropped. "I can't remember."

Ada had just opened her mouth to answer when a sickening grinding sound filled the air, the exact same as the night before. She clamped her hands over her ears, recognising the sound immediately.

Painfully slowly, the massive slabs of metal and stone itched open, a chilling breeze greeting them as they watched the maze appear. Ada's jaw dropped as she lowered her hands, the horrendous crunching sound now no more than a ringing in her ears.

"Holy shit,” she muttered in disbelief. "Alby! Carson! George! C'mere, you gotta see this!"

The three boys appeared at her side in less than ten seconds, all out of breath. George's hands were covered in dirt and Carson clutched a knife in his hands, three more strapped to his belt. He held them out to her, George, and Alby, claiming that he found them in the shed.

"The doors opened,” Alby said, the disbelief in his voice matching his bemused expression. "What, do they open every day and close at night or something?"

"Looks that way." George nodded. His eyes lit up as he raised his hand to cup over his mouth. "LUKE!" He yelled. "LUKE, THE DOORS ARE OPEN, COME ON!"

Silence met them.

"LUKE!"

"Where is he?" Ada muttered to Alby, who was bouncing his leg anxiously beside her. "Did he try and find a way out? Do you think he got lost?"

"I'm going to go look for him,” Alby said, taking a step forward.

Carson's hand clamped around his large bicep, a look of worry marring his freckled face. "Hang on — you sure that's a good idea? What if they close again?"

"The sun's only just come up, I'm sure it'll be fine. Even if they do close, what's one night in the maze?"

Ada nodded and edged closer to the gaping entrance. "I'll come with. Two pairs of eyes are better than one." Alby nodded his approval. "George, Carson, little friend who's name I do not yet know, if you could stay behind and start working on patching this place up that would be great. Little guy maybe likes building, right? Maybe you could start patching up the... homestead." At Alby's raised eyebrow, she shrugged. "Well, if we're gonna be sleeping there, it needs to be a bit more stable than what it already is."

Five pairs of eyes moved towards the practically collapsing building at the other side of the glade, and the twelve year old winced at its condition. "Alright,” he nodded. "Carson, wanna help?"

Carson cast a wary glance towards the maze and his three companions and pursed his lips, but wisely kept his mouth shut as he nodded firmly. "Sure. Just don't spend too long out there, okay? Last thing we need is another Luke. See you later."

Ada winced at his words, but nodded curtly and turned to George. "Maybe you could-"

"Oh hell no. I want out of this place as much as you guys do. If it takes going out there to do that, then that's what I'll do." He gripped his knife firmly in his hand, and Ada tried to ignore the fact that the dull blade would be a practically useless defence as she fiddled with her own weapon.

"Alright then. We'll keep an eye on the sky,” Alby said as he turned to the maze. "We'll cover more ground if we run it. You ready?"

"As I'll ever be." Ada nodded. They didn't speak again as they rounded the corner and vanished into unknown territory.

—

"Is it possible to die from exhaustion?" George whined as he collapsed against the sturdy stone wall. Sweat clung to his shirt and stuck it to his apparently very well defined chest, and he pulled at it bitterly as if wishing it wasn't there. "Because if it is, I'll see y'all in the afterlife. Peace out."

Ada scoffed and kicked his foot, shaking her head as she took a seat on the stone expanse that made up the dusty ground. They had been running for hours now, although she had no exact way to tell, and the colour of the sky was a brilliant shade of blue.

The sun was just beyond its peak, its light a small comfort in the dark corridors. If she guessed correctly, the doors would be closing in around five hours, leaving plenty of time for them to explore a little more and make it back before that happened.

Alby had come up with the brilliant idea of marking the walls with an X to make sure they didn't get lost, and she paused to carve another into the wall beside her.

She had noticed less than a minute in that the walls had changed. The opening she and Luke went down yesterday had closed up, and when she pointed this out to Alby he nodded and said that they had all heard the grinding and crunching of the walls continuously throughout the night.

"Don't be so dramatic,” Alby scoffed.

"Dramatic?" Ada repeated, seemingly offended. "I'm with him on this one. We have been running for hours." She emphasised her point by flopping bonelessly onto the ground with a cheeky grin. "I can't feel my legs – oh the light... is this heaven? Jesus take the wheel-"

She saw Alby roll his eyes, but a small grin tugged at the corners of his lips. "I'm sure you'll both survive." He shook his head. "And if not, we'll make sure to put 'death by running' on your gravestones."

"With the quote 'Jesus take the wheel' in italics,” she added with a grin.

George's head rose as he looked at Alby with a hopeful expression. "Will it be in a fancy font?"

"As fancy as his handwriting is, yes." She laughed. "Unfortunately we don't have access to computers, so engraving it is pretty much as good as it's gonna get."

"What a shame,” George sighed. "Guess we'll just have to hold on a little longer then, Ada. At least until you can remember us with a fancy font."

Ada snorted and took a sip of the water bottle Alby handed her, relishing in the feeling of the cold liquid soothing her burning throat. Her legs hurt like hell, and there was a fire raging in her bruised ribs that knocked the breath right out of her lungs. George was in no better shape as he groaned out a string of curse words and began to massage his legs.

Alby, however, seemed to be completely unaffected by the long run, and was idly stretching as he cast his gaze around the narrow corridor. The towering walls on either side of them cast thick shadows, the cold on them more pronounced now that she had stopped running and her heart was slowing in her chest once more.

"Looks like we still have some time before we need to head back. Luke couldn't have made it too far. He would have collapsed from exhaustion at some point."

"I know the feeling,” Ada grumbled, a hand on her ribs.

George scoffed and shot her a grin, which she quickly returned as Alby turned to them with his hands on his hips. "You two ready to go?"

"Already?" George looked like a wounded puppy as he stared up at his friend with wide eyes. "But–”

"Come on,” Alby huffed, pulling him up with a groan. He bent down to do the same to Ada, but the girl was already on her feet, brushing off her sweat-damp clothes.

"You guys are cooking dinner tonight, that's all I'm saying,” she said with a huff.

They set off into the maze again in a comfortable sort of silence, broken only by the scratching of the knife on the wall and the ragged breathing that came with gradual exhaustion. Corner to corner they turned, lost in a sea of stone, and just as she was about to ask to take another break Alby's hand shot out to halt them in their tracks.

"What's wrong?" George asked, peering over his shoulder as Ada took a step forward, suddenly anxious.

It wasn't unusual for ivy to line the maze's walls. In fact, it became a common sight on the run, draped over a large majority of the stone and swinging from atop the mighty structure in strings.

The ivy lining this wall, however, was completely torn to shreds, as if hacked away by a blade, strewn over the floor and across the walls in clumps.

But that wasn't what made her heart jam into her throat. It was the blood that stained the earth red, splattered across the walls, staining the floor, the putrid stench of death pungent in the air.

"What the actual fuck-" George cut himself off with a gag as the three finally registered the irony scent of someone's insides staining the air. It was pungent, choking her, and Ada gagged on it as she pressed the back of her hand to her face to cover her mouth and nose.

When Alby caught sight of Ada taking a step forward, his hand darted out to catch her arm, but missed. "Hey, Ada, maybe you shouldn't-"

But she was already moving, hands trembling slightly despite her determination, to inspect the blood splattered across the walls and ground. There was so much of it. No one could lose this much blood and still be alive. It was impossible.

She pushed down the logical part of her brain telling her that there was only one person this could belong to.

"What do you think happened?"

"Looks like someone got butchered." She couldn't help the bitterness that seeped into her voice.

She brushed her hair back away from her face and crouched down in order to run a finger through the clotting red substance. She rubbed her fingers together, the blood slick on her skin, and fought to push down the nausea as she turned to her friends.

"It's relatively fresh. Some of it's clotted, some's still drying. It's hard to say how long it's been there, but my guess is a night at most. No longer than 12 hours. Maybe less."

George blanched and ran a hand through his brown curls. "Do you think... Luke?"

"Let's not jump to conclusions." Ada's voice wavered as she spoke. "Whatever happened to whoever's blood this is... they can't still be alive, but there's no reason to think that it might be Luke."

Both George and Alby were staring at her with blatant horror, and she opened her mouth to ask why when she felt a drop of something fall onto her cheek.

Was it raining?

She reached up to brush it away, but then it happened again, and again, and it took her a few seconds to recognise that it wasn't water that was dripping onto her cheek, but rather something red.

Blood red.

Ada gulped. "... Something's above me, isn't it?"

In sync, Alby and George slowly raised their heads and cast their gaze to the upper sections of the walls, and Ada winced in fear at the way Alby's face drained of colour and the strangled broken gasp that tore its way from George's throat.

Another drop of blood fell against her cheek, and as she finally raised her head, she wished with every fibre of her being that she hadn't.

She couldn't keep the scream in her throat as her eyes met the twisted and broken body suspended in the ivy above her. Luke's eyes were wide and glassy, his face ashen and blue and splattered with blood and still twisted with horror and so overall dead it was like a slap to the face.

His arms were tangled in the ivy, one obviously broken, keeping his dead weight suspended, and one of them had such a deep gash by the elbow she could see the faint glimmer of bone in the afternoon light. His torso was slashed at and littered with purple bruises that were barely distinguishable beneath all the clotted blood that stemmed from the deep gashes and chunks torn from his stomach and chest.

His legs — or more accurately leg — was torn to shreds. One of them was missing and hanging from the ivy several feet from his body, and was missing a foot.

She couldn't hear George throwing up behind her, or hear Alby's muffled curses and disgusted gags, couldn't hear anything over the rushing of blood in her ears and the pounding of her heart in her chest. She was suspended underwater, trapped as she drowned, the entire world on pause as she stared into the glossy eyes of the dead teenager who had saved her life.

Chapter Text

Something heavy was sitting on his chest.

It suffocated him, squeezing his lungs so tight he couldn't breathe, wrapping thorns around his heart. Newt pressed a hand hard against his chest, as if the physical discomfort could outweigh the emotional turmoil.

It didn't work.

That feeling of guilt was overwhelming, and it drowned him.

"Newt," a familiar voice said from his left, and he turned his head to see Thomas staring at him with a small frown from his own bunk, three rows away. "Newt, you alright?"

He nodded, lowering his head, severing the eye contact.

It was getting harder and harder by the day to talk to Thomas, no matter how close the two of them had been upon arrival. Thomas had been at the facility before Newt arrived, he wasn't sure for how long, but in the recent months he'd been called away more frequently to the lab rooms. He had thought, initially, that they were doing more tests on him, and had felt nothing but pity. He had been subjected to those experiments a thousand times, each more painful than the last.

The discovery that Thomas was the one doing the testing on other people felt like a betrayal he hadn't quite been able to shake. Logically, Newt was well aware that saying no to the lab techs wasn't possible. If the people in the white coats wanted you to do something, you had very little choice in the matter. But that didn't stop the cold that settled in his stomach every time he looked at his friend.

"Yeah," Newt's voice cracked around the word. "I'm fine."

Thomas cocked his head to the side, dark hair spilling across his forehead, and stood up. The others were fast asleep, had been for a while, the only sounds their light snoring as they rolled in their bunks.

Newt didn't protest as Thomas made his way over to him, perching on the end of his bed, fingers toying with the scratchy material of the blanket. "You sure? You don't look so good. What are you still doing here, anyway? Thought you'd have snuck out to see Ada by now."

Something on his face must have given away how Newt's heart lurched unpleasantly.

"What is it?" Thomas frowned. "Why does your face look like that? I won't tell anyone, you know. I know you and I have had our differences recently, but I'm still your friend. Hers too. I won't tell."

"She's gone, Thomas." The words felt like ash in his mouth.

"What? Gone where?"

"Up. They sent her up."

Thomas's face went white with shock. "What? No, that's not possible. She's not meant to be sent up there."

"Well she is." Newt spat. "I saw it myself. She's up there, and she's hurt, and Luke's already dead-"

"Luke's dead?" Thomas's voice was barely more than a shocked whisper.

"He got trapped. Overnight. One of those monsters got him."

"No, that's not-"

Newt's hand clamped over Thomas's wrist, dragging the other boy to his feet.

"Where are we going?" Thomas asked, voice barely more than a hiss as they weaved their way between beds, towards the door at the end of the hall.

"To the monitors. You need to see this."

Chapter Text

Night Two

The journey back to the glade was nothing more than a haze. She couldn't remember the muffled voices of Alby and George speaking to her with such horror and desperation, couldn't remember them guiding her by the arms and escorting her from that narrow hallway where she had undoubtedly seen the worst thing she had ever been forced to see.

The image of Luke's body — twisted and broken and torn to shreds, mutilated almost beyond recognition — was imprinted into her mind, his terror-filled expression branded onto the insides of her eyelids as she forced herself further into her hammock and willed her mind to sleep.

But sleep wouldn't come, even as she nestled her cheek against the soft material beneath her.

She was vaguely aware of Alby tossing and turning in the hammock behind her, and she could hear George and Carson's snores from the other side of the room. The young boy was murmuring something in his sleep, sounding terrified, calling out for his mother. She wanted to get up and help him, wanted to soothe his fears and tell him everything would be okay, but she couldn't move.

They hadn't been able to move Luke's body. It was far too high up and tangled in the ivy for them to reach it, and even if they had been able to there wasn't enough left of him to transport in one piece.

They had no choice but to just leave him there.

Trapped in her own body, her own mind, she was helpless. It was far worse a prison than the maze that they were held in.

Something had killed Luke. Something brutal and vicious and nightmare worthy had cut her friend down as if he were butter. The way his body had been mutilated . . . nothing human could do that, and no animal she could fathom could possibly possess that power and bloodlust. Whatever had done it was a killing machine, and it was still out there somewhere.

Ada sighed and rolled over, watching the stars flicker and gradually disappear as the sky, now a deep purple smattered with hues of gold, slowly began to lighten.

They still had hours before the doors would open again. Before they could go into the maze. The only problem was now, after what she'd seen happen to Luke . . . she wasn't sure she wanted to.

There was a groan from the other side of the room, and Ada winced as she watched George's eyes crack open before blinking thrice and closing once more. Brown curls flopped from his forehead and into his eyes. She smiled slightly.

At least someone was getting a good night's sleep.

A flicker of movement from her left snatched her attention away from her thoughts, and Ada frowned as she turned to watch one of those lizard things scuttle onto the edge of her hammock. Its eyes were still that blinking red, watching her.

She had no doubt that it was a camera, not after what had happened in the maze. Whoever was watching them was wanting a show, apparently, and the thought of being observed like lab rats had her skin crawling unpleasantly. It perched on the thick linen, and paused, waiting. For what, she didn't know.

"Are you happy, now?" Ada asked, her voice cracked and quiet with disuse. Moisture welled in her eyes. "Are you happy now that Luke's dead? He's gone." The lizard creature scuttled closer a fraction until the cold metal of its side was pressed up against her pinkie finger. She frowned, and couldn't hold in the tear that tracked its way down her cheek.

Why wasn't it attacking her? Luke had held his hand out to one of them and it had bitten him, yet here it was, docile and tame.

The lizard, a cross between beetle and blade, shuffled onto her hand with a mechanical buzz of movement. Ada gulped, frozen, but not afraid, and watched as those brilliantly red eyes seemed to flicker at her.

Someone was watching her, she was sure of it, but this someone felt like more of a friend than foe.

Another grunt came from George's direction, and the sudden noise made the beetle blade scurry away from her and onto the wall, watching the room from above. Ada sighed, glancing up at the slowly lightening, and decided she might as well get moving if she wasn't going to sleep.

The smell of morning grass met her as she toed on her black boots and made her way towards the large forest, the dew making the blades damp and crunchy beneath her feet. The forest was a vast array of towering trunks and lush greens, and she ducked beneath a low hanging branch as she left the glade behind and got lost in a world of peace.

It was calm in that forest, Ada noted with a small smile. Calm, peaceful, beautiful. There were the telltale sounds of birds whistling their greetings in the trees, and branches would occasionally stretch at eye level and force her to duck her head. The silence felt different here than it did in the glade, no longer as oppressive and stifling.

Eventually she found herself in a small clearing, a grassy expense of coarse dirt surrounded by towering trees that blocked out a large amount of the purple sky above her. Stars still splattered the heavens, painting the universe with pinpricks of light.

Her eyes landed on the tree in front of her, where branches and clumps of wood were haphazardly tossed against the trunk of a tree, as if someone had excess material and didn't know what to do with it. Maybe it was the people who built this place.

Heart heavy, an idea struck her, and a small, albeit sad, smile crept onto her face.

A grave. She would build a grave. It didn't feel right to not have something to remember Luke by. She hadn't known him for long, no more than a few hours at most, but the fact that he was gone from the world forever with nothing left behind didn't feel right.

And with that thought weighing in her mind, the image of Luke's twisted and cut up body pressed against the inside of her eyelids, she got to work.

The sky was considerably lighter when she finally sat back in the dirt to survey her creation. The grave was a shabby thing: a simple cross made from two planks, held together by thin strips of ivy she had taken from the maze walls. They were a lot more intimidating up close. She had taken a rock and sharpened it to the best she could before carving a rather unimpressive Luke into the wood.

She smiled slightly and made to get to her feet when something fell out of her pocket. Something gold. A chain.

Luke's chain.

Ada sobbed.

For the first time she had arrived in that mysterious place, she sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed until her head span and her lungs ached, her body on fire.

Maybe it was the suddenness of it all, the disaster after disaster, the knowledge that they were trapped and guarded by something that could slaughter them so easily, but all the fear came bubbling to the surface and she couldn't for the life of her keep it down. She curled into herself, shaking, and didn't hear the footsteps approaching until someone sat next to her in the dirt.

George's face swam into her vision, blurred through the tears. He didn't touch her, didn't speak, simply smiled sadly and sat there beside her, staring at the grave, letting her cry.

Chapter Text

Newt's heart lurched in his chest as he watched Ada sob, her body curled in on herself. He couldn't remember the last time her eyes, such a stunning combination of blue and green, had ever held such pain in them before. Her freckled skin had paled considerably and the copper hair that she usually kept in such perfect condition was unwashed and spilling into her vision in a curtain of curls.

He hadn't seen what had been done to Luke's body. Hadn't wanted to see. The only thing he knew for certain was that he was dead, and that Ada was trapped in a place that was little more than a death sentence, and there was nothing he could do.

"Oh gods." Thomas muttered beside him, his brown eyes wide with terror. His hands rose to cover his mouth. "Is she – Luke's really – oh my god-"

"How can you stand for this?" Newt asked his friend, his voice thick with pain. "How can you help those monsters? This isn't right, Tommy. It's not right."

"It's for the greater good-"

"The greater good?!" Newt's voice rose as he pushed off the monitor, glaring at the brown haired boy in front of him. "How can you honestly believe that?! You've seen what's happened to the world, Tommy, you really think there's any coming back from that?"

"We have to try-"

"They're killing our friends!" Newt bellowed. Thomas blanched at the tears swimming in his eyes as he pointed at the screen. "They are killing our friends, and we both know it won't stop until they're all dead!"

"Keep your voice down," Thomas hissed, though his tone held no hostility. "We don't have a choice, Newt. We don't. If there was any other way . . ."

"There has to be something we can do!"

"You know what Dr. Paige wants. What needs to happen. I'm sorry, Newt, there's nothing we can do." Thomas placed a hand on his friend's shoulder, hating the way Newt's entire body seemed to deflate with defeat. His hands were shaking when he rose one to run it through the blonde atop his head.

"Come on. Let's go back to the bunks." Thomas took Newt by the shoulder and led him towards the door, taking one glance at the monitor. All was quiet.

As the two boys left the room, neither noticed the two shadows in the doorway, watching the conversation in silence.

The man spoke, his voice slimy and cold and unfeeling. "They're questioning things."

Ava Paige, stood beside him, winced. "They're curious, it's natural. We haven't told them the whole plan, they have no idea they're to be sent up as well."

"This goes beyond curiosity. A5 is against the maze trials, he's had his reservations from the start." He turned his cold eyes on the doctor. "If you aren't careful, we'll lose their cooperation."

"Have patience, Janson. I trust that they'll recognise this is the right thing to do."

"You’re really willing to take that risk?"

Dr. Paige sighed, turning her weathered gaze to the man beside her. "What would you have me do?"

"Eliminate the rogues."

"They're just children, Janson, it's-"

Jansen clicked his tongue in annoyance. "Well if you wont kill them, at least accelerate the timeline. Send him up into the maze. We both know he was meant to be there by now anyway. If they hadn't made that mistake-"

"It hasn't been a month."

"Think of all the damage they could do in a month. You don't have a choice, Doctor."

Dr Paige sighed, turning her gaze back to the monitors. George had led Ada away back to the Homestead, but the camera was fixed onto Luke's grave. Her stomach dropped.

They were children, innocents in all of this, but science was science.

It was for the greater good.

"No. I won't toss away the potential. These kids can save the world, they are the cure. We just need to find out how and why first. Then we can stop this virus before it gets out of control. We stick to the plan. Stick to the original timeline. In one month, we'll send up four more. A select few will find their way out. I'm sure of it. And when they do, it's those we will use. The Maze Trials will work, I'm sure of it."

—

Newt lay in his bunk, fingers fiddling with the red shoelace wrapped around his left wrist. It was frayed and worn at the edges, the colour stained in some areas. He stared down at it, brow furrowed in concentration.

The sting of tears pricked his eyes.

He remembered when she had given it to him, in their first week at the facility. They were only ten, if that, and he remembered being terrified beyond belief. They had separated him from his sister, he was alone in this new place with people he didn't know, doing things he didn't want.

He had been pressed against the far wall, crying silently, when a spitfire of a girl appeared, coppery hair and shining eyes, brilliant smile despite the bruise on her cheek. She plonked down on the floor beside him, offering him a smile.

"Hi.” Her voice was oddly chipper despite the circumstances. "Why are you crying?"

Newt frowned and rubbed furiously at his eyes. "Why aren't you crying?"

"Why would I be crying?"

"Why– you're joking, right? We got taken away by these strange people and I don't know where my sister is. We don't know anything that's happening. I'm crying because I'm bloody scared, that's why." Newt buried his face in his knees, ashamed of his tears.

He was crying in front of a girl.

"Well, that's why I'm not crying. Because I'm not scared." She shrugged, a lock of fiery hair falling into her eyes. "I don't have any family anymore, so I haven't been separated from anyone. I don't have any friends. And we'll find out what's happening soon. I'm just happy we're in a place where there aren't any infected anymore. They were scary." Her voice had lowered at the last part, and when he looked over Newt saw that her eyes were slightly misty.

He frowned. "I didn't really see any infected. My parents kept us in a basement. Said the outside world wasn't safe."

"They were right.” She nodded. "What happened to your parents?"

Newt forced himself to bite back the tears, refusing to shed any more when this girl was barely even displaying an ounce of emotion. "Dead. Got shot. That's when these guys found us, and took us away. Said we were special." He spat out the last word like it was poison. "Whatever the bloody hell that means."

"Oh." The girl said. "That sucks. My parents are dead too. Fire. Well, at least you won't have to see any infected. They said they're spreading, that the world is ending."

"I hope it's not. We're part of the world."

"Yeah. Well, don't be sad. Or scared. I'm here now, I'll protect you." The girl grinned, and Newt shot her a bemused look before looking her up and down. She was scrawny, skinny, looked as if a strong gust of wind would blow her away. In fact, it looked like she hadn't had a decent meal in at least a week, if not longer. She certainly wasn't capable of protecting anyone.

"Right,” he settled on saying.

"You don't believe me? Here, I'll show you." The girl looked down and unwrapped something from her ankle, where it was tied. When she straightened up, she held it out to him, and he saw that it was a shoelace.

A bright red shoelace.

"What's this?" Newt asked, taking it from her when she handed it to him.

"It's my lucky shoelace. My brother gave it to me, before he got the flare." She didn't sound sad at the news, but rather like she was merely reciting facts.

"Then why are you giving it to me?"

"Because it's for protection." She said, as if the answer should have been obvious, rolling her eyes. "It'll keep you safe."

Newt raised a single eyebrow. "A shoelace will keep me safe?"

"Yep. It's a good luck charm. My brother gave it to me back when we were on the streets. Said it would make me feel better when I was scared. I don't want it anymore."

"How come?"

"You need it more than I do. I'm not scared, you are. I don't have anything left to lose, but you do. So maybe it'll bring you some luck, make you less scared."

Newt frowned and looked down at the shoelace before looking back up at the girl. She was staring at him expectantly, eyes bright, and he couldn't help the smile that curled at his lips. "Yeah, okay." He tied it around his left wrist, securing it snugly.

"Better?" The girl asked, and it was with a jolt that he realised that she was right. He was feeling better. He'd stopped crying, he didn't feel as scared anymore, and more importantly, he wasn't alone anymore.

"Surprisingly, yeah. I'm Newt. That's what they told me my new name is." He held out his hand.

The girl frowned and shook her head. "I don't like people touching me, so I won't shake your hand. But my new name's Ada. It's nice to meet you."

"Why don't you like people touching you?"

For the first time since she had sat next to him, the light in Ada's eyes flickered. "I don't like talking about it. Touching people makes me feel sick. It's nothing personal."

"That's okay." Newt smiled. "You don't need to touch me. And thank you, by the way. For the shoelace."

"Lucky shoelace." Ada rolled her eyes, as if calling the token anything less than what she deemed it was highly offensive and incredibly stupid. "And you're welcome. We could all use a little luck every now and then."

Six years later, the damn thing was still wrapped tightly around his wrist. She was right, it was lucky. It brought him her. It brought him a friend.

And now she was gone. Ripped away from him in the middle of the night, tossed into a death trap with no memory of who he was or what she meant to him.

Newt allowed one tear, one single tear, to be shed — it fell onto the shoelace and soaked into the material, leaving a dark brown spot amid the red — before rolling over and facing the wall, decision made.

He knew about the resistance group forming in the mountains, paving their own way after four years of cooperation with WICKED and its aims. He knew they wanted to take down the corporation, find a cure for the Flare that didn't murder an entire generation in the name of science and sacrifice.

He would find a way to stop WICKED, to bring them down one by one if he had to. And if Thomas wouldn't help him, then he would damn well do it himself.

He was going to help Ada escape the maze. He was going to bring her home, no matter what happened to him in the process.

Chapter Text

Day Twenty Two

"Carson, respectfully, this has to be the worst thing I have ever tasted." Ada gagged, pushing the vegetable stew away from her. The bowl slid across the table, some of the putrid green sludge from inside sloshing over the edge. She grimaced at the sight of it, the foul taste still tormenting her tongue.

Carson, who was still standing by the stove, crossed his arms and glared at her. "Oh yeah? I'd like to see you do better. Why don't you come up here and cook for us, huh Ada?"

"Oh I get it, sure, make the only woman do the cooking," Ada grumbled. "Sexist pig."

"Slim it, you two. You're acting like children," Alby said, putting his own spoon down and frowning at them. "It's really not that bad, Ada."

"Oh yeah? Is that why you took one bite of yours and decided to call it quits?"

"George likes my stew, don't you George?" Carson asked, looking at George, who was sitting at the other side of the table.

"Mhmm." George's face was noticeably green. "Delicious."

"I think Avin's the only one here who can actually stomach your food, Carson. Doesn't bode well for you." Ada grinned, pointing her spoon at the young boy who had already finished shovelling his face full of food and was eagerly reaching for seconds. He had remembered his name two days after they had woken up in the box, and now three weeks later they all remembered their names, but all their other memories remained missing.

"I'm sure it's not that bad." Carson reached for a bowl and shovelled a spoonful into his own mouth, which immediately twisted in a grimace. "Oh Christ, that's disgusting."

"Exactly!" Ada slammed her spoon down. "Three weeks, Carson! Three weeks of suffering through meals. I love food, okay, love it, and somehow you made me dread dinner time. Congratulations,” she exclaimed. George snickered.

"I stand by my statement that you could always cook us a meal for once."

"Do you not remember the last time I tried to cook for you idiots?"

Alby winced at the reminder.

Four days in and Ada had decided that it was time they all sat down for a proper meal instead of snacking on whatever food was in the nearest crate. She and Avin had banded together and taken control of the kitchen, and had only stopped when half of the homestead had gone up in flames. It had taken days to rebuild what had burnt down, and Carson had forbidden Ada from ever stepping foot in the kitchen again.

Not to mention the fact that the food she had put down in front of them that night led to three of them being in bed for nearly a week with food poisoning.

"Yeah, I don't fancy a repeat performance, thanks. You traumatised me,” Alby said.

"You did no better," Ada huffed. "How did you somehow manage to burn water?"

"Well I did better than George! Do you not remember when he nearly sliced off his finger and ended up bleeding into our tomato soup?"

Avin gagged. "I can't believe no one told me it wasn't meant to be that red."

"We didn't actually think you were going to eat it!"

Carson huffed and began piling the bowls into the corner, where they would be rinsed under the tap later. They were simple, carved of wood, and each person had carved their initial into the side of it so they would know whose was whose. Those first few days where they hadn't been claimed made for plenty of interesting arguments.

Ada still remembered Carson and George's brawl because neither of them could agree on whose bowl was whose. They had only stopped fighting when Alby had physically lifted them apart. They had spent the night sleeping in hammocks next to each other on the opposite end of the homestead for what Alby called a 'bonding experience' but was really just a way to let them continue fighting without waking the others.

"I wonder if Luke would have been a good cook," George mused, and just like that a harrowing silence descended over the table. When he glanced around and saw the tightly drawn expressions on the others faces, he blushed and looked down at the table again. "Sorry."

Ada shook her head. "No, it's alright. We don't talk about him much."

Alby frowned down at the table, using his spoon to idly chip away at the rough wood. "What's there to talk about? We barely knew the shank. Can't mourn someone you don't know."

"I disagree," Avin said quietly. "He was still one of us. We may not have known him for long, but he was still one of us. He was trapped here just like the rest of us, no escape, no way out. We may have barely known him, but he barely knew himself. He was at least in this together with us. And he saved Ada's life, we can't forget that."

Ada frowned down at the table at the reminder, guilt making her stomach squirm.

George let out a low whistle. "Deep." His smile faded slightly as he looked towards the maze. "I can't stop thinking about what could have done it. What could have butchered him like that."

Ada's already pale face went white. "I've been thinking about that, actually." She rolled up the sleeves of her back jacket and crossed her arms, leaning them against the table in front of her. "I think it's safe to assume that we were put in here against our will, what with the whole memory wiping and trapped in the middle of a maze thing."

"Yeah, can't imagine any sane person would agree to that."

"Shut up, you moron, let me speak." Ada tossed a bread roll at Avin's head. It bounced off his forehead and fell onto the table with a dull thud. "The maze changes every night. We've all heard it when we're trying to sleep."

For a moment, her mind was filled with the echo of the maze as it shifted and turned, walls grinding across the floor, stone crushing against stone, creating a racket so ungodly it masked the frightened murmurs of the teenagers at its heart.

"What happened to Luke wasn't an accident. But think about it, we know nothing is in the maze during the day. We've been inside it, and whatever did that to Luke must have been big. It would make a lot of noise and we wouldn't exactly miss it if we ran into it."

"And?"

"And the doors are open during the day. I don't think they'd stay open unless the creators of this place knew nothing was going to wander out of them. So that means whatever killed him had to have done it at night, right?"

Alby frowned. "It makes sense, but I'm not sure how that helps us."

"Hang on," George learnt forward, "The walls close at night for a reason, let's presume it's to keep us from going inside the maze after dark. Why would they need to do that unless something is in the maze at night?"

"Something like whatever killed Luke." Ada nodded.

"Let me get this straight," Alby said, crossing his massive arms over his chest. "You two think there are some sort of monster things in the maze at night, and one of them killed Luke?" When they nodded, Alby shook his head. "Why? Why would the people who did this deliberately put things in there that can kill us?"

Carson's eyes went wide with excitement. "Maybe they're guarding something."

"Like the way out!" Ada grinned. "Carson, you're a genius!"

George huffed. "I helped solve it and she didn't call me a genius. Picking favourites, I say,” he muttered to Avin, whose laugh was cut short when yet another bread roll was sent flying his way.

"Hang on a goddamn minute," Alby huffed, glancing between Carson and Ada with a frown etched on his face. "Even if these monsters or whatever, which we have no idea actually exist by the way, are guarding the exit to the maze, how exactly do you idiots plan on finding it?"

Upon receiving their blank stares, he rolled his eyes.

"It's guarded by monsters that only come out at night, but the doors close at night. We can't get in even if it were a good idea to follow these monsters and see where they're guarding. And even so, I'm not marching all of us in there on a hunch to come face to face with these creatures, not after what they did to Luke. Two or so would have to check. And even if you were right, you wouldn't be able to go back the next night. The maze changes every night, remember? Any progress we make with mapping a way out would be eliminated pretty much immediately."

Ada blinked thrice before collapsing back into her seat. "Oh screw you, throwing your stupidly correct logic in my face like that."

"Okay, fine." Carson leant forward. "If we can't go through the maze, then surely there must be another way out, right?"

"I have an idea!" Avin clambered to his feet, clasping his hands together in front of him with a wide grin on his face. "What if we climbed the maze?"

"... what?"

"The ivy, on the walls! Makes for a pretty good ladder don't you think?"

At his words, Ada turned to face the towering walls surrounding them, eyes scanning the ivy that stretched from top to bottom. It was thick, sturdy, definitely clime-able. Probably. In theory.

"What exactly are we supposed to do when we get to the top?"

"We can use it as a vantage point, see what lies beyond the maze, if there's a way out that way. That'll be useful if nothing else comes from it."

George cocked his head to the side. "He's got a point, actually. It will be useful to know if the answer lies beyond the maze."

"Okay, well it's not worth all of us climbing it if nothing comes of it,” Ada noted. "It's going to be difficult to get all the way to the top, you'll need a lot of strength and stamina to get it done."

"I'll do it." Carson shrugged. "I can make it to the top. I'll let you guys know if there's anything there, and if there is the rest of you can follow."

Ada nodded. "Okay, you get to work on that. In the meantime, we continue as usual. George, Avin, you two work on finishing up the farm set up. We'll plant the seeds sometime tomorrow, and then hopefully we'll have a fully functioning food source to make up for the fact that we're running out of supplies."

"Speaking of," George interrupted, "are we going to talk about the fact that we're nearly out of food? We have enough for a week more, maybe two if we ration, but I don't like those odds."

"Which is exactly why we're making a farm."

"Do you really think we'll be able to live off plants for the rest of our days?"

"It's just until we get out of here," Ada said placatingly. "Who knows, maybe the wall plan will work and we're just a hop, skip, and a jump away from freedom."

"Or a long climb, an even longer journey, and an even longer fall to the sweet freedom that is death," Carson muttered.

"Aren't you charming this morning?"

"You insulted my food, I'm allowed to be as charming as I want to, thank you very much."

"Well, if it doesn't work, it's not like we don't have a solid meat source." Alby jerked his head at the corner of the Glade where the pigs and cows grazed lazily in the early morning light.

Ada's jaw dropped. "You wouldn't dare."

"I'm with Alby, I could really go for a beef burger right now."

"Carson, I swear to you, you lay one finger on my animals and I will castrate you."

Carson raised his hands in defeat.

"We'll work on the farm." Avin nodded, grabbing George by the sleeve as the two of them got up from the table.

"Great. Alby, you're with me, we need to finish putting together the mapping room."

—

"You see anything from up there?" Alby shouted from the bottom of the wall, cupping his hands around his mouth and shouting as loud as his lungs would allow.

He, Ada, George, and Avin were hovering anxiously at the base of the wall Carson had chosen to climb, the one just left of the homestead. He was almost at the top, and had been climbing for almost half of the day now. From what she could see of him so far from the ground, Ada could tell that his limbs were beginning to shake from exhaustion.

She didn't know how he was going to manage the journey back down.

"Not yet! Almost there though – just a little further!" He called back, his voice carrying over the wind.

Ada raised her fingers to her mouth and began to bite at them in anticipation, shifting her weight from one leg to the other. A hand clamped down on her shoulder, and she flinched away from the hold before she could register what she was doing. She turned to see George staring at her with furrowed brows.

"You alright?" He asked, tilting his head to the side. A single brown curl fell onto his forehead.

"Just nervous, I guess. I mean, we've been here for weeks with no sign of a way out. This could be it, George. We might actually be able to get out of here and escape."

A grin slowly began to form on George's face. "Yeah, I know. It's exciting isn't it? I can't believe we–"

"What the hell are those things?" Alby's alarmed voice cut George off, and Ada turned just in time to see a flash of silver dart up the side of the wall.

"What? What did you see?"

"It was this small little silver thing, with – look, there's another!"

She spotted it this time.

There, scuttling up the wall through the ivy, was one of those mechanical lizards she had unconsciously dubbed beetle blades. It was scurrying up the wall with urgency, tiny body rhythmic and solid as it weaved in and out of the ivy and made its way skyward.

"Why are there so many of them?" Avin asked, and when Ada looked back down she saw to her horror that Avin was right. There were dozens of them, scuttling along the wall, shrieking mechanically, creating a rippling wave of silver and red speckles.

Ada's stomach dropped when she realised that they were headed directly to Carson.

"I've seen those before.” she said urgently, not daring to tear her eyes away from Carson's climbing form. He was so close to the top now, his head was nearly brushing the top of the wall. "They're cameras, I think they were put here by the Creators. Luke and I saw one when we were in the Maze the night he died. They're dangerous, they have little blades in their mouths, they made him bleed–"

"Wait, that means that..." Alby trailed off, horrified.

George slowly raised his hand to cover his mouth. "They were watching. They knew the plan. This whole time they were watching. Why are they heading towards Carson, though, why would they do that?"

"Maybe to watch him at the top?" Avin asked hopefully, but his voice was thin and wavering.

Ada's mind span.

Why would the beetle blades climb to the top of the walls, when she knew damn well there were some stationed there already? She had seen them flickering across the top of the walls occasionally, glinting in the morning sun. So they weren't going up there to watch him succeed, which left only one option.

"Oh god–" she choked out. "They're going to try to stop him."

"Carson!" George bellowed, voice frantic as he waved his arms around.

"Carson!"

"Carson stop!"

"You need to come back down!"

"CARSON!"

"CARSON LISTEN, YOU NEED TO COME BACK DOWN!"

Carson's voice drifted down from the top of the wall, where his head had finally crested the edge. He craned his neck as far as he possibly could, and Ada watched as his shoulders went slack with shock. "Oh – oh my god, guys there's–"

His words were cut off by a scream.

His own scream.

Ada watched, helpless to assist, as a swarm of silver lunged for Carson, lashing out at his hands and arms, his face, his legs. Any part of him that clung to the wall, the beetle blades latched onto.

Blood splattered, creating red arcs across the stone that were visible from the ground, and George let out a terrified yelp as Carson's fingers and hands were shredded.

Time seemed to slow, the clock turning to sand that moved sluggishly through the universe, one grain at a time, prolonging the inevitable because one moment Carson's fingers were clinging onto the ivy, his feet planted firmly on the cracks in the wall, and the next he was falling.

Ivy slipped from his blood soaked fingers, his feet lost their grip, and Ada screamed as Carson tumbled backwards, losing all contact with the wall.

He seemed to fall in slow motion.

She watched every flail of his arms, heard every desperate drawn out scream and cry of pain, and all she could do was freeze as Alby's arm banded around her waist, yanking her out of the way right as Carson's body hit the floor with a sickening crunch, his screams abruptly silenced.

They stared in shocked silence as blood began to pool around Carson's head, stared at the grisly way that his arms and legs seemed to be bent at unnatural angles, the flesh torn at and freely bleeding. His eyes, which were full of laughter just this morning, were vacant and unseeing, still flooded with absolute terror.

Black dots began to dance in front of her eyes, and she distantly saw speckles of silver where the beetle blades, finished with their task, scurried back along the wall, receding into the cracks that made up their homes.

"Oh – oh my god – OH MY GOD–"

Avin was throwing up somewhere behind her, and she saw out of the corner of her eye as George sank to his knees.

But she couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't bring herself to do anything other than stare as the blood pooled in the grass around Carson's body.

Chapter Text

Official lights out was hours ago now. It happened the same time every night, like clockwork, when the entire facility - a humming thread of activity and movement during the day - went as still and as silent as the grave.

Newt listened closely for any sign of movement outside the thick slab of metal that made up the door to the bunker rooms where he and the other boys were accommodated. It was a small room, only big enough to house four rows of bunk beds, each and every one of them hosting a snoring figure that he would have to try and sneak past if he were to be able to get out and do what it was he was aiming to do.

He held his breath and listened intently, head tilted towards the door. Silence. The only sounds were the shuffling of Minho turning over in his bunk and Siggy's repetitive snores from somewhere above him.

Slowly, painstakingly as to not make a sound, Newt drew back the covers on his bed and threw his legs over the side, pressing his bare feet tentatively onto the stone floor. It was cold against the soles of his feet, and he felt his toes go achingly numb against it.

They weren't provided with slippers, only one pair of white shoes to be worn in the day, but those were by the door and he couldn't risk moving them without it being noticed. Bare feet would be quieter anyway, he reasoned to himself as he stood up and inched closer to the door.

Newt pressed his ear against the metal, waiting.

Not a shred of movement came from the other side.

Casting one last glance behind him at the slumbering boys, Newt pulled the door open, wincing at the low creaking of metal. The sound seemed ten times as loud as it usually did, but when he checked over his shoulder, he saw that only Thomas had shifted slightly in his bunk, and that the rest of them were still sound asleep. Sighing with relief, Newt thumbed at the ID card he had swiped from the guards escorting them earlier, fingers sliding across the laminated surface, and tucked it into his pocket.

He would need it for where he was going.

Sliding out the room, he closed the door silently behind him, and was left facing the hallway before him.

The hallways of the complex were dark, oppressive. The walls were nothing but towering masses pressing in on either side, the ceiling a slate of black that stretched as far as his eyes could process in the limited light that shone from the dying torch in his hand. He had nicked it from a supply crate earlier, buried it under his pillow until he needed it.

As he moved further and further into the heart of WICKED's complex, he started turning it on and off every few seconds, every shuffle of sound bouncing off the hallway symbolising the possible threat of being caught.

As he reached the entrance to the console room, Newt paused and stared at the light shining from underneath the door, frowning in confusion. The facility was locked up hours ago, and theoretically everyone should have been in bed by now.

"I'm not sure it's wise to continue these trials." A familiar voice met his ears from inside the room.

When he slowly moved his head around the edge of the steel, Newt recognised her as one of the doctors who did weekly tests on them. She was frowning, dark skin shadowy in the limited light coming from the multiple screens in front of her. They were filled with charts and numbers, many of which Newt couldn't understand, and one of the screens, separated into six sections, showed diagrams of the human brain, pulsating and emitting a series of data, heart rate underneath them.

All were blue except for two, whose diagrams were still and red, a flatline beneath them.

Another voice responded before Newt could process what it meant.

"We've come too far to stop now, Crawford." Newt immediately recognised her sleek blonde ponytail and white lab coat. "We're looking at progress, real progress. You said it yourself, the brain activity we are seeing–"

"Is inhumane and cruel," Dr Crawford interrupted. She pointed at the data surrounding one of the diagrams on the screen. "The fear levels are intense, the stress levels even higher. We already lost two, I shudder to think how many we'll lose before we start to see results promising enough to even hint at a cure."

Ava Page frowned, the wrinkles on her face appearing more pronounced in the harsh blue light of the monitors. "We can't turn back now." She paused for a moment before turning back to Crawford, and Newt was forced to quickly duck behind the door before he could be spotted, pressing his ear against the wall instead. "I want you to prepare the others. Four more, to be sent up next week. I want them tested daily, and I want them to be prepped for the swipe."

Crawford pursed her lips, but nodded. "I'll make it as painless as possible for them."

"Good. Oh, and Crawford? See to it that the list of coordinates is disposed of as fast as possible, by tomorrow latest. I don't want The Right Arm to become more of a complication than they already are."

"Understood, ma'am." Crawford sent a fleeting glance at the far right monitor before swiftly moving towards the door.

Newt shrank back into the darkness as much as possible, holding his breath, and only released it when he saw Ava Page stride out of the room, turning the corner before heading out of sight.

He waited a beat, and when there was no sign of further movement, scurried into the control centre, making a mad dash for the far right monitor. His gaze caught on the monitors featuring the brain diagrams, the two inactive ones stark and vicious, and he watched the numbers and data stream across the screen in a dizzying blur of letters and numbers.

Brain activity, Crawford had said. They were studying brain activity.

That's why his friends were being thrown into the maze, why they were forced through trials and tribulations so horrific and inhumane it was a wonder that mankind could inflict such suffering, acting like a God lording over his subjects.

Anger coursed through him, boiling his blood. This whole time they had been lied to, promised safety and love, companions in a world that had turned so lonely overnight, when in reality they were nothing more than lab rats tortured to entertain and amuse.

Resolve strengthened, Newt grabbed the notepad and pen laying on the table next to him and, flipping through pages upon pages of names and percentages, hastily copied the coordinates on the monitor that Ava Page insisted needed to be deleted. The coordinates of every single WICKED compound and lab, so much power, so much pain, captured in a few strokes of the pen.

When he was done, Newt stood there, staring down at the list, before ripping the page from the notepad and jamming it into his pocket.

He knew immediately what he had to do. The Right Arm, Dr Page had said, causing trouble for WICKED. Surely if anyone could dismantle the organisation it would be them.

With that in mind, Newt glanced up at the monitors in front of him, watching the haze of words and images flash across the screen, and smiled.

Chapter Text

Day Twenty-Nine

It was nearing sunset, the sky a darker shade of blue than usual that cast shadows across the glade and heightened the darkness lurking in the corners. Ada watched the areas of black, letting her eyes drift across the shadows, watching them dance and move, twisting and turning, a mirror into her brain projected onto the home they had been forced to forge.

The campfire in front of her only served to amplify those shadows, the brilliant flickers of orange and red sending spasms of light into the air. They danced across her pale face, ran through her copper hair, highlighting the golden flecks in her eyes before popping into nothingness and beginning anew.

The sound of gentle chatter filled her ears, and she could hear Avin's giggles and George's low-bellied laughs in between his bites of food.

Ada glanced down at her own bowl, George's honest attempt at cooking something at least half substantial. She felt a tear slide down her cheek, and watched it drip onto the dewy grass at her feet.

It had been a week since Carson had died.

A week since they had buried his body right next to Luke's plot, matching graves side by side. It hadn't felt right to not do something to remember him, so the campfire was Avin's suggestion, one last remembrance before moving on.

'It's not healthy to dwell. We can't constantly think about them and let it scare us.' She remembered Alby saying. They had been crouched in front of the graves, one of his hands pressed against the wood that made up Carson's headstone, fingers tracing the clumsily carved words etched into the oak. 'It'll only do us harm. Best to move on.'

She didn't dare mention that it was hard to move on when they had nearly halved in number. Whereas before the sheer size of the glade and the mass of the maze beyond it seemed smaller with the six of them banded together, everything seemed to be magnified now they were down to four.

Every meal, every day working, every desperate brainstorm of ideas for escape, seemed shrunken and emptier. Like something imperative was missing.

Movement from beside her snapped Ada out of her reverie, and she reached up a shaking hand to tuck a strand of hair out of her vision and behind her ear. When she glanced up, hastily wiping at the tear on her cheek, she locked eyes with Alby. He was staring at her with a sort of morose understanding marring his strong features.

He hesitated a moment, studying her, and Ada hastily raised the spoon of stew to her lips, wincing as it scalded her tongue.

George had been determined to make the same stew as Carson had the day that he had died, adamant that it was one of the best ways he could think of to remember him. Since Ada was still very much banned from the kitchen, she had left him to his own devices, watching occasionally as he chopped vegetables and finely sliced meat.

She wouldn't mention to him that she had seen him crying when he had picked up Carson's bowl instead of his accidentally.

The stew wasn't bad either, which was the worst part. It was better than Carson's, but suddenly she longed for the vileness of his cooking again.

When she noticed that Alby hadn't stopped staring at her, her patience snapped, and she raised her eyes to his. "Can I help you with something?" She ground out through gritted teeth, placing the bowl onto the grass with more force than strictly necessary.

Alby remained silent for a moment longer before standing, his powerful body towering over hers. He extended his hand towards her. "Let's walk and talk."

Ada hesitated, eyes flickering to George and Avin, one of who was laughing and counting down from ten at a rapid rate as the other attempted to chug their bowl of stew before the counter ended. They seemed happy, content, and surely wouldn't notice if they slipped away for a while.

Ada nodded, ignoring his hand and rubbing her palms down her thighs as she stood, trying to mask the shaking in her fingers. When they had made it a safe distance from the other two, where the light from the bonfire and the fading day barely touched the thicket of trees on one side of them and the dew on the grass on the other, Alby turned his face down towards her.

"You miss them,” he said simply, and it was the most simple statement in the world.

"Don't you?"

There was a beat of silence as Alby stared ahead of them, dark eyes clouded with thought. The grass crunched beneath their feet as they made their way towards the outer walls.

"I don't know,” he said eventually. "It's difficult to miss someone, to focus on that emotion, when all you can feel is everything else."

"Everything else?"

"Fear. I feel fear." When Ada rose an eyebrow at him, Alby tucked his hands into his pockets and continued. "We've been here for over three weeks. Nearly a month. I know you've been keeping count, I see the tally of days you've drawn on the back wall."

Ada hummed as she recognised her morning tradition, taking her dagger and carving a single line into the stone on the back wall of the glade. Just shy of 30 lines engraved into rock, barely nicks in the colossal structure.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that with every passing day I'm losing hope of getting out of here."

Ada's head snapped up as she stopped in her tracks, wide eyes trained directly on Alby's face as he refused to meet her stare. "What?"

"Think about it, Ada." Alby stopped too, turning to face her. They were right next to the far wall now, Avin and George half way across the glade away from them. "You and Luke tried to escape through the maze, and Luke was killed. Carson tried to escape by climbing out, and he was killed. There are four of us left, we can't risk losing anyone else."

Ada hesitated, mouth agape, opening and closing as she fought for a response. "But- but, that- this can't just be it, we can't just be trapped! We have to have been put in here with a way out, we have to have been. Otherwise what was the point? What was the point of us being here, of losing Luke and Carson, what was the point of all of it?"

Alby lowered his gaze to his feet, expression drawn and dark. "Maybe there isn't a point. Maybe we're here for a reason, maybe it's a punishment. Maybe we did something, maybe we deserve to be here, maybe–"

"Maybe I don't want to sit and rot here for the rest of my days–"

"And maybe I don't want to die like Luke and Carson did, Ada!" Alby snapped, lifting his eyes back up to hers. "This place is dangerous, and I don't want to die not remembering who I am. I have three weeks worth of memories in my head, Luke and Carson had less than that. Luke had a day, he had lived for one day before he was butchered. I don't want that to happen to me, damnit!"

A heavy silence fell between them, and another tear fell down Ada's cheek. Alby sighed and reached forward to wipe it away, but she flinched away from him.

He sighed again. His voice was a lot softer when he spoke again. "I don't want to die not knowing who I am and with no one to remember me."

"But people would remember you, Alby. George, Avin, and I, we would remember you." Ada clenched her teeth as she reached out tentatively, patting Alby's large bicep before quickly retracting her hand. "I know you feel alone here, but you are not. Luke and Carson, they're not here anymore, but we still remember them. I think about them every day, every day, and that's never going to change."

Alby looked at Ada, staring right into her eyes as she fought for him to fight. He waited a moment more, before clenching his teeth. "What if we die trying to get out?"

"Won't it be worse if we don't try? If there is a way out, and those bastards who put us here are waiting for us to find it, don't you think it would be worth fighting for that chance to get out of this? What if there are people out there waiting for us to come back? People who love us?"

A flash of blonde flickered through her mind, but the thought evaporated before it could take shape in her head.

There was a beat of silence, stretching heavily between the two as Alby's eyes flashed with conflict, before he clenched his jaw and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right."

Alby's hand went to his waist as he pulled out the dagger he had gotten from the weapon's shack earlier that day.

"But I don't want to be here and be forgotten if things go south."

With that, Alby turned to the wall next to them, lifting the blade to the stone and pressing in roughly.

"What are you doing?" Ada asked, looking up at him with a frown.

"These bastards put me in here, they made me suffer, made me forget who I am, but they let me keep one thing. They let me keep my name." He dug the blade further into the wall, wrenching it downward. It forced a horrible grinding sound from the surface as stone chipped away, but Alby simply gritted his teeth and pushed through until a letter A was clearly visible in the stone. "And I'm gonna make sure that stays, even if I don't."

He worked in silence for minutes, chipping away at stone and wrenching the dagger through rock until he stepped back, panting, swiping a hand over his brow.

There, carved deeply into the surface of the back wall, considerably paler than the rest of the stone, was his name written in big sloppy letters.

Alby

He smiled, before turning to Ada and flipping the dagger in his hand, extending the hilt out to her. "Your turn."

She hesitated for just a moment before smiling and snatching the dagger from his hands. "You're crazy,” she laughed, lifting the tip of the blade into the stone and carving out the first letter of her name.

"Hey George, Avin, get over here!" Alby called over his shoulder, cupping one hand around his mouth, and Ada smiled as she lowered her hand and stared at her handiwork.

Just under Alby's and slightly to the right, her name sat at a slight slant, the writing slightly neater and paler than his.

Ada

Footsteps thundered over to them, and George and Avin appeared right next to them. "What, you guys think we're gonna forget our names next?" George joked, reaching out and rubbing his thumb over the letter A in Ada's name.

"Shut up and take the knife, you shank." Alby chuckled, thrusting the blade out towards George and laughing when he dodged it with a mocking gasp.

As George and Avin each carved their names into the wall, Ada watched in silence, a small smile on her face as she stared at the letters of their names permanently marked into stone.

She imagined this remaining even when they didn't, she imagined a group of kids similar to herself exploring the glade and finding their names carved onto the rock, wondering who could have made such a claim, what their lives had been like, where they were now.

Eventually, the four of them stepped back, staring at the wall in silence.

Alby    Ada    George    Avin

All in different spaces on the wall, each in different writing, each different sizes.

A permanent mark from non permanent people.

But it felt wrong, seeing their names side by side without the two people who had been with them when it all began.

Ada frowned and reached forward, taking the dagger out of Avin's hand and moving back towards the wall. She ignored Alby's question of what she was doing and lifted the dagger to the stone, face determined as she carved two more names.

Luke    Carson

Just underneath Avin's name and to the left, the two finally rejoined where they belonged.

"To make sure we don't forget what they sacrificed." Ada said eventually, handing the blade back to Alby and staring at their names, all six of them, together, side by side, as they had been when the box came up.

Avin smiled sadly to himself. "It's almost like they're still with us."

Alby smiled too, for a moment, but then a sad frown darkened his expression. "But they're not. They died for us. To get us out of here, to keep us safe." Alby turned the knife over in his hand before walking back up to the wall, raising the blade to Luke's name and halting for a moment before chipping a straight line right through the middle, crossing it out. "We can't forget that."

He quickly did the same to Carson's, and Ada stared as the difference became prominent.

Alby    Ada    George    L̶u̶k̶e̶    Avin    C̶a̶r̶s̶o̶n̶

Gone, but not forgotten. Their deaths, their sacrifices, highlighted as well as remembered.

Ada felt a sudden surge of anger, a burst of hatred for those who had put them there, for those who had sentenced them to this fresh form of torture.

"We're going to get out of here. We're going to escape. For them. And for the people out there who might be missing us, wanting us to come home." She turned to the other three, who were watching her with apprehensive expressions.

Alby's lips pursed. "We fight to get out. If we need to play their game, then that's what we're going to do."

Avin paled. "You don't mean-"

"Oh yes." Ada nodded. She turned to Alby, eyes dancing with newfound vigour. "We're going back into the maze."

—

Ada and Alby were hovering by the entrance of the maze long before the doors even opened the next morning. The sky was still a periwinkle that promised daylight within the hour, and the morning dew on the grass clung to their shoes and crunched beneath their feet as they paced before the wall.

George yawned heavily, leaning against the wall with his arms and legs crossed, head resting on the stone. "Why did you guys insist on doing this so early?"

Avin, who was sitting on the grass and leaning against George's legs, promptly let out a large snore, his head drooping down onto his shoulder. Ada scoffed and moved forward to kick him in the shin.

"Because, doofus, we need to start mapping this place out and that's going to take a long time." She shrugged, running her fingers through her hair to form some semblance of a ponytail. She secured it with the piece of cloth she had torn off one of the shirts that came up with her in the box. The ends brushed her upper back and tickled her shoulders as she hopped from one foot to the other in order to remain awake.

Alby, standing beside her, was twitching anxiously and staring intently at the closed doors.

George lifted his head, eyes flickering between the two, shoulders tense. "Look, on a real note, I really don't know if it's a good idea to go back in there."

He pushed off the wall, accidentally dislodging Avin from where he was once again sleeping against his leg, sending him falling backwards onto the damp grass with a cry of indignation.

"I mean, it's so early, what if those things that killed Luke are still out there? What if you run into one and don't make it back? I mean, call me crazy but I don't exactly think me and Avin are equipped to survive here by ourselves if you two go and get yourselves killed."

Avin nodded nervously. "He makes a good point. We don't have a whole lot of food left, and that farm system we have going isn't exactly a two man job."

Ada and Alby shared a loaded glance before looking back at the others. "We'll make it back. Promise,” Alby said, eyes flickering towards the wall with their names carved into the stone. His eyes flashed with determination. "We'll make it back."

George sighed in defeat, turning around and bending over to pick something up from the ground. He turned back to them with two small rucksacks, and Ada found that they were light and likely easy to run with when she opened hers with a questioning frown.

"It's food and water." George nodded. "Just enough to keep you going until you get back."

Ada looked at him a bit closer and saw the fear swirling inside his eyes. "George.” She smiled. "We're gonna be okay. We'll be gone for a matter of hours, we'll be back before the sky gets dark again."

"I know, but-"

"I understand why you're worried, but we're gonna be fine. We're taking as many precautions as possible and we need to do this."

"Okay. Yeah, I know, I just– look, just don't forget to stay hydrated. And don't forget to take the time to stop and rest if you get too tired. And don't forget to eat either, you need to keep your energy up. And–”

Alby rolled his eyes and Ada let out a barking laugh, smiling as she swung her rucksack onto her shoulders. "Yes, mom."

George frowned and opened his mouth to argue, but before he could a horrible sound split their ears, a deafening crunching and grinding of stone against stone as the doors forcibly pulled themselves apart, the movement shaking the ground at the their feet and sending a strong gust of stale air thundering through the entrance.

It lifted the hair at her back, her ponytail whipping behind her, and made the hairs on her arms stand on end as the first corridor to the maze was revealed, dark and threatening, like a gaping mouth eagerly awaiting the sweetness of their demise.

Alby stood up straighter, tilting his chin upwards and facing the entrance to the maze as if he were facing a firing squad instead of a deserted corridor. "Okay, you ready?"

Ada nodded, bouncing anxiously on the balls of her feet. "Yeah. Let's do this."

With one last glance back at the glade and the two boys hovering anxiously at its exit, they headed into the maze.

—

Ada's feet pounded against the concrete, a steady rhythm that pulsed through her blood and echoed in every nerve ending.

The walls were nothing more than grey blurs with splashes of green as her and Alby made another left turn, then a right, then left again, left, right, left, right. She paused momentarily to grasp at the pencil and paper they had brought with them, mapping out the twists and turns that she and Alby had taken since their departure from the glade.

Alby skidded to a stop beside her, panting slightly, clothes sticking to sweat-slicked skin as he reached into his bag and withdrew his water. He took a long gulp, a trickle of water sliding down his chin.

Ada chuckled as she leant against the wall, stretching out her right leg. "Easy, champ, or you'll run out before we get back."

Alby lowered his bottle, glaring at her good-naturedly. "Speaking of, we should probably be heading back soon."

Ada looked down at her map, tracing the long line she had made across the page with her finger, mapping the sharp twists and turns that it made. They had gone the opposite direction of what they had when they last ran the maze searching for Luke, but it was hard to keep track with the maze changing every night.

She grabbed the pencil and scribbled Day 30 on the top of the page, and then turned the map upside down so they could follow the route back to the glade without getting lost.

"How long have we been running for?" She asked, reaching into her own bag to remove the sandwich George had made them.

She smiled when she saw that it was cut perfectly down the middle, as if George had taken great care in making sure each side was even. She knew that he felt powerless and that this was his own way of showing effort, and it warmed her heart instantly.

"Around five hours. I reckon it's about midday now. If we head back in about ten minutes we'll be able to make it back before the doors close,” Alby said mildly.

Ada nodded and tucked into her food, relishing the taste of cheese and chopped tomato from the vegetable patch that George and Avin attended to each day. She stared idly up at the maze walls, mapping the colossal towers of stone and ivy with her mind.

"So, how exactly are we planning on keeping track of what's what if the maze changes every day?"

Alby shrugged. "I figured maybe there's a pattern to it. Surely it's not just random movements each night. With machinery this size there has to be a pattern." He reached for the paper, tapping the date at the top. "Every day we'll come in here, map a route that's similar to the one we did the day before, and see how big the change is. Over time we might see a pattern."

"That's gonna take a long time,” Ada huffed.

Alby's face tightened in a painful grimace. "Yeah, well, time is the one thing we aren't exactly short of."

Ada nodded ruefully and turned her face to the side when her eyes caught on something in the distance. The corridor they were in opened up to a sort of wider section, with a gigantic wall stretching slightly higher than the others right in the middle.

What had attracted her attention was the large red 4 sprayed onto the wall in chipped spray paint.

"Alby." She kicked his foot, standing quickly and jerking her head towards the number. "Look." It was easily as large as her body, clearly significant. Meant to be seen.

But what did it mean?

"Four?" Alby echoed, brow furrowed. "Did any of the other walls have numbers on them?"

"No." Ada shook her head. The walls they had passed earlier were nothing more than blurs of grey and green. "We would have seen a giant red number if we'd passed one. Kind of hard to miss."

"What do you think it means?"

"No idea." She shrugged. "Pass me that." Taking the paper off Alby, she scribbled the number 4 at the end of the line that marked their route. "So this route leads to number four. Good to know. Do you think other areas of the maze have different numbers or something?"

"Possibly." Alby frowned. "I guess it makes sense... sort of."

A phantom wind blew through the maze, lifting the hairs on her arms and sending goosebumps spiralling across her flesh. She looked up at the sky, a pale blue that symbolised the colour was at its lightest and would only grow darker. "We should head back. Tell George and Avin what we found."

Alby nodded, and Ada spared one last calculating look at the strange number before turning her back to the wall, sprinting back in the direction that they came.

—

The glade was in chaos.

There truly was no other word for it.

Before they had even reached the exit to the maze, the sound of a blaring siren pierced their ears. It was deafening, the sound stretching the length of the glade and rattling off the walls that encircled it.

George and Avin were hovering anxiously in the centre, hands clamped over their ears, mouths moving frantically as they argued.

Ada couldn't make out what they were saying over the racket.

"What the hell?" Alby asked aimlessly, breaking into a sprint as he made his way over to the other two.

Ada hastened to catch up with him. "What's going on?"

"No idea!" George yelled over the noise. He removed one hand from his ears and gestured to the hole where the box had transported them to their hell. "This red light just started flashing and the siren went off! Hasn't shut up for about twenty minutes now!"

"We didn't know whether to come find you or what, but the doors are locked!"

Ada, brow furrowed, moved towards the box hole and grabbed at the handles in the centre. They had been opened many times in the last month to reveal the box, taking the supplies one by one from inside, but never before had the doors been locked. She tugged aimlessly at the handles, face washed in the red light of the flashing bulb next to the doors.

"He's right, they won't open."

"What the hell? Have they ever done that before?"

"If they'd done this before we wouldn't be panicking this much!" George rolled his eyes, clamping one hand on Avin's shoulder and using the other to gesture at the light, his pale face screwed up with discomfort.

"Okay, okay." Ada straightened, raising her hands in surrender. "Let's all calm down. I mean surely there's a reason this is happening, we just need to figure out–"

The siren abruptly cut off, and a silence more deafening than the alarm descended over the glade, as if someone had smothered the sound with a blanket and drowned out any sign of life. Ada's bones rattled with the force of it.

"Okay I'm seriously starting to freak out now," Avin whispered, the sound breaking the silence like a bullet through glass.

There was a moment of hesitation before Ada reached down to pat his head, withdrawing her hand quickly. "It'll be fine, I'm sure everything is fine. They clearly wanted our attention for something, and now that the doors to the box are locked–"

"They're not locked."

Ada turned around, a frown on her face, only to see Alby leaning over the doors, wiggling one of the handles.

"They're unlocked. Same as usual."

"What? That's not possible, I literally just checked." Ada left Avin's side to join Alby, reaching down to wiggle the handle the same way he had. Whereas before it was unmovable, now the handle gave free to the pressure of her grip easily. "How–"

"Open it," George said, and three pairs of eyes landed on him. "Whoever put us here clearly did something with the box. The siren, locking the doors, unlocking them when the siren went off," he listed, "clearly something's changed with it."

Ada and Alby locked eyes, and there was a moment of brief hesitation before she nodded jerkily, tightening her grip on the handle. Alby did the same, and the doors gave way, opening as usual as if nothing had changed.

"What the–"

Whereas before the box was empty, void of anything for the past month, now boxes and crates lined the sides of it, stacked on top of one another, mirroring the ones that had initially come up with them when they first arrived.

But there, huddled together in the middle of the box, hands raised to shield their eyes from the harsh glare of fresh light, were four teenage boys.

George staggered backwards, face pale, and Alby abruptly dropped the door he was holding open. It clattered to the stone with a sickening crunch, but Ada couldn't focus on anything other than the four pairs of terrified eyes flickering between her and the gladers.

"Who the hell are you guys?" One of the boys asked, his voice shaking with fear.

Ada and Alby shared a heavy glance before the latter crouched down in front of the box, extending a hand to the nearest kid.

"Hey there newbies. Welcome to the glade."

Chapter Text

Newt winced as Thomas grabbed him by the sleeve, yanking him into the corner of the dining hall.

It was always the same room they dined in at the facility, three times a day. White walls, stone ceilings, basic steel tables nailed to the floor, six of them in two rows of three, long wooden benches on either side for them to eat at.

He'd heard rumours that there were other rooms like this, identical ones for the other children to eat in. There were hundreds of kids that had been snatched ('rescued', as WICKED claimed), but Newt knew the truth.

What he didn't know was why they had all been separated into groups of 70. That's how many people dined in the mess hall, as the canteen had been dubbed. He had counted them all miserably in his first few days of arriving. But they were down by 10 now, four more children having disappeared in the middle of the night without a trace. No one knew what had happened to them.

Newt had a pretty good idea.

"What the hell did you do?" Thomas ground out, voice low to avoid attracting the attention of the guards that lined the walls.

Personally, Newt thought that the guns were unnecessary, but each soldier carried them. Masked, stoic, and armed. For their 'protection.'

Doubtful.

Thomas shook Newt's arm again, leaning closer to his face. "I'm serious, Newt, what the hell did you do?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Thomas huffed out an angry breath before glancing quickly around the room. "I heard Crawford reporting something about classified information being stolen-"

"Of course you know that." Newt rolled his eyes. "What with you being WICKED's little saint and all."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It means that ten of our friends have been taken away and are actively being tortured, and you're on their side." Newt hissed.

Thomas reeled back as if he'd been slapped. "Newt, you know damn well if there was anything I could do–"

"There is now." Newt leant forward, grasping at Thomas' hand where it was clenched on his shoulder, eyes alight with feverish excitement. "The Right Arm, I've heard rumours that they're in the mountains and that–"

"Are you insane?" Thomas spat. "The Right Arm betrayed us, they went against everything we stand for–"

"You stand for," Newt interrupted, face drawn tight with anger. "WICKED stand for. I don't. I want out of this mess, and I want to stop any more of our friends from being slaughtered like animals for the sake of science."

Thomas leaned back, screwing his eyes shut and pinching the bridge of his nose. Newt bristled. "Listen, Newt, the rest of the world–"

"What world, Tommy? Huh? What world? You've seen out there, do you really think that's fixable?"

"We have to try–"

"I'm done trying." Newt dropped Thomas' hand, face flushing with anger. "I'm doing this. I don't have a choice."

Thomas pursed his lips, disapproval written over every inch of his face. Desperate, Newt reached forward again, both hands resting on Thomas's shoulders.

"Look, I'm not an idiot. I know I need your help if I'm going to pull this off. I know you don't really approve of what WICKED are doing, I know this is killing you as much as it's killing me. So help me, Tommy. Help me." Upon seeing Thomas's blank expression, Newt leant forward again, until they were practically nose to nose. "Please Tommy, please."

There was a beat of silence, before Thomas closed his eyes. Reaching up, he grabbed Newt's hands and slowly lowered them from his shoulders. "I can't."

Newt's face shuttered, hands spasming in Thomas's grip before he pulled away slowly, any ounce of emotion and compassion dimming from his eyes. "Then stay the hell out of my way."

"Newt–"

Newt shouldered past him, heading towards the doors, any appetite he had completely lost.

"Newt, they'll find out it was you."

"So what?" He countered, eyes flashing. "Let them. By then it'll be too late. WICKED will finally get what's coming to them."

Thomas' arm reached out as if he were going to stop him, but it faltered in mid-air and dropped heavily to his side again. "Newt... Damnit, Newt, this isn't going to bring her back! It isn't going to save her–"

Newt turned on his heel and jabbed a finger into Thomas' chest, anger blazing in his eyes. The guards at the main doors started towards them, but Thomas held up a hand to halt them, desperate eyes clashing with Newt's. "Don't you dare mention her. Not when it was you who helped put her up there in the first place."

"Newt, I didn't know, you know I didn't–"

"I'm going to stop them, and I'm going to get her out of there. And damnit to hell, Tommy, I will die trying if I have to."

"Please don't be stupid, Newt, it's too late to–"

"Listen, Tommy, I need to do this. You know that, I know that, so you can cut the crap and you either help me, or you get the hell out of my way."

With that, Newt turned on his heel and stormed from the canteen, so blinded by his anger that he didn't see the pair of bright blue eyes following him out, having heard every word of his conversation.

Chapter Text

Day Thirty

"Where the hell are we?"

"And why are we here?"

"And who are you guys?"

"Are those walls?"

"Why don't I know who I am, oh my god-"

"Did nobody hear me when I asked about those giant ass walls?!"

"Can one of you guys please just answer me?!"

"Walls!"

Ada groaned and shoved her head further into her hands, fingers clamped in her ears. Alby, sat beside her on the wooden log in front of the fire, let out a heaving sigh before tilting his head back to stare up at the dark sky, as if begging a God that wasn't there for mercy.

"If these shanks don't shut the hell up," Ada muttered, "I'm going to trap them in the maze overnight."

Alby barked out a grudging laugh. "I know they're curious, but good lord they just don’t stop talking."

"They've been asking questions for three goddamn hours now."

Ada cast her eyes over to the other side of the campfire, where a wide-eyed George was holding his hands up in surrender as one of the newbies paced in front of him, mouth moving a mile a minute and hands gesturing at the walls frantically. Her eyes fell on Avin, sat beside George, staring down at the grass in front of him and looking traumatised as the remaining three boys surrounded him.

"Look at Avin." Ada chuckled, jerking her head towards where the poor boy was being hounded with questions. "Poor sod looks like he's having war flashbacks."

"Yikes." Alby winced. "Wouldn't want to be in his place right now."

Avin, as if sensing them talking about him, lifted his eyes from the ground and shot them a pleading look. Help me, he mouthed, and Ada made quick work of pretending as if she hadn't seen.

This grass is a nice shade of green.

Alby elbowed her in the ribs, jerking his head rapidly at something. "Oh no oh no oh no." One of the newbies was walking towards them, grey eyes fixed determinedly on her.

"Shit." Ada tensed up. "Abort mission, abort mission–"

Before they could scramble to their feet and make a hasty getaway, the newbie stopped in front of them. Cropped brown hair was buzzed close to his scalp, and his stormy eyes were cold and unfeeling. His jaw, too sharp and angular for his face, was clenched.

"You," he demanded, stopping in front of Ada. She blinked up at him. "Why are you the only girl here?"

Alby tensed beside her, frowning, before Ada let out a laugh. "Well aren't you a real charmer. You got your name back yet, newbie?"

"Nick,” he said shortly.

"Right, Nick." Ada shuffled her boot in the grass and rose an eyebrow at him. "I'd say it was a pleasure to meet you, but considering the greeting I just got, that would be a lie."

"You don't need to be a bitch just because I'm actually demanding answers out of you. It's a bit suspicious, don't you think? Group full of boys and one girl? How the hell do I know that you weren't one of the people who wiped our memories and put us here? Maybe you're here as a spy?"

"Mainly because if that was the case I'd be safely on the other end of those cameras, decidedly less traumatised, and not here having this delightful conversation with you."

Nick's face reddened with anger, but before he could say anything else Alby was on his feet, crossing his massive arms over his chest. "Listen here, shank, we can't answer questions we don't know the answers to ourselves. I'm pretty sure George gave you the rundown earlier, that's it. No more questions."

"Like hell there's no more questions!"

Nick's yelling had drawn the attention of the other boys, who had now fallen silent and were watching with tense attention. A beetle blade that was scuttling across the grass paused, red eyes fixed on them.

"You will answer me, goddamnit, and you will do it now!"

Ada's lips quirked up into a dry half smile as she glanced at Alby, who looked far more amused than he did frightened. Tired of sitting, she got to her feet, staring Nick right in the eyes despite the height difference as he puffed out his heaving chest, a vein bulging in his neck.

"I don't know who the hell you think you are, but you don't demand answers like that around here,” she explained calmly, eyes frosted with blatant dislike. "We have explained everything we know. We have told you what you can and cannot do. It's actually very simple really, I don't get why it's so hard to grasp." Ada pointed suddenly at one of the newbies and clicked her fingers. "You, what are the only two rules we have given you?"

"Uh–" The boy, blonde and somewhat chubby, looked startled at being called out so suddenly. "Don't go into the maze, and do your part."

"See? He gets it."

"Well I don't," Nick spat. "Who the hell are you to give us orders?"

Alby rolled his eyes. "We're the shanks who've been here long enough to know that going into the maze unless you're told is a bad idea, and that this system we have going on here won't work unless everyone is fighting to keep it stable."

"What system, exactly?" Another newbie asked.

Avin perked up, pointing to the Homestead in the corner. "Well, Carson and I fixed up that building real good when we first got here, and George and I are working on a farming system so we'll have a sustainable food source."

"Whose Carson?" Asked the chubby blonde, right as Nick turned back to Ada and Alby with a judgemental brow raised.

"And what exactly is your job?" He asked.

"We run the maze." Ada shrugged, as if she hadn't just told him never to go into that blasted place.

"I'm sorry, didn't you just tell us to not go in there?"

"Yes." She nodded simply. "I told you not to go in there. Me and Alby? We're strong runners, we know the schedule to keep to avoid getting trapped overnight, and we're starting to get familiar with aspects of the layout. Hence the fact that we go into the maze. You don't."

Upon seeing Nick's angered expression, George moved around the fire to Ada's other side, knowing better than to place a hand on her shoulder but still offering his support.

"Listen, dude, me and Avin don't go into that shucking place for a reason. That shit's dangerous. You should have seen what it did to our friend when we first got here." Upon remembering Luke's mangled corpse strung up in the ivy, George winced. "Actually, forget that, be glad you didn't see it. Traumatising."

Ada rolled her eyes, but couldn't argue. "The point is, the maze isn't a game. You don't go in unless you're sure you can get back out." She fixed her eyes on Nick. "Do you think you'd be able to get back out?"

Nick kicked the ground like a chastised child before he reluctantly grumbled a "no."

"Didn't think so."

Alby huffed out a laugh before staring up at the sky. "Alright, it's getting pretty dark. Before we go to bed, there's one last thing you shanks need to do."

Ada reached to her belt and withdrew her dagger, handing it to him.

"Everyone got their names back? Alrighty then, let's go add you shanks to the roster."

—

"So, this your pet lizard?"

"Mhm. His name is Micheal. He's a beetle blade." Ada nodded as she shovelled a spoonful of porridge into her mouth. She hummed happily as the hunger that had been churning in her stomach all morning finally dissipated.

Avin let out a laugh. "You named it Micheal?"

"He was following me around, what was I gonna do, not name him? He's pretty cute when he's not flashing his fangs at me and staring into my soul." She shrugged.

"Wait, hang on, these things are called beetle blades?" James, the chubby blonde boy who looked to be around fifteen, squinted suspiciously at the mechanical lizard that was sitting next to them on the table. It sat basically motionless, only occasionally flicking its tail as it perched on the table beside their bowls of porridge.

"Yep. They are named aptly, so do not touch-" she swatted at James' outstretched hand with her wooden spoon, "because those little buggers have teeth that are sharp."

"Speaking from experience?" A darker haired boy, sat next to James, asked. Charles or something, if she remembered correctly.

Ada blinked, and the image of Carson screaming in pain as blades tore into his skin etched itself behind her eyeballs once more. "Something like that, yeah."

Alby plonked down on the bench beside her, a slice of bacon stuffed into his mouth. "Hey, what's up with that new guy?" He asked, the question garbled through the food.

Making a face at him, Ada swiped a piece of bacon off his plate, sending him a cheeky grin when he lunged to get it back.

Alby had mellowed out a lot when it came to her, George, and Avin. After a month together, any animosity or tension between them had all but evaporated, and he was all smiles and teasing. It was rather hilarious, though, to see him revert back to that initial state of anger and bad attitude when addressing the new gladers.

"Nick?" James asked, and the four turned to stare at the table across from them, where Nick sat by himself with his back turned to them, shoulders visibly tense and bowl of porridge shoved away from him. "Lord knows. Dodgy bugger. Wouldn't stop yapping about how it ain't fair to be taking orders from a little girl."

Ada let out a noise of indignation, dropping her spoon back into her porridge in outrage. "Little girl? Little?! I'm of average height! What the hell, dude?"

George, who had snuck up behind her without her noticing, let out a loud laugh and shook his head. "Right, and we're all giants."

"Avin's shorter than me!"

Avin, sat on the table at the edge with his legs swinging beneath him, shot her an unimpressed look. "I'm twelve... I think."

"Point is, your height ain't that impressive, sunshine." George grinned, squeezing himself between her and Alby and grinning when the latter huffed and dramatically moved over. "It's fine though, that attitude of yours more than makes up for it."

"Attitude?" Ada asked incredulously. "I'll show you an attitude, you little piece of–"

Wielding her spoon like a weapon, Ada thwacked the hard edge of it against George's arm and grinned when he let out a dramatic yowl of pain. She did it again, laughing as he screwed his eyes shut with pretend agony.

"She's killing me, she's killing me!" He sank off the bench and to his knees, falling over in the dirt whilst groaning loudly, clutching his arm. "I'll never recover! Oh, the spoon of death–"

"Don't be so dramat–eek!" Ada shrieked as something hard slapped her arm, and she turned to see Avin holding up his own spoon with a mischievous smile. "Oh, I see how it is." She got to her feet, a smile stretching over her lips, before widening her stance and raising her wooden spoon in front of her. "You wanna go, pipsqueak?"

Avin blinked, looked at her spoon, then looked back down at his own, before throwing it at her and scrambling away.

Before she could make the move to chase him, someone tugged the back of her shirt away from her body, and she let out a startled shriek as something slimy and cold dribbled down her back.

She whirled around only to see George, leaning against the table and spinning his spoon in his hand, holding up a now half empty bowl of porridge with a cocky grin that made his eyes shine.

"Oh you did not!"

Ada grabbed a handful of her own porridge, the sludge dripping down between her fingers, before hurling it at him, catching him on the side of his face. Startled brown eyes blinked at her, and Ada snickered when a glob of porridge dripped down from his hair onto his shoulder.

"You want war? I'll give you war!" He lunged round the table, bowl of porridge aloft, a gleeful smile on his face as Ada shrieked and ducked behind a laughing James, who was quick to receive a spoonful to the face.

Ada laughed out a half-hearted 'sorry!' before she herself was subjected to yet more food thrown on her.

The beetle blade on the table, half covered in porridge itself, made a mechanical noise that almost sounded like a huff of laughter as if scuttled from one end of the table to the other, beady eyes flickering between the teenagers.

"Hey Ada, catch this!" Charles exclaimed before he grabbed a large fistful of porridge and hurled it at her full force.

Eyes wide, she ducked at the last second, and a hushed silence fell across the group when a furious yell came from the table behind them.

Ada froze and slowly rose to her feet, cheeks flushed. "... Nick got hit, didn't he?"

"Oh yeah." Alby nodded.

"He's pissed, isn't he?"

"Positively furious," George chimed in.

"That was my fault, wasn't it?"

"Mostly, yes," Avin confirmed.

Turning around, Ada tried her best to bite back the grin that threatened to emerge when she saw Nick, still facing away from them, porridge dripping from his hair and down the back of his shirt. There was silence for a moment as Nick slowly turned his head to glare at her, eyes flashing with pure hatred.

A glob of porridge dripped off his nose, and Ada had to bite down on her first to stop the snicker threatening to burst loose.

"... oops?"

Nick opened his mouth to respond, took a deep breath, and then closed it again. Before any one could so much as move, he was storming his way over to the shower cubicles, slamming the door behind him.

There was a moment of silence, before Ada finally snickered, a sound which gave way to a full blown laugh. George was soon to follow, and then Alby, then James, then six teenagers were slumped against the tables and chairs, clutching their stomachs through peals of laughter.

The door to the kitchen swung open, and Connor, one of the newbies who was whistling under his breath, froze in his tracks.

"What the hell did I miss?"

"Oh, nothing much. Just a casual civil war over breakfast, the great forging of enemies in this foreign landscape." Ada grinned, plonking herself down onto the bench again and kicking at George's leg when he leant against the table beside her.

Connor paused, bowl of porridge in one hand, before simply shaking his head. "As you do. But I hope you realise someone has to clean all this up right?"

When they glanced around, porridge was dripping off the tables and benches, and was splattered over the grass in clumps. There was a heavy pause before Ada quickly got to her feet.

"Ya know what? I just remembered, I got a thing–"

"We're trapped in a maze, Ada."

"Exactly!" She clicked her fingers and began backing away towards the homestead. "I gotta go run the maze, focus on that whole escaping thing we got going on, so... toodles!"

George nodded and gestured to her. "Yeah, and I, uh, I have to go and fix that thing on the farm, so..."

"Thing on the farm?" Alby rose an eyebrow sceptically.

"Yeah, ya know... the issue with the plants and the soil and the... farm."

"Very convincing," Ada snorted.

"Hush, you." George pointed at Avin and grinned. "But hey, I'm sure our young Avin here would be happy to help out."

Alby looked at Avin, and the young boy raised his hands in surrender. "Not it."

Charles, Connor, and James echoed the statement, and Alby cursed loudly and threw his spoon onto the table. "Seriously? I cooked this morning! You really gonna make me clean up too?"

"Gotta go!" Ada shot him one last grin before she and George sprinted away back to the Homestead, their laughter echoing through the glade.

Charles turned to Alby and sighed. "I'll cook tomorrow morning."

"Well," Alby sighed, "here's hoping you're a better cook than Ada is. Nearly a month later and I'm still barely recovered."

—

The weeks passed, day by day crawling by in much the same fashion, inch after inch until it had been three weeks and four days since the newbies had come up. Three weeks and four days of sleeping, eating, running, and running again – never stopping, never resting, every thunder of her feet against stone a step closer to mapping the maze, to getting out.

Night had fallen, the Glade descended into blackness, only the glow from the flickering torches and the ever present stars keeping the dark from swallowing them whole.

Ada thumbed at the material of her cargos, fingers drumming a steady two beat rhythm against her thigh, following the constant thudding of her heart. The wood from the platform on top of the watch tower dug uncomfortably into her shoulder blades where she lay at the top, legs dangling over the edge.

Avin and James had built it on a whim a week back, a towering structure of wood and vine that stood proud over the glade, providing an expansive view of the forest and the homestead. But she couldn't see over the walls.

Neither of them had wanted to chance what happened to Carson happening to any of them either, and building that high was all but impossible.

Ada settled herself further against the wood, flat on her back, copper hair fanning out beneath her, and fixed her eyes above her to the stars.

"Hey there gorgeous." A familiar voice came from somewhere to her right, and when she turned her head she saw George's face poking over the edge of the hatch, dimpled cheeks stretched wide with a grin. "Mind if I join you?"

"I hope you know you're intruding on my nightly brooding session," Ada said, returning her eyes to the stars. They winked at her enticingly, just out of reach. "You owe me for this."

"I promise I'll give you my ration of bacon tomorrow morning," George snorted, awkwardly lying down beside her and stretching out his gangly limbs. His legs hung off the edge just like hers, swinging a pattern that had his heels thudding against the oak every few seconds.

"You drive a hard bargain, I'm intrigued."

"What has you up at this hour?" George asked, swinging his head over to look at her. A curl of brown hair fell into his eyes, and he brushed it away with impatient fingers. "Everyone went to sleep hours ago. Pretty sure I can still hear Avin snoring from all the way up here."

"Not everyone, apparently." Ada rose her eyebrow but didn't turn her head. "Penny for your thoughts?"

"Please, my thoughts are worth far more than that," George huffed. "But I suppose could divulge, since it's you asking."

"I'm honoured, truly."

"Hmm." There was a beat of silence before George sighed and began to speak. "Guess I wanted to get you alone. Have done for weeks now."

Ada ignored the slight skip of her heart to furrow her brow. "Oh?"

"I wanted to talk to you about these new guys," George said seriously.

"Can't exactly call them new. They've been here for nearly a month now."

"Still. Why did the people who put us here send new people up?"

Ada frowned for a moment, running his question over in her mind. "I've been wondering the same thing actually."

"Right on the thirty day mark too,” he noted. "Think that means something?"

"What, that they're sending new groups of people up per month? As a sort of replacement for us or something?"

George hesitated. "Well, we have lost two people. There's only four of us left. It does make sense." He waited a beat before he cursed, running a hand through his matted brown curls. They clung to his forehead, a single strand obscuring the brownish hue of his eyes. "Those bastards. Who the hell do they think they are?"

"Surely they wouldn't just replace us though. I mean, we were put here for a reason, surely we're needed... right?"

"You'd think," George said glumly. "I just don't understand why."

Silence descended upon them again, before a thought struck her. "If they're sending up new guys, does that mean we get new people in three days?"

"Who knows. Glade's gonna start getting pretty crowded huh?"

"I think we have the room,” she said dryly.

Silence again. It was comfortable, peaceful, and Ada found herself getting lost in the stars, connecting them in her mind in a myriad of beautiful shapes and colours.

Two of them caught her eye, twinkling brighter than the rest.

"This is a weird place to perch, you know that, right?" George asked.

Ada shrugged, as well as she could while lying down. "I like being up here. Great view of the stars."

"You remember any constellations?"

Ada's eyes dimmed slightly, and George seemed to wilt next to her as well. "I feel like I used to. But I don't anymore. Guess that's another thing those bastards took from me. It's okay though. I'll relearn them all when we get out of here."

"Maybe I'll learn them with you." George smiled.

Ada was silent, her eyes fixed on the two brightest stars. "I don't remember anything about my past, obviously. But I think I remember thoughts I had. Things I used to believe in."

"Like what?"

"That when someone died you could find them in the stars." She huffed out a small laugh of disbelief. "It sounds so stupid, but every time I think of it I feel like it means something to me."

"Maybe it was something you used to think about to comfort you. Maybe you lost someone and this was your way of dealing with it," George said thoughtfully.

"I suppose that makes sense. Glad I don't remember anything now, if that's the case."

George frowned, turning to look at her. "You don't mean that, Ada."

She didn't.

"So, who were you thinking about?"

"Carson," Ada said softly, "and Luke. Thinking about if they're up there. If they're looking down on us or something."

"Wish they'd give us some help if they are. They've got a pretty good vantage point of the maze from up there."

Ada let out a laugh that surprised her, and George felt a bubble of pride grow in his chest that he was the reason for her joy. But then her smile dimmed, and that bubble popped. "Do you think it hurts? Dying?"

George hummed. "A bit like falling asleep, I reckon."

"That doesn't sound so bad."

"I'm not eager to find out."

"You're scared of dying?" Ada asked, sounding almost surprised.

"Aren't you?"

"Terrified."

George studied her face, mapping out the freckles on the gentle slope of her nose. They almost matched the stars above them. "Guess there's no point in fighting it."

"What do you mean?" Ada asked.

"Don't get me wrong, the idea of death scares me shitless. More than I care to admit. The idea of not knowing what happens, that everything just stops . . ." He cut himself off with a shudder. "But it's not like I have anything up here to live for."

Ada was silent for a moment before she whispered, "Neither do I."

"Then we live for each other." He said it as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

Perhaps it was.

"It's as good a reason as any." Ada nodded. "And when we get out of here, it will have all been worth it."

"Speaking of getting out of here, mind if I tag along on your trip into the maze tomorrow?"

Her head swivelled towards him only to find him already watching her, intense gaze fixed on her face. "Oh? And here I thought you didn't like running. What's with the change of heart?"

"Just... tired of being cooped up here I guess. There's only so many carrots I can pull up before I start to go insane."

"They're good carrots though."

"They're carrots, Ada, lets not kid ourselves."

Ada huffed out a soft laugh. "Sure, George, you can tag long, give Alby a day off. Just don't slow me down, okay?"

"I will try my very best."

—

"I knew you'd slow me down."

"In my defence, I didn't realise just how much running was actually involved here," George puffed, hands on his knees.

"It's literally in the job title."

True to his word, George had joined her in the maze the very next day. They had gone in the opposite direction than she and Alby had the day before, and the walls here seemed taller somehow, the ivy sparser but no less terrifying.

She swiped at the bead of sweat slipping down her collarbone.

George, slowing to a stop beside her, wheezed as he placed a hand against the wall to steady himself. "I am seriously regretting my decision right about now." Righting himself once more, he took a long drag from the water bottle.

Ada hummed in acknowledgement, louring as she stared back behind her in the direction of the glade. They couldn't see it now, so far lost in the labyrinth of stone and ivy that any sound but their own laboured breathing and the staccato of their hearts hammering in their ears was blocked out entirely.

"Maybe pulling up carrots all day every day isn't such a bad way to live after all. I mean–"

Something shiny and wet caught her eye on the floor.

Turning her head fully to look at study, she blocked out George and his loud complaints, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear as the shape on the ground began to form. There, stretching across the length of the corridor, was a glistening trail of slime, thready and strung thin in some places and clumpy in others.

It was a pale, almost translucent colour with a somewhat greenish hue, easy to miss if you were running and your eyes were fixed ahead of you rather than on your feet, and Ada felt a shudder roll down her body.

"What the hell is that?" She cut George off, missing the semi-annoyed look he sent her as she pointed to the trail of slime.

Upon seeing where she was pointing, George looked down and immediately let out a noise of disgust, scrunching his face in displeasure.

"Oh, gross." He gagged into his sleeve. "Please tell me we haven't been walking in this stuff the whole time and oh yeah, there it is, just crusted into the bottom of my shoe. Lovely."

Ada huffed out half a laugh as she crouched down, running a finger through the sludge and resolutely ignoring George's disgusted protests as she rubbed her fingers together. The strange substance was flaky, but still slightly sticky. It clung to her fingers when she pulled them apart.

"Okay, disgusting," George murmured. "What the hell do you think it is?"

"It looks like a slime of some sort," Ada said thoughtfully, climbing to her feet and tracking the trail to the end of the hallway, where it veered right sharply and vanished from sight. She hesitated for only a moment before nodding. "Come on."

"Wait, what? You want to follow that thing?"

She shrugged. "Yeah, why not? Most exciting thing to happen to us all day." She took off jogging down the corridor, and George let out an affronted stutter before following.

"Okay, first of all, I find it rude that you seem to think a trail of disgusting slime is more interesting than my company, but I'll let that slide and focus on that fact that, secondly, you literally just said the words 'why not' while we're exploring a deadly maze."

Ada rolled her eyes and rounded the corner, eyes zeroing in on where the trail disappeared around yet another bend. Huffing slightly, she followed it, knowing that George was behind her by the steady steam of complaints he was issuing.

"I mean, why risk saying such a thing in a lethal labyrinth such a this? It's not as if getting trapped here overnight means certain death for us or anything. Like, I don't know about you, but I've been keeping a steady eye on the sky and whatnot–”

Ada rounded another corner, then another, eyes constantly glued to the trail, too out of it to notice the sky getting darker above her and the corridors of the inner maze widening as they reached what she presumed to be the outer sections.

"–and lemme tell you, I am not loving the colour of the sky right now, and did I mention that I think we should turn back? Because I really think that we should turn back–”

Finally, at long last, the trail came to a drastic halt, and Ada was only saved from walking headfirst into a dead end when George seized the back of her shirt and yanked her backwards.

"What the hell?"

The corridor ended abruptly, the towering wall above her bare completely of ivy and at least twice the width of the other corridors they had come across. Right there, in the centre of the wall, spray painted in a crusting red that reminded her eerily of blood, was the number 7.

"Seven?" George echoed, confusion written all over his face, and Ada paused as the dots began to connect in her mind.

"Wait, 7. . . when Alby and I were running the maze we saw the number 4 painted on one of the walls. We had the idea that different areas of the maze have different numbers allocated to them."

"Huh." George frowned. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense. So what, this is the seventh section? Out of how many?"

"No idea." She shrugged. "But look, the trail isn't fully dry yet."

"So?"

"So." Ada pointed to the slimy substance and then at the way the wall abruptly cut it off, as if whatever had left the trail had simply passed through it, "The trail doesn't continue up the wall. The slime or whatever it is can't be from any earlier than last night, which means that section seven was open then, and is closed now."

Understanding broke out on George's face. "So we were right. The maze operates in sections and, what, certain sections are open and closed each night?"

"Looks like it. The question is, though, what left this trail?"

George sucked in a sharp breath from behind her, and when Ada turned to look at him his face was sheet white and his grip on the strap of his rucksack was clenched tight. "You don't think it was... whatever killed Luke, do you?"

"I don't know, but I can't see what else it could be. Good news is, there's now a wall between us and it, so we should be–"

A horrible, crunching, grinding sound shattered through Ada's words and raised the hairs on her arms, and something in her mind clicked with panic.

She knew that sound.

"It's too early for the doors to be closing, isn't it?"

But sure enough, the sound of stone grating over stone skittered across her skin, sending a shiver down her spine. But it was quieter than usual, and sounded far too close to be the doors that marked the entrance to the glade.

In fact, this sounded as if it were coming from a few corridors over, a wall sliding open or closed where it wasn't before.

Ada moved before she could think, following the sound and ignoring George as he frantically called after her. Picking up speed, she rounded a corner, then another, then another, and then –

She slammed to a halt, and George skidded into her back, only righting himself when his own eyes locked on what she was staring at.

The number 1 was what first caught her eye, a harsh splash of red against the grey that surrounded her, a jagged and almost brutal slash across the stone that set it apart from the two walls on either side of it. And it was moving, the entire wall sliding to the right and vanishing into a gap between two of the others, revealing nothing but blackness beyond it, an unknown swath of shadow that grew and grew until eventually the wall was entirely gone, and a new corridor was revealed.

"Uh– should it be doing that?" George asked, and Ada shook her head, bemused.

"Not until later, I've heard walls and stuff moving before the doors close but not until the sky is oh shit!" Ada cut herself off and stared up at the sky, eyes widening as she processed the blue that was a much darker shade than she had anticipated, and the sun well on its way across the sky. "Wait, how late is it?!"

"I don't know, Ada! You're the runner!" George exclaimed, frantically waving one hand at the sky. "Is it supposed to be that colour when we're this far out?!"

"No!"

George's face, tightly drawn with panic, lost all of its colour. "We need to run. Now."

Before she could so much as take a step, a horrible sound met her ears. A distant, almost mechanical crunching, a click, whirr, click, whirr, followed by the echoing cry of a high pitched shriek, so deadly and sudden it had her blood curdling in her veins.

"What the hell was that?!" George hissed, his voice thready with panic, and Ada's hand twitched at her side as another screech echoed across the walls. The sheer violence behind it shook the ground and vibrated in her bones.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Ada turned to face the newly opened corridor.

Something heavy shifted in the shadows.

Bulbous and so impossibly large, a vague shape emerged from the darkness.

It was easily twice the size of her in height, its width stretching across the entire width of the corridor. The blur of several deadly appendages protruded from its body, each catching a glimmer of barely there daylight as it extended and retracted them, almost as if stretching.

Each movement it made was accompanied by a sickening crunch, click, and whirr, and Ada felt faint as it let out an earth shattering shriek.

"Shit," George exhaled, every syllable taught with panic. "Run. Ada, run."

Ada felt as if her limbs were made of lead, and black dots peppered her vision.

"Fucking hell, Ada, move!" George grabbed her hand, and it was the sickeningly warm contact of flesh on flesh that jerked her out of her panic.

Turning her back on whatever creature had been unleashed on the maze, she high tailed it back the way she came, George hot on her heels and her breath catching in her throat as a mechanical screech of rage reverberated on the walls around her.

George was swearing frantically under his breath, and they skidded into walls as they skirted round corners and ran as fast as physically possible back in the direction of the glade. The closer they got, the darker the sky got, and the more painfully aware she was of the burning in her lungs and the fierce pounding of her heart in her ears.

Death was chasing them, and as the seconds ticked down on the clock Ada was more than aware of how close it was getting.

Finally, at long last, the doors came into sight, but the corridor that separated them from freedom was long, and the doors were already closing.

Six figures paced in front of the doors, and in the dark Ada could make out the tightly drawn set of Alby's shoulders and the flexing of his hands as he finally caught sight of them.

His mouth shaped words that she couldn't hear, his eyes flashing white in the dark with panic, and Ada felt like she was drowning as the doors itched closer and closer together, stone grinding, gears crunching, the panicked screams of the gladers lost to the hammering of her heart.

"No no no no no no no–"

George was crying. She could hear his sobs over his laboured breathing as their feet pounded against the floor, pushing and pushing and pushing.

But it was too late.

The doors slid closed over Alby's stricken face, Avin's teary eyes, and the green wonderland of the home they had reluctantly forged, trapping them on the other side.

Ada slammed into the stone, fingers clawing at the cracks, but darkness had descended over them, the lack of light suffocating as it swallowed them whole.

She heard George collapse onto the floor behind her, and she turned back to the maze, back pressed against the closed doors. Panic clawed at every inch of her being, her mind blind of everything but the three words that printed themselves across the backs of her eyes.

They were trapped.

Chapter Text

Cold dread crept its way down Newt's spine as he watched Thomas force his way through the crowd towards him. As furious at his friend as he still was, there was a terrified urgency in his eyes that had Newt stopping in his tracks by the fence in the courtyard.

"We have a problem." Thomas said immediately, sparing a quick glance over his shoulder before grabbing Newt by the arm and leading him over to the secluded section by the far corner.

There was a tree there, but its branches held no leaves and the bark was crusted and cracked, giving the impression that it was made of stone rather than existing as a sign of life in an otherwise desolate wasteland.

"What's going on?"

"They know." Thomas whispered, rubbing a hand over his face. "Janson knows it was you who stole the codes. He told Dr. Paige, and they're gonna come after you, Newt."

Newt felt the colour drain from his face as black dots burst behind his eyes. "You told them?"

"No!" Thomas hissed. "Newt, I swear, I would never. You know I would never. I don't know how they found out, but I swear I didn't tell anyone. Someone must have overheard us in the cafeteria, you weren't exactly quiet when you were telling me to go to hell."

"Deserved," Newt muttered, but any malice behind the words was taken out the second the gravity of what he was being told sank in.

WICKED knew.

They knew, and they were going to come after him. Would they kill him? Doubtful. They needed him, they needed all the children. That's why they were there, wasn't it? He doubted they'd kill him. He was much more useful to them alive and as a lab rat than dead, after all.

But WICKED was a vile organisation, capable of the most terrible of things. And he had gone and compromised their entire operation, put at risk their life's work. There was a chance he had ruined everything for them, and that, he knew, would not go unpunished.

"Alright." He nodded firmly, the gears in his brain churning. "Alright, listen. I need you to do something for me, Tommy. You're not gonna like it, but I trust you. I trust you to know how much this means to me, and I trust you to see it done."

"What are you talking about?" Thomas frowned.

With shaking hands, Newt reached his breast pocket and pulled out the creased paper, filled to the brim with coordinates and details of the WICKED labs and compounds.

Thomas' eyes widened. "Is that-?"

"Yes."

"Newt, no,” Thomas hissed, but Newt ignored him and pressed the paper into his hand.

"I want you to see it through."

"You know I can't do that."

Movement behind Thomas caught Newt's eye. Three WICKED guards, armed to the teeth, masks firmly in place, stood menacingly at the entrance to the courtyard, eyes scanning the crowd of teenagers. He swore under his breath and leaned closer.

"In our room, under my bed, you'll find an old radio. Play your cards right, and you'll connect with the Right Arm. I want you to give them this information. It's important, Tommy."

"Newt," Thomas began, voice wavering. "I believe in what WICKED is doing. You know I don't support this–"

"Then I trust that one day you'll learn the truth, and do what's right."

The guards had finally spotted him, and were making their way over to him, hands clenched tightly around their stun guns.

"Think of how many people this could save, Tommy. How many people have had to die already. Luke and Carson are dead, how long until more follow? How many people have to die before you realise what's happening is wrong?"

Gloved hands clamped down on his upper arms, forcing him away from Thomas. Newt's eyes bore into his, watching his friend with an intensity rare from him.

"I trust you,” he said. With that, the guards forced him towards the exit of the courtyard, and Newt complied. Resisting was futile, and those stun guns packed a punch.

The silence was all consuming as they made their way through the compound, the guards at his side a menacing presence. They came to a stop, at long last, outside the all familiar entrance to the restricted section of the compound. Beyond those doors, Newt knew, were the bowels of the building, the darkest parts where WICKED cooked up their most vile of creations, did their most gruesome of experiments.

There to greet him stood Janson, a sick smirk twisting his face into a smile. "Hello, Newt. Let's have a little talk."

Chapter Text

Night Fifty Six

All she could feel was cold.

It pressed in on her from all sides, lodging itself in her throat, choking her until she could hardly breathe. Without the light from the glade, the corridors of the maze were submerged in total darkness, and it was only when her eyes had adjusted that she could make out the ivy on the walls and George's slumped form knelt on the ground in front of her.

He was silent, but she could see the glistening of tears on his cheeks. The fact that he wasn't saying anything was what alarmed her. Loud George was expected, his laughter and ringing voice often a source of what limited happiness there was in the glade.

But a silent George? It scared her.

Silent George was unpredictable. Silent George was shut away completely from what made him himself. Silent George was lonely, scared, helpless.

"We're dead,” he said quietly, his voice thick with tears. Ada's breath hitched at his resigned tone, as if he had simply accepted death as an inevitable, inescapable. "We're dead."

Ada's fingers fluttered anxiously at her side, and she reached up to her throat to tug at the golden chain that had taken its place there ever since Luke's death. She fought down the panic clawing at her chest, and inhaled deeply.

They could survive this. They could. They just had to be smart.

"Okay... okay, no we can do this. We can do this, we just need to think it through." Ada began to pace in front of the closed doors, her body a live wire of energy that completely contrasted George's motionless figure. "We need to stay close to the doors, don't go into the outer circle, make it easier on ourselves to make it back."

Ada's eyes tracked the corridor, peering into the shadows and gulping. She couldn't see anything.

"George, c'mon, get up." She kicked his leg. "I need you to get up. We gotta find somewhere to hide."

"Hide?" George finally lifted his head, and stared at her with incredulous eyes. "Hide?! Take a look around, Ada! There's nowhere to hide."

"We just need to keep moving then. If we stay in one spot for too long we're doomed." She grabbed George by the back of his hoodie, making sure to avoid touching his skin, and yanked him to his feet. "We saw one of those weird creature things…” A shudder splintered through her at the memory of it. "We know we need to avoid section one. That's where it was last."

"And who's to say it's still there, huh?" George crossed his arms. "How the hell do we know that it isn't on its way to us right now?"

"I don't plan on waiting around to find out, you jackass, so would you just move?"

Adrenaline was beginning to spark in her veins, smoothing out the aching in her muscles and the tiredness threatening to creep in. It wrapped itself around her, warming her from the inside out.

Not waiting to see if George was following her, she took off down the main corridor at a jog.

"Fucking hell, Ada." George sighed before following her, a steady presence at her side.

The sound of stone grinding on stone was a constant echo as the maze shifted around them, corridors closing and opening in front of them as they weaved their way through the labyrinth.

The walls above them were a constant shadowy menace, their impossible height blocking out any shred of light that would have come from the stars. The moon wasn't visible, not yet, but she knew there were stars, thousands of glowing pinpricks splattered across the sky.

She couldn't see them now.

"Ada, where are we going?" George asked wearily, his voice barely more than a whisper. They were careful to keep their footfalls light so as to not draw attention from one of those monsters. Barely the glimpse of its silhouette was enough to leave Ada's knees shaking – she couldn't imagine what coming face to face with one would be like.

"Keep your eyes out for any walls that have lots of ivy on them."

"O-kay... why?"

"Because it's very hard to hide when the walls are just plain stone, that's why."

Finally, her eyes landed on the wall at the far end of the corridor they were in; the entire thing was covered in ivy, the long vines pooled at the ground beneath it in clumps. It smothered the entire surface of the wall, thick and ropey, until barely any grey could be seen.

"I don't even wanna think about what creepy crawleys could be in there." George winced.

Before she could so much as open her mouth to answer, she heard something that had her stomach dropping down to her feet. That steady click whirr, click whirr, followed by an unholy screech and the chitter of a low grumbling growl catching in something's throat.

George started shaking beside her, his entire body vibrating with sheer terror as his eyes cut to the fork to their left, where the sound was undeniably coming from.

It was getting closer.

"Oh shit," Ada hissed, grabbing George by the sleeve. When he looked down at her with fear-blown eyes, she lifted one finger to her lips, signalling for them to be quiet.

Walking on the pads of her feet so her footsteps were barely more than a whisper, she dragged George over to the ivy, frantically studying the bottom of the wall where the ivy was clumped.

"Ada..." George hissed, head twisted to look back at the corridor where yet another click whirr, click whirr was starting to echo, his face bleached of any colour and his eyes impossibly wide. "Ada, please..."

Her own hands were shaking when she pointed at the base of the wall. "There." As the ivy fell and clumped at their feet, there was an undeniable gap left between the greenery and the wall. It would be a tight fit, a very tight fit, but if they squeezed themselves against the wall and made sure that they were covered...

"Get under the ivy,” she demanded, lunging for the greenery and lifting up the ropes.

"What?"

"Fucking hell, George, hide!"

Ada scrambled under the trails, pressing her back against the wall and making herself as small as physically possible before draping the ivy over herself. It was pitch black now, she couldn't see a thing, but if she moved her head just right she could just see through a small gap to see George still standing there, feet glued to the ground.

Click, whirr. Click whirr.

"George, I swear to fucking God–"

Snapping out of it, George scrambled in beside her, until both were laying as flat as possible with their heads beside each other and their feet in opposite directions. The curls on his head pressed against her forehead, and she could hear his trembling breath rattling in her right ear.

"You're shucking crazy, Ada."

She opened her mouth to respond, but then it appeared.

At first all she could see was its legs. Six of them, long, curving, and metal — mechanical appendages that stuck out of its body and clashed against the ground with every thundering step it took. Their edges glinted wickedly in the limited light, sharp and deadly, flashing with the promise of murder.

When its body came into view, Ada found herself sinking as far back into the wall as humanly possible, her breath lodging itself in her throat.

Bulbous and misshapen, its body seemed to belong to something out of a nightmare. Something that couldn't possibly be here in front of her, real, stalking towards them. Its flesh — if it could be called that — was a rotten looking green, chunks torn out of it exposing black muscle and sludge. Its skin seemed to ripple as it moved, thin ropes of slime dripping away and splashing onto the floor below them. Thin wisps of hair protruded from its back, some longer and sharper than others, almost like spikes.

Its head, barely a boulder on its apparent shoulders, consisted of little more than a pair of flashing beady eyes, hardly slits on the sides of its skull. They were blank, milky almost, entirely hard and emotionless.

Whatever these creatures were, they weren't built for compassion. They were monsters, half beast half machine, programmed to slaughter anything it's in path. Its mouth was gaping and lined with rows upon rows of dagger-like teeth, each a horrible greyish yellow that leaked drool and mucus onto the stone at its feet.

When its tail came into view, Ada found herself feeling faint. Whatever this monster was, it looked like it was half scorpion, for its tail was easily twice the length of its body and made up of the same slimy muscle and rotted flesh, but with chunks of it replaced by machinery. Long, dagger like spikes protruded from it at uneven intervals, each deadly sharp and glinting.

But it was what was at the end of the tail that had Ada's heart hammering in her chest. It looked like a claw, like one you would find in the claw machines at arcades, a huge metal grabber easily twice the side of her head. The strength in the metal was prominent even from there; it could crush her bones to dust in a heartbeat.

It was easily thrice the size of Ada when she was standing, but when she was lying on the floor like she was, the beast seemed to be the size of the walls that surrounded them.

She knew it then without a doubt. This creature had killed Luke.

George's breathing picked up beside her, and Ada moved her hand slightly to nudge his arm, quickly retracting it. "Shhh," she whispered.

Click, whirr. Click, whirr.

The creature came closer and closer, mechanical legs precise as they stabbed at the stone with each step. Ada found herself holding her breath, convinced that even the slightest sound would catch the attention of this monstrosity. With the creature that close, the sounds it was making were so loud they rattled through her bones, and when it let out another earth-shattering shriek she felt the stone beneath her vibrating with the force of it.

It got so goddamn close all she could see were its legs, slamming down one terrifying step at a time. This close to the ivy, she could make out the slime dotting the metal, and the rusted shape of letters engraved on the creature's leg.

W.I.C.K.E.D

With another ground shaking roar of rage, the creature rounded the corner, vanishing from sight. Eventually, the click, whirr, click, whirr of its steps faded away, until only the vague sound of the walls changing and shifting around them was the only thing to be heard.

A single tear fell down Ada's cheek.

"Oh my god. Oh my god." George shifted to bury his face in his hands, shoulders shaking violently. "I'm going to throw up."

Ada grimaced. "Please don't."

There was a heavy moment of silence as Ada pressed her shaking hand to her chest, feeling the hammering of her heart beneath her fingers, just to remind herself that she was alive and breathing and oh holy shit they lived through that. They made it.

George lifted his hand and moved the ivy aside, his body shuffling as if to leave.

Ada's hand clamped down on his hood, keeping him in place. "What are you doing?" She hissed, casting her eyes back to the gap in the ivy and scanning the corridors on either side of them.

"It's gone." George shrugged. "And if you think I'm staying here for another second waiting for it to come back–"

"We don't know that it's gone," Ada argued, shaking her head. Her copper hair had mostly come undone from its knot on the back of her head, and the sweat-soaked strands tickled her cheek and the back of her neck. "What if there's more of them? We're at least hidden here."

"So we should, what, wait it out?" George scoffed. "No thank you. I ain't willing to go through that heart attack again any time soon." With that, he crawled out of his hiding place, standing upright and dusting off his hands on his thighs. "Besides, it's probably better if we keep running and–"

The monster slammed down on top of George, knocking him to the ground.

Ada screamed, but the sound was lost over the frantic shrieks of the creature and the clicking of its metallic appendages.

It had been above them the entire time. It knew they were there, and it was waiting for them, she realised with a sickening feeling.

It was hunting them.

George let out a cry of alarm and screamed in pain as the creature brought a metal limb down, the end sharp as a blade and piercing straight through George's shoulder, pinning him to the ground.

"George!"

Ada scrambled out from the ivy, hands darting to her belt where the kitchen knife and dagger were stored, but the small blades were minuscule compared to the sheer might that was the creature in front of them. George was barely visible where he was pinned beneath its bulk, his screaming form thrashing in agony as the creature let out a bellow of hunger and gnashed its needle-like teeth, lunging straight for George's throat.

Ada grabbed the hilt of her dagger and hurled it at the creature, the blade sinking into the side of its neck with a sickening squelch, distracting it long enough for Ada to reach for some of the ropes of ivy, using her kitchen knife to slice through them until eventually she was left with three thick ropes.

The creature's beady eyes, blazing with animalistic fury, locked onto her.

"Oh holy shit,” she whimpered, and the creature let out a hiss of pure rage that skittered across her skin before lifting its front legs, allowing George to drag his way free, leaving a bloody trail behind him on the stone.

The monster raised a metal appendage, as if aiming to stab her with the pointed end of it, and Ada lifted the rope and flung one end as hard as she could. The end of it wrapped around the metal leg, tangling itself in the wires and gaps available, and when she pulled with all her might the creature misbalanced enough to send it crashing into the wall, where it let out a furious shriek of anger.

Ada, not wasting a second, lunged towards where her blood and slime soaked dagger lay on the floor and grasped the blade before grabbing George under his arm, ignoring the nausea and panic rising in her when she touched him.

Trivial things like her own discomfort didn't matter now, not when the monster was righting itself and was turning to them with the promise of murder in every line of its massive body.

"Run!"

They took off running at breakneck speed, Ada's chest heaving with exertion and cold sweat sticking to her back. She could hear the furious bellows and clicking of the man-made monster, heard the responding cries from other creatures elsewhere in the maze, and all she could do was run and not look back; it disentangled itself from the ivy and began hurtling after them. She could hear its metallic legs slamming into the stone, closer and closer and closer.

George was grey, his entire face ashy, one hand clamped tightly on his shoulder to slow the steady flow of the blood that was gushing through his fingers. Ada knew with startling clarity that if they didn't stop soon and wrap it, he was going to bleed out.

She heard it before she felt it. The steady swoosh of metal cutting through air, heard the wind around her shift.

The metal claw attached to the end of the grievers tail grabbed at her, its four ends wrapping tightly around her torso. The sharp edges cut into her skin, and she let out a scream of pain as they tightened before her feet left the ground.

Her dagger clattered to the floor, and she could vaguely hear George screaming her name as she was flung backwards, and then there was nothingness, no metal claws tethering her to the earth and she was falling, crashing through the air, the oxygen trapped in her throat. She didn't even have the chance to scream.

Her body collided with the left hand wall with a sickening crack, and she felt something wet and warm dribble down her temple as the world went white for a second. She could hear clicking and whirring thundering towards her, hear the furious screech of a creature aiming to kill, and for a moment there that was it.

She was going to die.

She knew it, she could feel it. So she closed her eyes, and waited for the killing blow.

It never came.

Instead, a cry of determination and pure rage joined the fray, and when Ada peeled open her eyes she saw George, her fallen dagger in hand, sprinting towards the beast.

Before it could so much as touch her, George was leaping onto its back, dagger slashing and stabbing at anything he could reach. The monster screeched and clicked furiously, the loudness of its anger echoing across the walls and magnifying the sound until it was all she could hear.

It thrashed and bucked, its tail writhing and spinning, and Ada could do nothing but scramble to her feet as George was flung off by one of the metal limbs. Something jabbed into his side, and he let out a grunt of pain as he went skidding across the stone.

The creature, whatever it was, was so blinded by pain and fury that it could do nothing but thrash and buck, as if trying to dislodge the dagger in its side.

"What the fuck do we do?!" George yelled over the racket, and Ada's hands fluttered with panic as she cast her eyes around the corridors on either side of them, looking for any sign of movement, and kind of salvation, and–

"There!" She pointed to the left of them, where one of the walls was sliding shut. "We can lose it in there!"

Without waiting another second, George grabbed her sleeve and took off running, towards the gap that was growing smaller and smaller. The monster, seeming to catch on that its prey was escaping, let out a high pitched bellow of fury before following, its spider-like legs scuttling across the walls and propelling it forwards.

They reached the wall, and George squeezed through first, his breath coming in pained grunts. Ada scrambled to follow him, pressing herself through the narrow gap, turning on her side to fit through.

A huff of hot, stale air blasted across the back of her neck as the creature tried to follow, and then they were through, tumbling onto the floor of the deserted corridor as the wall sealed shut behind them, locking the creature on the other side.

There was a moment of silence as Ada leant against the wall, panting, one hand clutching at the stitch in her side. "We did it." She let out a breathless laugh. "Holy shit, George, we did it." Raising her head to smile at him, she froze.

George was slumped against the wall opposite her, eyes slitted and face ashen. He let out what she was sure was meant to be a relieved smile, but a pained grimace twisted his lips instead. "Heh... yeah..."

"George–" Ada scrambled over to him, eyes wide. "George — oh shit."

"I'm sure it's not argh –" he hissed out a cry of pain as Ada clamped her hand over the wound on his shoulder. "– that bad."

Ada winced at the sheer amount of blood he was losing. His shirt was wet with it, plastered to his body, once white and now a deep crimson that splashed across his torso. She couldn't actually see the wound itself, not with his shirt on, so she grabbed at the bottom of it with her hands and tugged it up.

"Take it off."

"What?"

"Your shirt, I need you to take it off," Ada demanded, sitting back on her ankles as George let out a pained chuckle and began to pull up the ruined shirt.

"Oh, Ada,” he laughed. "If you wanted to see me shirtless you should have just asked. Didn't need to trap me in a deadly maze to do it."

Ada rolled her eyes, but couldn't fight the smile tugging at her lips. "Only you could make light of this."

She helped him lift the shirt over his shoulders and then tossed it to the side, hissing out air through her teeth as the jagged slash in his shoulder became visible. It was massive, stretching from the base of his neck down to just above his right pectoral, easily three inches wide, the skin red and inflamed, blood pulsing from the wound in a steady gush.

Ada gagged, hands fluttering above his skin. Even the warmth of it from there was enough to make her queasy.

George smiled at her reassuringly. "It's okay, ya know?"

"What is?"

"I know you don't like touching people. Or people touching you. Why is that, by the way?"

Ada was silent for a moment before she shrugged. "I don't know. If there's a reason behind it, I can't remember it. I just know the feeling of someone touching me, of their skin against mine, makes me want to be sick. It makes me want to claw out of my own skin and disappear from everything. I've never felt anything worse, and I don't know why."

George let out a pained groan as he shuffled into a more upright position, hands clenched into fists. The muscles in his stomach shifted as he moved, and his hair clung to his forehead with sweat and dirt. "You don't have to... do this..."

His eyes fluttered, and Ada shoved down the nausea threatening to claw its way out of her stomach and clamped her hands down on the wound, putting as much pressure as she was capable of. She gagged, eyes flashing, and George smiled at her sadly.

"You're a good friend, Ada."

She shook her head. "No I'm not. A good friend wouldn't have gotten you trapped here like this."

"You saved my life." He shrugged, and then immediately regretted it. "Shit that hurts."

"Just be glad Avin isn't here to hear the swearing."

There was a heavy beat of silence as Ada shrugged off her jacket, wadding the fabric into a ball and pressing it tight against his shoulder.

A single tear slid down George's cheek. "Do you think we'll see them again?"

"Who?" She asked.

"Avin, and Alby. And the new shanks, I suppose, but I don't know them well enough to miss them." He smiled at her affectionately, reaching up a shaking, blood soaked hand to tug at a strand of hair that had fallen in front of her face. "You three are the only family I can remember having. Haven't really told you that before. Probably should have."

Ada felt a lump growing in her throat as tears burned her eyes. She fought them back. Seeing her cry would make George think he wasn't going to make it, and damnit he was. He had to. Because he was her family too.

"You're gonna be just fine, George. And you're gonna be able to tell them yourself. I promise you."

George's eyes fluttered. "Don't make promises you can't keep, Ada. It never ends well for anyone."

Ada hesitated a moment before reaching up and smoothing the hair out of his eyes. "Sleep, George. I'll be right here when you wake up."

George's eyes fluttered closed, his head slumping back against the wall, and Ada took the time to study his face properly for the first time since they had gotten there.

There was a light dusting of freckles splattered across his nose. They reminded her of the stars she could see from the glade. Barely there pinpricks, only noticeable if you were close. There was a tiny scar on his left cheekbone, a small slash of white against his otherwise tanned skin. She wondered how he got it. If he even knew how he got it.

The maze was almost silent now, eerily so. There was the occasional rumble of stone sliding across stone, the occasional screech somewhere off in the distance of a monster prowling for human flesh, but silence was her main companion. They seemed to have found themselves in a more isolated section of the maze.

She couldn't pretend to know where they were or where they were going, but she knew roughly in which direction they had come from. If they followed that back when the sky got a little lighter then surely they'd find their way back to the glade.

Her jacket was ruined now, blood drenched and sopping in her hands, but it was doing its job and stopping the bleeding. She rearranged it so that it was wrapped around his shoulder, covering both the gash on his front and the exit wound on his upper back. Taking his discarded shirt, Ada used her dagger to slice it into strips, gritting her teeth and using them to secure the jacket to his shoulder to apply constant pressure and stop the bleeding.

It was only when she was done and she had wiped away most of the blood on his chest that she finally allowed herself to give in to the nausea, turning to the side and throwing up the contents of her stomach, her body trembling violently. She pressed a fist against her stomach and heaved, black dots appearing in her vision. That was the longest she had stomached skin on skin contact since she had arrived in the glade.

The sky was fully dark now, pitch black, and tiredness weighed down her muscles, but she didn't dare to sleep. Didn't dare to so much as breathe too loudly through fear of alerting one of those monsters.

They may have escaped one once, but she knew damn well she didn't have it in her to do it again. And George? It was a miracle he was still breathing as it was. She knew that if they were to come across another creature he wasn't going to walk away breathing.

She lost track of the hours she sat on that floor, eyes staring at the wall in front of her, tensing at every sound, every shuffle. Every time she felt her eyes start to droop, she'd hear the mechanical screech of the monster in her mind and her eyes would snap open, all too aware that she and George were more vulnerable than had been in their entire lives, however long that was. At any moment something could come along and kill them.

There was a clump of vines hanging down from the wall, and when she arranged them just right they just about hid her and George from view if anything were to walk past. They were crouched in a dead end hallway, a small branch off what looked like a main corridor. Logically speaking there was no reason for one of those monsters to come down there.

As the hours passed, the ever present click whirr, click whirr grew both fainter and louder, and three different creatures stalked its way down the main corridor beside them at different intervals. Each time one of them passed, her heart had stopped in her chest and she had pressed herself as far back against the wall as physically possible, turning George around, pressing his body against the wall as much as she could stomach.

Only one of them had paused, and Ada's heart had plummeted as it waited just at the mouth of the corridor they were in, peering at the ivy that cloaked them, but it moved on, and all was well.

Eventually, exhaustion started to weigh in, and she collapsed back against the wall and turned her face back towards George. He was still motionless, completely out of it, but the steady rise and fall of his naked chest reassured her that he was still alive.

She let her eyes track the expanse of smooth skin for a moment, admiring the ridges of his stomach and the rich tone of his skin, before something on his side caught her eye.

There, inches above the waistband of his trousers, barely the size of the nail on her pinkie finger, was a small hole. It was as if something had injected him and taken a small chunk of skin with it, the perfectly round puncture an alarming shade of red. It wasn't bleeding, but it was clearly aggravated.

Frowning, she drew closer, lowering her head to stare at the pinprick of a wound, trying to figure out where it could have come from. Before she could get too close, however, a sleepy voice from above her made her jump.

"Come now Ada, I know I'm gorgeous but there's no need to stare."

Blushing furiously, Ada drew back, lips pressed into a thin line. George was smirking at her, but his face was pale and his eyes were pained.

"Hey, you." She dropped her stern look and smiled. "How you feeling?"

"Been better." He shuffled into a sitting position, pressing his head back against the stone and wincing. "Damned bastard really took a chunk out of me."

"Yeah." Ada glanced up at the sky, noting that it was slightly lighter than it had been half an hour ago. "Not long now, I don't think. Sky's getting lighter."

"How long have we been in here?"

"Long enough. I think it's nearly morning,” she responded, settling against the wall beside him, confident that there was nothing more she could do than continue waiting. "Not to jinx it, but I think we might have actually done it."

"Don't celebrate yet," George muttered. "Those blasted things are still out there. And I still have another shoulder for them to maim."

Ada let out a dry chuckle. "That's true enough. C'mon, we should start heading back. Can you walk?"

George nodded his assent as grunted as he struggled to his feet, one hand immediately coming up to grasp at his shoulder to keep her jacket in place over his wound. He stumbled slightly, left leg buckling under his weight, and Ada hesitated only a moment before offering her his arm.

George took one look at her slightly green face and snorted. "I'm fine, Ada. You can keep the contents of your lunch firmly in your stomach."

Ada grimaced. "Too late for that."

Slowly, oh so slowly, they made their way through the maze, wincing at every sound and every shuffle from the neighbouring corridors, not knowing which would bring death and which would bring freedom. The walls had completely stopped moving, and the sky had grown to be a dusky purple with hints of pink and pale blue that promised daylight within the hour.

With each step she took, her ribs protested angrily, and when she rolled up her shirt slightly to examine them the skin was a mottled purple and green from where the creature had grabbed her.

George stumbled again, hand slamming into the wall to keep himself upright, and Ada winced.

She wished she could have been more use to him. Wished she could use her body to support his, sling his arm over her shoulder and support him back to the glade, but her entire body felt like one giant bruise and the thought of any more skin on skin contact had her flesh heating uncomfortably and bile stirring in her empty stomach.

The creatures, whatever they were, seemed to have retreated into their homes for the morning.

"Are we nearly there?" George asked for the third time; his skin was ashen and his lips pressed into a thin line.

"Closer than you think." Ada grinned. They rounded the corner, and there, right there, were the doors to the glade.

They were open.

Chapter Text

When Newt was finally able to blink his eyes open, the blackness that pressed in on him from all sides made him wish he had kept them closed. Somehow it was brighter when he was staring at the inside of his eyelids.

He was laying on the creaky old bed in the corner of the room, a glorified slab of wood with a blanket and pillow on it, the same bed he had woken on for the last however long – he wasn't sure.

Every day was the same.

He would wake up, the darkness would press in on him, his only companion, and then Janson would pay him a visit. 'Just to chat,' he had said the first few times, but the sparse amounts of food and water told him that any semblance of kindness being shown was nothing more than a mere ruse.

Running a hand through his hair, Newt slowly rose to his feet, one hand on the wall at his side to keep his balance. Five steps to the wall. Three steps to the right. One step forward. Door. He walked the same path every morning, hands clasping at the handle as if it would have miraculously unlocked itself since the last time he checked. He knew it hadn't.

So he waited. And waited. And finally, the lights flickered on and Jansen arrived, grey turtleneck, white lab coat, gleaming beady eyes, notepad and pen.

"Hello, Newt." Always the same, followed by the same questions. "You're not in trouble, we just want to talk. What did you do with the coordinates?" "Who did you give them to?" "What are you planning?" "Where do your allegiances lie?"

Always the same answers. "I didn't." "No one." "Nothing." "With WICKED."

Lies.

All lies.

But this time, there was something in the way that Janson's eyes gleamed that had Newt instantly on edge, a sort of dark playfulness that promised his suffering. Slowly, Janson folded himself into the chair opposite Newt, rapping his fingers on the metal table, studying the boy.

"Something interesting happened, Newt. Something I think you'll be quite fascinated to know about."

He's trying to get inside your head. Don't talk. Don't look at him. Keep your guard up.

"We don't usually divulge the products of our experiments to anyone outside our inner circle of scientists and doctors, but I thought I'd share this news with you myself. Quite the remarkable event, you see. Never thought I'd live to see the day, though I had hoped."

"Don't tease," Newt muttered, slumping back in his chair. "I'm all ears."

The corner of Janson's mouth twitched dangerously. "Your little friend got into a spot of trouble today."

A thready scoff escaped Newt's lips. "What did Minho do this time? Ductape Gally to his bunk bed again?"

"I wasn't talking about Minho, Newt." Janson's voice had undertaken a sort of sick glee that had Newt's skin crawling. A feeling of dread began to wedge itself into his stomach. "It would appear that subject A19 is far more adventurous than we had previously given her credit for. After all, it's not every day that–"

"Ada," Newt interrupted, fingers clenching in his lap. "Her name is Ada."

Janson's eye twitched with repressed satisfaction. "Indeed. As I was saying, subject A19 has proven far more adventurous than previously anticipated. It takes a special kind of person to find themselves trapped overnight in the maze, and she has proven herself once again to be just the type of subject we were needing."

Newt's head snapped up, face drained of colour. "What did you just say?"

Janson leaned back in his seat. "The Maze Trials are heading for a remarkable conclusion, if this is the way things are starting out. Here's hoping she makes it through the night. A promising young individual indeed."

Janson said something else, his voice an echoing drone that went on and on, but it was lost in the hammering of Newt's heart in his ears and the frantic buzzing at the back of his brain that was screaming at him that he needed to get out of there, needed to move, to get to her.

Ada was in the maze.

"What do you think you're doing?" Janson asked, and when Newt turned his frantic eyes onto him he realised he had unknowingly gotten to his feet, hands clenched at his sides.

"Let her out."

"Excuse me?"

"Let her out!" Newt's hand slammed down into the table, and the predatory gleam in Janson's eye flickered, then died, replaced by burning hatred.

"I'll be back tomorrow to continue your questioning, Newt. Perhaps now you'll have a think about where it is your priorities lie. I trust you realise who holds all the cards here."

Newt let out a furious yell, scrambling around the table and lunging for the door, but Janson was already gone, and the room descended back into blackness.

Chapter Text

Day Fifty Seven

The first thing Ada noticed upon their re-entry into the glade was the smell.

The maze, with its claustrophobic walls and its ever-present darkness, had smelt of stale air and blood, along with the distinct tone of rotten flesh tainting the corridors that those creatures roamed.

The glade, however, smelt fresh. Like dewy grass and last night's cooking, like wet wood and sweet flowers.

It had tears springing to her eyes.

The second their feet landed on the grass, George collapsed into the dirt, panting. Ada could make out the shape of figures sprinting towards them, of Alby gesturing frantically at Nick and James, of Avin scrambling back to the homestead and up the stairs to the medical room.

Her vision grew slightly fuzzy, exhaustion starting to take its toll, and she only opened her eyes when she felt a light pressure against her foot.

A small beetle blade sat on her shoe, staring up at her, body humming almost frantically. The corner of her lips tipped up into a half smile. "Hey there, Michael." Her voice cracked, and she noticed a spot of red on her shoe next to the metal.

What a horror she must have looked, she realised bleakly. Pale skin, hair matted, clothes drenched with George's blood.

"Ada, Ada." Large hands clamped down on her shoulders and she winced, flinching away from them. When she looked up, she locked eyes with Alby, who was staring down at her with an expression so intense it transformed his entire face into one of stone. "Look at me, damnit. You alright? You hurt?"

Ada shrugged his hands off, fingers fluttering to fiddle with the golden chain hanging round her neck. "No. No, I – I don't think so. I'm... I'm alright."

Alby's eyes misted over slightly, and his lips pursed into a tight line. His left hand, which she only now noticed was shaking, lifted as if to cup her cheek but then returned to his side as he decided against it.

"You sure?" At her nod, the tense set of his shoulders loosened slightly. "Good that. Thought you were dead. You scared the hell out of me. Don't do that again."

Ada let out a humourless chuckle and swiped at her eyes, blinking away the tears. Now that she could feel the safety of the glade wrapping around her like a blanket, the gravity of what they had gone through hit her like a freight train and had her knees shaking.

Alby's eyes narrowed and he reached for one of the two blankets Avin had clamped in his grip. "She's in shock." He wrapped the blanket tightly around her shoulders, and the warmth sank into her skin and began to thaw the ice running through her veins. "Get her inside, sit her down before she collapses. Charles, make her something to eat. Nothing too heavy, or she'll throw it all back up."

Charles nodded and clapped Alby's shoulder before rushing to the kitchen.

"Nick, Connor, James, help me get George to the medical room."

Ada frowned and turned to where she had last seen George, only to notice that his skin was paler than she had ever seen it before and was drenched in sweat. His hands, clenching and unclenching in the soil, were bone white at the knuckle.

But that wasn't what had Ada's heart dropping down into her stomach. The true worry was when Alby and Nick leant down to clasp George under the shoulders and he all but growled at them, eyes flashing with something dark. "Get the hell off me."

"Woah – calm down, George," Nick said soothingly, hands up in surrender, but his tone only seemed to further aggravate George.

Teeth bared, he tried to struggle to his feet, but his legs buckled and his muscles clenched with pain. "I said don't touch me!"

"George, what the hell?"

"C'mon man, easy–"

"Get off!" George flung his arm out, fist connecting with Nick's groin, and Ada watched in horror as he tried to crawl away from them, limbs shaking with exertion.

Abandoning her post by the doors, Ada hurried over and collapsed to her knees beside George, studying his face. "George, the hell are you doing? You need to get your shoulder looked at."

His eyes snapped up to hers, and Ada blanched at the coldness in them. He had never looked at her like that before.

In the two months they had known each other, in their night together in the maze, he had looked at her each time with nothing short of tenderness and friendliness. In the last few weeks, the promise of something more had lingered every time she caught him staring.

Now, his eyes were borderline emotionless as his lips curled back in a snarl. "It's your goddamn fault this happened to me, it's your fault! I wouldn't be like this if it wasn't for you!"

"Hey!" Avin snapped, but Ada held up a blood stained hand to silence him. George was right. It was her fault.

She was the runner, she knew the maze, she was the one who was meant to keep track of the light. He had warned her they needed to turn back, and she hadn't listened, and now George was in pain and lashing out.

"Back off, man," Alby instructed, hand clamping down harshly on George's shoulder. Ada couldn't tell whether it was to keep him grounded or to keep him steady, for his arms were trembling under the weight of his body and his shoulder was oozing blood again.

It was like a switch went off behind George's eyes, and emotion flooded back into them as the fight fled. His arms collapsed, and he would have face planted the dirt if it weren't for Nick and Alby reaching to support him and help him upright.

When his confused eyes met Ada's, they were a warm brown again, and any malice that had been behind them had thawed.

He swallowed twice before speaking. "I'm– I'm sorry, Ada. I don't know why I said that. I don't– I don't think it's your fault. I didn't mean it." His voice quieted to a whisper as he stared at her with nothing short of desperation. "I'm sorry."

Ada watched him struggle with something deep inside himself for a moment before she nodded and got to her feet, wrapping the blanket tighter around herself. "It's fine. Don't worry about it. Go get that shoulder looked at, okay?"

George nodded tightly, pressing his lips together, and Ada's heart lurched when she saw the sheen of tears in his eyes. "I don't know why I–"

"It's okay, man," Alby said softly, wrapping one arm around George's waist. "It's alright. You're just tired. C'mon."

Ada watched with sad eyes as Alby and Nick hobbled their way over to the homestead, George a dead weight between them.

Someone crouched down in front of her, and Ada lifted bleary eyes to see the shaking form of Avin looking at her with wide eyes. The dew from the grass soaked into her cargo pants, mingling with the blood that stained the fabric.

There was a moment of horrible silence before Avin spoke. His voice cracked and wavered. "Is that George's blood?"

Ada winced, smoothing her hands down over her tank top to try and stop their shaking. "Oh, honey, no, don't look. Don't–"

"Don't do that," Avin snapped.

"Do what?"

"Treat me like a kid," he demanded, but Ada felt that the command was dampened slightly by the tear tracks that streaked through the mud on his face. "You're a kid too."

"True enough," she conceded. Her muscles began to ache fiercely with fatigue, and her stomach was starting to revolt against its lack of food by making her dizzy and violently nauseous. "Yeah. It's George's. Mine too."

"Did you see one of the monsters?" When Ada looked at him, all she saw was a little boy asking about the monsters hiding under the bed, and a surge of protectiveness slammed into her, along with a wave of dizziness.

"Yeah, kiddo. They're pretty scary."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Ada's eyes began to flutter. "S'okay though... won't hurt you... won't let them."

Avin frowned. "Ada?"

"M' okay…" The world was spinning now, and the ground rushed up to meet her in a haze of green and brown. The last thing she heard before blackness sank in was Avin screaming for help, and hearing the thundering of footsteps racing towards her.

—

"Shh, be quiet!" The young girl giggled and lifted a finger to her lips, pressing her back further against the white wall and trying to stifle the laughter threatening to break out.

A blonde boy, only just taller than her, scrawny, as if he hadn't quite grown into his limbs yet, collapsed against the wall beside her, clutching at a stitch in his side and laughing maniacally. "I'm sorry – I can't, it's just–" His words were broken up through laughter. "Did you see the look on his face?"

The girl snorted and clamped a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. "He's gonna be so pissed!"

"Revenge, I'd say," the blonde boy said, a wide smile breaking out across his face. His fingers reached up to rub at a red shoelace wrapped around his wrist. "Took me a week to get that pink dye out my hair."

"Just be thankful he only used temporary dye." The image of the boy chasing their friend around the room with bright pink hair was still fresh in her mind. "Our solution of shaving off his eyebrow seems a little more permanent."

"It'll grow back." He shrugged. "Shame we only got to do one before he woke up."

The girl snickered, before a sound outside in the hallway caught her attention. A clanging, quickly followed by voices, one of them raised and clearly pissed off. The blonde boy's eyes widened as he lunged off the wall, gesturing for the girl to follow him as he sprinted for the stairwell.

"Shit, slow down," the girl panted, shoving back a tuft of fiery hair before taking off after him.

"To the roof, to the roof!"

Their footsteps pounded up the stairs, their laughter echoing off the pristine white walls of the compound, and finally the blonde boy swung open the thick steel door at the top. A bracing gust of wind slammed into them, and the girl grinned.

It wasn't often they got much fresh air — they had a courtyard the children were allowed into, but it was surrounded by thick stone walls and they were only allowed out for a maximum of an hour and a half a day.

'To prevent exposure,' Dr Paige had explained. 'You children are the key to our survival, it is imperative that you are not exposed to the outside world. Whatever's left of it, anyway.'

"I think we lost 'em." He grinned, collapsing against the door.

The stitch in her side hummed angrily, but she ignored it as she made her way over to the edge of the building. There was a fence surrounding it, wrapped with wire, and even from here she could see the electrical charge coursing through it. They'd all heard the story of the boy who had found his way onto the roof and jumped — WICKED must have put the electric fence up to stop anyone from doing the same.

Not enough to kill, she mused, staring at the wire, just enough to incapacitate.

But beyond that, beyond the walls of their sanctuary – prison – Ada could make out the sloping hills and the distant shape of the dunes, sand stretching as far as the eye could see.

The scorch.

The ground just outside the facility was dry and cracked, a dull greyish colour that bled the life from everything it touched. She supposed there was grass there, once upon a time. Now, the freedom that lay beyond those walls was desolate and dangerous, if it could even be called freedom at all.

The girl's lips quirked up in a small smile as the boy came to stand at her side. "Ugly, isn't it?" He asked.

"It could use some work, I'll admit."

"Glad I'm not out in it, that's for sure." The boy huffed, and the strand of blonde hair that had fallen in front of his face fluttered. It was getting long again, she thought distantly. She would offer to cut it for him if they were allowed scissors.

"I'd almost forgotten what it looked like." The girl smiled sadly, staring out at the vast expanse of yellow in front of her. "You forget a lot of things when you're cooped up inside like an animal."

"More than that, if WICKED has their way." The girl frowned at her friend's words, and the boy's eye twitched angrily as he spoke. "They reckon they fixed up that memory wiper. The swipe, Tommy called it, I think. They're starting human trials soon."

A shudder wracked through her frame. "That's barbaric. Here's hope they don't try and use it on us."

"Not much to forget even if they do. Life is pretty boring around these parts."

"Then I've been doing an awful job keeping you entertained." The girl grinned, and he laughed as he rubbed at the shoelace on his wrist.

"Not you, you dork. As if I could ever forget you."

"Promise me, then." She turned to face him fully, and the setting sun illuminated their silhouettes against the stone.

In the low light the boy's frame was cast entirely into a haze of gold, his skin flushed and thick hair shining. His eyes, normally a muddy shade of brown, were luminous and the colour of caramel. They shone as he looked at her, and for a moment she forgot how to breathe.

"Promise you?"

"That you'll never forget me," she said softly. "That no matter what they do to us, we'll always have this. We'll always have us."

The boy smiled, and everything seemed right in that moment, when he was looking at her like that. Like she was sunlight personified, like the first star that had ever broken out across the sky. He held out his hand, extending his pinkie to her.

"You are the most important thing in this useless life of mine," he said. "Forgetting you? Not an option."

The girl smiled, and there was only a heartbeat of hesitation before she slid her pinkie into his.

"To never forgetting."

"To never forgetting."

—

The screaming was what woke her.

A drawn out, frightened, furious scream. It echoed across the glade, slamming itself harshly against the walls and splitting apart the sky, tearing apart the air and swallowing any sound that might have brought solace.

Ada blinked groggily, blurred eyes fixing on the wooden slabs of roof in front of her. The last fragments of her dream were slipping away from her rapidly, like smoke slipping through her fingertips and vanishing right before her eyes. From outside the homestead, she could see that the sky was growing dark again, dusk settling over the glade.

She had been out for hours, then.

The lack of sleep and hunger had stretched her too thin.

There was another scream, this one closer, and the panicked rising of voices followed it.

Ada swung her legs over the side of her hammock, ignoring the blurring of her vision in front of her, and hastily made her way out of the homestead and up the stairs to the medical room where the noises were coming from.

When the door swung open, she was nearly flattened by the shaking figure of Avin, who was backing out of the room as fast as his legs would allow him.

"What the hell is going on?" She asked, raising her voice over the shouting. Avin spun around, wide eyes filled with fear, and gulped heavily.

"I dunno. George is acting all weird." He sniffled. "I'm gonna go and get a blanket for him. He won't stop shaking. Must be cold." With that, he hurried from the room, leaving Ada to stare at the figure that was thrashing on the bed.

Alby was on one side, hands clenched tightly on George's left arm, with Charles on the other, completely pinning him down. James and Nick were frantically putting as much weight on his legs as possible to keep him in place while Connor wrapped a bandage around his upper torso, which was still bleeding freely.

"What's wrong with him?" She asked frantically as she moved to the side of the bed and stared down at George's thrashing form. His face was a pale grey colour, his eyes wide and unfocused, and a thin rivulet of blood dribbled down his chin from his mouth, which was open and yelling incoherently.

Alby spared her a glance of relief before turning back to his friend, redoubling his efforts. "Bastard won't stop thrashing, don't know what's wrong! He hit his head or something when he was out there?"

"No." Ada desperately cast her mind back to their time in the maze looking for any point where head trauma might have occurred, coming up blank. "No he didn't, just got stabbed through the shoulder and slashed in the stomach by one of those monster things."

George spat out a mouthful of blood and bared his teeth. "Get your hands off me!" Without warning, his arm broke free from Alby's hold, hand curling into a fist and connecting solidly with Charles' midsection. "I'll kill you! I'll kill all of you!"

"George, what the hell–?" Alby started, but was violently cut off when George's fist slammed into his jaw. There was a flurry of movement as James and Connor hastened to restrain him, but it was too late — George had already broken free from their hold, and lunged at Alby where he was lying on the floor.

"Shit–"

"GEORGE!"

George's fist came up and cracked down onto Alby's jaw, and then his nose, and Alby was only able to get the upper hand when he dug his fingers into the half bandaged wound at George's shoulder and twisted. George let out an animalistic bellow of pain, his grip on Alby loosening enough for the older boy to land a solid punch to his jaw and send him sprawling across the wooden slabs.

Alby raised his fist again, eyes flashing, but his eyeline was blocked by Nick. "What the hell are you doing?!"

"He attacked me!" Alby spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"He's not sane! You can't go about punching whoever you damn well please–"

"He attacked me!"

"Enough!" Ada interjected, watching with wide eyes as James and Connor wrestled to get George back down on the bed.

"Ada, go look on the shelves for something to knock him out with!" Connor demanded, sparing her a single glance that was filled with determination and uncertainty.

Ada scrambled over to the shelves and picked up a heavy looking object that was being used as a paperweight. "I don't really think blunt force trauma is the way to go here, Connor–"

"A sedative Ada, Jesus Christ!"

"Oh, right."

Scanning the shelves, her eyes landed on a small green bottle with the word 'sedative' scrawled on it in messy handwriting. She didn't recognise it, nor the thin clear liquid inside. Turning it around, there was a small note on the back that indicated its suggested use was for violent and unruly patients — to put to sleep for a short period of time.

"Ada!"

"Got it!" Returning to George's side, she tossed the bottle to Connor, who caught it with one hand and hastily inserted a syringe into the cap, filling it half way. "Wait, do you know how much of that to use?"

"Nope," Connor panted, and hastily jammed the syringe into the crook of George's elbow. Ada gagged, lifting a hand to cover her mouth, and George slumped down onto the bed, uttering a single garbled noise of protest before his body went slack against the cushions.

There was a beat of heavy silence, punctured only by their heavy breathing, before Connor let out a shaky breath and slowly placed the bottle down on the bedside table. "Better keep that close." His voice trembled when he spoke.

"What just happened?" Ada asked, eyes glued to George's prone form. Here, his expression was relaxed, unworried, almost peaceful even. A mile away from the boy who had been filled with rage and bloodlust mere moments before. "Why was he screaming?"

"I don't know." James shrugged helplessly. "We brought him up here and started to wrap his shoulder and he was fine. Chatting away, like usual. Got a bit quiet, but we just thought he was in shock, ya know."

"And then he, what, freaked out?"

"Yeah, basically." Charles nodded, rubbing his arm. There was a ring of finger shaped bruises circling his wrist that she hadn't noticed before. "One second he was fine, next second he was grabbing at me and starting to get aggressive. When Alby tried to pull him off he started yelling and tried to take a swing at him."

Alby rubbed at his split lip, a deep frown etched on his face. "Bastard."

"Alby–" Ada chastised, but was cut off when Nick took an angry step forward, jabbing a finger into Alby's chest.

"What the hell were you thinking, huh? Taking a swing at him like that?"

"He attacked me, remember? Not the other way around!"

"He was half out of his mind! He's obviously not well, and you weren't gonna stop!" Nick yelled. "I saw that look in your eyes, you were gonna keep punching! The fuck is wrong with you, huh?"

"What's wrong with me? What the hell is wrong with you, huh? Who the hell do you think you are, showing up here all demanding and acting as if you're better than everyone else–"

"Alby–" Connor started, but was silenced when Alby held up a hand, eyes glued to where Nick was standing, trembling with rage.

"You ain't any better than the rest of us, shank, and don't you forget it. I don't know who the hell you think you are but you need to back the hell off and fall in line–"

"Alby, enough." Ada said.

"But he–"

"Enough. Both of you." George was lying there, bleeding, drugged up to high hell with something so impossibly wrong with him, and they were bickering like rival housewives from the 1950's. "I think we have bigger things to worry about right now. And we have company."

Ada jerked her head towards the door, where Avin was stood watching the room with wide eyes, clutching a blanket tightly in one hand and holding an apple in the other.

"I– I thought you might be hungry,” he said quietly, holding the apple out to Ada. "You haven't eaten since yesterday morning."

"Thanks, kid." She smiled, crossing the room to take the apple, the hunger churning in her stomach spiking aggressively. "Why don't you go cover George up with that blanket? He looks cold."

Avin nodded, crossing the room to where George lay and carefully laying the blanket out over him. He was just pulling back when his fingers ghosted over something on George's side. Avin froze. "Uh, guys?"

"Mhm?"

"What's this?"

Ada frowned and moved over to where Avin was standing, eyes scanning George's body to find what had startled her friend so much. But there was nothing, nothing but a smooth expanse of freckled skin and barely there muscles and — wait, what was that?

Hardly noticeable under the bandages wrapped tightly around his torso, the small nail-sized wound she had spotted in the maze had turned from a pinkish red to a deep mottled black, the skin around it raised and puffy. Stretching up from the wound were thick black veins, spiralling up across his chest and spiderwebbing around his shoulder.

"What the hell is that?"

"I don't understand." Connor frowned. "It isn't infected, we checked as soon as he got back. There were some veins there but I just assumed that was normal, they weren't like this."

"Is it blood poisoning?" Alby asked, frowning down at the strange wound, but Connor shook his head.

"Nah, it's spread too quickly. Whatever it is, I ain't ever seen anything like it before."

"Do you think that's what's making him act so strange?" Avin asked, and something inside Ada was screaming, screaming that this was all so familiar. "Why he's so angry? Maybe he's just in a lot of pain."

"Maybe," Alby said thoughtfully. "Alright, Connor, I want you staying up here, watching him. Get his damn shoulder sorted out and keep an eye on... whatever the hell that is." He gestured tiredly at the gruesome display on George's side. "Ada, for god's sake, sit down before you pass out again. Let's all go downstairs and get some food, and then I want to hear exactly what happened out there, okay?"

Chapter Text

The voices flickered in and out, on and off, as if someone was muting and unmuting his hearing and letting him in on only snippets of conversation.

Newt's eyes, glued again to the ceiling, zeroed in on the small spot of mold growing in the upper left corner of his isolation room. It had started to spread and branch out, creeping across the corners of the room like a silent assassin, leaving its mark unnoticed.

If he squinted hard enough, it was almost shaped like a rabbit.

The questioning, it would appear, had stopped. Jansen hadn't come to him in two days, not since he had delivered the news about what had happened to Ada. His wrist burned where the red shoelace was. He wondered what had happened to her, if he would ever get to know.

The loneliness had started to sink in, creeping into the corners of his mind like the mold on the ceiling, spreading until it was noticeable enough to be all he could focus on. He missed the sounds of his friend's laughter, of Minho's jokes and Thomas' endless questions. He even missed Gally's playful bullying and Siggy's endless banter.

He missed his sister, Lizzie, and her braided blonde hair and wide eyes.

The voices he was hearing were coming from the vent system above his head. Just whispers of conversation, here and there, floating through and puncturing the silence.

The first few days after he had realised what he was hearing, Newt would press his ear against the vent and hold his breath, hoping for any shred of news about the outside world, but there was nothing. Now, days later, he lay in silence on the bed, letting the conversation wash over him and lull him in and out of consciousness.

"And what of subject A5?"

"Janson seems to think he's a liability. But he's just a child, I won't have him put to death like some common crank."

Subject A5, Newt thought blearily. They were talking about him again.

"What other choice do we have? We can hardly send him up to the maze."

Newt's brows twitched in concentration as he strained his ears.

"It's certainly an option."

"He's not immune, there's no point."

They were talking about sending him up into the maze, he realised bleakly. His heart dropped down into his stomach.

"The next set are due to be sent up in four days. I want him joining them, no questions asked. If Janson wonders, tell him the orders come directly from me. He knows his place."

"Yes, Dr. Paige. I'll make the preparations for the swipe."

With a sick feeling of dread coiling in his stomach, Newt rolled onto his side, away from the vent, pressing his ear into the pillow.

Up until now, the maze had never been anything more than a frightening nightmare on the other side of a screen, a distant monster that was close enough to traumatise but far away enough to never actually feel real to him.

Even when Ada had been sent up, his limited interaction with the possibility of the maze existed within the confines of the control room and the cameras that wandered around the glade.

But now? Now the maze was a real, tangible threat, one that loomed over him like an inevitable shadow. One that would tear him away from everything he knew, every friend he had left, every source of joy he had managed to find in the world that they had been forced into.

At least he'd get to see her again, even if neither remembered.

Newt closed his eyes, letting the darkness wash over him.

Chapter Text

Day Fifty Seven

No one spoke as they made their way down the old wooden steps and into the courtyard, over to the kitchen and seating area. James immediately vanished over to the stove to start cooking up something that instantly smelled amazing, and when Ada collapsed into her seat she realised the coma nap she took in the hammock did very little to help her tiredness.

"Ada, mate, what happened out there?" Charles asked.

Every single piece of the night she had been blocking out for the last few hours slammed into her, leaving her nauseous and shaky. "We got attacked. By one of those monster things."

Alby let out a shaky breath and leant forward, eyes intense. "What did they look like? What did they do?"

Bulbous and misshapen, it's body seemed to belong like something out of a nightmare.

"It was... big."

Its flesh — if it could be called that — was a rotten looking green, chunks torn out of it exposing black muscle and sludge.

"Like something out of a nightmare, really."

Its mouth was gaping and lined with rows upon rows of dagger-like teeth, each a horrible greyish yellow that leaked drool and mucus onto the stone at its feet.

"It was like it was half monster, half machinery. These great big metal legs, sharp as a dagger. Beady eyes... rows and rows of teeth..."

Ada broke off with a shuddering gasp, and Alby reached across as if to take her hand, fingers stopping a mere few inches from hers. "Did it hurt you?"

"Nothing I can't handle." She smiled thinly. "George, on the other hand, appears to be a different story."

"I don't understand." Nick spoke up for the first time since they had sat down. He sat slightly separate from the rest of the group, arms crossed tightly over his chest, expression schooled into a deep frown. "You told us that spending the night in the maze was a death sentence. How'd you manage it and make it out alive?"

Ada considered his words carefully, mind reeling. "Luck, mostly. We hid under the ivy for a while, but I think whatever it was knew we were there."

"What makes you say that?" Charles asked.

"We waited for it to pass, but it must have known we were hiding because the second George left the hiding spot it pounced on him. It was waiting above us." A chill wrapped itself around her spine, rattling through her body. "It was like it was playing with us. Hunting us, actually."

"So these things are smart?" Alby asked, retracting his hand from where it lay beside hers. "That doesn't mean good things for us."

"So how did you guys get away?" Nick raised an eyebrow at her, looking anything but impressed. She didn't know why, but something about the almost patronising way he was looking at her made Ada feel tiny in her blanket, as if she was nothing more than a fascinating specimen to be studied.

"The maze was changing. We lost it down one of the corridors. They can't climb over the walls, apparently. I don't think they're programmed to do that."

"Programmed?" Avin squeaked.

"Man made monsters," Alby muttered. "So whoever put us here made them and is controlling them. Bastards."

"Couldn't agree more." A voice chimed in from behind them, and when Ada turned it was to find George standing there, leaning heavily on Connor.

His arm was covered in bandages and strapped tightly to his chest, and his face was ashen, dark bags splotching under his eyes. Thin black veins twined their way up his neck and onto his right cheek.

"George." Alby straightened, wincing apologetically at the bruising spreading across George's jaw from where his fist had landed earlier. "How you feeling, man?"

"Been better,” George huffed. "Don't know what the hell's wrong with me."

"We'll figure it out."

George scoffed.

Ada raised her right hand, hovering it over his shoulder, close enough to feel the heat of his skin warming her palm. "We will, George. We'll fix you." She smiled at him, eyes shining. "I promise."

George's entire face crumbled, eyes slamming shut. "Yeah... right."

"Okay," James wandered over, two piping hot bowls in his hands, steam billowing off the top of the red liquid inside.

Ada's stomach turned, noting its resemblance to blood. The fierce aching in her stomach was angry enough for her to snatch the bowl the second it was in front of her and lift it to her lips immediately. The soup burned as it went down, but she didn't stop.

"Oh damn." James raised his eyebrows at her. "I see my soup is popular."

"I haven't eaten in, like, two days James, shut the hell up." Ada raised her middle finger at him.

George, however hungry he must have been, merely stirred the contents of his bowl around with the spoon, staring down at it with a repulsed expression.

James' smile dropped. "Or not."

"You should eat something, George," Connor said patiently.

"Not hungry."

"Connor's right, you need to build your strength up again–"

"I said I'm not hungry."

Ada frowned at the fissure of rage that had begun to creep its way into George's voice. The muscles in his shoulders were rigid. "George?"

The bowl clattered angrily to the table, thick red spilling out of it and sloshing onto the wood. Avin jolted violently beside her in shock. "Shut up!" George hurled the spoon across the table. "Shut the hell up!"

"George–"

"I don't want the stupid soup, I don't want any of this!"

Ada and Alby shared alarmed glances over the table. One of Alby's hands vanished under the table, and she knew without looking that his fingers had closed around the hilt of the dagger strapped to his side.

"George, man–"

"No! NO! This is such complete and utter bullshit!" George's fist slammed down on the table, and Ada watched as the rough splinters tore at his knuckles and drew blood. "JUST BECAUSE SOME GODDAMN SCIENTISTS DECIDED TO MAKE US THEIR OWN PERSONAL EXPERIMENT–"

Ada blanched. Scientists? Personal experiment?

Nick gulped, straightening in his chair. "You remember–?"

"I'M GONNA KILL THEM! I'M GONNA KILL THEM ALL!" George lunged for the dagger Ada had placed on the table beside her, hurtling it at the beetle blade on the table next to them, yelling furiously.

It skittered away before it could be hit, hissing mechanically at them, before it dove under the table out of sight. George let out a cry of pure fury, his voice echoing across the glade, and it was all Ada could do not to just stare at him in bewilderment.

"Alby, do something!"

"The hell do you want me to do, he's unhinged!"

Connor grabbed George's arm, wrestling it down to his side, and was closely followed by James. Together, they wrestled George down onto the grass, waving Avin over to come and sit on his legs so that he would stop thrashing and bucking.

"George, man, you gotta calm down!"

Nick's hand tightened over the slab of wood they were using as a chopping board, clearly ready to use it if need be.

"Do we sedate him again?" Ada asked.

"I don't think that's a good idea. It clearly didn't do anything to help," James said sadly. "His skin conditions gotten worse."

Now that George was immobile on the floor, Ada could see that the black veins had spread from his neck and now wound their way under his eyes, paling the skin and stretching it tight against the bone. The veins were alive almost, throbbing and pulsing beneath the skin. Black blood dribbled down George's chin.

"Lift his shirt," Ada said suddenly, and Alby hastened to comply.

The muscles in George's stomach bunched and shifted as he thrashed against their grip, but it was the wound on his side that caught her attention. Somehow, it had gotten worse. The veins spanned his entire torso, and the skin around the wound was no longer grey, but a mottled blue, clumped with black blood and puffy irritated welts.

"Did that monster thing do something to him?"

"Must have. I don't see what else could have happened."

"Let me go, let me go!"

"George–"

"Alby, please." George's voice lowered to a desperate whisper as he stopped thrashing. His chest rose and fell in heavy pants as his head thudded back against the floor, eyes swimming with tears. "Please just let me go."

Holding her breath, Ada inched closer to him. She lowered herself to her knees when she reached his side, eyes fixed on his ashen face. It was as if the fight had suddenly drained out of him, as if a balloon had been popped and was left lying sad and deflated on the ground.

"George?"

George winced.

"George." She said his name again, firmer this time. He finally looked at her, but his eyes were filled with so much pain it took her breath away. "Oh, George. It's okay."

"S'not."

"Yes, it is," Avin encouraged, climbing off his legs. He slowly reached forward to pat him on the arm soothingly. "You'll be fine, promise. Just gotta figure out what's wrong with you is all."

"It got me," George said sadly. "The needle. I tried not to let it get near me but that thing was gonna kill you." He turned his face towards Ada, helpless agony written out in his eyes. "I couldn't let it kill you. Not you. Never you."

Tears blurred her vision. "You got me out of there, George. You did it. You saved me. Now we're gonna save you, okay? Let us save you."

There was a moment of silence before George nodded, blinking tears out of his eyes. His head fell back against the grass; from there, Ada could see a thousand rays from the dying sun reflected in his tears, drowning in the black abyss that was his pupils.

"It's getting late," Alby said softly, and indeed the sky was starting to purple like a bruise, fissures of darkness creeping their way in.

George watched them slither across the sky, watched the sun inch closer to the walls, burning furiously before it would inevitably vanish, leaving them in the dark.

"We should head inside, try and get some sleep. I don't think any of us slept properly last night. We can start working on fixing George in the morning."

George's head rose weakly. "I don't want to be in the homestead."

"George..." Ada sighed, but he cut her off before speaking.

"I don't wanna be in there. If I go nuts again I could hurt one of you guys. I won't do that. You're my family, if I hurt you, I don't-"

"Okay." Nick said softly. One of his hands rose to cup George's uninjured shoulder, his thumb rubbing small circles into his shirt. "Okay, George. It's fine. Where do you wanna sleep? The med wing?"

"No, it's too close."

"We could–"

"Tie me up," George said suddenly, staring miserably at the treeline to the forest. "Tie me up. To the tree."

Ada sucked in a sharp breath. "George we aren't doing that."

"Do it. Do it or I'll hurt you, I know I will. I don't trust myself, and you shouldn't either, so do it."

"George–"

"It's just one night, right?" Alby said, eyes calculating as he stared at the tree. "Then we can fix him tomorrow."

"I'll stay with you," Avin said quietly.

"No, kiddo, it's too much of a risk." George reached up and weakly ruffled his hair, smiling a pain-filled grimace. "You go get yourself in bed."

"But–"

"One night," Connor said firmly, looking George dead in the eyes. "One night, and then we fix you."

—

"You comfy?" Alby asked, tightening the ropes around George's wrists. He was positioned with his back against the tree, the rope secured tightly around his chest and waist.

Ada and Alby had tried fruitlessly to tell him it was overkill, but George was adamant to the point of near violence. Eventually, they had figured it was better to do as he wished for one night and then return to usual tomorrow.

"Comfy enough," George huffed, his face twisted in distaste. "Can you tighten it on my arm a little? I can slip out of this easy."

Ada sighed. "George, I don't know, it's gonna hurt. Your shoulder–"

"Do it, Alby."

Ada and Alby shared a tense look, before she reluctantly nodded and left him to it. Avin shifted uncomfortably on the grass beside them. It was just those four now, the others having bid them goodnight already and retreated inside.

Something about it felt personal: they were the original four, two members down, sat huddled together under a tree, one of them so injured he could hardly breathe.

"Is this smart?" Avin asked. "You don't look good, George. You need medical help, chaining you to a tree seems kind of counterproductive."

"Kid's got a point,” Ada agreed. "I know you don't wanna hurt us, but I don't feel right about doing this."

"Ada," George said softly, turning to face her.

His left hand, resting against the ground, flattened, his fingers reaching towards hers. Slowly, she reached across and closed the distance between their hands, the tip of her index finger pressing firmly against his.

"Look at me. I can't take the risk of lashing out and hurting any of you. You guys are all I have, you're my entire life. If there's even the smallest chance of me hurting you I'm gonna do everything possible to make sure that doesn't happen."

"I'll stay with you then."

"Did you hear literally anything I just said?" He chuckled, but his eyes were serious. "I'm serious now, okay? I want you all to go inside, and stay there. No matter what you hear. No matter what I say. Stay there until morning."

"George-"

"Promise me."

Alby let out a heavy breath, before he nodded. "I promise."

"Good. Go on, it's late. You should head inside."

"You sure you're gonna be okay out here?" Ada asked as she studied the thick ropes and the awkward way to which George was secured to the tree. She put the flaming torch in the grass beside him, leaving it far enough away that he couldn't grab it and burn off the ropes, or hurt himself worse than he already was.

"Sure I will. This is dead comfortable." He grinned, winking cheekily. His face was almost ghostly white in the moonlight.

"I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

George stayed silent.

"George," Alby said sternly. "We'll see you tomorrow, all right?"

"Right. Sure. Tomorrow."

Alby shook his head, clasping Avin's shoulder and leading them from the clearing, making their way back to the homestead. As he passed her, he smiled softly at Ada, jerking his head towards where George was sat on the floor.

"Say goodnight,” he said softly, and then he was gone, leaving her and George alone in the field.

"I don't need a babysitter, Ada," George said patiently, watching her with cloudy eyes. The pain was starting to get to him again, it was obvious.

Ada swallowed down the lump in her throat and crossed her arms. "You sure bout that? You haven't exactly been the picture of responsibility lately."

"Says the biggest troublemaker I know. Who was it that got us trapped in the maze again?"

Though his tone was teasing, George's words felt like ice cold water splashing down on her, and the guilt was quick to drown her.

"I'm so sorry."

"Oh, hey, no." George's tone was soft, and when he tilted his head back to look up at her his eyes were so impossibly sad. "You gotta know I don't blame you for this. I don't care what I said before when I was... I don't care what I said before, I don't blame you. I could never, okay?"

"You should. It's my fault."

"Not really. I wanted to be in the maze that day. I was there by my own doing. You couldn't have known what would happen, Ada."

"Yeah... right."

"Ads," George said, the nickname making her look up sharply at him. She couldn't remember the last time she had a nickname.

He was looking at her as if she was the most precious thing in the world right then, as if her understanding and accepting his words was the most important thing in the universe.

"This was not your fault. I was not your fault. Ada I need you to know that. I need you to know that no matter what happens to me you are not to blame."

The tears were threatening to choke her, but she couldn't have looked away from him if her life had depended on it. "You promise?"

"I promise. I swear it, in fact."

Ada smiled softly. "I'll see you in the morning George."

"See you in the morning." As she turned to leave, his voice called out to her. "Hey, Ada?"

"Yeah?"

"Love you."

She scoffed. "Night, dork."

For as long as she lived she would always regret not saying it back.

—

The screams started at midnight.

They began as quiet whimpers, barely audible from her hammock in the back corner of the homestead. From there, if she turned her back to the wall she could barely make out the flickering light of George's torch in the distance.

But then the whimpers turned to cries, and the cries to screams, until George's pain was all she could hear. Avin slept on beside her, but she could see that Alby was awake, tossing and turning in his bunk. Charles, Nick, James, and Connor were somewhere to her left, but she didn't know if they were awake or sleeping. It was too dark to tell.

Countless times she stood, kicking her feet into her boots, when Alby would reach out and stop her. "It's not what he wants" he would say, and she would look at the tears in his eyes and give in, rolling back into her hammock.

She was staring at the ceiling in the dark, squinting to make out the cracks in the wood, when the screams stopped.

One second it was all she could hear, and the next her ears were ringing in the abrupt silence. It came out of nowhere, and it was deafening.

She didn't know why, but she had never been more afraid of silence in her life.

--

Morning came at last, bringing light to the dark in a dizzying haze of orange and red before a pale blue broke out across the sky, chasing away the stars. Ada watched them slowly flicker and die out from her hammock, lying flat on her back and listening to the steady breathing of the boys around her.

The silence in the glade was broken only by their scattered huffs of air and the almost manufactured sound of the crickets that chirped somewhere from the treeline.

She strained her ears to see if she could hear George moving, but there was only silence.

Perhaps he was still asleep, or the pain from his injuries had stolen away his consciousness. She wasn't sure which.

Eventually, the stillness had ground its way under her skin and become unbearable. Moving slowly so as to not alert the others, she slipped out of the hammock and into her boots, grabbing the bandages and water they had left on the side the night before. Ada glanced once behind her at Alby, but his form was still, asleep, the only movement the steady rise and fall of his chest. Even in sleep his muscles were tensed, primed for a fight.

Walking through the glade by herself was eerie. It was still dark enough for her to feel on edge, for the torch in her hand to be necessary. The beams of light swept across the ground, picking up the dew on the grass and making the droplets of water sparkle in the dawn.

"Hey George, I'm back," she called out into the tree line. She couldn't see him yet, but he had to have heard her.

She frowned when he didn't answer. Maybe he's still asleep.

"I brought bandages, that shoulder of yours must be killing you right now."

When he still didn't answer, Ada huffed and made her way further into the treeline, letting the darkness swallow her.

"George? You awake?"

Silence.

"Cmon, George, wake up. It's sunrise, time to get going."

The further she walked in the more she realised that she wasn't seeing light from the torch they had left him with. In fact, the entire forest was still untouched by light, natural or otherwise. It was so dark, so oppressive, it was hard to believe anyone but herself was there at all.

"George?"

Fear began to curl itself around her chest in tight tendrils, growing thorns that dug into her lungs and stole the breath from her.

"George? You still there?"

What if he had gotten out? What if that side of him had taken over again and he was somewhere out there, waiting to hurt her?

"George? This isn't funny."

Her eyes landed on the torch they had left for him at last, but it had fallen over on the grass, snuffed out. The chains were still wrapped around the tree, she could make out their bulky shape in the dark, and there leaning against the trunk was a slumped figure.

"Oh thank god, I thought you'd gone somewhere." Ada laughed, itching her way closer.

She could see that George's head was slumped against his chest, his arms limp at his sides. Sighing, she turned the torch onto his body, and let the light wash over his limp form.

The breath left her lungs in a violent sweep.

George was slumped against the tree, indeed, but the trunk of the tree behind him was drenched with blood. It trickled down from the bark, down the back of his neck, soaking his shoulders and upper back.

The material of his white shirt clung to him, sticky with blackish red. His hair had chunks missing, as if bits had caught on the rough surface behind him, and the entire back of his head was clotted with blood.

As if he had smashed his head back into the tree so many times he could no longer remain standing.

Ada let out half a sob and collapsed to her knees beside him, shaking hands reaching out to grab at his chin; to lift his head or check his pulse, she didn't know, all she knew was that she needed to see his face, needed to know what her brain was struggling to discern.

Because she knew damn well a person couldn't lose that much blood and survive. But he couldn't be dead. He couldn't be.

He had promised them tomorrow.

The tip of her shaking finger touched his cheek, and Ada choked at the ice cold that met her. Slowly, oh so slowly, she reached out and, ignoring the rolling in her stomach, lifted George's head.

The veins had spread to cover every inch of his face, black and rigid beneath his taut skin. Black blood dribbled from his lips, drenching his chin, rolling in thick globs down his neck where they had dried at his collarbone. His eyes were glassy in a way they shouldn't be, glazed over with tears that wouldn't spill, his pupils enlarged and irises pale in comparison to the bloodshot edges. His brown curls stuck to his forehead with blood.

Ada let out a trembling whimper, her heart hammering beneath her rib cage.

It was ironic, she supposed, that her heart was beating so fast when she had a sickening suspicion that his wasn't beating at all.

"Please, no, please not him." Begging with a God she didn't believe in, she lowered her fingers to the side of his neck, wincing as they glided through the slick blood that rested there. Pressing them against the vein there, black and ropey beneath her fingers, she waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Her scream of pure anguish woke the others from their sleep.

Chapter Text

When Newt woke up again, it was to voices flickering in through the vent to his left.

The dark was back, but it was a welcome comfort. If he couldn't see, then he couldn't see the room he was trapped in. Couldn't see the stain on the roof that looked like the rabbit, or was it a bear? He couldn't remember. Couldn't see the same bed and the same table and chair he sat in every day, couldn't see the same four walls and floor and ceiling, a drab grey that choked him and made him long for a burst of colour.

Copper hair, a flash of green eyes.

Black hair, laughing dark eyes.

Brown hair, serious blue eyes.

Blonde hair, innocent brown eyes.

The colour of his friends' personalities and smiles and useless commentary.

The colour of home.

A foreign concept, now. One he could barely remember.

But the dark was welcome. The dark was distracting. It helped ease the fact that he had lost count of the days since he had been separated from everyone else. Was it days? A week? A month, even?

The fact that he didn't know didn't scare him as much as he thought it should. That fact in itself was terrifying.

The voices were back again.

"Everything is ready, Doctor Paige."

"Is he?"

"No, subject A5 remains in the holding facility. I was instructed to wait for your approval before we transferred him for preparation."

Preparation, Newt thought idly. Transferred. Perhaps they were taking him somewhere else. Somewhere where the dark wasn't so distracting and the walls weren't so grey.

Maybe there would be colour there.

"Get him ready as soon as possible, then. The others have already been prepped and are ready to be sent up."

"Of course, doctor Paige."

Sent up? Newt frowned, rolling over in his bed. Sent up where?

Then he realised. It was as if someone had taken ice cold water and dumped it over his head, shocking his nerves.

The maze.

They were sending him up to the maze. Which meant they were going to erase his memories.

Panic beyond panic sank in, fear like he had never known before consuming him, drowning him. He didn't want to forget his entire life, the people who meant the world to him. They consumed his every waking thought, dreams of seeing them again, god he hadn't seen them in months, and now he wouldn't. Wouldn't get to see them again, any of them, or even get to say goodbye.

Heart in his throat, Newt bolted upright, fingers clutching at his throat. He couldn't breathe. The world around him was splintering, cracking, cleaving in two, and he could do nothing but lean against that damn grey wall and wait for his life to end.

Because that's what they were doing. By wiping his memories, taking away the thought of anyone and everything that he loved, they were killing the part of him that made him him.

He wondered bleakly if he'd ever get it back. If he'd ever recognise himself again.

Then he realised there would be nothing to recognise.

Sitting cross-legged on the brick-like bed in the dark in the corner of his room, Newt felt paralyzed, and could do nothing but wait for the light when the door would open.

It took longer than he thought it would.

When the door creaked open and the light fell on him, he felt as if his body was made of lead, as if he was an immovable anchor weighed down by pure terror. But they picked him up as if he were nothing, gloved hands sliding under his arms and hauling him to his feet, legs dragging uselessly behind him.

Newt only blinked back to his senses when they were in the corridor and the harsh white overhead lights began to blind him.

His room was behind him now. He missed it. Wanted to go back.

Why couldn't he go back?

Static was blaring in his ears, filling his head with fuzz. The guards weren't talking, but he wouldn't have been able to hear them if they were.

They rounded the corner, into a new wing of the facility, and Newt felt bile rise in his throat as the last of what he recognised faded away as they entered the out of bounds medical wing. His hands began to shake.

Minho's face flashed in the forefront of his mind, his smile so wide it stretched his cheeks and slitted his eyes. Then he was frowning, screaming at him to fight.

Fight back, damnit, fight!

Fight for what? Newt thought blearily. What life did he have here?

They're gonna take everything, Newt! Fight back! DO SOMETHING!

Minho was screaming now, begging, but it wasn't Minho at all, it was him, his voice shredding itself against the white walls as he thrashed against the guards' tight grip. When did he start screaming?

They passed an open doorway, the room inside illuminated with harsh white lamps and blue tinged monitors, and he didn't know what was beyond it but all Newt could see was salvation.

The guards had loosened their grip, clearly unworried due to his lack of action, the fools, so Newt waited until they were directly beside the doorway before he let his entire body weight drop. Startled by the sudden dead-weight, the guard to his right swore, stopping in his tracks.

Newt didn't hesitate before he slammed the heel of his shoe against his kneecap.

The guard cursed and doubled over right as the other one pounced. Newt dodged it, barely, grabbing the back of the guard's neck in a tight grip and forcing it forward until it collided with the wall with a sickening thud, not enough to injure, just enough to daze. Just enough for him to get away.

He didn't hesitate before running.

Running was all he knew now, all he was. His feet pounded against the stone floor, the walls a frantic blur of white around him. The guards were screaming now, yelling curses as they came after him, getting closer and closer.

But Newt was in the room, away from them, and the door slammed behind him. It didn't lock, as far as he could see, but the heavy table beside him blocked the handle well enough.

Eyes scanning the tables in front of him, his gaze landed on the mess of papers and frantically scribbled notes strewn across the surfaces. He reached for a pen and a blank piece of paper, an idea forming in the back of his mind.

Eventually, the door gave way to the pounding fists of the guards, right as Newt crammed the piece of paper into the open top of his necklace. The words rested against his pounding heart, right where they belonged. Rough hands wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him to a stand.

Something hot and electric jammed into his side. It paralysed him, thudding through his veins. The guard pulled the taser away, and Newt didn't fight as his body slumped to the ground. The scream caught in his throat, unable to be let out.

Trapped. Just like him.

He was strapped to a table. How did he get here? Wrists pinned down, secured to the cold metal below him. He couldn't feel his legs. Why couldn't he feel his legs? Where was he?

There was a needle approaching, closer and closer. It pierced his skin, making him scream. Fire licked through his veins.

Newt's body arched on the table, back cracking under the strain of this thrashing. Was that him screaming? His vision started to blur, black and blue, shapes swirling and changing in front of him.

Where was he?

There were bubbles in his brain. Someone with black hair and blue eyes. He didn't know them. But he did, and then he didn't. The memory was gone. Popping in his mind.

A flash of copper and greenish blue. Who was she? She faded away, and Newt clung to her with the last vestiges of his sanity. Horror filled him as he forgot her, but then he couldn't remember what he forgot. Who was she? Was there even a she?

Where was he?

Blonde hair, brown eyes, a sister, a stranger.

Black dots danced in his vision. In and out. Back and forth. There was a doctor, or someone, white mask and coat. Right in front of him. And then they were gone. Who was gone? No one was, he was alone. Wasn't he?

He was screaming. Or someone was. He couldn't tell. Everything was fading, black and white, who was he? The needle was back. Something sharp jabbing into his arm. White peppered his vision.

Remember.

A desperate thought, unreachable, danced just beyond his vision. And then it vanished, and he was alone.

Newt's stomach churned, but he couldn't notice that. Couldn't notice anything. What was his name? He didn't know. He didn't care.

Something heavy slammed into his chest, knocking the air out of his lungs, and then the blackness won over. The last thing he knew was a gentle voice whispering in his ear.

"Remember, Newt. WICKED is good."

Chapter Text

Day Fifty Eight

Static was filling her ears again.

It was all she knew; the continuous buzzing echoing in her head, smothering the sounds of the outside world, muffling the unmistakable thunder of footsteps racing towards her, raised voices calling out in panic – was that Alby she could hear? Screaming her name, was he crying too? – but she couldn't focus on them.

Not the voices, not the footsteps, not the sounds of her own cries as the torch slipped through blood slicked fingers and smashed on the ground, leaving her in complete darkness.

Her hands were shaking again. She could feel them trembling violently, flecks of warm blood splattering against the ground. Ada pressed them to her chest to quiet the pounding of her heart, but the blood smeared across her shirt, slicking against her skin – when she realised she couldn't breathe, she wrapped one hand around her throat, feeling her pulse thrumming away under the pads of her wet fingers.

When she pulled them away, a necklace of red glimmered in the blackness.

"George–" Ada muttered, but her voice wouldn't come – it was cracked and strained even to her own ears, broken through the goddamn static she couldn't shake.

She raised the trembling hands; surely they weren't hers, they looked too foreign suddenly, too alien, but she lifted them anyway, pressing them against the cold skin of the face that hovered mere inches away from hers.

"George, wake up."

The pads of her fingers smoothed over the veins on his face, over the grotesque abrasions that weren't there before. Her stomach rolled violently, twisting into knots until she couldn't move.

"C'mon, George." When had she started shaking him? His head lolled against his chest, and she moved closer, lifting her fingers to smooth the matted hair out of his eyes. They were open and staring, and a gasping sob left her as she closed them, thumbprints of red staining his eyelids. "Wake up George, wake up." Her hands landed on his shoulders, the muscles strained from where his arms stretched behind him, bound tightly by rope.

Why had they tied him up again? Ada frantically scrambled to undo the knots, but her breath left her in a pained gasp as George's entire body weight slumped forward, his head thudding against her collarbone.

Something horrible flashed in her mind, a foreign echo of a memory that wasn't hers, of bloated bodies and rotted corpses pressing hard against her.

Every instinct inside her was screaming to recoil, to shy away, but she couldn't. Her body was suspended, trapped underwater, motion stolen from her. All she could do was wrap her arms around him, hand cupping the back of his head, and rock back and forth.

But the back of his head felt strange, hard in places and soft in others, sections of his hair missing. Her hands came away slicked with more blood, more red, and she buried them in the fabric of his shirt, hands fisting in the coarse material.

He wasn't breathing, she realised distantly, there was no breath puffing against her neck.

"But we were supposed to escape together–" Her eyes blurred with tears until she couldn't see George's body anymore, until all that was left was the weight of him in her hands, heavy and slack, crushing her upper body.

All she could do was hold him and scream.

A beam of light swung onto her, blinding her for a moment. Ada whimpered and drew George closer, blood wet fingers holding him tight, but he didn't hold her back, and the sound of raised voices finally brought the static to a screeching halt.

Rough hands grabbed at her shoulders, pulling her backwards and away from George.

"Ada, oh my god, Ada–"

Ada let out a cry, hands tightening where they gripped George's skin. Blood welled under her nails.

"Ada, let him go." That was Alby, she realised bleakly as his hands closed around her shoulders, pulling her away from the tree, from the body.

She fought for a moment, fingers spasming around George's arms, but then went willingly, her own body betraying her. She slumped back against the person behind her, fighting the vomit crawling its way up her throat.

"What's going on?" A small voice came from somewhere behind her.

She recognised it, she knew, but her head felt too fuzzy to place it. The was the pressure of someone's lips pressed fleetingly against the back of her head before the person behind her stood, leaving her sitting cross-legged in the grass, trembling all over.

"Avin, back up," Alby said. He was the one behind her.

"Is George okay?" Avin asked, closer this time, and the mention of his name forced a low whine of anguish from Ada's throat.

Connor knelt down beside her, hands outstretched as if approaching a wild animal. His lips were moving, shaping words she couldn't hear.

"Damnit Avin, I said back up."

Nick leant down in the grass beside George, fingers probing at his neck. There was a beat of heavy silence before he sighed, shoulders slumping. "He's dead."

She knew it, she'd felt it, but the words had settled like something cold inside her, sending ice slithering through her veins.

"We need a blanket or something," Charles muttered, from her right. When had he gotten there? "She's shaking."

The thought of anything pressing down on her had Ada gagging, curling in on herself against the grass.

"No, don't touch her. Leave her be," Alby said.

When she glanced up at him through hazed eyes, she saw his gaze was fixed on George. His dark skin was ashen, his normally expressionless eyes wide with disbelief. In the gleam of James' torch, she could see tear tracks on his cheeks.

"What happened?" Connor asked, eyes mapping out the blood on the tree and the grass, a dark slick of reddish black.

Nick reached forward and grabbed George's chin, angling his head back and forth to study it, seeming completely nonplussed by the gore. "Back of his skull's bashed in."

Ada lowered her head into knees, clamping her palms over her ears.

"But... how?" James asked. "What did this?"

"What's wrong with his face?" Avin asked, his voice shaking. His entire body, in fact, was trembling like a leaf. "Do – do dead bodies usually look like that?"

Like that, of course, meaning the mottled black veins protruding from the cracked flesh of George's neck and cheek, and the unsettling sores that had opened up on his face.

Alby looked inclined to mention that he hadn't been privy to seeing many dead bodies before, but then the memory of Carson and Luke resurfaced. They most certainly hadn't looked like that. "No. They don't."

"Maybe it's whatever he was sick with," Nick said, wiping his now bloodied hands against the leg of his trousers, only to stare down at them in revulsion when he realised he didn't have another set to change into. "We know it was messing up his head. And it made him look like… that. He probably couldn't take it anymore."

A sick silence descended over the group. "You think he… he did this to himself?" Alby's voice was unusually thick.

"Well I'm not suggesting any of us did it to him, am I?"

Connor exhaled miserably, slumping down to sit cross legged in the damp grass. "Maybe he couldn't take the pain anymore."

"Or the thought of getting loose was too much for him," James added.

Whatever it was, whatever sick and twisted madness drove George to such desperation that he would take his own life, abandon them here, Ada would never forgive him for it. The memory of his screams abruptly cutting off in the night was all she could hear.

She must have made some sort of distressed sound, for Alby took a step backwards, away from the tree, away from George.

"We should move him,” he said after a heavy pause. "Put him to rest."

–

And they did.

George's body was buried beside Carson's, the farthest right in a row of three.

His grave was as elaborate as they could make it, the same wooden cross that adorned the other two graves stood proudly above the mound of soil, his name etched as neatly as possible in the middle. Ada had been the one to do it, she was adamant about it, in fact.

She couldn't bring herself to cross his name off the wall, to erase his existence just like that, as if he had never been there to begin with. It felt too final, too soon.

When they had crossed Carson and Luke off, their deaths had had time to settle. They had had time to fully come to terms with the fact that they were gone. To put a line through George's name while his body was still warm seemed too cruel.

But Alby had done it, and when he drove the dagger into the rock it felt like he was driving it into her instead. But this? Creating a place fit for George to lay forever? That she could do.

And so she had sat cross legged, in front of the previously upturned dirt of the forest, using one of Alby's knives and talking to the space where she knew George's body lay beneath her, rambling on about how things were in the glade. Nothing had changed since his death, of course, but she felt his absence like a dagger to her gut, cutting away at any warmth inside her.

She constantly sought out his comforting presence beside her, only to turn and realise that he wasn't there anymore. She wondered how long it would take until she stopped trying to talk to a ghost.

She had gotten halfway through the r in his name before she had dropped the knife, her hands shaking too much to continue. Alby had found her then, sitting silently in front of the grave, staring at the ground with a blank expression on her face.

In that moment he could have sworn she had aged years since they had first entered the glade. But only fifty nine days had passed since their arrival, and they were one day shy of their second month here being completed.

None of them knew how to take the fact that barely any progress had been made since that day, and their numbers were dropping like flies.

They had held a meeting of sorts, the day after George's death.

The structure Avin and James were working on was finished, a sort of round wooden shack built slightly south of the Homestead, the ground dug in in the middle so that there were sort of podiums surrounding the inner circle. Chairs had been constructed from wood from the forest.

They were uncomfortable and stray sticks dug into their backs when they sat, but when they saw the proud look in Avin's eyes when he directed them to each of their chairs any protests they had were silenced immediately. One for each of them, he declared with a grin. He had started the project weeks ago.

George's chair sat unused in the corner.

"It's the two month mark tomorrow," Alby said, arms crossed tight over his chest as he stood rigidly in front of the others.

Ada was perched in her chair to his right, facing the remaining five people. Her hair, usually tucked into a neat ponytail, was loose and tumbling down her back, messy as if she had run her hands through it a thousand times. Her eyes were weighed down by the purplish shadows beneath them. She hadn't slept the previous night. None of them had.

"Which means we might be looking at the arrival of more people."

"More sacrifices you mean," Nick said darkly. He shifted in his chair, back rimrod straight, brown hair gleaming in the limited light. His steel grey eyes were narrowed with distaste, but there was something sad in them too, something morose and unguarded. "This place is a disaster as it is. What the hell are you gonna do when more people show up, huh?"

"I think you mean we," Ada spoke up, voice cracking from disuse. "This is kind of a group thing we got going on here, if you hadn't noticed."

Nick scoffed. "Please. I think the two of you have made it perfectly clear who's in charge." He jutted his chin in her and Alby's direction before turning his face away. The bitterness he usually looked at her with had faded slightly, she was shocked to see, replaced with something more grudging and gentle.

"They're just trying to keep us safe, Nick." Connor sighed.

James nodded, lower lip tucked between his teeth. "Probably best too. We ain't been in that hellscape of a maze, and after what happened to George I certainly don't want to." A ripple of sadness slithered around the room. "They've been here the longest. They know what they're doing. I'm more than happy to leave things up to them." He turned to Ada and Alby. "If that's cool with you, that is."

Ada realised bleakly that he was right. Her, Alby, and Avin were the only ones left out of their original group. Halved in number in the space of two months.

She wondered how long it would take until they were in the ground too.

Alby studied Ada, eyes scanning the exhausted slump of her shoulders and the almost dead look in her eyes. "Leadership roles aside, we seriously need to consider how we're going to go on living here."

Avin frowned. "I thought the objective was to look for a way out?"

Ada smiled despite herself. Objective, as if this was a mission in a novel, or an elaborate journey in someone's mind, not the real world with real danger with the all too real possibility of death.

"It is. But it's been two months, and it's stupid of us not to think that we're here for the long haul. As much as the thought scares me, we're here to stay." When she saw the terrified look on Connor and Avin's face, she amended her statement slightly. "For now, at least."

"Ada's right. That shit show of a farm out there isn't enough to keep us going. Not until we get it up and running properly."

"George was the one who worked on the farm," James pointed out. Ada couldn’t help but think back to a conversation on the watchtower about carrots.

"You take over for him," Alby said decisively. "I want you working on planting new crops, turning that farm into something that can sustain us."

James nodded resolutely, eyes brighter now that he had a purpose.

"And the rest of us?"

Ada leant forward in her seat. "Connor, I want you working on the farm with James. But if something goes wrong and someone gets hurt, I want you to be the one patching them up. You handled George well. I want you to go up to the medics room, organise the stuff in there. Make it your own space. No one else goes in unless they're injured and need help, understood?"

When she was met with a series of nods, she continued.

"Nick, I want you working with Avin. Your job is to tend to the glade, build new structures, anything you think we might need, I want you to build it. And preferably start with a place where Alby and I can keep track of what we learn when we run the maze."

"Hang on." Nick leant forward. "The two of you are running the maze? Both of you? Is that smart?"

"Why wouldn't it be?" Alby frowned.

"We literally just established that you guys hold the leadership positions. Both of you. Sending the two leaders into the deadly monster filled maze is just idiotic."

"He makes a valid point," Avin said bashfully.

Alby hummed, rubbing his chin. Ada thought he looked rather ridiculous, but didn't say anything. She turned to share an amused look with George, only to stop when the realisation sank in.

"We're working on the assumption here that new people are coming up tomorrow. If that's the case, we assess their abilities and the strongest runner joins Ada."

Ada let out a breath of relief. The thought of being cooped up in the glade all day long sounded almost unbearable. Whilst to some a life in the glade meant safety, security, to her it was a prison sentence, a reminder that they were there by force, trapped. The idea of not searching for a way out had her itching for movement where she sat.

Alby seemed to know this, turning his knowing eyes on her. "If that happens, I'll stand down and help out where I'm needed. Whether that's on the farm or with the builders remains to be seen,” he said firmly.

"What about me?" Charles asked.

"Someone's gotta cook for us, may as well be you."

Charles let out an affronted gasp. "You're reducing me to the role of the cook?"

"Hey, your food so far has been the only stuff that's not had me feeling the urge to vomit in the grass," Ada said. "Consider it an honour."

"I want you going through the food that we're given as well as the crops that we grow," Alby instructed. "We'll go month by month. Make the food last, figure out how much we can eat a day and still have enough. The entire kitchen domain will be your area, no one goes in it, no one eats when they aren't meant to. If you're hungry, go talk to Charles. He'll give you whatever we have that's spare. Understood?"

Connor kicked the ground blearily. "Yes, dad."

And so it was settled. Roles were established, order was created, and a system fell in place that seemed to work wonders.

Ada spent a great deal of time crouched in front of the three graves in the forest talking about it, telling her friends about the new hierarchy in the glade. Even if she got no answer, she was comforted. She could almost hear George's sarcastic replies in her head.

"Of course Alby put himself in charge," he would say gleefully, "the self-centred asswipe."

When the sun set that night, and the stars broke out in the sky, Ada sat in the watchtower staring at them and smiled.

There were three bright stars in the sky now.

–

Breathing was too difficult a feat to manage, Ada thought wearily as she re-entered the Glade the next day.

The sun was just on the verge of setting, the sky still a brilliant blue but threatening with every second to grow darker. She clutched a stitch at her side, wheezing. Really, she would have thought she’d improved since day one.

Alby huffed out a laugh at her side, and when she turned to stare at him to see if she had accidentally spoken out loud she saw him looking towards the centre of the glade, where three wooden crates were stacked on top of the closed doors to the box. The dull sound of someone banging against metal met their ears.

"What the hell have these idiots done?" Ada asked, biting down her laugh as she wiped at the sweat on her collarbone with the collar of her shirt. "We were only gone for a few hours."

"Maybe Nick was right." Alby's mouth twisted almost distastefully at the words. "Maybe we should have left an authority figure in the glade."

"I'm sure Avin has it handled."

"The kid's twelve. I barely trust him with a hammer, let alone a group of rowdy teenagers."

"And yet you put him in charge of building." Ada chuckled and moved forward, striding over towards the box.

Alby let out an affronted huff before following her. "You put him in charge of building."

Ada waved her hand dismissively. "Semantics." She brought her hand up to her lips and curled her tongue around her forefinger and thumb, whistling loudly. "Hey, idiots, what's going on over there?"

Avin, plump cheeks rosy with laughter, let out a boisterous giggle before pointing at the box. "Charles put Nick in time out."

Ada burst out laughing, staring down at where she could hear Nick clanging around angrily from inside.

The three crates stacked on top of the handle were crammed full of rocks to keep him inside. Alby seemed slightly less impressed as he rose an eyebrow at where Charles was standing bashfully across from them.

"He stole some bacon!"

Ada's laughter deepened as she leant down, raising her voice so that Nick could hear her. "A capital offence indeed, Nick. What were you thinking?"

"Piss off, Ada," Nick's angry voice huffed from inside.

"How'd you even get him in there?" Alby asked as Connor and James joined them, trying and failing to hide their smiles.

Charles' blush deepened. "I, uh, tossed the bacon in there."

"And he followed?"

Ada collapsed into another fit of laughter, sitting down on the grass and clutching her sides. "Ah, good doggy, Nick!"

It sounded as if Nick banged his fist into the side of the steel.

Alby's lips twitched as he tried not to smile. "So, is this gonna become a thing? Putting people in the box when they misbehave?"

Charles shrugged. "They gotta learn somehow."

"Watch yourself Nick," Ada taunted, "you're not careful and they'll build you a jail cell just for you."

Any reply Nick could have given was cut off by the blaring sound of a siren, the mechanical wailing slashing through the joyful atmosphere and replacing it with one full of tense anticipation.

"Gonna break that damn siren one day," Alby muttered, already moving to dislodge the crates keeping Nick trapped.

The second they were discarded the doors slammed open and Nick scrambled out, backing away from the entrance with wide eyes. "What's going on?"

Ada glanced up, her eyes meeting with Alby's. "I do believe our new friends are being sent up."

"We're getting new gladers?" Connor asked.

A horrible sound was released from the box, the sound of metal grinding against metal, so similar to the sound of the maze doors opening and closing Ada glanced behind her to make sure they weren't shutting early. But they weren't, the entrance to the maze as dark and daunting as ever in the rapidly dissolving light.

Alby closed the doors, gesturing to the others to back away. The siren stopped, and the doors were closed.

"Now what?" Nick asked, and Alby shrugged.

"We wait."

So they did. The minutes crawled by, the seconds dragging. Ada sat cross legged on the ground, counting them in her head, picking a blade of grass from the earth every time sixty seconds passed.

The air was thick with anticipation, the excitement of it clogging their throats and ruining any hope for productivity. Alby started pacing when forty five minutes had passed. Avin watched him from his place by Ada's side while Nick, Charles, Connor, and James tried to busy themselves with conversation, but silence kept beating them out, smothering their efforts.

At long last, when sixty five blades of grass lay discarded at Ada's feet, the siren started up again, and the screeching sound of metal returned. Another sixty seconds passed, another blade of grass was plucked, and the siren stopped.

The rumbling sound of hushed voices pierced the silence like distant thunder.

Avin gulped nervously. "Do we open it?"

Ada shrugged, and then reached forward a slightly trembling hand to grasp the handles of the box. Hesitating only for a second, she yanked the doors outward, and daylight pierced the blackness below.

Four shapes huddled together in the corner of the box, four hands raised to shield eyes from the sudden brightness. Ada sighed.

"One day I'm gonna open this and there's gonna be another girl waiting on the other side, I'm telling you."

Four pairs of eyes blinked up at them, and the figures of four teenage boys made themselves known.

Ada glanced around the group, gaze catching on the muddy brown eyes fixed on her.

Their owner, a gangly blonde boy with a slender, pale face, stared up at her with confusion. Her stomach swooped.

I know those eyes, she thought momentarily, but the feeling left as quickly as it came.

Alby cracked his neck before crouching down, extending a hand into the box. "Welcome to the glade, greenies."

Ada crossed her arms. "Here we go again."

Chapter Text

Part Two

B e f o r e  T h e  S t o r m

TRACKLIST

Side B

Castles Crumbling – Taylor Swift

"Smoke billows from my ships in the harbour, people look at me like I'm a monster."

The Story of Us – Taylor Swift

"So many things that I wish you knew, so many walls up I can't break through."

Haunted – Taylor Swift

"Come on, come on, don't leave me like this. I thought I had you figured out."

Waiting Room – Phoebe Bridges

"Know its for the better."

Chapter Text

Day Sixty

The smoky smell of freshly cooked bacon hung in the air, mingling with the overpowering aroma of fire and ash. The night sky, peppered with stars, stretched across the glade like an inky blanket. The fire burning just north of the box was luminous and bright, white hot flames stretching high into the air.

Alby stood on top of a lopsided crate, hands in the air, cheering as James and Connor played a heated match of wrestling in the patch of flat sand beside them. Maybe they could corner it off and make it an official thing, Ada thought as she happily placed bets with Avin.

"James has got this in the bag!" He argued, tiny hands on his hips as she stared up at Ada with a grin. "Connor doesn't stand a chance."

"You kidding?" Ada scoffed. "You see the height difference? Connor has at least five inches on James. Plus, he's more muscly."

"But James is quicker!"

Ada shrugged and rocked back on her heels. Her copper hair gleamed in the firelight, a dazzling blur of red as she moved. "You'll be eating your words when I'm eating your bacon tomorrow morning."

"You bet on each others rations again?" Charles came up beside them, smirking. "Poor Avin's gone without bacon three times now."

"His fault for betting against me in the first place," Ada said without guilt.

Her eyes scanned the other side of the fire, where two of the newbies were engaged in avid conversation, both of them blushing. She didn't know either of their names — hell, she wasn't even sure if they knew their names yet — but in the hours since the box had come up they had by far been the most friendly. It was actually sort of alarming that the whole being trapped in a giant maze thing didn't seem to faze them all that much.

Chattering from her left drew her attention, and she locked eyes with Nick and smiled. He was talking to another one of the new gladers, a gangly boy with rather ridiculous eyebrows and a nose resembling a squashed potato. Short light brown hair clung to his head, and his deep green eyes, so dark they were almost brown, kept flitting around the glade with distrust.

Avin tugged thrice on her sleeve, and Ada turned back to the match just in time to see Connor grab James around the waist and spin just enough to send the other boy toppling to the ground face first. Alby, Connor, and Charles let out wild cries of excitement, bouncing up and down with their arms in the air, massive grins stretching on their faces. Ada couldn't help but laugh at the sheer joy.

James spat out a mouthful of sand and glared up at them, mud streaking the left side of his face. Ada turned to Avin, taking in his wide eyes and open mouth with no small amount of pride. "I do believe you owe me your bacon. Again."

"Damnit! I was so sure this time."

Ada nudged him with the tip of her booted toe. "Next time." She wasn't worried. She'd find a way to sneak the bacon back onto Avin's plate anyway. He'd gotten skinny in the last week.

"Hey Ada, c'mere!" Nick called her over, and when she joined them Nick gestured to the boy in front of them. Now that she could see him clearer, she could make out the light dusting of freckles on his misshapen nose. He looked to be around the same age as her. "This is Gally. Gally, this is Ada, the woman in charge."

Ada flushed. "Only because you idiots are too dumb to make competent decisions."

Gally stood up straighter and eyed her with curiosity. "So, you can tell me what's going on here?"

Ada frowned. "Didn't Alby give you the run down earlier?"

"I mean, yeah, but that can't be all there is to this."

Ada smiled sadly and shook her head. The shadows on her face moved with the flickering of the fire. Cheerful bouts of laughter echoed from the other side of the fire, movement catching her eye from where the two boys who were previously talking wandered over to the rest of the group.

"It sucks, doesn't it?" She asked idly. "But what we've told you is honestly all that we know ourselves. Alby and I agreed it wouldn't make any sense to keep anything from you."

Gally's face darkened. "So we really are trapped here?"

"It's not so bad." Nick shrugged. "I mean it sucks beyond belief, and the food is sort of horrible, but if you focus on your job it helps take your mind off things."

Loud jeers caught her attention again, and when she looked one of the two new boys, a scruffy looking brunette with pronounced cheekbones, was attempting to put Alby in a headlock. Rather unsuccessfully, she noticed.

As they stumbled left and right in front of the fire, sweating and yelling, they passed by a boy sat solitude from the rest, leaning against an upturned log in front of the fire.

He reminded her of a sparrow almost, his lithe limbs tensed, face down-turned into shadow so that she couldn't quite make it out. From there, his golden hair practically shone with the flames, each fluffy and unruly strand catching the light. Something red gleamed around his wrist as he moved his arm up to lean against his leg.

"Right, Ada?" Nick asked, and when she looked back at him he was staring at her expectantly.

Ada blinked thrice. Had he been talking to her? "Oh, er, yeah. Right."

Nick raised an eyebrow at her, looking mildly amused, so she decided a subject change was wise before he called her out for whatever expression he saw on her face. "Who's that? We got a name yet?"

Nick glanced over at the blonde boy and shrugged. "Nah. Silent as the grave. Won't talk to anyone."

Challenge accepted.

As she made to move over to him, Nick stepped into her path again. "Can we have a word, later?"

"Um... why?"

He looked bashful, almost, slightly annoyed as he rubbed his palm against his dirt-streaked thigh. "Just something I wanna talk to you about, that's all."

"Okay, yeah." Ada nodded. "Come find me after the bonfire."

Nick nodded and moved aside, clasping Gally by the shoulder and steering him towards the rest of the group. Ada watched them leave, then turned her attention to the lonesome boy again. His long fingers picked at the ground, tearing up tufts of grass and peeling them slowly apart. From what she could see of his face in the limited light he was frowning.

As she made her way over to him, his eyes slowly rose to meet hers, brown and green clashing in the firelight.

He looked away without a change in expression as she sank down onto the grass beside him, keeping a respectable amount of distance between them as she noted the tense set to his narrow shoulders and the tightness of his frame.

"What did that grass ever do to you?" She asked after a beat of silence.

He didn't answer.

Ada felt something similar to dread starting to curl its way around her insides, but the slowly rising call of curiosity kept her where she was, staring up at him with a slightly furrowed brow. "Do you remember your name yet?"

The boy lifted one shoulder in a poor attempt of a shrug and didn't bother to respond.

Ada took the moment of awkward silence to study him. This close up, the angles of his face were perfectly clear, thrown into sharp relief by the flickering orange haze. The light danced in his eyes, the deep brown of them warm despite the cool expression schooling his features.

His eyebrows were neat, furrowed slightly, sloping down to a small nose. His lips, pursed into a thin line, had teeth indents in them, as if he had been chewing them recently. Unruly blonde hair clung messily to his head.

"If all you're gonna do is sit there and stare you may as well bugger off."

"He speaks." Ada grinned. "At last. Thought you were mute there for a second, Greenie."

The boy's frown deepened as he angrily plucked up another blade of grass. His voice, when he spoke, was strongly accented. It was nice. "Don't call me that. That's not my name."

"What is your name?"

"None of your business."

Ada lifted an eyebrow and turned back to the fire, trying to tamp down the urge to roll her eyes. "Someone woke up on the wrong side of the box this morning."

"Do me a favour and piss off, would you?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as Charles emerged from the kitchen area holding a massive platter of food, which he deposited on the table with a heavy thud. Alby didn't even hesitate before sprinting towards him. The aroma of bacon grew stronger.

Ada nodded her head towards the set up before turning back to the greenie.

"Looks like dinner's ready. You should probably get some. Charles' bacon is pretty damn good."

The boy didn't even glance at the food. "Not hungry."

Ada opened her mouth to protest, but then noticed how his entire body had tensed like a live wire, waiting to spring into action. For a fleeting moment she remembered George, how in those final moments his body couldn't seem to relax. She decided not to press the issue.

An awkward silence fell over them, punctuated only by the sound of the spitting flames. The boy moved to scratch at the back of his head, staring intently into the fire, and Ada's attention caught on something red that gleamed around his wrist.

"What's that? Some sort of good luck charm?" She asked, reaching up to tug at it idly.

The greenie looked down at his wrist, freezing when he spotted the red fabric wrapped around it, as if he was only just noticing it was there. His brow furrowed for a moment. "How the hell am I supposed to know?"

"Well it's on your wrist."

"Fucked up memory, remember?"

"Ah right, who could forget that?"

The greenie huffed out a frustrated breath, shooting her an agitated glare. It was the first time he had looked at her since she had sat down next to him. "Forgetting seems to be the problem here."

Ada grimaced. "Things will come back, slowly. Your name, first, then little memories." She thought of the dreams she had been having, of the trauma induced flashbacks she couldn't quite remember.

There was a blonde boy in those too, but she couldn't remember his face. Only that she felt safe with him. At ease.

She didn't feel that way now.

"I already know my name."

She stared at him expectantly. "Care to share with the class?"

"No."

The silence stretched thin between them. "I still think you should eat something. We don't know when the last time you ate was."

The grass he was fiddling with crumpled unpleasantly in his hand. "I already told you I'm not hungry. Now would you kindly leave me the hell alone? I'm not interested in small talk."

Ada hesitated for a moment before nodding. "If you insist. If you have any questions just come find me."

He made a non committal sound, as if that were the last thing he would consider doing.

Ada fought down the rising irritation and stood up, cracking her back as she did. She glanced down at him once more, watching as he fiddled with the shoelace on his wrist, before moving away towards where Alby was waiting for her.

"How'd that go?" He asked, handing her a plate piled high with food. She snatched it eagerly.

They always went a little crazy with the bonfires, using up more food than they probably should, but they needed the morale and the down time the monthly celebrations gave them. It was a tradition she could see them continuing, if they were to stay there for longer.

She hoped beyond reason they wouldn't have to.

"Swimmingly,” she responded dryly. "He's a striking conversationalist."

"Yeah, didn't say a word to anyone when I gave them the run down. Kept to himself and didn't ask any questions, which is weird." Alby cast a calculating look to where the boy remained sat in front of the fire. "We'll keep an eye on him. Make sure he doesn't cause any trouble."

Ada tensed. "You think he will?"

"I think the way he's acting is new and unpredictable. And so far everything new and unpredictable here hasn't ended well for us."

The understatement of the century, she thought bitterly.

A long piercing cry shattered the joyful atmosphere, sending the hairs on the back of her neck prickling. She looked up at the walls, following the apprehensive eyes of everyone else, right as another shriek pierced the air. It was coming from inside the maze, right outside the north doors, by the sounds of it.

"Is that...?"

"One of our terrifying roommates? I do believe so." Ada nodded. "First time I've ever heard one so close to the walls though." She wondered for a fleeting second if it could climb over, right into the glade. The idea was horrifying.

"It sounds like it's crying," Alby said, voice low. "Like it's grieving."

"Yeah, grieving the loss of a good meal. None of us have been stupid enough to get trapped in the maze overnight for a few days," Ada muttered under her breath. "Maybe that's what we should call the bastards. Grievers."

Soon after the plates were cleared and the fire had died down to mere embers sparking away into nothingness, Alby was rounding up the new gladers to show them their hammocks. They went without complaint, bellies full and minds exhausted from what was technically their first day alive.

It felt like that anyway; Ada remembered it well.

Leaning against the side of the building, she cast her eyes about for Nick, stomach twisting in knots. Her mind spun with possibilities of what he wanted to talk about. When she spotted him, he waved her over nervously, and she followed with slow steps.

"What's up?"

He didn't grab her arm, which she was thankful for, but instead led her wordlessly over to an opening of trees in the forest. Just as she was about to protest, he stopped at the forest's edge, leaving them in perfect view of the homestead.

Something prickled on the back of her neck, and when she turned it was to see Alby standing beside his hammock, watching them with his massive arms crossed over his chest. A relief, she thought.

"Listen, Ada, I guess I wanted to... apologise." Nick winced, like the words were bitter on his tongue. "I've been thinking about it, and I haven't exactly been fair to you since I got here."

Took him a month to realise it, but he got there eventually.

Ada watched him with a raised eyebrow, suddenly feeling less apprehensive and more intrigued. "Right. Where's this coming from?"

"Seeing all these newbies come up, and seeing them all frightened and confused..." he paused, looking back towards the Homestead where Gally and one of the other greenies were fighting over a hammock. "It just made me think back to when I came up. How angry I was that this was happening. And I didn't get it, because you seemed all calm and condescending and all holier-than-thou and it pissed me off."

Ada frowned. "Gotta admit, as far as apologies go, this isn't the best."

Nick shrugged. "I guess I didn't realise how much we needed you to be like that. Like, all these Greenies asking questions and panicking... would be so much worse if we were panicking too. Then I thought about how lucky they are that we're there to answer their questions, just like I was lucky to have you and Alby there for me. Even if I was a bit of a..."

"Asshole? Douche-canoe? Absolute twat-face?"

"... shank."

"That too."

Nick coughed and rubbed the back of his head with his hand. "It just got me thinking about how when you lot came up all you had was each other. You didn't have anyone to answer your questions or tell you it'd be okay."

Ada blanched, remembering the sleepless nights followed by screams of pain and tears of loss. Remembering how she couldn't grieve Luke properly because she was too shocked that he had died, how Carson had followed soon after, then George. How she had had to make empty graves and bury her friends side by side. Tears clogged the back of her throat.

Nick, noticing this, shuffled his feet awkwardly. "I know I haven't been fair to you and Alby. But you've done a pretty good job of holding things together. I want to let you know I'm on your side now. No more arguing, no more trying to do things my own way." He smiled, looking nothing like the glowering boy who had first come up a month ago to the day.

"Okay." She nodded. "Good that."

She hated that she couldn't seem to get across how much his apology meant to her, how the tension in the glade had led to near constant anxiety and endless worry about their little system getting destroyed. Because Nick was right about one thing: the only thing they had was each-other. If they all fell apart, then so would the Glade and the life they had built there.

A flicker of thought about the quiet greenie and Alby's warning crossed her mind.

"Everything okay over there?" Alby's voice came from the direction of the Homestead, deep and laced with warning. She could see him glaring at Nick despite the distance.

She shot him an enthusiastic thumbs up before turning back to Nick. Without the light of the fire, his face was mostly shadowed.

"We'd better get back before your bodyguard comes over here." Nick sent her a sly smirk before moving out of the treeline, heading across the Glade towards the light of their home.

Ada flushed, staring after him. "He's not my bodyguard."

"Uh huh, sure. Big brother Alby protects everyone like that."

"He does!"

Nick nodded in agreement, but the mischievous smile on his face belied his disbelief. "Sure, Ada." He turned around, and was out of earshot before she could reply.

She grumbled under her breath, moving further into the forest, following the familiar trodden down path towards the walls. The lack of light was oppressive, the trees around her standing tall and ominous, mere shadows reaching their thin hands up to the sky in search of a freedom they would never get.

It didn't scare her; Ada had walked this very path what felt like hundreds of times.

Eventually, the graves came into view. Three of them, side by side, held together by vines and whatever she could find in the limited woods around her. Something settled inside her as she crouched down in front of them, staring at the names messily carved into the wood.

Unable to bear the silence, she spoke. "Hey guys." Her voice was unpleasantly loud in the quiet. "Just wanted to let you know we got some new people. Had a whole bonfire to celebrate it. You would have loved it, George. The boys have brought wrestling into the equation now."

Silence encompassed her as George's grave stared back.

"And Charles makes a damn good soup. I hate to say it, Carson, but it's better than yours. And he actually knows how to cook bacon." She hesitated. "Still could use you around here though. He can't for the life of him figure out how to peel vegetables properly. Maybe you could have taught him."

She cast a glance at Luke's grave, his gold chain heavy around her throat, but found that she didn't have anything to say.

A twig snapped somewhere behind her, and she spun around to squint at the shadows.

In the pitch black the shape of a silhouette formed, and in a fleeting passage of midnight gleaming blonde hair came into focus. The new greenie stared at her for a moment, face expressionless, before his eyes fell on the three graves.

His features tightened, as if he were looking for something and hadn't quite found it, before he turned around and walked away, vanishing into the dark.

Ada remained where she was, accompanied only by the corpses below her.

—

She was on the watchtower when she saw him again.

After her visit to the graves, she hadn't particularly been in the mood for sleep. And as it turned out, one of the new Gladers was a snorer. After two hours of tossing and turning, she had decided to take a walk and found herself there, perched on the edge with her hands on the wooden railing, watching over the square of land that was their home.

His silhouette caught her attention first. He had made his way out of the Homestead, perhaps unable to sleep, just like her, and she watched him walk until he was right in front of the name wall. She couldn't see the engravings from here, but she knew exactly what he was looking at when he stopped abruptly and stared.

One long arm rose to brush against where she knew three crossed out names were, and she knew he was making the connection in his head to the three graves he had found earlier.

She didn't try to call him over, or move to see what he was doing. Instead, Ada remained still, and watched him until he returned to the Homestead, vanishing under the wooden beams.

Chapter Text

Day Seventy Four

Blinding pain was all she knew.

The blow to the back of her head hadn't come as a surprise; that was what happened when you struggled, when you tried to fight back.

And she had tried, when they had pulled her from her bed in the middle of the night, leading her with gloved hands clamped around her upper arms down a blinding white hallway she didn't recognise.

Someone was screaming her name behind her, trying to pull her away from the masked men, but the world was too hazy for her to recognize them.

When she blinked, she was strapped to a table, staring up at a sterile white ceiling and wincing at the blaring pain in her head. She should fight, she knew that. Should struggle, should move. But she couldn't. Her hands were strapped down. Why were her hands strapped down?

There were people hovering over her, masks on their faces and scalpels in their hands. Something cold slid into the juncture of her arm, a needle perhaps, and it was only when the world faded away from her that she truly felt fear.

"Ada."

"Ada."

"She been possessed or something?"

Ada looked up, away from the breakfast table, to see Alby and Avin staring at her. "Sorry, what's up?"

Alby frowned. "You alright? Went completely spacey for a moment there."

Suddenly hyper-aware of where she was, Ada glanced around the outdoor space to see Gally and Nick chatting idly, pouring over what looked like a massive spread of paper with drawings on it she couldn't quite make out from there. The rest of the gladers were in the kitchen area, trying to wrangle seconds out of Charles.

By the sound of his yelling, it wasn't working.

"Yeah, yeah I'm good. Was just thinking about a dream I had last night, that's all. So, what did you need?"

Alby looked at her dubiously and crossed his arms. "Was asking if you were ready to head out?"

Right. Giant maze. Stuck.

She thought bleakly that after ten and a half weeks of being there, entering the maze every single day would have been something she was used to by now, but the giant walls and oppressive cold that emanated from them wrapped around her in a chill that even the bonfires and sounds of laughter couldn't chase away.

And there was laughter. The glade had never sounded so joyful. The new gladers had taken to life there better than any of them had previously, with only the exception of the blonde haired boy that had avoided her since the bonfire two weeks prior.

She looked around for him now, but he wasn't there.

Alby, seemingly knowing who she was looking for, sighed and jerked his head towards the deadheads. They had dubbed the forest with the name after Alby came to the unsettling conclusion that some of the trees had patterns that resembled disfigured faces, screaming out in pain.

That and the graveyard inside it made the far corner of the wooded area a place where most of them refused to enter. As far as she was aware, she and Alby were the only exceptions.

"He went in there about an hour ago. Hasn't come out yet."

This wasn't exactly unusual behaviour. In the past two and a half weeks he had been in the glade, the majority of his time not spent helping on the farm had been him vanishing into the forest, rarely joining them for meal times. It was only through the passing grapevine that Ada even knew his name.

Newt.

The feel of it on her tongue was familiar and alien all at once.

"I'm sure he's fine."

"Yeah, real peachy,” Avin agreed, eyes on the bacon Ada had yet to eat. She passed it to him silently.

The rest of breakfast passed with little incident, save for Charles chasing the eager gladers out of the kitchen with threat of bodily harm via wooden spoon. By the time their stomachs were full with food, Gally and Nick were waving them over to lay out the paper on the table.

"We were thinking."

"Please don't hurt yourself,” Ada said.

Gally raised one impeccably arched eyebrow in her direction before turning back to the drawing. "Where exactly are all our supplies kept at the current moment?"

"The box," Alby replied, looking extremely unamused as he glanced towards the maze doors, looking rather restless.

"Exactly. It's a nightmare trying to rummage around in there. Took Charles and I nearly an hour to find the spare bandages when Nick sliced his hand open. And we still don't know why they were being stored next to the bread, and poor Nick ended up with a leaf wrapped round the damn thing in the meantime."

"Pretty sure it was poisonous," Nick winced.

Ada grimaced. "Yeah, I see the issue."

"Exactly."

"However, have you considered not wrapping random plants around open wounds?"

"We did." Nick nodded. "Afterwards."

Nick had been a lot more agreeable since his apology two weeks prior, and the change in attitude was welcome. He was polite now, bordering on nice, and whilst at first the change was startling, now Ada found herself growing a sort of strange friendship with the boy.

"The point is, we're moving the supplies to these." Gally gestured towards the paper, which depicted a structure half sank into the ground with a thatched roof and bamboo criss-crossed door. There were three of them in total, in a row, none of them looking to be bigger than a small room. "Storage areas. Designed by yours truly."

Alby whistled lowly, looking impressed. "Damn. I like it. But what about the box?"

Nick shrugged. "It's a nightmare to get in and out of anyway. Just leave it. We can always use it to store spare stuff if we need to."

Ada nodded, happy to let them get on with their project. "Well, I approve. When will they be done?"

Gally studied the paper. "Probably by tomorrow or the day after. Digging them out is gonna take the most time, the rest shouldn't be too difficult."

Alby nodded, eyes on the sun that was climbing higher and higher into the sky. It was a later start than usual, something which was clearly making him nervous.

Ada watched him and the anxious way his fingers rubbed together. "We should get going. Late start means we won't be able to cover as much ground as we usually do."

Alby nodded, slinging his harness onto his back.

As they neared the maze doors, movement out of the corner of her eye snatched her attention for a fleeting second. Newt was exiting the treeline, face gaunt and slimmer than it had been the last time they had spoken. His frame was thin and wiry, in an almost worrisome way.

He held her gaze for a second, eyes flitting between her and the maze doors, before he looked away and began moving towards the homestead.

Alby nudged her ankle with the heel of his boot, jerking his chin towards the doors, eyebrows raised. Sucking a deep breath into her lungs, she nodded, and together they ran.

_

The pounding of her feet against the ground was rhythmic, a staccato beat that she heard even in her sleep. It haunted her as she rounded corner after corner, tracking the pattern in her head and occasionally reading instructions aloud to Alby so he could draw the corresponding lines on the sheets of paper they brought with them.

They were in a new section of the maze today, further out than they usually dared to venture. They were playing a risky game considering the time crunch they were on, but Alby's curiosity had Ada venturing further than she would have been comfortable going in normal circumstances.

"Why did you want to come this far out anyway?" She asked, wheezing slightly as she raised the water canteen to her lips. It was almost empty.

She eyed Alby's longingly, considering the best way to sneak it away from him if worse came to worst. The bastard wasn't even panting.

Alby frowned, thin lips pulled into a tight line. "I saw something a few days ago. I didn't want to say anything in front of the others. It might be nothing, but I want to check it out before it gets too dark."

They at last reached the end of the narrow corridor, which opened up into a vast and airy space. A faint wind played with the curls that had escaped from her ponytail. The smell of stale air was prominent.

The space itself resembled an empty square, easily half the size of the glade, similarly surrounded by giant walls. Their view to the other side, however, was obstructed by rows upon rows of towering steel slabs, thinner than the walls they had seen before and grooved along the edge as if they would all fit together, a puzzle piece that hadn't been built yet.

Ada reached out a hand to touch one tentatively, noting the metal was much cooler under her fingers than the maze walls were. There was no ivy or cracks decorating them either. The tips of them were jagged, gleaming sharp in the sun.

"Have you ever seen these before?" Ada asked, looking back to where Alby was standing slack jawed at the entrance to the space.

"No. What the hell are they? They're like giant blades."

"I have no idea. How did you even know these were here?"

Alby shrugged. "I thought I could see one over the tops of the walls. Thought it was just a higher stretch or something, didn't realise it was this."

Ada moved further into the space, navigating around the blades. The rows of them were neat and orderly, each the exact same size and spaced evenly away from each other. It was all so deliberate.

"This is fucking creepy," Alby muttered. He moved further into the area, keeping one eye on where Ada was moving through the middle of the clearing. As he ran his fingers over the wall, his eyes caught on something further up, halfway into the new area. "Hey, Ada?"

Ada's head appeared around the corner of one of the blades.

"You see this shit?"

When she followed his gaze, a crease appeared between her eyebrows. "Huh. That's weird." She moved towards it, footsteps echoing in the cavernous space. He followed her closely.

The wall they approached was tall and high, looking exactly like the other walls to the maze except for the ivy that randomly twisted and broke just above their eye level. Ada reached forward, fingertips brushing the snapped sections, studying the way it looked as if it had been moved to the side over and over again, or trapped in something and removed forcefully.

"What do you think did this? A Griever?"

Alby frowned, hands moving along the edges of the vines. The snapped sections formed a perfect rectangle, as if they had been caught in something at least seven feet high and four feet wide. Alby sucked in a breath.

Almost like...

"Alby. Look." Ada pointed behind a string of ivy, where the outline of a door was clearly visible.

Her heart dropped into her stomach, something strange and warm spreading from where her fingers touched the stone.

"Do you think this is…?" She trailed off, looking up at him.

Alby was staring at the door as if all his dreams had come true.

He ripped the ivy away, revealing the entrance that hid behind it. It blended almost seamlessly in with the wall, the only thing setting it apart being that the door was cracked open slightly. Barely enough for Ada to squeeze her hand through, let alone for them and the other gladers to fit through it.

She pressed her eye up against the gap, seeing only pitch blackness beyond.

"Where do you think this leads?" She asked, squinting. She wished they had thought to bring a lantern, but running in the middle of the day didn't exactly call for the use of one.

"With any luck? Out of this place. Ten weeks here is ten weeks too long. Now let's crack it open." Alby cracked his knuckles before grabbing the edge of the stone, pulling back towards him. The muscles in his arms rolled and strained, but the door didn't seem to be moving. "A little help?"

Ada glanced wearily down at her own arms, easily half the size of Alby's, but shrugged and shifted her weight as she pulled with him. Even with their combined weight, the door refused to move, barely itching open a centimetre.

After five minutes of trying, Ada collapsed against the wall, sweating. "Why won't the bastard thing open?"

Alby let out a frustrated growl and kicked the door, but by the sound of his cursing the only thing he achieved was a bruised toe. "Look at the hinges. See what's stopping this thing."

Ada moved to the other side, fingers running along the edge of the door. "It doesn't have hinges."

"What? Of course it has hinges, it's a door."

"Alby, I am looking at the hinges and they do not exist."

"Let me see." He gestured her to the side, jaw clenched, and she watched with barely concealed frustration as he stared at where the hinges should have been.

"Maybe there's something on the inside stopping it from opening?"

He grunted. "Or maybe it's a sliding door?"

Hushed voices broke their confusion, warping it instead to pure disbelief.

"Do you hear that?" Ada asked, pressing her ear against the gap. Alby did the same above her, leaving as much room between his body and hers as he physically could.

The voices paused for a moment before starting again, a man and a woman, by the sounds of it. But they didn't appear to be panicked, or distressed.

Ada pressed her eye against the gap again but could see nothing beyond the shadows.

"Whose in there?" Alby called out, his voice echoing through the dark.

The whispers stopped, the silence deafening, and then the sound of footsteps fading into the distance became prominent.

Ada grunted with exertion as she fought to follow them, but the door wouldn't budge, and the stone remained unmoving. It was only when another noise met her ears did she throw herself away from the door, putting as much distance between her and the blackness as possible.

A steady click-whirr click-whirr, followed by the distinct sound of something heavy shuffling just out of sight.

"Ada? What is it?"

"You didn't hear that?" She asked. Her voice cracked sharply around the last word.

"No. What was it?"

"It sounded like... like one of those things." She shook her head, trying to stave off the memories of that night. The night where the doors closed, killing the light, condemning them with it.

But they had survived, and there was hope, and then George was lashing out and was tied to a tree and was–

"Ada." Alby's voice was strangely echoey. "There's nothing in there."

"But I heard–"

Alby pressed his ear to the gap for a moment before shaking his head. "Ada there's nothing there. Now come help me get this thing open."

"You want to go in there? With that thing inside?" She asked incredulously.

"Do I want to explore the only lead we have and get out of this place? Hell yes I do, now come on."

After another twenty odd minutes of pushing and shoving, they came to the conclusion that the door was going absolutely nowhere. It remained in exactly the same position it had when they had first noticed it; the minuscule crack of darkness, beyond a tempting treasure that they couldn't quite reach.

"Why would they show us this if it's not the way out?" Alby demanded on the way back, his mood considerably fouler than it had been that morning.

Ada stayed silent, letting him brood, jogging along beside him.

"These bastards control everything around here. We see what they want us to see, so why show us that and not let us out. Are they toying with us or something? Making us suffer for the hell of it?"

"Isn't that what they've been doing since they put us here?" She responded blithely, but the lack of response told her the comment wasn't appreciated.

She sighed, looking up at the sky. It wasn't dark yet, but it would be soon. They had another few hours before sunset, but Ada knew that Alby's attitude and their discovery of the door meant that heading back to the glade was the best option. The others needed to know what they had found.

"Maybe it's a riddle,” she said. “Maybe it's the way out but we just need to figure out how to open it. We'll head back there tomorrow and figure it out."

"Section five isn't open tomorrow."

"Then we'll go back next week when it is."

Seeing the disgruntled look on his face, Ada reached out a hand to tug on his harness. He drew to a stop, avoiding her gaze, bulky frame tensed and agitated.

"Alby, it's okay. If there's one door like that there's bound to be more. We'll spend the next few days searching for them, and if we don't find any, then next week we'll go back there and spend the day trying to get it open. Maybe even bring a few others with us to see if they can help."

He nodded, and that was that, but despite her own words she couldn't battle down the disappointment that was trying to claw its way out of her. To know that a way out could be so close, close enough for them to see but not touch, and be just out of their reach; it was cruel.

It was like the creators were dangling everything they could ever want right in front of them only to rip it away at the last second. But the sound she had heard so distinctly still rang in her ears, twisting her stomach, forcing her to confront the fact that one of those creatures stood between her and her freedom.

The very idea made her nauseous.

By the time they reached the glade, the sky was a dusky pink, streaked with orange. They still had an hour before the doors closed, so the raised eyebrows their return was met with was expected.

"You guys are back early. Weren't expecting you for another thirty minutes,” Nick said as he climbed out of the hole he had dug, presumably for the storage areas.

"We found something," Ada said simply.

The easy-going expression on Nick's face immediately dropped, replaced by a sort of urgency that had Ada's insides twisting. "I'll get everyone to the council hall. You two go to the map room and drop your stuff off, then meet us there."

They nodded and did as instructed, hanging up the sheets of paper along with the rest of them, mapping out nearly half of the maze excluding the outer sections. By the time they reached the council hall, Nick was valiantly trying to keep order while the raised voices and excited theories shook the wooden walls.

Their arrival was met with frantic questions and raised questions. Even Newt, who was leaning against the back wall, was rigid with excitement, cheeks flushed and eyes alight in a way she hadn't seen from him before.

It suited him, she thought with a strange warmth in her stomach. She liked it.

Connor was the first to reach them, hand clamping down firmly on Alby's arm, eyes wide and bright. "It's true? You found a way out?"

"Please tell us you did," Avin chimed in, small body all but vibrating.

Alby sucked in a deep breath, shooting a helpless look at Ada. She gulped, fingers playing with the ends of her fiery hair. "We don't know."

The excited atmosphere dimmed noticeably.

Gally raised his eyebrows. "You don't know? What the hell does that mean?"

"We found a door."

"A way out?" Newt asked.

His accent really was quite prominent, Ada noticed. The way his voice cracked slightly had her stomach twisting in a strangely familiar way.

"We don't know," Alby replied. "It wouldn't open. But it was cracked and it was dark behind it, it definitely went somewhere. I know which hallway is behind that and there's definitely no door there, so I think maybe it leads underground."

"Underneath the maze?" James asked.

Ada blinked. At what point on the journey back had Alby come to that conclusion?

One of the new Gladers, silent until now, pushed himself off the wall. She recognised him immediately as Stephen, one of the boys who had sat in front of the fire that first night before attempting to put Alby in a headlock.

His bushy eyebrows were drawn tightly together, cerulean eyes flashing with intensity. "Then what the hell are we waiting for? Let's go!"

Alby put up a hand to stop him. "Go? Are you out of your mind? The doors close in an hour, and it takes at least that to get to the blades in the first place."

"Blades?" Nick asked incredulously from somewhere behind her, but she ignored him.

"And the maze changes at night, remember? That section gets sealed off, we might not be able to get back out again."

"So?" Stephen asked, brow furrowed. "We finally have a chance to get out of here and you're telling me you don't even wanna take it? Are you for real?"

"Stephen, calm down," Isaac, the other new glader, the one Stephen had been sat next to at the fire pit, instructed. He put a hand on Stephen's shoulder but was shrugged off.

"I thought your whole thing was running the maze to find a way out. You've done that, congrats, now let's go."

"And do what?" Ada asked, taking a step forward. Stephen was shorter than the other guys, meaning he only had a few inches on her. She stared straight at him with a raised eyebrow, thoroughly unimpressed. "Get eaten by Grievers? Get crushed by the walls that actively change? Get cornered against the door we literally just said won't open."

Stephen opened his mouth furiously to respond, but she spoke over him.

"You're not a runner, greenie, you don't know the maze and its rules. Stop pretending like you have a clue and listen to us, alright? That section is open again next week. We'll go then and see what we can do."

"Next week?" Isaac chimed in, looking suddenly as downhearted as Stephen. "You want us to wait a whole week?"

Ada knew damn well just how long a week could feel when you were trapped in a place like that, but anger stirred in her gut.

Who the hell were they to complain when they had been there for two weeks? Ada had been there for nearly three months, three long and painful months in which half of her friends had died right in front of her. She had buried them, for god's sake. Made their headstones with her own two hands and dug the dirt that they were buried under.

Alby seemed to be thinking along the same lines as her.

"A week is nothing. It's better to wait a week than go into the maze at night. That's a fool's errand and you damn well know it," he said. His voice was strained, as if he were trying to remain calm but wasn't quite succeeding.

Stephen moved towards the door. "You guys can stay here all you want. I've had enough of this circus, I'm leaving. Isaac, you coming?"

Isaac's mouth opened and closed, but he was saved from answering when Ada stepped in front of the door.

"Move, Ada," Stephen demanded, and the hostility in his voice almost made her listen. But then she remembered what had happened the last time someone had gone into the maze and got caught there overnight, and her resolve strengthened.

Nick raised his hands in surrender, eyebrows raised. "Alright, I think we all need to calm down here."

"No," Stephen replied. "I think Ada needs to get the hell out of my way before she gets hurt."

The atmosphere in the room shifted abruptly, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Alby step forward. "Is that a threat? Are you threatening her?"

Newt pushed himself away from the wall, walking over to where they were huddled by the door. "They might have a point, Stephen. You don't know anything about the maze, okay? None of us do. Going in there at night is probably just stupid."

It was the most Ada had ever heard him speak.

"Stupid?" Stephen asked incredulously, swinging around to look up at Newt. "You think getting out of here is stupid? Why are you all fighting me on this, it only takes an hour to get there, with all of us we can get the door open and we can leave before we even see one of those creatures."

"You don't know that," Charles added. "It's not a gamble worth taking."

"So you just want me to sit on my ass planting fucking vegetables all day for an entire week while these idiots ignore the only lead we actually have?"

"We're not ignoring it, we're being strategic," Alby said.

"So what is your strategy exactly?" Connor asked. He stood off to the sidelines, watching with keen interest. "We wait for a week and go back to see if we can open it?"

"Yeah, Alby and I will go back in the morning and get the door open. Then we'll come back for the rest of you and leave together," Ada nodded. "We have a twelve hour period where the doors are open, that's plenty of time to get back here in case things don't go our way."

"Okay, you and Alby need to explore the other areas of the outer sections. See if there's any other doors," Nick said. He crossed his arms, accidentally smudging dirt across his beige shirt. His grey eyes were resigned but determined. "In the meantime, I say we carry on as usual. Sound good?"

"I want in," Stephen said suddenly. "You're going into the maze to look for more doors, I want in."

"Out of the question," Alby said quickly, rolling his eyes.

Stephen opened his mouth furiously to respond, so Ada stepped in, still leaning against the door, blocking his path. "Don't be an idiot. We'll be splitting up, we can't have a non runner just wandering aimlessly in the maze looking for something he doesn't understand. And keeping you with one of us will only show us down."

"But–”

"It's not happening, greenie."

"Stop calling me that." His face had turned an angry purple colour, one of the veins in his forehead popping. "You don't want a non runner in the maze? Fine. Make me a runner."

"It's amusing how much he doesn't listen,” Alby muttered, moving over to where Nick was standing and leaning against the back of Avin's chair.

The young boy was watching with wide eyes, looking strangely out of place. Ada thought for a moment about asking him to leave, but it didn't feel right. He'd been there from the very start.

"You're not becoming a runner, Stephen."

"And why the hell not?"

"Because I said so!" The words ripped out of her before she could process that she was yelling. "Because it's dangerous and stupid and you're going to get yourself killed and we're not losing anyone else so just stop asking!"

"And who the hell put you in charge? Huh? Who said you can tell me what I can and can't do?"

"Pretty much everyone here," Newt said, looking increasingly pissed off with the situation. He was rubbing the red shoelace around his wrist. The colour was less stark now, caked with dirt.

Surely it had to be a hassle to keep on whilst he was working, Ada thought. She wondered why he bothered.

He met her eyes for a second before looking away, returning his gaze to the ground.

"Well I don't care,” Stephen said. "I'm going into that maze."

He made to step around her, but Ada moved with him, taking a step forward towards him. "No, you're not."

Stephen's hands landed heavily on her shoulders and the next thing she knew he was shoving, sending her slamming into the doorframe with a violent creak that shook the foundation of the homestead, ripping a gasp of pain from her lips.

He raised his fist just as three figures lunged forward at the same time, and the room descended into chaos, a cacophony of noise rising up and drowning her. Her shoulder screamed with pain, and she could feel something wet and sticky on the back of her shirt.

Alby and Nick shoved Stephen away from the door, away from her, yelling words she couldn't understand over the other gladers.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

"Are you insane?!"

Newt crouched down next to her and gently placed a hand on her upper arm.

Ada flinched away from him. "Don't touch me,” she ground out, climbing awkwardly to her feet.

Newt frowned, eyes flashing with something she could almost mistake for hurt. It was gone the next second. His hand dropped to his side. "I was only trying to help."

"I know that, but–”

"You think I don't know what's going on here?" Stephen asked furiously, bucking against Alby and Nick's hold. Isaac was in front of him, hands on his shoulders trying to calm him down, but it didn't seem to be working. "You think I don't know?! You can't keep us here forever, you bitch, you can't–"

"The hell do we do with him?" James asked, hovering anxiously at Ada's other side.

The last time she had seen anyone so unhinged was George after their night in the maze, but they didn't have to worry about him lashing out again because they had tied him to a tree. Did they do the same thing here?

No, Ada, you can't just go tying people who piss you off to trees.

"We could sedate him?"

"You can't sedate him!" Isaac protested, whirling to face them. "That's not fair! He just needs time to cool off."

"Maze doors close in twenty minutes, we gotta keep him detained until at least then."

Ada frowned, glancing back through the open door and across the rapidly darkening glade, looking for a solution. Her eyes landed on the box. "Gally, Nick, have you taken the stuff out of the box yet?"

"Yeah, we got most of it out this morning."

"Perfect. Put him in there."

"For how long?" Newt asked, looking disturbed by the idea.

"The whole night," Alby said furiously. "We'll deal with him tomorrow." Together he and Nick led Stephen out of the room, kicking and yelling the whole way.

Ada watched them go, shoulder throbbing, dread pooling in her stomach.

–

Ada sat alone on the dinner bench, pushing the pork around her plate aimlessly. The movement pulled at her shoulder, which had been bandaged by Connor and had the splinters removed.

Newt had been waiting for her as she left the room, leaning against the bottom of the stairs. He hadn't said a word to her when she had emerged, simply walking by her side to the kitchens in amiable silence. It was easily the longest the two had been in each other's presence without an argument of some sort breaking out.

He was getting his own plate now, speaking in hushed tones to Alby, who was shooting worried glances over at her every now and then.

She inhaled slowly, remembering Stephen’s hostile expression as he was removed from the building, and the disappointed look on Isaac's face. But it wasn't just Isaac who looked disappointed in her. Connor clearly hadn't been thrilled with her decision to detain him, and for some reason the troubled look on Newt's face had stuck with her.

The bangs from inside the box had died down now. Alby had stacked crates on top to keep him inside, and had left Stephen with a torch and a plate of food. But looking at the box for too long made her feel sick.

"Think this is the quietest I've ever seen you." A heavily accented voice came from behind her, and when she turned her head Ada saw Newt stood rigidly, awkwardly holding a plate in his hand. "Alby says that's never a good sign."

"Alby talks too much."

"That's what he says about you." Newt sat down next to her, folding his gangly limbs clumsily onto the bench. "Guess that's why he's pretty worried."

She hummed noncommittally.

"He's not the only one."

Now that caught her attention.

Ada turned her head to study him, but he wasn't looking at her. He was staring rather determinedly at the table, hand clamped tightly around his fork. "You're worried about me? Why Newt, I had no idea you cared so much."

His lips quirked up into a half smile, but it only lasted a second. "Don't get used to it,” he said idly. "You're pretty annoying when you want to be."

"Charming, as usual."

Pink spread across his cheeks. There was silence for a moment, heavy on their shoulders, before Newt turned to look at her. "... Do you really think you found a way out?"

Ada reached for her jar of water, her throat suddenly dry. The hopeful expression on his face was haunting.

"Please tell me if you didn't," he said. His hand moved closer to hers on the table, and she moved her own away as much as possible. "I understand if you don't want to tell the others. If you want to give them the hope that this is gonna go somewhere. But I don't want to be lied to, okay? I gotta know if you think we stand a chance."

She thought back to the unmoving stone wall, the hushed whispers behind it, the screeching of the monster she knew would take at least half of them out if they came face to face with it. She felt sick, and pushed her own plate away from her.

She opened her mouth to tell him no, that she didn't think this was a good idea, that yes maybe they might escape but surely not all of them were going to make it, to tell him just what they were up against when the door opened and they came face to face with the creature inside.

But the words got trapped in her throat as she stared up at his hopeful face, at the deep brown eyes studying her intently, at the desperation woven into every part of his body.

Ada stood up. "Goodnight, Newt."

He didn't call out for her, and she was thankful for it as she headed towards her hammock, blowing out the torch as she did.

Chapter Text

Day One Hundred and Thirty Six

Stephen was right.

It was a sentence Ada herself would never say out loud. Even in her darkest moments, when she lay awake at night in her hammock, believing it, she refused to even entertain the idea of saying it out loud. Because that would make it real, and she couldn't handle that.

But it didn't seem to stop the other gladers.

She didn't know exactly what Stephen was saying to them when she and Alby were in the maze during the day, but in the two months since they had let him out of the box the day after he shoved her she had seen the shift in the way the gladers were looking at her.

Connor barely spoke to her anymore, spending the time he wasn't in the medical hut speaking in low voices with Isaac and Stephen. James seemed to be torn, looking at her with sympathy instead of anger. The only ones who didn't seem to be holding a grudge were Alby, Avin, and Newt. Even Nick seemed to be slightly more pissed off than usual.

Because Stephen was right.

The first week was spent scouring the maze for other doors, and apart from the discovery of more blades in every section of the maze, creating a giant circle they dubbed the 'outer ring', the time spent running had been fruitless. Because there were no other doors, ajar or otherwise, and every wall and crevice remained smooth and untouched.

They had split off, mapping more of the maze in the process, and by the time one week had passed they gathered in the council hall to discuss their next steps.

They had decided that Ada and Alby would go alone, much to Stephen's protests, and would return for the others once they had figured out how to open the door.

But when they had reached section five, wandered amongst the blades until they found the way out, their hope crumbled around them, taking their freedom with it.

Because the door was closed.

No, not closed. Sealed off.

Whereas before the slab of stone had clearly been left ajar, giving them just enough room to make out the shadows behind it, now the wall looked untouched, the frame of the door barely even noticeable where it blended in perfectly.

Alby had let out a yell of frustration, pounding against the slab, praying for it to move, scratching at the edges until his nails ripped and his fingers bled, but the door remained unmoving, as if it had never existed in the first place.

Their return to the glade had been met with hopeful grins and excited eyes, and the pit in Ada's stomach grew bigger and bigger as watched that joy vanish, replaced over time with blame and anger.

"It's not your fault," Alby told her countless times. "Everyone agreed that going into the maze at night was a bad idea. The door wouldn't even open then, and it wasn't just your call. They know that, even if they're being idiots right now."

But Ada couldn't shake the guilt that seemed to swallow her whole.

She knew logically that going into the maze after dark, trapping them all in there with no way out, for a lead that left a lot to be desired was an awful move, one that could have – would have – gone wrong in so many ways. But the other part of her, the part that saw the sideways glares and stunted responses, knew that maybe if she had listened to Stephen and taken the chance then they could have been out of the maze months ago, home to their families or whatever comforts awaited them beyond the stone walls.

Now, four and a half months since her arrival in the glade, the joyful attitude that had existed was all but gone. Two new sets of gladers had come up, each as scared and confused as the last, and what had initially been friendly smiles and open laughter quickly turned to steel-faced suspicion after one conversation with Stephen.

Ada watched them as she sharpened her dagger, leaning against a tree at the edge of the forest. It was her day off, something they had started doing once a week. Five out of seven days, her and Alby would go into the maze together, searching for a way out.

On day six, Alby would take his break, Ada going in alone. Day seven was the reverse, a break which she should have looked forward to but instead dreaded.

The tense atmosphere in the glade was stifling on a good day, let alone when she didn't have Alby as a buffer to stop her from wallowing away and feeling sorry for herself. The majority of her time was either spent in the cemetery with Luke, Carson, and George, or helping out Newt and Avin on the farm.

The bark of the tree was rough against her back. Ada welcomed the sting as she stared at where the farmers were digging up the soil. It would be time to harvest the plants soon, so preparation was being made to plant new ones.

There were seven people working on the farm now, and the gardens had expanded considerably, filled with fresh tomatoes and carrots, green beans and potatoes.

She continued to idly sharpen her knife as she watched an argument break out about the placement of a row of carrots. Her eyes landed on Newt, who was sitting off to the side by himself.

He had been given the job earlier of separating the seeds, but it didn't look like he was getting very far. In fact, it didn't look like he was doing anything, instead just sat with his back to a boulder watching the others work with a blank expression.

Ada frowned. She hadn't put much thought into Newt in the past few months besides the relief that he wasn't looking at her with disgust or anger. She hadn't stopped to think that he hadn't actually looked at her all that much at all.

Avin, who was walking past with a pile of wood in his hands, gave her a halfhearted 'hello' as he walked past. Ada's hand shot out, grabbing the back of Avin's trouser leg to stop him, not taking her eyes off Newt.

"Hey, Avin, is he alright?"

Avin shrugged. "Dunno. Hasn't been himself for a few weeks now. Don't really talk to him, though."

Ada raised an eyebrow in surprise. Last time she had checked Avin and Newt were quite close, forming a sort of sibling bond.

She let out a hum of acknowledgement, getting to her feet. She crossed the glade silently, ignoring the glares and unwanted attention she received, carelessly plonking herself down next to Newt.

He looked at her with a blank expression for a moment before returning his attention to the shoelace on his wrist.

"What's got you being all mopey?" She asked, busying herself by sorting the seeds into piles. When she got one wrong, Newt would correct her, and it would have been annoying if Ada wasn't successfully forcing him to get involved.

"I'm not mopey."

"Yes I can see that."

"I'm not," he snapped.

Newt's fingers were trembling as he plucked one of the seeds from the wrong pile. Ada watched them, frowning. His entire body was shaking, actually, a fine tremor that rattled his thin frame.

The bones on his wrists were more pronounced than usual, the shoelace looser than it had been when she had properly seen him last. She moved her eyes up to his face, noting how much his cheekbones seemed to jut out. In the harsh midday sun, his skin was an ashy grey, and small droplets of sweat glinted at his hairline.

"Newt, are you alright?"

He blinked, his eyes nothing but shadows in his gaunt face. "M' fine."

"You don't look too good."

"Now who's the charming one." His voice was angry, and for a moment Ada was thrown by his reference to that night.

She looked closer, watching annoyance flash through his eyes. Was he still upset with her? He might not have blamed her for what happened, but that didn't stop him from being pissed about her all but dismissing him when he had opened up to her that night.

"Newt, I wanted to apologise–"

Newt stood up quickly, swaying slightly as he did. "Just piss off, okay Ada?"

She watched him walk away, his body moving strangely sluggishly. He definitely was thinner.

When Alby returned to the glade that night she wasted no time in grabbing him by the sleeve, leading him towards a secluded corner of the Homestead, ignoring his half hearted protests about just wanting to sit down. "We need to talk."

"Well, hello to you too, Ada. Yeah, my day in the maze was delightful, thank you for asking. Would I like to sit down and have a goddamn rest? You're too kind."

Ada raised an amused eyebrow. "Glad you had such a great time. We have a problem."

"If this is about Stephen being a dick, I thought we already talked about that. You just gotta ignore him, if the others can't see that you did the right thing then it's their loss."

"Well thank you, dad, for the vote of confidence. However, that wasn't the problem I was referring to." She nodded her head in Newt's direction, noticing that he didn't even have a plate in front of him. "Something's wrong with Newt."

Any trace of humour left Alby's face. "What do you mean?"

"He's irritable, standoffish, he's lost weight."

"Yeah, well, none of our diets are exactly what they should be, Ada."

"No, but look at him," she lowered her voice as one of the new gladers walked past, staring at them weirdly. "He's too thin, he's shaking, he can barely stand. When was the last time you saw him eat anything? Or get a good night's sleep?"

Alby looked sceptical, but Ada still saw the worried glance she shot in Newt's direction. The boy had his head in his arms, resting on the table, but she could tell by the tense set of his shoulders that he wasn't sleeping.

"Yeah alright, something's wrong."

"What do we do?"

"Should we talk to him?" Alby asked.

Ada bit her lip and looked away. "I don't think he's very interested in speaking to me at the minute."

Alby shot her a disapproving look. "I honestly don't think he can be trusted to look after himself. We need someone to keep an eye on him."

"Who, exactly? Nick and Gally are busy, Avin is a literal child, and everyone else here isn't exactly buddy buddy with us at the moment." Ada ran a hand through her hair. It was getting greasy again. She hated showering there, though. No matter how long she had been in the glade, the freezing water wasn't something she could get used to. "What do you think is making him so depressed? He was fine before."

"If sulking around the deadheads is your definition of fine then yeah, he was having a grand old time." Alby leant back against the wall.

"What if we just took him with us?"

"What, bring him into the maze? Are you absolutely bonkers?"

"Yes," Ada nodded. "That should have been one of the first things you learnt about me. Keep up."

"He's not a dog, Ada, we can't just put him on a leash and bring him with us just so we can keep an eye on him. He'll be a liability."

"He definitely reminds me of a dog." She shrugged. "But I think it could be good for him." She paused, sadness stirring in her eyes as she stared at where Newt had deliberately distanced himself from the other boys, his head still nestled in his arms. "He asked me if I really thought we'd found a way out that day. He asked me not to lie to him."

"Did you?"

She hesitated. "No. But I didn't tell him the truth either. I all but dismissed him when all he needed was for someone to be honest with him for once. You didn't see the way he looked at me, Alby. You didn't see how desperate he was to find a way out. Going into the maze, helping to look for one... I think it might help."

Alby ran a hand down his face, sighing deeply. "This is gonna piss Stephen off so bad."

"Good," Ada muttered. "So we'll make Newt a runner, it's settled. I'll let you deliver that news to him, yeah?"

Alby spluttered, standing upright again, but she was gone before he could protest, vanishing into the Homestead.

Alby let out a groan as he turned back to the others. "One day, this woman will be the death of me."

–

Ada didn't quite know what to expect when Newt found out they were promoting (demoting? Farm work was exhausting, sure, but running for eight hours a day was arguably worse) him to being a runner. Perhaps excitement, anticipation, or dread and anger.

What she hadn't been expecting was the emotionless nod that greeted her the next morning.

"That's it?" She asked, looking up at him sceptically. "No jumping for joy? No words of anger? Nothing? Nada?" She turned to Alby. "I'm actually disappointed."

"Stephen would kill for this, you know." Alby raised an eyebrow at Newt, as if that would drag up some semblance of a response from him.

It didn't.

Ada glanced to the right, where Stephen was glaring at them furiously from across the glade.

He looked away for a second, speaking angrily with Gally, who looked as if he were shrugging and trying to calm him down. Isaac stood next to him, one hand on his shoulder, looking as if he didn't know what to think.

"Maybe you should stay behind, Alby,” she said quietly. "Talk to them and explain things. I don't trust Stephen by himself when he's like this."

Newt tensed suddenly, as if something was clicking in his mind, and anger sparked in his eyes. His jaw clenched, making his gaunt cheekbones even more pronounced.

Ada frowned, about to open her mouth to ask him what was wrong, when Alby spoke up.

"Alright, you two had better head in. Section four is open today, and it's a distance from here."

Ada turned to look at Newt, shooting him a grin to try and mask the nervousness she felt. "You ready?"

He nodded stiffly, silent.

The first few hours in the maze were spent in silence, punctuated occasionally only by Newt's panting and the clang of the water bottle where it was passed between them. They only had two, and they had forgotten to take Alby's off him.

Ada had tried to make conversation a grand total of three times before she had given in.

By their third hour in the maze, Ada's anger had grown to the boiling point.

Newt stumbled, face glistening with sweat, and Ada declared that they were taking a break despite his violent protests. They sat on opposite walls, Newt's body angled almost completely away from her. Although she was glad for the space, his silence was pissing her off.

With Alby, conversation came easy, and the hours seemed to fly by. With Newt, each silent second crawled along agonisingly slow.

They were ten minutes into their break when she finally snapped. "Okay, spit it out already."

"What?" He responded, voice cracking slightly from disuse.

"You're clearly pissed off with me, and it's getting seriously annoying."

Newt scowled. "Oh so you're annoyed that I'm pissed at you?"

"I'm annoyed that you're being an absolute dick about it and won't even look me in the eye. I tried to apologise, you wouldn't let me. That's your fault," she said. "You're being a right twat."

"Oh I'm the twat, is that so?" Newt's voice was growing louder the more furious he got. "You're the one who doesn't trust me enough to leave me on my own, who apparently thinks I need to be shucking babysat. Do you really think I'm that useless, huh? Is that what it is? Decided I'm a lost cause already, have you?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" She stood up now, and he was quick to follow, stepping closer until he was staring down at her and she could see every furious fleck in his blazing eyes.

"That little crack you made about not trusting Stephen? You think I don't know what that meant?"

"That he's an absolute dick who would toss us all to the Greivers if he had the chance? That if Alby wasn't there watching him like a hawk we'd probably have a rebellion on our hands? That he's a slimy little shank who–"

"Stop it!" Newt yelled, taking a step forward.

Ada refused to back away, but she angled her head backwards so that his nose didn't brush against hers as he spoke.

"You don't agree?" She demanded.

"Of course I agree, he's all of those things and more!" Newt's hands clenched at his sides. "He treats you horribly and acts like you're poison and the only reason you have anyone other than Alby in your corner is because I've defended you like it's my goddamn job and now you're treating me the exact same way you're treating him? Like I'm some bloody nuisance you can't trust, like you have to keep me in your eyeline at all times otherwise who knows what kind of trouble I'll cause, right? You said it yourself, Ada, all we have is our trust in one another, and if we don't have that then what?"

Ada's cheeks flushed. "I never asked you to defend me! That was a choice you made!"

"Stop avoiding the fact that you don't trust me!"

"Stop giving me reasons not to!" The words were out before she could stop them.

Newt's nostrils flared, his eyes burning into her, branding the hurt in them onto her soul. "Fuck you, Ada.”

"I didn't mean– That's not what I–”

"Fuck you."

He turned away from her, and the silence that followed was so loud and so oppressive it rang in her ears, making the walls feel like they were closing in on her. Tears burned in her throat.

"Newt-"

"Ada I swear to god, stop talking." Something in his tone had her slamming her mouth shut.

Newt snatched the bottle up from the floor, his fingers gripping it so tight they turned white. He didn't say a word as he marched down the corridor, leaving her with no choice but to follow.

The journey back to the glade was silent, but if she thought the quiet before had been uncomfortable then the silence stretching thin between them now was downright hostile. The entire way back Ada kept sneaking glances at Newt's tense frame, at the glisten of sweat covering his entire body, at the sagging of his shoulders and the heaviness of his steps. His jaw was clenched so hard she was honestly surprised he didn't crack a tooth.

When the doors appeared before them, the glade just beyond, Ada didn't feel relief. Instead, she felt dread.

The second they went through those doors, any chance at an actual conversation with Newt would vanish.

She gulped, hands twitching at her sides. "Newt, would you please just let me–"

He shouldered past her, walking with quick strides she couldn't keep up with in the direction of the Homestead, right as Alby appeared from the map room, coming up beside her with a curious smile. "How'd it go?"

Ada forced herself to swallow back her guilt, hating herself for the tears that burned in her eyes, for the feeling that she had just destroyed something she didn't even know she had.

Alby's smile dropped. "That bad, huh?"

"Fuck." Ada's voice cracked around the word.

She could feel eyes on her, likely Stephen and the other gladers wondering what had happened, and Alby must have sensed them too, because he grabbed her by the sleeve, careful to avoid her skin, and led her towards the map room. She had never been more grateful for the privacy of it.

"Sit down," Alby said gently, pointing to a chair and grabbing his water bottle. It was still full. He held it out to her, watching her with his dark penetrating gaze. "Tell me what happened."

"I fucked up."

"What happened, Ada?"

"I told him I don't trust him. He didn't take it well."

Alby let out a low whistle, his eyes closing. "But you do trust him. Just not to take care of himself."

"I know that, and you know that, but I don't think he knows that." Ada started biting at the skin around her fingernails, leg bouncing.

Alby slapped her hand away from her mouth with the water bottle. "So tell him that, tonight. At dinner. I'm sure he'll understand. Newt's a smart guy."

"What the hell gave you that impression?"

–

Ada had severely underestimated Newt's ability to avoid her like the plague.

You would think that considering the two of them were trapped inside what was effectively a giant square, surrounded by only twenty other people, that him avoiding her completely wasn't in the realm of possibility. Especially since they were all eating together, crammed into the same dining space, no matter how awkward the atmosphere may be.

But Newt didn't sit with them at dinner, choosing instead to sit on the very outskirts of the kitchen area, strategically seating himself at the edge of Stephen's table.

Maybe he knew that Ada wouldn't dare go near it, or maybe their argument had led to a change in mindset – neither scenario being particularly appealing to her – but his cold and standoffish attitude all but made speaking to him, let alone apologising, impossible.

Ada watched him, not touching her own food, concerned about the greyish pallor his skin had taken on. She couldn't tell if it was the heat from the torches that was making him flush, but his cheeks had taken on a strange red colour. He was shivering.

Nick sat down next to her, grinning with excitement. "Charles made steak!" He held up his plate excitedly. "You want some?"

She had long ago accepted that the cows were there for a reason.

"I'm okay, thanks." She didn't take her eyes off Newt.

Instead of fiddling with the shoelace around his wrist like he usually did, his slender fingers were playing with something around his neck. It wasn't like any necklace Ada had ever seen before, the opposite to Luke's chain, which was still wrapped around her own neck. It looked like a small cylinder on a thin length of leather.

She watched curiously as his fingers removed the top over and over again, revealing something that looked suspiciously like paper inside.

Newt frowned, a crinkle forming between his eyebrows. He tipped the paper into the palm of his hand, unfolding it.

She could see the outline of black ink on the paper from where she sat, but couldn't make out the words, but when an angry expression broke out on Newt's face she wished more than anything that she could.

A commotion from the other side of the Homestead drew her attention for a moment, and she watched as Gally stormed out of the outhouse, covered in water. "WHAT THE HELL?"

There was a giggle from somewhere behind him, Avin's tiny head appearing from behind the wood. Gally hadn't spotted him yet.

"Who shook the outhouse?" He demanded.

Ada slapped a hand over her mouth to muffle her snort. Nick didn't bother, pointing at Alby and letting out a bark of laughter.

Gally, dripping from head to toe, looked furious. "You."

Nick raised his hands in surrender, grinning and shaking his head. "Not me, but I applaud whichever genius came up with this."

Ada locked eyes with Avin and winked.

Gally let out a furious growl, lunging for Nick, who yelped and scrambled away.

As the two chased each other around the glade, the sounds of laughter and violent cursing following them, the tense atmosphere that smothered them broke. Half of the gladers jumped up to follow, laughing excitedly and hollering encouragement.

Ada watched them go, basking in the warmth she felt for what seemed to be the first time in months now. Her eyes landed on Newt, who was watching with the closest thing to a smile that she had ever seen from him. The lopsided quirk of his lips made her own smile grow.

Deciding that now was the perfect time, she stood and made her way over to him, ignoring the sinking of her heart as his smile dropped immediately into a frown the second he saw her.

"Can we talk?" She asked quietly.

"Oh, I think you said everything you need to."

Ada followed him as he stood up and started walking. "What's that?" She gestured to the note in his hand.

Newt crumpled it up and jammed it back into his necklace, securing the top. The only way she would see it now was if she somehow got ahold of the necklace, and as much as Ada wanted to wrap her hands around his throat sometimes she figured it probably wouldn't do much to help her apology.

"It doesn't concern you,” he scowled.

"Just like what's going on with you doesn't concern me either?"

"Now you're getting it." His steps faltered slightly as he staggered against the wall, his hand slamming out to catch himself.

"Damnit, Newt, would you just talk to me?" Her hand hovered above his shoulder. "Are you sick or something? Do you need a medjack?"

"Just piss off, Ada. I mean it."

"You look like you're gonna drop like a stone any second now!" She protested. "Let Connor look at you, please. I really think you need to be checked out, just trust me on this–"

Newt scoffed. "Trust you? Oh, that's rich."

Ada sighed. "I didn't come over here to start an argument, okay? Now can you just get over yourself for one second and actually take care of yourself for once?"

"I'm not taking advice from someone who refuses to trust me despite everything I've done for her. Now leave me the hell alone."

"Well, how can you ask me to trust you?" She asked, gesturing at his frame, at the shaky way he was holding himself. "Look at you! You're wasting away, you're keeping things from us, you're not–"

"That is not your concern,” he snapped.

"How can you ask me to trust you implicitly when you won't do the same for me? You need to tell me what the hell is going on with you–"

"Why? Why do you suddenly seem to care so much, huh? What will it do other than give you another thing to blame yourself for?"

Something heavy settled in Ada's stomach. "Should I blame myself?" She studied the look on his face. "Do you blame me?"

Newt's stony features faltered for a second. He spun around to face her, Ada's breath hitching at their closeness as he stopped them in their tracks. He was taller than her, considerably so, so his entire body seemed to curl around hers as he stared her down.

"I don–'' Newt's words broke off with a shudder, his eyes going glassy.

"Newt?"

But Newt didn't respond, slumping instead against the wall, breaths coming in ragged pants. His legs were shaking. "Ada I don't feel so good."

Her hands reached out to support him right as his body seemed to give out, crashing to the floor.

"Newt – ALBY, ALBY HELP!"

Frantic voices and shocked exclamations split the air as footsteps thundered towards her, but Ada could hardly hear them over the pounding of her own heart, battering against her ribs. Her hands hovered frantically over Newt's chest, shaking, but she didn't know what to do with herself, didn't know if she should apply pressure or shake him or put him in the recovery position because what the hell was wrong with him?

She didn't know, and she didn't know why the urgency that rose up inside her was as frantic as it was.

Her breathing was coming fast and hard, even as two figures sank to their knees beside her.

"It's okay, Ada," Alby was saying. "Connor's got him."

But it wasn't okay, Ada knew. Because she had caught a fleeting glimpse of Newt's face before Connor and Nick had hauled him up to the medical room.

And he wasn't breathing.

Chapter Text

Day One Hundred and Forty One

It took Newt three days to open his eyes again.

Three days of panicking, of checking his pulse to see if he was still breathing, of forcing soup and other liquids down his throat, praying he could keep them down, that they would be enough.

When Ada had first scrambled into the medical hut, closely following Connor and Nick, the brief sense of dread that had washed over her nearly took her to her knees. The feeling worsened when they lay Newt down on the bed, the same bed that George was on when things turned south all those months ago.

She didn't know if she should look away when they stripped his baggy shirt off, hovering anxiously in the doorway. Horror kept her staring.

She had known that Newt had always been quite lithe. He had reminded her of a sparrow the first time she had seen him, his thin limbs bent awkwardly against a log. But now he simply looked unhealthy, skin sallow and pale, sunken in against every protruding rib. His necklace lay haphazardly against his jutted out collarbones. Any muscle he had gained from working on the farm the past few months seemed to have vanished altogether, giving him the appearance of a skeleton as he lay there unmoving.

Connor had immediately started doing chest compressions, mumbling under his breath something Ada couldn't hear. The hours after seemed to blur together, a haze of trying to build up his muscle mass and trying to get enough food into him to keep him alive.

"It's a miracle he's made it this far," Connor had said. "A miracle he didn't starve completely."

Ada didn't know if it were the buzzing fear constant in the back of her mind, or if it were the slowly simmering anger, but she didn't leave his side the entire time. Not even to run the maze, leaving that to Alby. She would feel guilty for it later, would worry about what Stephen could have been saying to the glade whilst she wasn't there to run interference, but at the time she didn't care.

Nothing mattered except Newt waking up.

So that she could kick his ass.

When he did open his eyes, the morning sunlight making him squint, Ada didn't know whether to be relieved or seriously pissed. She settled on both.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" She asked before Newt could even get his bearings. He blinked up at her, frowning, but she pushed on before he could reply. "No, actually, let me answer that. You were starving yourself. You nearly died, are you actually crazy?"

Newt's expression shuttered as he turned his face away from hers. His voice, when he spoke, was croaky and thick with disuse. His accent was even more prominent now, Ada noticed. "As nice as your face is to wake up to, the yelling is something I could do without."

Ada threw an apple at him. "Eat this. Now."

"I don't want that."

"I don't care what you want. You lost your right to an opinion when you decided eating was optional,” she snapped.

Newt let out a chuckle, slowly biting into the apple. "Dictator."

"Idiot."

"Bossy."

"Moron."

"You're both stupid, how's that?" Alby asked from the doorway.

Ada turned to him with a weary glare. "I resent that."

"She's touchy today," Newt told Alby. He winced as another apple went flying his way. "Ow – Jesus Christ, Ada, how many of those do you have?"

"Too many for you to keep talking right now."

Alby shook his head, looking exasperated. "I just wanted to check up on you two. Now that he's awake, Ada, I suggest you make your way down into the glade. There's a couple of problems that could use your... attention."

Newt's eyebrows crinkled as he looked up at her, lips quirking into a half smile. "Awh, you sat with me the whole time? I knew you cared."

"Should have let him starve,”she muttered to herself, ignoring his teasing stare as she stood up. "Don't know what I was thinking." She turned to Alby, nodding her head at the door. "I'll be down in a second."

He nodded and left, sending Newt an encouraging smile as he did. Ada turned back to him, suddenly serious, and his own smile dropped.

"I don't like the expression on your face right now."

"Good. Don't ever do that again, okay?" She said sternly. "I don't know what you were thinking. I don't know if it was some sort of protest thing, or if you don't like the food here, or if things are genuinely that bad that you just decided to give up, but you aren't allowed to do anything like that again, alright?"

Newt stayed silent, staring down at the apple in his lap. His blonde hair was vibrant in the sunlight. "You should go,” he said eventually. "Don't want to keep Alby waiting."

She left without another word.

–

The problems Alby spoke of were, to nobody's surprise, instigated by Stephen.

In her absence he had apparently been telling people about how she was unfit to be in charge of the glade, how just because she was one of the first ones there it didn't mean she had any right to boss them about.

"Why is he only going after you?" Alby muttered, watching Stephen out of the corner of his eye that night at dinner. "I've been here just as long, get just as much say as you do in what happens around here."

Ada eyed his massive arms, poking his bicep with her spoon. "Well, one of us has the power to knock him unconscious with a single punch, and it sure as hell isn't me."

"I'll do it," Alby said darkly. "Say the word, and I'm knocking the living daylights out of the slinthead."

"As much as I'd love to see it, I don't think it'll help our case." Ada sighed and returned to her meal, trying to ignore the sense of heaviness settling over her.

The real problem arose when Gally came marching over to them, settling himself in the seat opposite her.

"Slight issue,” he said.

"Is it about Stephen?"

"When isn't it?" Alby muttered.

"He's trying to convince the other gladers to go into the maze with him."

"He's what?" Ada asked, spoon dropping from her hand. "He can't do that!"

"He can," Gally said. "And he is. He's telling them that the Grievers aren't real, that it's something you and Alby are saying to keep people here."

"We've literally lost two of our friends to those monsters," Alby said furiously. "Ada nearly died trying to escape one, George did die, and you're telling me this bastard just doesn't believe in them?"

"He's saying that since you and Ada are the only ones that get to run the maze that you could be lying about them. That you aren't actually looking for a way out. That it means you don't trust any of us. Says that since none of them have ever seen one before, it's all bullshit. He wants to take a bunch of them into the maze himself to look for a way out."

Alby stood up angrily. "We can't let that happen. They'll die."

Ada's hand shot out and grabbed his sleeve, halting him in his tracks. "Don't."

"So you're okay with this?"

"Of course not, don't be ridiculous." She cast her eyes around the new Gladers. She didn't even know many of their names, the animosity in the glade and the ruination of the homely atmosphere she had come to cherish had led her to isolate herself from the new recruits.

It was a decision she was regretting now.

"But I don't think this is the way to go about it. We need to gain their trust again, explain things through. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to expand our running circle, but we need to make sure they're up to it first."

Seeing the incredulous expression on Alby's face she raised her hands in surrender.

"Only one or two. I don't think Newt will be running again any time soon, not until he's back on his feet and stomaching more than apples. But maybe giving them the option to explore the maze will make them feel less like we're caging them up like animals."

Alby's mouth opened and closed a few times before he sat back down. "I trust your judgement, Ada, you know that. But you had better know what you're doing."

No pressure at all.

–

Up until that night, the threat Stephen had posed to her was circumstantial at best. Whispered rumours and growing distrust, nothing that couldn't be handled with a well placed word here and there and a stern glare from Alby thrown into the mix.

Until that night, he had never tried to hurt her physically.

The moon was unusually bright above her, shining in a pitch black sky. She stared up at it, leaning against the side of the Homestead, fingers playing with the gold chain around her neck. The medical wing was above her, and if she strained her ears hard enough she could hear the sounds of Newt tossing and turning in his bed.

The other gladers had been asleep for hours. Even Alby, who had insisted on staying awake until she fell asleep, had drifted off an hour or so ago.

She listened to their snores, the sounds she had grown accustomed to her only company, and closed her eyes. The luminescence of the moon was visible through her eyelids, a warm glow that soothed her despite the growing ache in her tailbone from being sat still for so long.

A shadow above her snuffed out the light.

Her eyes snapped open, the hairs on her arms standing upright suddenly, and she had barely a second to move out of the way and spring to her feet before Stephen's boot landed right where her hand had been just a moment before.

"What the hell–"

Her words were cut off by a hand slamming over her mouth as she was pushed back against the wall. Nausea rose like a storm inside her, a rising wave of panic that engulfed her. Stephen's other hand wrapped around her wrist, pinning her in her place with one hand trapped behind her back and the other immobile at her side.

She tried to kick her legs out but all it did was bring her body closer to his, their torsos brushing and making the scream inside her head louder.

"There you are," he sneered down at her. "Been waiting to catch you alone for a while now, but you've been preoccupied the last few days."

Ada's teeth clamped down into his fingers.

Stephen cursed and yanked his hand away, allowing her to gulp in a deep breath of fresh air, but the relief was only temporary as the rage in his eyes grew. His fingers tightened around her forearm.

"You little bitch."

Ada opened her mouth to yell, to scream, to do something, but Stephen's hand clamped down over it again, harder this time. She couldn't find the room to bite him.

Tears welled up in her eyes, her body trembling like a leaf all over. She could feel vomit rising in her throat, panic and desperation warring with each other and causing blackness to hedge in at the edges of her vision.

"This is who I've been getting so worked up about?" Stephen snarled down at her, grinding his teeth before he spat at her feet. "This is the almighty leader of the glade, who survived a night in the maze and escaped from the so-called deadly Grievers? Gotta say Ada, I'm incredibly disappointed."

There were bodies surrounding her, bloated flesh pressing in on all sides, veiny and ropey and reeking of death, of disease, of rot.

"Then again, you never did exactly strike me as the strong type," Stephen sneered, bringing his face closer to hers. She could feel his warm breath on her face amid the panic, and desperately rammed her head back as far into the wall as it could go. "Always hiding behind Alby and Nick."

She was screaming, her voice cracked and strained, and as she turned her head her stare locked with a pair of lifeless eyes so close to her she could practically see death itself staring back at her.

"You're shaking, Ada." Stephen grinned, eyes alight with a wicked glint. "You're scared of little old me?" His smile vanished as he leant in closer, a cold detachment taking over that scared the living daylights out of her. "Good."

Ada kicked her leg out, thrashing violently in his hold, trying to summon up the strength to kick him somewhere it would hurt, to at least make enough noise for someone to come running. The world was swaying beneath her, her head so light she could have sworn it had detached from her body. His hands burned where they held her hard enough to bruise.

"Now you tell your little friends on the other side that I'm done playing their game, okay? I ain't staying here any longer. I'm going into that maze, you ain't gonna stop me."

Go right ahead, she thought bitterly. She was done trying to save his life. If he wanted to get killed so badly, who was she to intervene?

His face came even closer to hers, so close she could see every pore and mole on his oversized nose. His hand dropped from her mouth.

She snarled, anger forcing its way through the fog for a split second. "You deserve every bit of what's coming your way."

He let go of her suddenly, and Ada's knees buckled under her sudden freedom, forcing her to slump down the wall and gasp for breath as if his hands had been around her throat and not her arms. "You tell anyone about this," he sneered down at her, "and I will put a knife between your eyes."

Ada vomited into the grass as he walked away, leaving her alone with only his threats for company.

–

The next ten days were the longest she had ever lived through. That she could remember, anyway.

Newt's recovery was slow but sure. After four days of forcing food down his throat, colour had returned to his cheeks and lips. His face seemed fuller again, no longer resembling a skull. He was one step closer to looking like the boy she had seen in the box that very first night there.

When he had first descended the stairs leading to the medical room, Ada had been surprised at the stab of relief she felt. She had visited him frequently while he was on bed rest, the tiny room he occupied somehow more homely than the rest of the glade with all its suspicion and hostility.

His gentle smiles and snarky quips, while infuriating beyond belief, had filled her with a sense of peace she found difficult to find elsewhere. That didn't stop the homicidal thoughts rising in her every now and again, but one look at his weak frame and his tired eyes had her thinking better about giving him a one way ticket to heaven.

He'd had enough brushes with death to last a while, she thought.

Now that Newt had integrated himself back into the glade, looking for all the world as if he had never left, Ada found it easier to converse with the other gladers. The ones she hadn't fully met yet treated her with suspicion that bordered on disgust, but she found that after a few interactions most of them dropped them the wary act and treated her no different than the rest of them.

Stephen's words had planted a seed of doubt, but Ada found that removing it before it could grow didn't take all that much effort at all.

It was on day four that Alby noticed the bruises.

She was strapping her runners harness to her chest, staring absentmindedly at the maze, when Alby's hand darted forward and clasped around her forearm.

Ada tugged her arm free, furious, when she followed his eyes to see them fixed on the ring of purple and green finger marks. There were still red crescents where Stephen's nails had dug into the skin.

"Alby–"

"Newt," Alby called, his voice dark and thunderous.

Newt, who was walking towards the gardens nearby, made his way over to them, slowly, clutching an apple in his hand. He'd taken a bite out of it, she was pleased to see. He smiled at her briefly, a mere quirk of his lips in her direction, before returning his attention to Alby.

"You alright, Alby?"

"Get Stephen," Alby instructed.

"No, Newt, don't,” Ada insisted, covering her arm with her sleeve. "Alby, you're being ridiculous."

"Ridiculous?"

Newt crossed his arms, staring between them with raised eyebrows. "What's going on?"

"Show him," Alby said firmly, staring down at her arm.

Ada pulled the sleeve of her jacket up over her hand and hugged her arm to her chest. "No."

"Ada, show him."

"Why?"

"Why?" Alby asked incredulously. "Are you serious?"

"It's none of his business!"

"Well now I really have to know." Newt grinned.

"It's none of your business either, quite frankly,” she aimed at Alby. He had the audacity to look offended. "So there will be no fetching of anybody, thank you very much. Now are you ready to go? We're burning daylight."

She turned towards the entrance of the maze, but Alby blocked her path, staring at her with his lips turned downwards. He looked furious, and the stony expression on his face combined with this height and sheer presence had her stepping back inadvertently.

"Ada, so help me God," Alby said. "Tell me what happened."

"Wait, something happened?" Newt's smile dropped. "With who? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." She rolled her eyes. "Not a big deal. I'm more than capable of handling it myself."

"Handling what yourself?"

"Ada." Alby dropped his arms to his sides, face softening. "Please just tell me what happened. Did Stephen do that to you?"

Ada looked back and forth between Alby and Newt, both of them staring at her expectantly, an immovable wall between her and the maze. She rolled her eyes and sighed. "Oh my god, you two are insufferable. Here."

She yanked her sleeve down, exposing the ring of purple and blue. Newt hissed, reaching forward as it to take her wrist in his hand, but she pulled away before he could.

Newt's frown deepened, irritation flashing across his face. "Why do you keep pulling away from me?" He asked. "I'm not going to hurt you, Ada, I wouldn't do that."

"I do that with everyone, you ain't special." Ada turned to Alby. "Happy now?"

"Ecstatic,” he said, deadpan. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go commit homicide."

"No, you aren't." Ada rolled her eyes. "We're going to commit psychological warfare like mature people."

"And how do you propose we do that?" Newt asked, his eyes still locked on her arm, now covered by her sleeve. "The twat's got half the glade wrapped around his finger."

"I have a plan." Ada grinned. She tucked her thumbs into the waistband of her cargo pants and rocked back and forth on her heels. "A genius, foolproof, bound to work plan."

Alby shot her an unimpressed look. "You have a half assed idea and the survival instincts of a squirrel on crack cocaine, Ada, they're not the same thing."

—

"Ada, I'm not telling you how to do your job–"

"Good."

"But," Nick continued, "I don't think having a secret meeting with only the six of us is gonna help the rumours."

"You're practically just giving Stephen ammunition at this point," Gally said, unimpressed from his position perched against the wooden chair.

The council hall seemed vast and empty with only the six of them present. Nick and Gally, sat side by side, kept shooting each other dubious looks, as if they were questioning what they were even doing there. Avin was sat cross legged on the floor in front of them, curly blonde head down as he played a game of naughts and crosses with himself in the dirt.

Newt, leant against the closed door, played with the shoelace on his wrist. Alby stood beside Ada, slightly behind her as she addressed the room.

"Well we can't very well have him present as we sit here discussing how to thwart his evil plans," Ada said, as if the answer was obvious.

Nick raised his eyebrow. "Oh, his plans are evil now?"

"All of him is evil."

"Potential villainy aside," Alby said, "he hurt Ada. I'm not letting that stand."

"And you want to combat Stephen's suggestion of sending more people into the maze by... sending more people into the maze?" Gally asked. His arched eyebrows furrowed intensely. "Well, that makes perfect sense."

"We could do with the extra runners. People we trust, who have what it takes. Stephen is neither of those things," Ada said. "So anyone but him, really."

"He's gonna love that," Newt muttered.

"He'll live." Ada ran a hand through her hair, fingers catching on the knots in it. "Tomorrow we're holding a meeting. Doing endurance tests and trials. I wanted to give you guys the chance to share your opinion or whatever. Democracy and all that."

"Is this because I called you a dictator?" Newt grinned at her cheekily.

Ada glowered at him. "I will kick you out of this meeting."

"But then how would you see his pretty face?" Nick grinned.

"His face isn't that pretty,” she grumbled.

Newt looked offended for a second before a smile broke out over his face. "All I'm hearing is that you think I'm pretty, even just a little bit."

I want to kill him, Ada thought, preferably with fire. See how pretty the bastard looks then.

"There is murder in those eyes," Alby teased. "Better be careful, Newt."

"If we could please get back to the matter at hand," Ada said lowly, crossing her arms over her chest. "Running trials. Yes? No?"

After a series of nods and general acceptances, Ada clapped her hands together once and nodded. "Okay, wonderful. Now let's get the hell out of here before the others realise they're being excluded. We'll tell the rest tomorrow."

–

The following day was colder than usual.

Ada didn't know if the chill that settled over her like an immovable blanket was a weather anomaly or a product of the dread that had settled low in her stomach as soon as she had woken up. Unease clawed at her, wrapped its icy fingers around her throat, each frozen breath rattling in her lungs.

Something was nagging at her, an itch in her brain just out of reach, a warning lurking at the back of her mind like monsters on pirate maps, prowling in the unknown.

As she stood in front of the maze doors, back to the gaping hallways of stone, Ada pulled the sleeves of her jacket further around her, tucking them under her arms.

Alby, standing next to her like a loyal guard, cast a concerned glance down at her. "You alright?"

Ada watched the gladers make their way over to them, some eager and curious, others suspicious and slow. She nodded halfheartedly, trying to stave off a shiver. Something was screaming in the back of her head, a warning in a language she didn't know, a threat she couldn't decipher.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She nodded again, trying to convince herself. "Just want to get this over with."

The gladers gathered around them, a semi-circle of twenty or so people, watching her with varying levels of interest.

"Okay, now that we're all gathered, Ada and I wanted to discuss some things. Due to some recent... concerns," Alby said, steely eyes flashing to Stephen, "we understand that some of you feel like you want to get out into the maze and help look for a way out."

Ada watched at least half of them perk up. She rocked on her heels slightly as she spoke. "So we decided that we're going to hold runners trials. Those who are interested will go through a series of endurance tests, and if you pass those then you'll be taken into the first ring of the maze for a trial run." Ada met their eager stares with a stern one of her own. "This is a big responsibility. Most of you won't have the stamina or the energy to do it. And it's important that you take into account the risks, and you listen to the rules Alby and I lay down for you."

Stephen scoffed from his place to her right, rolling his eyes. "Yeah right."

She ignored him. "The maze is dangerous. The Grievers are nightmares on legs and the chances of you walking away from an encounter with one are slim to none. So you do not decide to stay in the maze overnight. You leave before sundown every day, no exceptions. Is that understood?"

There was a general hum of acceptance from the group of gladers who seemed interested, but at least six of them kept casting glances towards Stephen, as if waiting for his confirmation. Toby, one of the builders she knew spoke with Stephen a lot, raised his hand with an unimpressed expression. "And you're letting all of us try out for this then?"

"Anyone who wants to try out can do so," Alby nodded. "But ultimately Ada and I make the final decision."

Stephen stepped forward. "So ‘ultimately’ it's still you two pulling the shots, huh? This teamwork bullshit is just another way for you to keep an eye on us, keep us in line, that right?" He flung his hand out to the rest of the gladers behind him. "What, you don't like that you can't see what we're up to while you're in the maze so now you're taking us with so you can keep us on a closer leash?"

Ada took a step forward. "Weren't you the one saying you wanted to go into the maze?" She asked through gritted teeth. "Wasn't it your idea to have more people in there searching for a way out, consequences be damned?"

Stephen was right in front of her now, the veins in his neck popping angrily as his temper rose. His hand curled into a fist at his side right as Alby and Nick tensed up, watching them closely. Any disinterest the gladers were feeling evaporated as all eyes turned to them.

"Not with you and your boy toys watching us like hawks. You think I don't know that you're one of them? One of the ones who put us here?"

"You're an idiot," Ada said. "An idiot and a damned fool."

"Watch your mouth," Stephen growled. Isaac took a step forward, mumbling his name in warning, but he was ignored.

"The only reason we're recruiting more runners is because we need the numbers and we understand that people are feeling trapped. It was your idea, but we can't have people randomly going in and out of the maze for extended periods of time."

"And why not?"

Ada fought down her steadily rising frustration. "Because it's not safe! Because they don't know where they're going and if they get trapped out there they'll die and because Alby and I actually know enough about the maze to at least keep them safe whilst they're in there! Can you say the same?"

"Bullshit!" Stephen's hands came up and shoved at her shoulders. "You're just trying to stop us from running off and actually finding anything!"

Something inside Ada snapped. "I'm trying to stop you from getting people killed!"

"You can't stop us,” Stephen said, his voice steely with determination. "If we want to go into that maze, we will. What are you gonna do about it?"

Ada put up a hand to ward him backwards, further away from the doors. "Stephen I swear to god, you take one step into that maze and I will put you down."

"You're threatening me now, huh?" He sneered. "You're threatening me? Move, bitch, or I'll make good on my promise from the other night."

"Stephen," Toby warned, eyeing the two of them cautiously.

Stephen made to step around her, his gaze fixed on the maze doors, but Ada wouldn't let him.

She stepped in his path, steeling herself to shove him backwards if needed, but she hadn't anticipated the level of Stephen's anger. Two and a half months of suppressed rage and fear and the urge to move, to do something, seemed to crash down on him all at once as his hands came up and grabbed her arms, the contact sending a shock of disgust through her for only a moment as he shoved her backwards with enough force to send her stumbling back.

She could hear someone behind her, probably Alby, yelling something, but fury snapped inside her like a living being.

Her fist flew up and connected with Stephen's jaw right as he whipped the knife out of his belt.

She hadn't spotted it before, tucked away underneath his bulky shirt, but the blade glinted wickedly in the sun as he slashed out at her, nicking the underside of her arm as she darted away at the last minute. There was a brief stinging sensation as blood wet her shirt.

There was movement out of the corner of her eye but she couldn't focus on it as Stephen staggered towards her, enraged, knife clutched firmly in his grip.

Ada's leg came up, kicking at him anywhere she could, but his weight came slamming at her full force as he tackled her to the ground. Her head smacked around the ground with a sick thud, stars dancing in her eyes.

Ada threw her hands up, clawing at his face, gouging deep scratches across his cheek in an attempt to get him off her, but Stephen was unmovable, pinning her to the ground as he brought the knife down and into her shoulder.

Hands appeared, grabbing at Stephen, trying to wretch him away from her, but his grip on the knife was firm as he pulled it out of her shoulder and slashed at her ribs. She couldn't hear anything anymore, the world nothing more than a haze around her, as if he were trapped underwater and everyone was moving in slow motion. All she could feel was blinding pain and blistering fury, warring with each other inside her until she mustered up the strength to bring her knee up into Stephen's groin.

He doubled over, groaning, and Ada used the anger inside her like a crutch as her fist came up and slammed into his nose, his eye, anywhere she could reach as he was shoved off her by someone. Stephen's leg buckled when her heel rammed into his knee, sending him crashing into the ground where Isaac's arms wrapped around him, pulling him back and away from her, the bloodied knife falling onto the grass.

Ada longed to reach for it, to drive it between his eyes like he had promised he would do to her, but hands grabbed under her arms and hauled her to her feet, yanking her away. It was Newt, she realised, yelling something into her ear. She couldn't hear it.

Her eyes locked with Stephen's where he was avidly trying to free himself from Isaac and Toby's hold. Three other gladers hovered anxiously near them, hands raised ready to help if needed. "I'm gonna kill you!" Stephen yelled, spittle flying from his mouth. "I swear to god you ain't gonna live to see the next sunrise, you hear me?!"

For a fleeting moment he looked so much like George after he was stung that it rendered her breathless.

As if a switch had been flipped inside her, the fury in her veins fizzled out, leaving only pain in its wreckage. Noise slammed into her ears, making her head pound for a moment, and every sensation she had blocked out came rushing back.

She could feel the solid press of Newt's body against her back, one arm banded around her waist, fisting into the material of her shirt, the other over her chest, hand clamped down on her uninjured shoulder, fingers tangled in the ends of her hair. His hot breath puffed against the back of her neck as he panted. She could feel every rise and fall of his chest.

"It's alright, Ada, it's alright,” he said, voice breathless, cracking slightly. She wondered how long he had been repeating the words. His breath tickled her ear, stirred the hair there. "I've got you."

Something hot flashed through her, and she yanked herself away from him the second she realised they were touching. The sudden movement had pain spiking everywhere, her ribs and shoulder throbbing, head pounding. Ada glanced down at herself, brow furrowing at the blood splashed on her thighs and torso, as if wondering how it had gotten there.

Alby's voice echoed across the glade amidst the panicked shouts and horrified yells of the others. "Get him to the spare storage container, now!" He boomed at Isaac, who nodded resolutely and dragged Stephen away, him and Toby struggling to restrain the still thrashing boy. "Nick, go with them. Lock the bastard up and make sure he can't get out."

Nick nodded, his face grey, and with one last fleeting look at Ada he followed.

"Ada," Newt said from behind her, his voice gentle. He held his hands up like he was approaching a cornered animal, as if she would run frightened or collapse at any moment. "Ada, we need to get you to the med hut. Now."

She opened her mouth to respond but found that she couldn't, her entire body thrumming like a live wire.

"Ada," Alby said sternly, his eyes fixed on her shoulder. "Ada, c'mon."

Ada looked out at the rest of the gladers, watching her with shock still written on their faces, as if they couldn't believe what had just happened. It had begun and been over in seconds, she supposed, though it had felt much longer to her, every swipe of the knife and haphazard punch taking a millenia to process.

"Ada." Newt's hand landed on her shoulder. She flinched away from him, stomach heavy with bile, but the movement did what it needed to and snapped her out of it.

She turned to the Homestead, the stretch of grass between them looking hundreds of miles long, but her legs appeared to have stopped working. She looked down to see a deep slash stretching across her thigh, ripping the fabric of her cargos and leaving a bloodied wreck in its wake.

When did he do that? She wondered. She didn't remember him getting her leg.

Alby stepped up beside her, massive body tight with pent up adrenaline. "Let me help,” he said. "Let us help."

Ada could do nothing but nod, slowly looping her arm through his, leaning on him as much as she could stand to. The pressure of her body against his had her stomach rolling and for a moment she was sure she would throw up right then and there.

"What do we do now?" Gally asked, arms crossed, watching Ada with his thin lips pulled into a frown. She didn't have the energy to muster up a response, but she needn't have bothered, Alby spoke for her.

"Gather everyone into the council hall. Now,” he spat. "I want that bastard out of my glade."

Chapter Text

Day One Hundred and Fifty Two

The council hall was a riot of noise.

Ada could barely hear herself think over it, the cacophony accompanied by the pounding in her head leaving her feeling vaguely nauseous. Her fingers played with the edge of the bandage wrapped around her leg, toying with the material through the bloody rip in her trousers. They were loose enough at least that the bandage could fit snugly underneath it, something she supposed she should be glad for.

With every steadying breath she took she could feel the other bandages wrapped tight around her upper torso. The slashes across her ribs had been brutal, two of them criss crossing over each other, jagged and deep. She could feel them steadily oozing blood even an hour after the attack.

She had refused the pain medicine Connor had tried to force down her throat, knowing that it would make her sleepy.

She couldn't afford to be tired. Not here, not now.

Avin came up beside her, offering her a chunk of bread. Judging by the shape of it, it had been swiped from the kitchens and stuffed in his pocket. The thought of food made the nausea return, but she smiled and took it anyway, knowing it would make him feel better.

"How's your shoulder?” He asked, eyeing the strips of cloth tied around it.

"Can't even feel it anymore,” she lied. Even the slightest movement had pain ripping through her, but she wasn't about to tell him that. "Will be good as new in just a few days."

"You don't have to be here, you know?" Gally said as he walked up to them, putting his hand on the back of her chair. "Go back to the Homestead and sleep it off."

How do I sleep off several knife wounds? She thought bitterly to herself.

"I'm not missing this." Ada shook her head. Red hair fell into her face, the copper strands still threaded through with blood. She would need to wash that out before the day was through. "If you're going to be talking about what to do with me and Stephen then I'd rather be here for it."

The thought of sitting idly in her hammock whilst the entire glade discussed what to do with them was almost unbearable.

"What to do with Stephen, you mean," Gally corrected. "You did nothing wrong."

"I threw the first punch."

"He stabbed you," Gally replied. "There's a difference. Everyone here knows that."

"Is that so?" Ada cast her attention back to the rest of the room, where the seventeen or so other gladers were in the midst of an argument. She couldn't hear exactly what was being said, but she heard enough to know that opinion was mostly divided.

Some seemed to agree with Alby, thinking that Stephen was too dangerous to be around them, that his ideas would get them killed if he didn't attack them first. Others disagreed, arguing that Ada had attacked first, that if anyone deserved to be punished it was her. The bitter resentment in their voices had her looking away, back to Gally and Avin.

“Seems to me that's not the case."

"They're idiots," Avin said simply. He looked older than he ever had suddenly, as if he were their age, and Ada hated that the hostile environment they were surviving in had changed him from the shy and bright boy she had come up in the box with to the mistrusting and determined one in front of her. "They saw what happened."

Alby entered the room, the door shutting firmly behind him, the sound silencing the council hall like something muting a television. He stared at them all for a moment before making his way down into the centre of the pit, staring at the ground.

"What are we doing here?" One boy asked, Ada didn't know his name. Alan, perhaps.

"We need to talk about what just happened and what we're going to do going forward," Alby replied.

One of the other gladers, leaning against the wall, raised his hand. "Lock them both up."

"Don't be stupid,” another said. "We can't just lock people up."

"We need to let Stephen out," Isaac said. "It isn't fair that he's not here."

"You trust him not to try to murder Ada again?" A trackhoe, Johnny, asked. "Because I sure don't."

"She started it,” another said, and soon voices were rising over each other and Ada was left staring at her boots, counting the laces on them to try and calm her racing heart.

Alby slammed his hand down on the banister. "Enough! The whole reason I called this thing was because we need to talk this through, not bicker like a bunch of children."

Ada didn't bother mentioning the fact that they were children, Alby the oldest at what they guessed seventeen.

"Personally," he continued, "I don't want dangerous people in the Glade. This place is small enough without people actively trying to murder each other. We need to be peaceful, exist with each other and focus on our jobs."

"Right." Toby nodded. "So what exactly do you suggest?

"I say if he wants to go into the maze so badly we let him. Kick him out."

Ada sat up straight in her seat, staring at Alby with wide eyes right as the gathering of gladers burst into sound. Panicked disagreements and horrified protests all blurred together in a deafening haze.

She locked eyes with Newt across the room, but he wasn't looking at her. He was staring at Alby, brows furrowed and jaw clenched.

"You want to kick him out of the Glade?" Nick asked, voice strained. "Alby... we can't do that. He'll get killed out there."

For a brief moment a look of regret crossed Alby's face, but it was gone in the next second. "We can't keep him here."

Isaac's hands were clenched into fists on the railing as he leant forward. "What if we just kept him locked up?"

"We can't keep him locked up forever," Gally said slowly. "Disregarding the fact that it's inhumane, what if he gets out? Do you really trust him not to hurt people? He'd come after us all in our sleep and you know it."

"We don't know that,” another glader said. "Maybe we can talk to him, reason with him."

"Why are we even having this conversation?" Mickey spoke up from the back of the room. "You've told us from the start that getting trapped in the maze means certain death. Now you want to stick someone in there deliberately? That's an execution, not a punishment!"

"What other options do we have?" Ada spoke up for the first time. Half the eyes in the room turned to her, but she couldn't decipher the looks they were giving her. Was it blame? Suspicion? Pity? She wanted no part of it.

Alby crossed his arms, usually bright face twisted into a scowl. It transformed the way he looked, dragging him one step further away from the carefree and smiley boy she had grown so accustomed to. "We either let him out and let him free, banish him from the glade, or keep him locked up."

Isaac's mouth opened and closed furiously, as if he were scrambling desperately for a solution but couldn't quite form one good enough. Eventually his mouth closed and he looked at Alby with tears in his eyes. "Can't we just give him a chance? I know he's caused trouble, I know that–"

"Caused trouble?" Nick echoed incredulously. "He stabbed Ada! Multiple times!"

"I know that," Isaac snapped. He turned to Ada and his eyes softened slightly as he took in the stiff way she held herself. "I know that,” he said quietly. "But we can't just execute him. We put him in the maze, we're no better than he is. It's barbaric. That's not how we do things here."

"Maybe it should be," Alby said. "I know you guys are new, that so far we've lived relatively peacefully, but we had an incident like this before."

Ada's eyes fell shut against her will as she realised what he was talking about.

"One of our friends, George..." Alby trailed off, pain flashing in his eyes. It was the first shred of emotion he'd shown all evening. "He got stung by a griever and went crazy. He tried to kill us, and ended up killing himself so that he wouldn't."

That wasn't necessarily true, Ada thought. None of them knew why George had done what he had done.

Perhaps he couldn't stand the pain anymore and decided death would be preferable, maybe he truly lost his mind and didn't know what he was doing anymore. Or maybe it was to protect them. Maybe he knew that there was no coming back from what had happened to him and didn't want to risk the chance of hurting them.

They were his family, after all. He had said so himself.

"But Stephen hasn't been stung," someone argued. "We don't know that there's no coming back from this. He hasn't completely lost his mind like your friend did."

"Debatable,” Ada muttered. Gally kicked her in the shin, and she shot him a withering look. "What? He stabbed me, I'm allowed to think he's a psychopath."

The hall went quiet with contemplation, half of them looking as if they were seriously considering the idea, the other half looking nothing short of disturbed.

"If we do this," Gally said slowly, "we have to think about what this means. We're killing someone. Murdering them. Are you really willing to say you can live with that decision?"

Ada thought about it. She could honestly say that she did, that she turned it over in her mind again and again until she felt dizzy. But the answer was the same each time: she wanted him gone. She knew that at some point the weight of his death would crush her, knew that she would blame herself, knew that the only reason they were considering banishment was because of what happened to her.

He had come into her glade, her home, and made her feel like an outsider. He had turned people against her, broken all of their rules, and then actually tried to kill her.

She wanted him gone.

But she didn't want him dead.

"If we do this," she said slowly, "we give him food and supplies. The chance of surviving a night in the maze is rare but it's happened before. If he has food, supplies, he can stay alive long enough to look for a way out. That way it's not on us, if he doesn't make it. It's up to him."

There were a few nods in the crowd, but some people still looked hesitant.

"This feels wrong,” one of them said. "I know it's logical, I know he can't stay, but it feels wrong."

"It's up to him to survive," Gally said. He rubbed his chin idly as he leant against the chair Ada was sat in. "We'll do what we can, but the rest is up to him."

"We'll vote," Alby said. "Those in favour of banishment, raise your hand."

They did.

"Those in favour of keeping him in the glade, raise your hand."

They did.

Fifteen people voted for banishment.

Only six disagreed.

"Alright then," Alby said. "Sundown tomorrow, Stephen will be banished from the glade, into the maze. Newt, get the supplies ready. Food, weapons, put them in a bag for him."

Newt nodded slowly, face carefully impassive. He was hiding his emotions, Ada realised, studying him carefully. As if he didn't want them to know what he truly thought. It disturbed her — she wanted to know. It felt important.

The council hall was silent, oppressively so. It hung in the air like a disease, choking them.

The only movement was Isaac, who left the council hall with tears in his eyes.

—

Stephen remained in the empty storage container, dubbed the 'slammer' by Avin, for the entirety of the next day. The majority of people seemed to stay away from him, occasionally shooting him glances that were a strange mix of sympathetic and fearful.

The only person who remained glued to his side was Isaac. He spent the majority of the day sitting cross legged in front of the bars, either in silence or talking in a low voice. At one point, when Ada glanced over at them, she saw Isaac's hand reached through the bars, entwined with Stephen's.

She looked away quickly.

Ada didn't go into the maze that day. Neither did Alby. Her injuries meant that running wouldn't be possible for at least another two weeks, if not longer, but Alby didn't go in either. He said it was because he wanted to keep an eye on the glade, but she knew that being in the maze by himself made him feel isolated and afraid. She didn't call him out on it.

She didn't talk to Stephen, either.

Ada wanted to; part of her wanted to walk right up to the cage, tell him herself that he was going into the maze, but that despite the triumph he must be feeling he wasn't winning, because he was going to die. She knew he was, Alby knew it, Nick knew it.

Newt was less sure.

"There's a chance," he said at lunch, sitting opposite her on the wooden bench, "that he'll make it. You did." Newt looked at her with an emotion in his eyes that she couldn't decipher. He was like a puzzle, a magnificent puzzle, that she couldn't for the life of her wrap her head around. "He might make it."

"He might,” was the only thing Ada responded with. She could tell he knew she was lying.

Newt didn't speak for the rest of lunch.

When Ada next looked over at the slammer, Newt was crouched in front of the bars, his shoulders tense. Isaac wasn't there. He was with Alby, as he had been sporadically through the day, pleading and making suggestions they both knew wouldn't work.

Ada's stomach twisted violently as she watched Newt tense up further at something Stephen said. He walked away not long after that, and part of her wanted to follow, to know what they had said, but she didn't. She stayed still.

At long last, the sky turned from a brilliant blue to a haze of oranges and pinks, and the looming threat of the doors closing began to become overwhelming. A ticking clock down to the last few seconds.

"It's time," Alby said after dinner, shoving his half full plate away from him.

Ada looked down at her own plate, still mostly full, but the thought of eating anything didn't sit right with her. She thought about sneaking some of it into Stephen's bag. Guilt clawed at her insides viciously.

"Doors will close in twenty minutes."

Ada nodded silently, the wounds on her shoulders and ribs suddenly aching violently, as if the thought of what was about to happen, what they were about to do, had reopened the stitches.

Gally and Nick wordlessly got to their feet, heading over to the slammer, and Ada watched them go with a sinking feeling. Alby leant across the table, placing his hand mere centimetres away from hers. "You alright?"

She looked up at him with a blank expression. "This feels wrong."

"It is wrong," Alby said. "We're condemning a man to death. But it's necessary."

"Yeah." She nodded. "But it's still cruel."

"Cruel or not." Alby shrugged. "I'm not losing any tears over him. He hurt you. If I have to choose between who I want alive between him and you, there is no choice to make."

Ada gulped. "Gee, Albs,” she choked out. "You make me blush."

"I'll tone down my charm, then." Alby smiled. "Can't have you swooning on me."

"Ah yes," she agreed. "What ever would we do then?"

"Guys," Nick said, walking back over to them. "Time to go."

The sombre atmosphere returned, and Ada and Alby shot a tight lipped glance at each other as they got to their feet. Most of the glade was crowded around the west doors — they had chosen the ones that they didn't run through everyday. Ada wasn't sure she could survive the reminder of what happened being shoved into her face every time she stepped foot into the maze.

The walls loomed above her, the hallway of the maze looking dark and cold against the warmth of the glade, a slab of endless grey against a backdrop of approaching black. The only spots of colour were the threads of thick ivy stringing across the top and heaped along the walls. The cold breeze coming from inside it snatched the warmth from her bones.

Movement behind her caught her attention, as Stephen was dragged to the entrance by Nick and one of the burlier gladers, a builder, Jones.

When he saw Ada, his lip curled in disgust, but he didn't do anything. Perhaps because he knew he would be caught before any damage could be done, she thought, or perhaps because in his mind he was getting his way. He was going into the maze, the very thing he had been wanting for months.

She moved aside as he was shoved before the open doors, a group of ten gladers including Alby, Newt, Nick, and Gally making a semi circle around him to prevent him from coming back into the glade. Stephen stood with his back towards the doors, staring out at them blankly.

His eyes snagged on Isaac, who was standing at the back of the group, jaw clenched. He looked as if he were battling back tears.

Something in Stephen's expression shuttered for a second as their gazes locked.

"Stephen," Alby said, breaking the silence of the group. "We had a council meeting yesterday, where we discussed what the next steps would be."

"What is this, an intervention?" Stephen asked bitterly. His entire body was thrumming with energy, as if all he wanted was to dart backwards into the cold unknown.

"No," Alby said, his voice dark. "It's a banishment."

Newt moved forward, tossing a sack into the entrance of the maze. Ada didn't know exactly what was in it, she hadn't wanted to be with Newt when he packed it. Weapons and food, she guessed. Perhaps some rope and bandages.

All false illusions of survival.

"A goodie basket," Stephen said dryly. "How nice."

"To help you," Ada spoke up for the first time.

Stephen's gaze fell on her, immediately filling with hatred.

She felt the urge to recoil rising in her, but her own hatred and anger kept her spine straight and words strong. "If you truly think you can survive, and find a way out, this will help you."

Stephen's lip curled, but Alby spoke before he could open his mouth. "The doors will close behind you. If you survive the night, you will not be welcomed back into the glade. You won't be welcome back at all, no matter how many nights you make it through."

Stephen rolled his eyes, but nodded.

There was a sudden shuddering groan as the last rays of the sun met the top of the wall and the countdown began. A blast of intense cold air, reeking of dust and rot, burst from the maze, lifting Ada's hair and rustling her clothes.

She gulped, dread slowly rising in her chest.

Isaac took a step forward, towards Stephen, eyes so impossibly sad. "Stephen, I–"

"I know," Stephen said. It was the kindest she had ever heard him speak. "... Me too."

"Time to go, Stephen," Alby said sternly, and Ada caught one last glimpse of his eager face before he turned back to the maze, right as the doors began to close.

A Griever screeched in the distance.

Stephen's face went white. "What–"

Nick shoved him forward by the shoulder blades, but any desire to discover what lay beyond the maze walls Stephen seemed to feel appeared to have abandoned him. As did his courage, as he turned back to the glade with a panicked expression.

"Wait, but that's not–"

Another Griever shrieked, sounding closer this time, and the doors continued to slide shut, Stephen right in the middle of them. He'd get crushed, Ada thought, unless he moved soon.

"Wait–"

The semi circle closed in, crowding Stephen further into the maze, ensuring that he couldn't make a run for it. Isaac turned away, visibly trembling, and walked towards the Homestead, unable to watch.

For a moment, Ada considered calling it all off. He'd heard the Grievers, he believed them now, surely. The panicked expression on Stephen's face struck her like a blade.

Stephen stumbled backwards to avoid the doors, still rapidly closing, frantic mumbles escaping him. "No wait, I didn't – that's not possible, I–"

He was inside the maze now, clear of the doors, and the gladers fell back, watching Stephen with varying degrees of horror.

Ada glanced fleetingly around, her eyes catching on Newt, who was stood with his arms limp at his sides and his jaw clenched hard enough to form a solid line. Stephen's hands scrabbled at the doors, trying to stop them from closing, but nothing could stop the inevitable.

Ada felt sick with the dread that rose inside her.

When Stephen wanted the maze, it was easy enough to pretend that they were just giving him what he wished for. But the terrified boy in front of them was suddenly a far cry from the furious psychopath who attacked her with a knife, and she could no longer see this as anything other than the execution that it was.

This last glimpse of Stephen, screaming and begging, was the last thing she would ever see of him. It didn't sit right with her, and the finality of it all drowned her.

"Please–" Stephen begged, but there was nothing they could do now, not as the maze doors finally closed with a click that resembled the grim reaper's scythe, and Stephen's screams faded into nothing.

The last line of pink disappeared from the sky, and the darkness of night consumed them.

—

The sky outside the window, if the criss-crossed sticks over the hole in the wall could be called that, was pitch black. Stars dotted the vast expanse, pinpricks of light she could barely make out from her limited view in the medical hut.

Ada watched them with a blank expression, eyes flitting down occasionally to the top of the ginormous wall that bordered the glade. Her hand, pressed against the wound on her shoulder, faltered its movements slightly.

She didn't hear the door open behind her, but she did hear the person suck in a sharp breath.

Ada turned her head, copper hair falling over her bare shoulder, to see Newt stood in the doorway, awkwardly shuffling his feet. His face was flushed bright red as he scanned her figure before quickly averting his gaze, staring at the floor instead.

Ada couldn't stop the way the corner of her mouth quirked in amusement.

"Sorry," Newt said softly, his voice cracking around the word. He cleared his throat before rubbing the back of his neck. "Didn't know you were, uh... indecent."

Indecent, she thought, rolling her eyes fondly. "I'm in a sports bra, Newt, I'm hardly naked."

Still, it was the most Newt had seen of her. She was perched on the med table, legs swinging beneath her, and had shed her jacket and tank top, leaving her in only a black sports bra that exposed the small of her back and left her shoulders bare.

She had lowered one strap in order to remove the bandage to access the stab wound on her shoulder, and the skin glowed in the limited light streaming in through the window. Beams of moonlight caught on her hair and outlined her body in a pale glow.

Newt swallowed, his throat bobbing.

"I, uh–" He cleared his throat, averting his eyes again. "I wanted to check up on you. I saw you weren't down at, uh, at the bunks. Wanted to make sure you were okay."

Ada turned her face away, looking back towards the window. "I'm fine,” she said softly.

Traumatised beyond belief, but fine.

"What are you doing?" Newt asked, taking another step into the room. His eyes landed on the jagged slash on the back of her shoulder, likely following the trail of blood she could feel leaking down her back. "Shit, Ada, what the bloody hell happened?"

Ada rolled her shoulder, wincing at the sting of pain. "Bloody hell indeed,” she said dryly. "Popped my stitches getting into my hammock."

Newt took another step forward, so close now she could feel the heat of his body, and lifted a hand to brush her hair away from her back. "Here, let me–"

"No," Ada said, harsher than she should have.

Newt's hand dropped, and although she wasn't looking, she could practically see the hurt expression on his face. Her fingers clenched harder around the blood stained cloth in her hand.

Newt didn't respond, moving around her to the sinks, where he wet another cloth, keeping his head low. Ada watched him, watched the moonlight turn his gold hair silver. Silence hung heavy over them.

When he turned back to her, his face was patient and kind, not disappointed like she expected.

"You can't reach your back," Newt said softly. "It needs cleaning, or it'll get infected."

Ada narrowed her eyes, the thought of him touching her as exciting as it was repulsive. She thought of Stephen's hands around her wrists and throat, the flashes of dead bodies and lifeless eyes she kept experiencing, and clenched her jaw, closing her eyes tight to fight back the nausea.

When she opened them again, Newt stood right in front of her, a small distance separating them. His eyes were trained on her hands. When had they started shaking?

"Ada," Newt's voice was so soft when he spoke, she leaned into it, relishing in the warmth it filled her with."Let me help you."

She nodded.

Newt circled back around her, the only sounds in the small room their breathing. Ada lifted the hair away from her back, hugging the long strands to her chest. She winced at the first press of the cloth. Newt apologised, voice low, and she felt his breath against her neck.

"This is gonna hurt,” he warned as he reached for the suturing kit.

Ada grit her teeth, but the feel of the needle sliding through the skin at the edge of the wound had her vision going hazy.

Newt's long fingers brushed against her back, barely a hint of contact, but her entire body shuddered in response.

"This okay?" He asked, and she nodded jerkily.

"Yeah,” her voice was strangely croaky.

The stitches pulled together with a strange tugging feeling and Ada whimpered, hand darting back to hold onto whatever she could, fingers closing around the baggy sleeve of Newt's jacket. Her fingers tangled in the material, gripping onto it for dear life as she lifted her eyes to the ceiling and willed herself to stay conscious.

"You alright?" Newt asked, his voice oddly shaky.

"Oh yeah," she grit out. “Grand."

Newt huffed out a laugh. "Just two more." As he put the next two stitches in, he rubbed his thumb idly over the back of her shoulder.

Ada shuddered, but it wasn't through fear, or disgust. Warmth filled her.

When he was done, Newt didn't step away. He hovered at her back, fingers pressed against her skin, rubbing slightly over the goose flesh that had risen there. Slowly, so slowly she could have sworn she was imagining it, he leant forward slightly and pressed his forehead to the back of her head.

Ada's breath left her lungs in a sweep, and it was only then that she realised she was still gripping onto his sleeve. Her fingers flexed, and she felt Newt's head move as he followed the movement with his eyes.

"I'm glad he's dead,” he said suddenly, shocking Ada enough to let go of his sleeve. His free hand travelled downwards towards her wrist, not making contact, hovering over the bruises that Stephen had left.

"You don't mean that,” she said softly.

"I do." Newt responded. "Saves me having to kill him myself."

Ada's head snapped towards him, the movement bringing their faces so close together their noses brushed. The urge to pull away rose inside her, but for once she didn't listen.

"You don't care that much,” she said quietly.

Newt didn't respond. His gaze bored into hers, a storm in his eyes. His eyes flitted down to her lips, and Ada's breath caught in her throat.

"What did you say to him?" She asked, forcing his eyes back up to hers. "Stephen. I saw you talking to him earlier. What did you say to him?"

Newt's body tensed up so fast she wasn't sure he was ever relaxed. "Doesn't matter." His voice was hard again.

"It does, though,” Ada said, feeling frustration start to rise in her.

"Why?" He snapped.

"Why are you getting angry at me?" She asked, pulling away from him. Newt took a step back, stuffing his hands into his pockets. Her shoulders felt cold now, so she pulled the strap of her sports bra back up and covered her back with her hair. "Just tell me."

"Why are you so goddamn stubborn?"

"Why are you so goddamn obtuse?"

Newt looked away, that damned frown back on his face. "Put a bandage on that,” he said, still not looking at her. "It'll get an infection if you don't."

"Newt–” she said incredulously.

But he was already walking away, out the door and down the stairs without a backwards glance, leaving Ada alone with only the stars and her thoughts to accompany her.

Chapter Text

Day One Hundred and Fifty Four

Breakfast the next morning was difficult.

The atmosphere was heavy, a sense of finality hanging in the air like a weight they couldn't get rid of, as if they were standing on the precipice of something that they couldn't come back from. Or perhaps they had already crossed it, when the doors had opened early that morning with no sign of Stephen except for the missing bag and the footprints in the dirt that had blown into the maze corridor.

A line had been drawn in the sands of morality, and the glade was divided in which side they stood on.

Ada couldn't bring herself to eat, staring blankly at the porridge in her bowl.

Avin looked between her and her food a few times before drumming his fingers on the table and clearing his throat awkwardly. "You gonna eat that? Because if not, I will."

"You've had two portions already." Nick raised his eyebrows. "How are you eating all of that?"

"Magic," Avin said around a mouthful of food. Porridge dribbled down onto his chin, and Gally winced from the other side of the table.

"You disgust me, didn't Ada raise you with any manners?"

"Don't pin this on me.” Ada shrugged. "Alby's his mother."

"I'm whose what now?" Alby asked as he joined them. He watched as Avin swiped Ada's bowl and shook his head. "Are you seriously not eating again? You didn't touch dinner last night either. We're gonna end up with another Newt on our hands if you aren't careful."

Ada grimaced. "Too soon, Alby."

"Sorry,” he said. "But seriously, Ada, I thought you were on board with the banishment. We all agreed it was for the best."

"Not all of us." She gestured with her spoon around the rest of the breakfast area. It was unusually quiet, the sound of laughter noticeably absent as the boys glumly stared at the tables. "I just can't help but feel like we made the wrong choice."

Alby clenched his jaw. "Well, it's too late to change it now. We'll just have to find a way to live with what we did."

Nick cleared his throat, cutting through the tense silence that engulfed them. "You heading into the maze today, Alby?"

"Yeah. I think Newt's coming with me today."

"Speaking of," Gally said, "where is Newt. I haven't seen him since last night." He glanced around the glade as if Newt would suddenly spring up out of the earth in front of him.

Ada glanced down at the table again, lips twisting into a frown. Something strange settled in her stomach as she recalled their conversation in the medical room last night.

"Dunno," Avin said, "but he needs to hurry otherwise I'm gonna have his porridge too."

Nick looked at him incredulously, mouthing the word ‘how’ as Alby spoke up. "I'll go find him in a second."

"Are you gonna look for Stephen?" Ada asked before she could stop herself. "Today, in the maze. Are you gonna look for Stephen?" The table went quiet again as five pairs of eyes turned to Alby for an answer.

Alby gulped down a mouthful of water before slowly setting the canteen down. "If we find him then that's that. If not, then I'm not worried."

Ada blanched. "How can you be so cavalier about this? We killed someone."

"Technically, the Griever killed him." Alby shrugged.

"If he's even dead," Nick chimed in, crossing his arms. "Which he might not be."

A commotion from the other side of the outdoor mess hall caught their attention, and Ada felt a stab of panic rise in her as she watched Isaac shrug off two of the boys he was eating with, his face red with growing rage.

"You don't get to say that,” he spat. "How dare you?"

"What's going on?" Alby asked, forcing his way through the growing crowd and crossing his massive arms over his chest. Ada followed, heart in her throat.

"I'm not wrong." Ennis shrugged, glaring hard at Isaac. "The guy was nuts. He deserved what he got."

Isaac gulped, the tears in his eyes shining. "I know what he did was wrong, but–"

"The dude stabbed someone." Archie raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, Stephen was wrong."

That weight was back, wrapping heavy arms around her, and it only worsened as Isaac took two steps back, closer to the west doors. "I know. I tried to stop him, but he wouldn't listen."

Alby seemed to realise what was happening the same time Ada did, his entire body going tense like a live wire. "Isaac–"

"He made it sound so easy." A tear slipped down Isaac's cheek, and he wiped it away furiously. "Escaping. He made it sound like he had this grand plan, that he could get us out. And I wanted to believe him so badly."

"Isaac…” Ada raised her hands slowly, as if approaching a wild animal. “Isaac, don't."

"I don't want to be here anymore,” he said softly. "I don't want to be here. Maybe Stephen found a way out, maybe he escaped–"

"Stephen's dead, Isaac," Alby said, not unkindly, his face showing an unusual amount of compassion. "He's not coming back. No amount of wishing otherwise is gonna make that true."

"Maybe," Isaac said. His eyes darted to the west doors, his entire body suddenly looking so weak, so frail, it was a miracle he was still standing. His blonde hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. "But I don't wanna be here without him. He was the only good thing..." he broke off, inhaling deeply. "He was the only thing that made being here worth it."

Ada took a step forward. "Isaac–"

"I can't do it anymore,” he said.

Before Ada could open her mouth to say anything more, Isaac was gone, sprinting through the maze doors that suddenly seemed too close, dodging the hands that grabbed at him.

Alby swore and took off after him, vanishing around the corner, but Ada knew it was no use. There was a certain look in Isaac's eyes that she recognised. She had seen it in Newt's eyes when he was refusing to eat. She had seen it in George's eyes that last night by the tree. She had seen it in Alby's eyes by the fire the night they carved their names into the wall.

It was a look she imagined often stained her own features.

There was a moment of heavy silence where the glade seemed to hold its breath before the crunch of footsteps disturbed the dewy grass beside her. Newt tucked his hands into his pockets, frowning.

"Uh... what did I miss?"

—

The box came up that afternoon, with four new fresh faced gladers inside.

Alby and Newt were still in the maze, which meant that Ada was the one in charge of settling them in. She had lived with a group of twenty teenage boys for five months, and yet the urge to murder someone had never been so strong as when their questions reached an almost unbearable point.

Her answers were unhelpful, she was sure, she couldn't remember. Her head felt as if it were stuffed full of cotton balls, her mind in the maze with the other runners.

Would they find Isaac in time? She wondered bleakly. Even if they did, she was sure they wouldn't be able to bring him back. The glade may have felt like home to the rest of them, but to some the four walls still felt like the prison she had recognised it as when she had first come up.

She lit the last torch and shoved the end into the ground, a soft glow illuminating the sand pit outside the Homestead.

"Remind me again why we didn't light the bonfire?" Nick asked, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow as he straightened, wiping his dirty hands on his even dirtier jeans.

"The bonfire is for celebrating," Avin said, sitting cross-legged on one of the wooden logs that surrounded the unlit pile of wood. "I don't really think any of us feel like celebrating right now."

His hands were playing with a small wooden carving, which he was chipping away at with a sharp blade. Ada kept one eye on him the entire time.

"Poor bastards," Gally chuckled. “These new shanks are the only Greenies that don't get a bonfire celebration."

"They'll live," Ada muttered. Her eyes flickered back to the maze doors, watching the steadily descending sun anxiously.

Gally picked up a twig from the floor and tossed it at her gently, the wood thudding against her shin. His eyebrows were arched when she looked over at him, as if he had been calling her name for a while. "They'll be fine, Ada. They'll be back in just a second."

"The doors are gonna close soon,” she said quietly. Annoyed by the locks of hair that kept falling into her face, she reached back to scoop it into a ponytail. "I don't want Alby and Newt getting trapped out there."

"Speaking of Newt," Nick's tone was strangely suggestive as he leant against an unlit torch. “What happened between you guys last night?"

Ada nearly swallowed her tongue. "What?"

"You guys were in the med hut for an awfully long time, that's all." Nick grinned wolfishly, his teeth gleaming white in the low light.

"We – I –” Ada stammered, face turning as red as her hair. The memory of Newt's fingers brushing her shoulder, of his face buried in her hair, swallowed her whole until she felt like she was drowning.

"Oh, gross." Gally grimaced. “She's blushing."

Ada threw the stick back at him, considerably harder this time. "Nothing happened. I popped my stitches and he sewed me back up, that's all."

Nick turned to Avin with a grin. The young boy was shaking his head, snickering, watching the back and forth with an amused smile. "Hear that Avin? I think–"

"Nobody cares what you think," Ada interrupted him.

"I care what he thinks," Avin said innocently. "Please continue, Nick."

Ada stared at him with wide eyed betrayal. "Et tu, Avin?"

"Et what?"

Gally shuddered, fake gagging around his finger. "Let's change the subject before I barf."

Ada opened her mouth furiously to combat it, but was interrupted as a familiar figure came jogging up to them.

Alby's face was drawn tight with stress, and when he came to a stop beside them Ada noticed how exhausted he seemed. He looked as if he had aged a decade in a matter of hours, dark shadows smudging under his weathered eyes.

"Anything?" She asked wearily, not sure what she wanted the answer to be.

"No," Alby said gruffly. "No sign of either of them. It's like they just vanished."

Ada sighed, tiredness welling up inside her. "I can come with you tomorrow. More eyes–"

"No,” Alby said again, stronger this time. "You were stabbed, like, three days ago, Ada. You're not ready to run again."

"But–"

"We're fine with just Newt,” Alby said.

Gally glanced around the glade, brows furrowed. "For the second time today I'm gonna ask where that shank has run off to."

"He went back to the Homestead." Alby shrugged. "Been quiet all day. Probably in shock. Says he probably isn't coming down tonight."

Three new gladers passed by, staring up at the walls with bewilderment.

Alby stared after them, blinking slowly. "Am I hallucinating? Who are these shanks?"

"Did you forget it was box day?"

"Fucking box day,” Alby muttered, running a hand down over his face.

He turned on his heel and followed them, likely to introduce himself and try and figure out if they knew their names yet, both of which were things Ada didn't bother doing earlier. She shifted uncomfortably, staring at the new faces.

"Don't worry." Nick shrugged, seemingly reading her mind. “It's not like we have Stephen to turn the newbies against you this time. You have plenty of time to introduce yourself."

Ada shot him a glare. "Piss off, Nick."

—

Thick smoke churned into the air, black and heavy as it wrapped itself around the night sky, fleeing the flames that chased it towards the stars.

Ada watched the wisps dance around themselves until they vanished, the torch below them sputtering its last dying breaths. Time had turned the flames to embers, and the sparks now lying on the wood were flickering feebly. Nick had relit the other ones as they died out, and would likely return soon to breathe new life into the flames.

Someone sat down on the grass beside her, a graceful movement she didn't recognise as she turned her face away from the torch.

One of the new gladers sat beside her, staring down at her with inquisitive and narrow eyes so brown they were almost black, only a few shades lighter than his thick hair, inky and somehow perfectly quaffed. His blue shirt was rolled up at the sleeves, showing off the impressive muscles on his arms.

One arm came around the back of the log she was leaning against, the other lifting as he held out his hand for her to shake. "Hey, I'm Minho."

Ada smiled politely and ignored his outstretched hand. "Ada."

Minho raised an eyebrow in amusement, withdrawing his hand and smirking at her. "We didn't get a chance to talk much earlier."

"Yeah, sorry. I was... distracted."

"We're surrounded by a death maze filled with deadly monsters, who can blame you." Upon seeing her bewildered expression, Minho shrugged. "Or so I've heard."

Ada huffed out a disbelieving laugh, not quite sure what to make of his cavalier attitude.

"So, you're the only girl here?" Minho glanced around the glade before turning back to her, and Ada was relieved to see no scepticism on his face, only blatant curiosity, as if she were a puzzle piece he couldn't quite make out.

Ada nodded, lips pursed.

Minho let out a low whistle, puffing his cheeks out in a way that had her smiling. "That's rough."

"Honestly?" She said, turning her body slightly in his direction. "That's been the least of my worries since I got here."

"Right, because of the whole –"

"-- Death maze with deadly monsters thing, yeah." Ada nodded.

"So, these Greeders..."

"Grievers,” she corrected.

Minho waved her off with a dirt streaked hand. "Grievers, whatever. They just live in the maze?"

Ada nodded, looking back at the torch. Suddenly she didn't want to see Minho's face, no matter how good looking he happened to be. She didn't want to watch the fear slowly creep in and wipe away the carefree attitude he seemed to be sporting.

She couldn't remember the last time anyone had spoken to her without the lingering fear of the day haunting their every move. Couldn't remember the last time she had met someone that didn't look at her as if they were expecting her to fix all of their problems.

A fierce wave rose up inside of her like a storm, and she vowed to herself that she wouldn't let the horrors of the glade touch Minho. She would protect that joyful spark in his eye and the leap in his step like she couldn't do with the other gladers.

An image rose up unbidden in her mind of Newt's tired eyes and weary posture, of his blank gaze and joyless smile. He was still in his room moping, she supposed. Just as she was considering going to make sure he was okay, Minho spoke up again.

"Where do they come from?"

Ada blinked at him in confusion before remembering that they were talking about the Grievers. "Oh, we don't know."

"What do they do?"

"Just... roam around the maze at night, I guess." She shrugged. She hadn't exactly spent a lot of time thinking about the purpose of the Grievers beyond the fact that they guarded the maze and all but guaranteed a one way ticket to the afterlife if you came across one.

"What do they look like?"

Disgusting, horrifying, too hideous to even put into words.

"Nightmare fuel,” she settled on.

"What do they eat?"

"Scared and amnesiac children," Ada said roughly. She turned to face him fully, crossing her arms in frustration. "Now are you done with the twenty questions?"

Minho raised his hands in surrender, grinning at the furrow between her brows and the stubborn set of her jaw. "Yes ma'am." He winked at her. "Now c'mon, carrot top, introduce me to some people around here."

"What did you just call me?"

The lighthearted grin on his face told her he was joking. She elbowed him hard in the ribs, her own smile growing when he doubled over.

"Hey, Gally!" She waved the boy over from his position by one of the torches. "C'mere, meet Minho."

"Hey," Minho wheezed out.

Gally raised one arched eyebrow and looked at Ada with an unamused expression. "What did you do to him?"

"He's asthmatic."

Minho coughed out a laugh. "Nice to meet you."

"You too, shank," Gally smiled tightly. It was almost amusing watching him struggle to socialise. "You put your name on the wall yet?"

"Yeah, wanted to fill up the giant gap you guys left in the middle, but Alby wouldn't let me." Minho rolled his eyes. "Said I had to leave space for the others or whatever. Spoilsport."

Gally chuckled awkwardly before jerking this thumb over his shoulder. "I'm gonna get back to Nick, we were talking about making more slammers, just in case. Was nice to meet you, Minho."

"He seems like a delight," Minho said sarcastically once Gally was out of earshot.

"He's a sweetheart when he warms up to you." Ada smiled fondly at Gally's retreating back before turning back to Minho, who was staring down at her with a seemingly permanent spark of mischief in his eyes.

"Does he have a brain injury?" Minho asked mildly.

"Uh... no?"

"Then what's with the weird words? Did I miss something where Shank and Slammer are part of the English language?"

Ada let out a bark of laughter, suddenly realising that the slang they had grown accustomed to using wasn't something any of them had ever explained to the new gladers of the past few months. They must have been so confused listening to these strange people use their strange language in this strange place.

"You'll grow to get used to how things work around here. I'm still a little unclear on that one."

"So he could have been insulting me?"

"It's Gally." Ada shrugged, "It's always a possibility."

"Really selling the whole 'he's a sweetheart' thing."

"He just has to get used to you first."

"Then it is my personal mission to annoy him as much as possible until he likes me,” Minho said determinedly. He nodded, clearly proud of himself, as Ada scoffed in disbelief.

"Oh, yeah," she agreed. "Bully him into friendship, that'll sure do it."

"Not bullying." He rolled his eyes. "More like lighthearted pranking."

"Oh, you and Avin are gonna get along just fine." Ada gestured to the younger boy, playing naughts and crosses with Alby in the sand. Judging by the dramatic frown on Alby's face, Avin was winning. "He locked Gally in the outhouse one time and shook it. I don't need to tell you how much that boy stank for the rest of the day."

"I shall ask the grandmaster for advice then." Minho winked.

"Just give him extra bacon and you won't be able to get him to shut up. He's easy to bribe like that."

"Ah." Minho looked her up and down dramatically, "Pretty and offers advice on bribery. I'm keeping you."

"This is my glade, buddy." Ada shook her head. "Technically I'm keeping you."

"Ada." A terse voice came from her right, and when Ada looked up she saw Newt standing staring down at them, an unreadable expression on his face.

"There you are." Ada crossed her arms, unimpressed. "Done brooding?"

He didn't reply, instead eyeing up Minho with an odd look she'd never seen on him before. His lips were pursed slightly, and he looked annoyed, but she couldn't figure out who she was annoyed at. Her? Himself?

"Who's your friend?" He asked eventually.

Minho held out his hand with a charming grin that even Newt apparently wasn't immune to, judging by the slight upwards quirk of his lips. It was a far cry from the friendly and teasing grin she knew he was capable of, but she considered it a win regardless.

"Minho." He introduced himself. "Pleasure to meet you."

Ada scoffed. It was like watching someone meet their partner's parents for the first time, oozing charm and sweetness that covered up mischief and snark. Newt frowned as he glanced down at her, small smile dimming slightly, even as he introduced himself to Minho.

Newt's eyes landed on Minho's arm, which was still resting on the log at her back. He tilted his head and looked away quickly.

"Food's ready,” he said simply, his voice strangely hollow. "You need to eat."

"We'll be there in a second." Ada shot Newt an inquisitive look but he ignored her, instead staring intently at the ground.

He hummed noncommittally before turning on his heel and not looking back.

"... I take it he has to warm up to you as well?" Minho asked, raising a judgemental eyebrow at Newt's back.

Ada found her frustration rising at Newt's hot and cold attitude, and she turned back to Minho with a dry smile. "No, that one is an ass."

Slowly getting to her feet, Ada watched as the final few embers died, crumbling to dust right in front of her. She kicked Minho's shin gently and tilted her head towards the kitchens.

"C'mon." She smiled. “Let me introduce you to Charles, he makes the best steak."

—

Newt couldn't quite pinpoint the moment where his world shifted on its axis, but suddenly a place he had grown to see in dazzling shades of green and blue had been muted into something of a grey blur.

The breath in his lungs felt wrong, the hammock against his back at night felt hard as stone, and the grass beneath his feet felt like daggers digging into his skin. Not even the sounds of gentle laughter and obnoxious chatter could drag him from the hourglass he felt trapped in, slowly watching the sand trickle through his desperate fingers.

From his position against the pillar at the edge of the Homestead, Newt could see the majority of the area they had put aside for the bonfire. It was a stretch of land just outside the kitchens, opposite the stairs that led up to the medical hut, with patches of sand and logs positioned at random surrounding a large pile of unburnt wood from the deadheads.

On nights such as these, the flames usually stretched high and proud into the air, illuminating the glade in a soft glow that chased away the monsters lurking in the shadows.

Tonight, however, the only light was the fickle glow of two dozen torches positioned at random in the ground. Although the warm luminescence lit the glade well enough, the darkness that crept in along the edges was far more pronounced, its inky tendrils lying in wait for the flames to snuff themselves out so that they could pounce.

Something shuffled to his right, startling Newt. Alby leant against the pillar beside him, stoic and dark, watching over the glade with impassive eyes that Newt knew held a storm beneath them.

"You're brooding," Alby said simply, raising an eyebrow at Newt when he scoffed.

"I'm not brooding."

Why did everyone seem to think he was brooding, he thought miserably. What was wrong with leaning against a pillar and watching the world go by instead of interacting with people?

"Moping, then, whatever you want to call it. You gonna tell me what's going on with you?" Alby raised his eyebrows expectantly, staring at Newt with such scrutiny that he suddenly wanted nothing more than to go hide in the hammock he had just crawled out of.

"... No."

How could he even begin to describe to Alby what he himself didn't know? This hollow feeling that seemed to swallow him whole from the inside out, gnawing at him until it consumed his every waking moment. The only times he didn't feel like he was drowning in it was when he was with –

"Ada seems to be enjoying herself." Alby chuckled to himself, jutting his chin towards the bonfire. Newt followed his gaze mindlessly and immediately wished that he didn't.

Ada was leaning against one of the logs, legs tucked up in front of her, fiery hair falling down her shoulders in untamed waves. The light surrounding her was limited, but he could still see the golden flecks sparkling in her eyes when she leaned too close to the flickering embers.

She was laughing, Newt realised with a jolt in his chest.

He couldn't remember the last time he had seen her laugh like that, so carefree and joyful, the weight that she carried around on her shoulders seemingly vanished into thin air along with the smoke from the torch in front of her. Something warm settled in his chest.

Minho was sat beside her again, with tan skin and perfectly styled hair, grinning down at her teasingly. Two empty plates sat discarded on the grass beside them. He couldn't help but notice how close together they were sat, how her body was turned into his slightly as she smiled up at him. Had she ever smiled at him that way? He didn't think so.

That warm feeling vanished.

Newt didn't realise just how hard he was frowning until Alby scoffed beside him.

"Fool,” he said simply.

"Excuse me?"

"You gonna do anything about that?"

"About what?" Newt asked. He glanced quickly around the glade to make sure he hadn't missed any misdeed or commotion that would send Alby spiralling. "Nick stealing food from the kitchen? I thought it was funny, but if it's bothering you that much I guess I can–”

"You're both as stupid as each other." Alby rolled his eyes.

Newt blinked, feeling as if he and Alby were having two entirely separate conversations. "Me and Nick?"

"Oh my god." Alby rolled his eyes again, so hard Newt was sure he would give himself a migraine if he wasn't careful. "You and Ada, you moron."

Newt felt as though he had been slapped. "Me and – me and Ada? What –"

"You seriously have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?" Alby asked, but there was no judgement in his voice, just genuine disbelief. "Man, you are thick."

Newt was starting to feel awfully insulted.

"Let me know when you realise, okay? Lord knows we could do with something interesting happening around here."

In all fairness, Newt thought that the maze filled with monsters they were trapped in was fairly interesting all on its own, but he kept that thought to himself as his eyes found their way back to Ada.

He watched the smile on her face grow and felt his frown deepen. He was aware of Alby watching him intently for God knows what reason, but didn't move his eyes away. For some strange reason, something heavy was twisting in his stomach, making him nauseous.

Perhaps he was coming down with something. He made a mental note to talk to the medjacks about it the next day.

Newt watched with curiosity as the new glader reached up to ruffle Ada's hair, and stiffened when she flinched away from him, casually redirecting him with a remark that had him laughing boisterously.

"Why does she do that?" He wondered aloud, not really expecting an answer.

Alby sighed and the teasing quirk of his lips settled into a stoic line.

"It's just a boundary she has. She won't touch you, you don't touch her. Something about the skin on skin contact wigs her out, I think. I don't know, I'm not going to ask." He shot Newt a stern look. "And neither are you. I've already talked to the others about it. It's her business. I don't even know if she knows why she does it, but if she can remember then it's up to her if she tells you. We clear?"

Newt's eyebrows rose as he shot Alby a placating glance. "Crystal." He nodded.

But it didn't stop him from thinking about it, not as Alby muttered something about 'clueless fools' under his breath and walked away, not as he watched Ada and Minho joke and laugh with each other with something strange and foreign twisting in his stomach, not even as the final torches winked themselves out of existence and life in the glade ceased for the night until the sun awoke it again the next morning.

But even as the sound of light snores and snuffling filled his ears, Newt found himself wide awake and staring at the splintered wooden ceiling, trying to understand the foreign feelings that were rising inside him like a wave, slowly pulling him under.

Chapter Text

Day Two Hundred and Fifty Eight

The months that followed didn't exist to Ada.

Time seemed to have slowed down and sped up all once, the days blurring together in an endless cycle of sleep and work, each day identical to the one before it.

Now that neither Isaac nor Stephen were in the glade, things had calmed almost to the point of boredom. The crops grew and were harvested, the maze cycles changed over and over again, and the wind in the trees remained the same.

The only thing different were the two new graves in the deadheads.

Alby had returned from the maze the morning after the impromptu celebration with his face as white as bone, not meeting anyone's eye as he walked them towards the council hall. He had found two bodies, he had told them, too mangled and bloodied to be recognisable beyond the clothes they were wearing.

But there were only two people it could have been, and Nick crossed Isaac and Stephen's names off the wall that night.

The only comfort, she supposed, was that they were found sound by side, with their hands linked between them. She supposed she should be grateful that they had found each other before the Grievers killed them, but there was no way of knowing what had happened out there. Perhaps they stared death in the face together, hand in hand, or perhaps Isaac had found Stephen's body and decided to die with him.

They couldn't bring the bodies back, but they needn't have worried, they were gone the next day anyway. Just like Luke's had been that first day there. And much like Luke, they buried nothing other than what few belongings the two had.

Three and a half months later, barely anyone ever spoke about them anymore, merely brushed them from their minds and carried on with their days. Ada wished she could say the same, but reminders of what happened followed her everywhere she went, from when she changed in the morning and saw the scars on her skin, to the wooden crosses beside her when she visited George and Carson.

She hadn't been to see them in a while, the place no longer felt as sacred as it once did. It felt heavier, somehow.

Gally huffed as he dragged his sleeves up for the millionth time, trying to secure them at his bony elbows so that they wouldn't fall down. "If these things keep getting in my way, I'm going to cut them off."

Ada pursed her lips to keep her laugh in as she continued unloading crates out of the box. "I sure hope you're referring to your sleeves and not your arms."

"You'd look ridiculous with no arms." Nick added from the other side of the box, his voice lost from where he was crouched somewhere behind the crates with the new livestock in them.

Ada refused to touch the animal crates through fear of getting attached to whatever poor creature was inside it and never being able to eat Charles' cooking again. She still missed those cows from the early days. Nick apparently didn't have this problem, and seemed quite happy hauling them up to Alby, who kept making trips to the makeshift animal pens they had set up beside the gardens.

"How dare you," Gally said, placing a hand over his heart. "I would look as fabulous as always."

Minho, perched on a crate and insisting he was helping by 'supervising the madness', dramatically surveyed Gally's scrawny frame, oddly shaped eyebrows, and slightly too-large nose. "Yes," He agreed dryly. "A stunner for sure."

"Don't worry, Gally." Ada grinned, hoisting herself out of the box and wiping her hands on her thighs to free them of dust. "I'm sure Minho would be happy to spoon feed you should you ever suffer such dramatic loss of limb."

Minho opened his mouth to enthusiastically protest when Alby returned and shot him a disapproving glance. "Minho, get off your ass and help. Gally, you said we're putting these in the storage containers? I thought we made those prisons. Or did I dream that up?"

"Due to the severe lack of prisoners, Nick and I figured we could return them to their intended purpose so we can finally stop using the box as an impromptu storage container." Gally shrugged.

"Ah."

"Hey, where's Newt?" Nick asked suddenly, poking his head up from behind the last few crates.

"You've asked that question several times over the past few weeks." Minho smirked. "People are gonna start thinking you're the one with the crush on him."

"I will squash you like a bug," Nick said simply, before Minho's words registered properly in his head. "Hey, hang on a second, whose got a–"

"He's in the maze," Alby interrupted, rolling his eyes. He'd been particularly prickly since he'd woken up that morning, and Ada tossed him a bottle of water to try and cheer him up.

All of them were covered in a fine sheen of sweat from the heavy lifting, so she had created a pile of water canteens to throw at people when she thought they looked too thirsty.

"On our day off?" She frowned, casting a concerned look towards the north doors. "He's been spending a lot of time in there ever since he healed up. What's gotten into him?"

"It's Newt." Minho shrugged. "Broody shank, could be anything."

Ada wanted to disagree, but couldn't. He hadn't spoken to her much over the last few months, avoiding her efforts to spend time with him and dodging her tries at conversation with half hearted remarks and dry one-liners.

Things had been strained between them ever since the night of Stephen's banishment and what had happened in the med hut, but she hadn't expected him to completely freeze her out. The sting of hurt she felt had faded away after the first month, however, and frustration quickly rose in its place.

"Well, maybe if you'd let me start running sooner then I could talk to him?" Minho grinned innocently up at them, still on his crate. "Ya know, mano to mano, friendo to friendo."

"Adding 'o' to the end of every word doesn't make your offer sound more appealing, Minho, it just makes us want to punch you."

"Says the one who throws around words like 'slinthead' and 'shuck'."

"You're lucky we're even letting you run at all, Minho." Ada straightened and shot him an unimpressed glare. "You start next week, and that's final."

Minho pouted and crossed his arms like a child. "Yes, mom."

"I don't even understand why you're letting him run at all," Gally chimed in, rolling his eyes. "The dude's asthmatic."

"What?" Alby asked, frowning. "Minho isn't–"

Ada cleared her throat loudly. "Damn, breathed in some dust, Alby can you pass me some water please?"

The final few crates were lifted from the box, and everyone began to scramble out of it, closing the doors firmly behind them. It was only when they were all making their way towards the slammers when the alarm went off.

Ada's hands clamped over her ears as the crate she was holding thudded to the ground, spilling bandages onto the grass. "What the fuck?"

"That's the greenie alarm," Nick said over the noise, staring wide eyed at the flashing red lights. "But we aren't due another set for two weeks."

"Back away, back away!" Alby ordered as other members of the glade came rushing over, crowding them back with one arm whilst the other was clamped firmly over his ears.

A figure appeared at the maze doors, and Newt surveyed the scene in confusion for only a moment before rushing over, forcing his way through the crowd to meet them. "What the bloody hell is going on?" He asked, staring down as a strange whining noise came from inside the box, like metal scraping across metal.

Ada grit her teeth against the sound as it rattled through her unsettlingly.

It seemed to last a lifetime, but was no more than ten minutes of staring in bewilderment and waiting for it to stop. When it did, the silence that settled over the glade was deafening and punctuated only by the occasional whispers and hushed sentences of the crowd behind them.

Ada and Alby shared a tense look before lowering themselves down onto the platform, grabbing the handles and swinging open the doors.

Instead of an empty box, or rather a box filled with frightened boys and fresh supplies, when the doors swung fully open they were met with a giant gaping passage, walls of thick steel and stone stretching downwards until the shadows consumed them. The gaping black at the bottom was as ominous as staring into the eyes of a Griever, a yawning black hole eagerly waiting to swallow them.

Ada backed away from the edge quickly before she got too dizzy and fell in.

Alby picked up a rock and tossed it gently into the shaft, waiting for the echoing sound of it smashing against the ground.

The sound never came.

"Either that rock was just swallowed up by some horrifying monster, or that is a long drop." Minho said from somewhere behind her.

"Where does it go?" Someone asked, and it was like a switch went off inside Ada's brain, the dots connecting in her mind so fast it had her head spinning.

She turned to Alby with an eager grin. "Alby," she said excitedly, "this must be the passage we came up through, when we first got sent up here. Which means that down there is–"

"The people who put us here,” he finished the thought and ran a hand over his head, barely concealing his growing smile. "That's the way we came in, that's where we came from."

"What if we followed it down?" Newt suggested. "Our way in could also be our way out." It was the most eager she had ever seen him, the most emotion she had seen him show in a long time as cracks began to appear in the carefully constructed mask he always wore around her.

"We did it," Nick exhaled a sigh of relief. "We found it."

Ada grinned. "Our way out."

—

"Do we have a council meeting?" Someone from the crowd asked. "Discuss our options?"

"No, no, what if it comes up again in that time?" Another disagreed. "We should just check it out now, right? Whilst we're here?"

"How are we even gonna get all of us down there?" Avin asked. "Do we even have rope that long? I can't see the bottom."

"We can tie a bunch of rope together," Nick suggested. "It should hold if we do it properly."

"And what, just go one at a time? That's gonna take forever."

"Hang on a second." Minho put his hands up in surrender when several glares were aimed in his direction. "We don't even know what's down there. There could be a dozen Grievers down there for all we know, what if it's not safe? Are these creator people even gonna let us come down that way?"

"They've been wanting us to find a way out,” Gally argued. "That's why they put us up here, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but they've been wanting us to escape through the maze," Ada said slowly, eyeing up the towering walls around her. "Not through the box hole. Minho's right, we need to be careful about this."

"All due respect, Ada." Connor raised an unimpressed eyebrow at her. "The last time you said we should think an escape attempt through, we lost our chance at a way out of here. You'll forgive me if I don't want that to happen again."

Ice prickled in Ada's veins, chilling her blood. Connor's words may as well have been a dagger for how sharp they cut at her.

"Right," she said around a thick swallow, her voice oddly hoarse. "Yeah."

"That wasn't Ada's fault," Newt said strongly.

When she turned to him in surprise, she was shocked at the cold look he was levelling at Connor, and the stone-like way his body had gone rigid. Part of her was touched at his defence of her, but the bigger part was pissed that he felt like he still had a right to defend her that way after ignoring her for months on end.

He had no right to act like he was still her friend when he had been about as welcoming to her recently as the Griever was that one night she was trapped in the maze.

"You're all right," Alby interrupted, stopping an argument before it could break out. "Which is why we're gonna approach this slowly. Send one person down and see what happens, and go from there."

Minho clapped his hands together sarcastically. "Oh yay, a sacrifice. Who volunteers?"

Nobody raised their hands.

"Now they're shy." Nick rolled his eyes, reaching down into the supply crates to gather lengths of rope into his arms.

"I'll do it." Avin raised his hand into the air, right as Ada's heart dropped into her stomach. "I want to see what's down there."

"No,” she said simply.

Avin turned his wide eyes to her, but all it did was cement her decision that no matter what, this child was not going down that elevator shaft until they were one hundred percent sure it was safe.

"But, Ada–"

"No, Avin,” she said sternly. "I don't care if you hate me forever for not letting you do this, but you are not going down there until we know it's safe."

"I'm the least valuable person here," he argued, his young voice thick with determination, but Ada didn't care if he was only two or three years their junior, he was still just a child, and so, so innocent in a way that not even the glade could corrupt. "I'm young and not very strong, I'm a liability, and if I can be useful by doing this, then–"

"I'm with Ada on this." Alby stepped forward, placing a heavy hand on Avin's bony shoulder. "I know you want to help, buddy, but this isn't the way, alright? Please let somebody else handle this."

"I'll do it." Someone stepped forward out of the crowd – Archie, a track hoe who she had very rarely interacted with.

She had seen him working on the gardens with Newt before he became a runner. His hair, so blonde it was almost white, was long enough to be tied back tightly into a low bun, the streaks of dirt in it obvious against the pale colour. It clashed a little with his tan skin.

"I'll go down."

"Are you sure?" Gally asked, tying two stretches of rope together. "We don't know what you're walking into. This could be dangerous."

"Everything here is dangerous." Archie shrugged. "I've only been here for two months, and I want out. Some of you have been here for a lot longer than that, and If I can help get everyone out of here, I want to do it."

There was a moment of silence before Alby nodded tensely. "Okay,” he said. "Get him strung up."

—

The rope wrapped tightly around Archie's waist did little to quell Ada's concerns as she watched him lower himself into a sitting position at the edge of the pit, legs dangling into the space below.

She watched him take a deep breath, no emotion showing in his steel grey eyes. She was aware enough to realise he was putting on a mask for their sake, for surely if the others couldn't see how afraid he was then they wouldn't be afraid either.

But his efforts were for nothing, for anticipation hung in the air like a thick fog, threaded through with a fear that was so palpable it had their hands shaking as she and four others held onto the other end of the rope, intent on lowering him down slowly.

"Okay, Archie, we're gonna keep checking in with you, okay? It's gonna be dark down there but we need you to keep talking to us." Alby patted Archie's back and shot him a stern expression. "I want to hear you checking in with us no more than thirty seconds apart, okay? When you get to the bottom, tug on the rope, so that we know you're there. We'll give you an hour on the way down and if we don't get a tug from you by then, we'll start pulling you back up. Sound good?"

"Sure thing, boss." Archie nodded, climbing down until his entire lower body was in the shaft and he was using only the weight of his arms to keep upright so he could glance around at them all. "See you on the other side."

In an impressive display of strength, Archie lifted one arm and gave them a two fingered salute before letting go entirely and letting his body drop into the hole.

Ada dug her feet into the ground and pulled back, glancing behind her at how much slack they had. There was a lot of rope, but the drop seemed extreme.

Time trickled by, punctuated only by Alby's voice and the echo of Archie's words bounding back up to them.

Someone took over from Ada at one point, a new builder she couldn't remember the name of, so she perched herself on the edge of the box and stared intently downwards, searching for any sign of Archie's progress, any glimmer of pale hair in the dark. But the blackness had swallowed him up a while ago, and his voice was growing fainter and fainter into the distance.

"We aren't going to be able to hear him soon," Ada said stiffly. She tossed another blade of grass into the steadily growing pile at her feet and ripped another one out of the ground to fiddle with until it fell apart.

Sure enough, Archie's voice quickly faded into quiet, and silence descended over the glade once more. The rope steadily lost its length.

"How long has it been?" Nick asked, crouching in the grass with one hand curled over his mouth, the other beating an unsteady rhythm against his knee.

"Forty five minutes," Newt said. His eyes tracked the sun in the sky, but she knew damn well he had been counting every second in his head.

They locked eyes for a brief moment, but he looked away after only a second, returning his carefully neutral gaze back to the shaft.

The next fifteen minutes went by so fast she may as well have merely blinked. He had been down there for an hour now, and they were steadily approaching the end of the line.

"He hasn't tugged," Minho said simply.

"How long has it been since he said anything?"

"Forty minutes."

"Come on, we should get him back up here."

They started to pull, but Alby frowned. "Huh, weird."

"What?" Ada asked.

"He seemed heavier going down, that's all. Strange."

They didn't speak much for the next half an hour, but when Ada looked down and caught a glimpse of blonde against the shadows she let out an excited laugh and tugged on Gally's sleeve. "He's there!" She pointed. "I can see him!"

"Hey Archie, what's down there?" One of the trackhoes asked, leaning over with a grin on his face.

Archie didn't answer.

"Maybe he didn't hear you."

But when Archie still didn't say anything for the next ten minutes, that little knot of panic living in Ada's stomach seemed to grow again.

"Archie?" She called down to him, but he still wasn't answering, and he should definitely have been able to hear them at that point; but all she could see was the top of his head, hanging down onto his chest at a weird angle.

Why is he looking down like that? She wondered. That can't be comfortable.

He was oddly still, staring intently down at something below him.

Were there monsters down there after all? What could he have possibly seen to install this kind of shock in him?

Finally, at long last, he was nearly at the top.

Ada looked away towards Gally. "Gally, start untying the ropes." She looped her hands under Archie's arms and pulled. "Avin, go get a blanket from the Homestead, I think he's in shock."

He was strangely light, especially for a man of his build, perhaps he had fainted. But weren't people supposed to become a heavy deadweight when they passed out?

Minho was in her direct line of eye contact, staring at the crest of the elevator shaft, so when she saw his face go white Ada could only frown in confusion.

A thick silence, tense and horrified, descended abruptly over the crowd. The other trackhoe helping her lift Archie out of the box hole let go suddenly, hands moving away as if he had been burned, and it was this that had Ada finally glancing down as she heaved Archie onto the grass.

Or rather, Archie's upper body.

His eyes, glassy and unseeing, stared into the sky as blood pooled steadily onto the grass at his waist. Or rather, where his waist should have been.

Ada's hands went slack on his arms.

Archie's entire lower body was gone.

—

"So it's official," Minho said hours later, face still oddly green and perfect hair ruffled slightly. “The only way out is through the maze."

Ada nodded in response.

She didn't raise her eyes from where they were fixed on the gladers in the Homestead, sleeping peacefully in their hammocks. The occasional sound of tossing and turning from someone unlucky enough to be plagued by nightmares or restlessness was the only thing to break the relative quiet. She watched them silently, unsure if she envied them or pitied them.

Many of them had never been exposed to the brutality that came with life in the glade. Besides whispered stories and glimpses of the names crossed off the wall, the death and bloodshed that she had seen was nothing more than a horror story to them, a warning to never venture beyond the maze walls.

But now there was a new threat, and the proof of it came in the form of the cut in half body now buried under a fresh mound of soil.

"Are we sure?" Gally asked. "What about going over the walls? Has anyone tried–"

"Tried it,” she said simply, breaking her silence. She looked up at them finally and shook her head.

Gally ran a hand down his face.

He, Minho, Ada, and Newt were sitting on the stairs to the med hut, just to the side of the Homestead. Newt was sitting at the bottom, leaning against the wall, one of his legs tucked up to his stomach as his fingers tugged idly at that damned shoelace.

Gally was beside him, long limbs bent awkwardly to accommodate him on the narrow steps. She and Minho looked down on them from a few steps above.

Her tailbone ached from being pressed against the unforgiving wood for so long, but she would take the discomfort any day over being where Nick and Alby were now, crossing another name off the wall. The glow of their torch was barely noticeable in the distance.

"We're never gonna know what's down there," Minho sighed. "What if it really is the way out, though?"

"Can't get to it even if it was," Newt spoke up for the first time that night. His accented voice was thick with tiredness, making the British lilt to it more pronounced.

Ada looked down at him, but he wasn't looking at any of them. His eyes were fixed on the ground, dark and troubled.

"Can't take a better look without sending more people down."

"Which isn't an option." Gally nodded. "Right." He leant back against the rickety handrail and sighed deeply. "So it really is the maze or nothing."

Ada looked to her left, where Minho was tapping an anxious beat against his thigh. He seemed restless.

"Minho, I want you in the maze tomorrow,” she said. "I'll take you to the outer ring, show you the blades. Then work our way back in."

"I'll come with you," Newt said quickly. He still didn't look at her.

Ada shot him a strange look but nodded, too tired to argue.

Minho raised an amused eyebrow. "Supervision from the two top runners? My, I am honoured. Prepare to get blown away by my skills."

"It's running, you slinthead," Gally muttered. "It's hardly a skill."

"I literally saw you get winded jogging from the box to the Homestead, Gal, choose your words carefully," Ada chimed in, but couldn't quite find humour in the teasing the way she usually would.

"And I'm the one with asthma," Minho tutted.

Newt raised his head at last. "Minho has asthma?"

"Uh–"

Alby interrupted them as he came waking over, looking so exhausted Ada was worried he would keel over on the spot. Nick wasn't behind him. Perhaps he had needed some time to himself to process the day's events, just as she had earlier.

"Done,” he said around a yawn. His eyes were fluttering closed as he stood there, shoulders dropped. "Gonna go get some sleep. You should all do the same, it's late."

He left without another word to them, flopping down into his hammock heavily. His light snores filled the Homestead barely ten seconds later.

Gally snorted before standing, stretching his arms out behind him. "He's right. Been a ... long day."

Newt stood slowly, that goddamn mask of indifference painted carefully onto his face. "I'm not tired. Gonna take a walk, clear my head."

Ada got to her feet. "I'll come with you."

"You should get some sleep." Newt still didn't look at her. "You've had a long day."

"We've all had a long day,” he argued. "Besides, I think we should talk."

Minho raised an eyebrow, suddenly very interested in the conversation. He opened his mouth to intervene, but Gally grabbed him by the shoulders and hoisted him to his feet, steering him away from them with a very pointed glare.

When they were alone, Ada turned back to Newt, watching as his face lost most of its colour.

"Go to sleep, Ada,” he said pointedly, looking away from her after a second.

Frustration cracked inside of her like a whip. "Would you look at me, please? Or have I done something recently that makes me so repulsive to you that you can't even do that?"

Newt's eyes snapped to hers, brown clashing with greenish blue, his jaw clenched, before he turned on his heel and started walking away. Unlike their other encounters over the last few months, Ada followed him, suddenly no longer tired.

"Newt–"

"We'll talk later, Ada."

"Except that we won't,” she said stubbornly.

They reached the watchtower, the torch that was always lit at its base providing very little light for her to stare up at him. Half of his body was engulfed by shadow, the other alit with a soft glow that had her stomach twisting.

"We haven't talked for three months now, not since what happened with Stephen, and if I did something to piss you off, I'd like to know what it was. Is this about what happened in the med hut?"

"Nothing happened in the med hut,” he said sharply, eyes flashing.

Ada's breath caught slightly at the image he made, staring down at her with more focus than she had seen from him in a long time. "If that were true, you wouldn't be acting the way you are." She crossed her arms.

Newt opened and closed his mouth for a moment before letting out a huff of pure exasperation. "I don't know what you want me to say Ada,” he said finally, the sting removed from his words, replaced with a weariness that she didn't know what to do with.

"I want you to tell me why you pushed me away,” she said angrily, taking a step towards him. "That's all I've wanted you to say for months now, but you've been too much of a stubborn dick to actually talk to me."

"Clearly what happened was a mistake,” Newt said simply.

Ada's mind span through the events of that night, the feel of his fingers on her skin, the lack of fear she felt at his touch, the comfort he brought her when she needed it. His face in her hair, breath on her neck, pads of his fingers ghosting over the bruises on her skin.

"What?"

"You heard me,” he said simply. "I never meant to make you uncomfortable, so I'm sorry." He made to step away from her, but Ada's hand shot out and grabbed his sleeve, fingers curling into the material.

Slowly, she reshuffled her grip so that her hand encircled his forearm, his skin warm against hers through the thin fabric of his jacket.

Newt glanced down at her hand, his lips parting slightly. "Ada–"

"It didn't feel like a mistake,” she said softly.

He didn't say anything, simply stared down at her with uncertainty in his eyes.

"You touched me and I didn't feel scared. That can't be a mistake."

"I thought I'd made you uncomfortable," Newt said after a beat of silence. "You pulled away from me and started talking about Stephen, for god's sake."

"What did you say to him?" Ada asked, turning to face him fully.

"It doesn't matter, Ada."

"It matters to me,” she said. She couldn't explain it, why she felt like she needed to know.

Maybe it was because Stephen had taken the security and comfort of the glade and twisted it into something unsafe and unfamiliar, and the thought of him doing the same to Newt, one of the only people she had had in her corner, had her insides twisting violently.

Maybe it was because she never had dealt well with the unknown, or maybe it was because Newt's attitude had changed so drastically towards her after she brought it up and she needed desperately to know why.

Newt shifted his arm and for a second Ada thought he was going to shake her off, brush her aside again. Instead, he looked down at her grip thoughtfully, raising his arm until his fingers were brushing hers.

That familiar tingle of dread rose up inside her, but it never grew into the wave of disgust she expected it to. Instead, as his pinkie finger looped around her own, she felt her entire body thrumming like a live wire.

"I told him that if he swore to live peacefully in the glade, if I could tell that he meant it, then I would convince you and Alby to rescind his banishment."

"Why would you do that?" She asked, gulping around the lump in her throat.

"Because I knew it was eating you alive,” Newt said after a moment. "You felt guilty enough already, and I didn't want this to be another burden you carried."

"Why wouldn't you want me to know that? Why get that upset when I brought it up?"

Newt looked away for a second, something like shame creeping into his eyes. Their hands hung between them, suddenly weighing a ton.

"Because he refused and told me that you had cost us a way out of here. He blamed you for it, and thought I should too."

"I still don't understand why–"

"I did," Newt said simply. He refused to look at her now. "I did blame you. Deep down, part of me blamed you for not letting us take that chance at getting out, and I hated myself for it because I knew you were right and I knew it was a bad idea, but I couldn't help but resent you a little for not letting us take that chance anyway."

Ada snatched her hand back. Newt's fingers spasmed in the air before dropping to his side again, not fighting her.

"All those times you stood by my side and told me it wasn't my fault, all those times you told them it wasn't my fault, you were lying?" She asked, something dark and cold settling inside her, her deepest fears unlocking and rising to the surface and staring eye to eye with a just as painful truth. "It was all a lie?"

"No," Newt said strongly and took a step towards her. "No, it – I –" He trailed off, searching desperately for words. "I meant what I said when I told them you made the right call. I did, Ada. I know we wouldn't have made it out, that it was a fool's errand. But it was getting so hard to stay here." Something deeply vulnerable broke out across Newt's face. "It is getting so hard to stay here."

When she didn't say anything, Newt took a tentative step towards her, brown eyes glassy.

"It was easier to have someone to blame, even if that person didn't deserve it. Even if that person was you."

Ada wanted so badly to be angry at him, wanted so badly for that familiar spark of frustration to well inside her again, but it didn't.

"I know things are bad here," Ada said softly. “But they're not all bad, are they?"

"I don't know who I am," Newt said. "And that might be fine for the rest of you, but it is killing me. People are dying. So many people are dying, and we're no closer to finding a way out of this place than we were when I first came up. When you first came up, even. It seems like everything we try gets someone killed." He swallowed, throat bobbing. "What's even the point of it anymore?"

"The point," Ada said slowly, “is getting home to our families. To the people who love us and miss us and want us back."

"And what if we don't have that?" Newt asked. "What if we get out of here, and there's nothing waiting for us?”

"But what if there is? Isn't it worth finding that out?"

Newt glanced back at the Homestead, at the sleeping boys tucked away in their hammocks, dreaming of a better home. "I don't know."

She could see that she was losing him. Newt was retreating back into some dark corner of his mind that she couldn't follow him to, building back up the walls that kept her from seeing the emotions he kept so carefully guarded.

"I think it is,” she said simply. "Sometimes that hope is the only reason to keep trying. To keep living." Ada reached forwards slowly and placed a tentative hand on his arm, fingers flexing at the contact. "Try not to lose sight of that."

Newt nodded tensely, and after a moment of simply staring at him, Ada smiled and withdrew her hand.

"I'm tired,” she said softly. "It's been a long day. Try not to stay up too late, yeah?"

He nodded as she moved around him towards the Homestead, shooting him a soft smile over her shoulder as she did.

He watched her go, that blank expression back on his face, but there were cracks in the mask this time. He turned back to the watchtower, and she knew despite her words that he wouldn't be returning to the Homestead that night.

Chapter Text

Day Three Hundred and Sixty Five

Ada dragged the dagger down the wall in a harsh line, watching the white line appear in the unforgiving stone, one of many. She tracked them with her eyes, counting them for the third time that morning, just to be sure.

Three hundred and sixty five lines made up a series of tallies and criss-crosses stretched along the lower edge of the wall behind the Homestead.Three hundred and sixty five markings, for the three hundred and sixty five days they had been there.

"A whole year," Alby had said quietly that morning, staring idly at the maze walls. "We've been here a whole year."

Ada had shoved the food around her plate idly and hummed, not sure what to do with the information. One year since she had woken up in that box, no idea who or where she was, or why she was there.

One year since Luke had been killed.

Now she stared at the tally and wondered how many more lines she would have to draw before they escaped.

"Yo, Ada." Gally's head appeared around the corner of the homestead. “Box came up, come say hi to the new greenie."

Ada turned away from the wall and tilted her head. "Greenie? As in singular?"

"Yeah." Gally nodded. "Only one came up."

Unease settled inside her as she rounded the side of the Homestead and was faced with the rest of the glade, crowded with people now. She hadn't counted, but there were easily over forty people there. The glade, with new buildings heaped together haphazardly here and there, crawling with gladers running around like ants, was a well oiled machine a far cry away from the empty and isolated space she had arrived in.

Just as she had finally settled into a routine, with months since their last escape attempt and loss, the Creators threw another wrench in the system. "Why do you think only one new Greenie came up?" Gally asked, walking alongside her. "Think that's something to worry about?"

"Doubtful." She shrugged. "Wouldn't surprise me if it's just whoever put us here switching things up because they're bored. Or maybe it's just because we've been here for a year now, who knows?"

Gally let out a low whistle and shook his head. "Damn, can't believe we've been here a whole year."

"Whose we?" Ada echoed, staring up at him incredulously.

"Fine, you've been here a year." He rolled his eyes affectionately and nudged her with his elbow. The amber liquid sloshed in the mason jar he was holding.

Ada eyed it curiously, not recognising it. Their drinking options were limited to water and the strange crushed berry and water mixture that James had discovered a few months after his arrival. Excluding, of course, the time that Connor thought it would be a good idea to drink raw milk. He had been violently ill for weeks after, and no one was eager to try it again any time soon.

"What is that you're carrying, by the way?" She poked the jar, squinting at the strange drink. "Did you piss in a jar or something?"

"Oh, this?" Gally held it out to her. "Just a little something I cooked up for tonight's celebration. Here, try some."

Ada eyed it warily. "... Did you piss in a jar?"

Gally rolled his eyes and shook his head. He lifted the jar to his lips and took a sip before holding it out to her expectantly. Ada took it slowly and rose it to her lips, wincing as a bitter taste exploded over her tongue. The liquid burned her throat as it went down, making her eyes water unexpectedly.

Gally bit back a laugh at the twisted expression on her face. "Good?"

"Oh yeah." She nodded, coughing as she handed it back to him. "So great."

"Wonderful, because I made a bunch more for tonight."

"So fun." Ada winced, eyes watering, and turned back towards the box. "So so fun."

Alby was walking alongside another boy, scrawny with choppy blonde hair that came down to his shoulders. When he spotted her, he raised his hand in greeting, waving her over. "Ada, this is our newest Greenie. Greenie, this is Ada, the woman in charge."

The boy extended his hand, smiling timidly, but she ignored it with a polite smile. "Nice to meet you." Ada glanced at Alby. "He didn't come up with anyone?"

"Nope." Alby clapped a hand down onto the Greenie's shoulder, grinning in a way that was slightly strained.

He was worried, she knew, although he didn't dare show it. Not after four months of peace, not in front of a new boy. They had learned the hard way that a first impression of fear would lead to nothing but resentment and terror. Which was precisely why they didn't allow more than three questions to be asked until after the welcome bonfire.

It was a decision they had made just before Archie's death, to give the gladers more time to settle in and see that life in the glade wasn't all too bad. 'If they can see a home before they see a threat,' Alby had said, 'then maybe they have a better chance of surviving.'

Despite the frustration the new gladers seemed to feel, he was right.

"Which means he's gonna be the guest of honour at tonight's celebration," Alby continued, gesturing mildly towards where the bonfire was being piled high with sticks, a skeleton of one of the dead animals displayed above it.

Minho insisted it looked cool, but Ada couldn't find it in herself to agree.

"Celebration?" The new greenie asked.

"You didn't tell him?" Ada smiled as she waved around the glade. "All the new greenies get a celebration of some sort. Once a month we have a bonfire as a welcome party, so to speak."

"I didn't get a bonfire," Minho said sulkily as he passed them, dodging Ada's attempts to trip him.

"Ignore Minho, he's a drama queen." Gally rolled his eyes.

Minho looked back over his shoulder and winked teasingly. "You adore me."

"I despise you."

"A very friendly atmosphere, as you can see." Alby smirked. He glanced around, searching for someone, and waved Avin over. "This is Avin, he's gonna give you the tour and help you pick out a place to sleep."

Avin's eyes lit up. "I am?"

"Sure are buddy." Alby ruffled his hair and turned him towards the Homestead, leaning towards the new greenie as he did. "I'd avoid putting your bunk by Minho's," he whispered conspiratorially. “He snores."

Ada watched the two of them disappear, smiling fondly at Avin's retreating back. "How's he doing?" She asked when they were out of earshot. "Feeling better?"

"Seems to be." Alby nodded.

Avin had been quiet all morning, teary and sullen for reasons he wouldn't share with them. Ada knew it was because they had reached the one year mark, and his hope was slowly dwindling just like the rest of theirs. But the glade had become his home, it was clear to see in how comfortable he was in everything he did.

"He seems to enjoy the extra workload," Gally noted. "Guess it gives him something to do."

"You heard what he said that day.” Ada shrugged, “He wanted to feel useful. If giving him extra tasks here and there helps him feel more at home, then that's what we'll do."

"Ada's just thrilled it means she doesn't have to give the tours anymore." Alby smirked.

Ada scowled. She hated the tours.

"Newt promised he could draw up some maps with him when he gets back,” Gally said idly as they made their way towards the slammers to start unloading the new supplies. "Should give him something to do this evening."

"He's not back yet?" Ada frowned, casting a concerned glance at the maze doors. "I thought he was finished for the day, I saw him at lunch."

"Must have headed back in." Alby shrugged, not looking overly concerned. "You know what he's been like recently. Can barely get him out of there." Seeing the expression on her face, Alby stopped what he was doing and smiled gently down at her. "I'm sure it's nothing."

"Yeah." Ada nodded, but that tendril of worry wouldn't dissipate. "He has been in there an awful lot, do you think he's alright?"

"How would we know?" Gally rolled his eyes. "You're the only shank he talks to."

"That's not true," Ada protested. "He talks to you lot all the time."

"Haven't had a proper conversation with the slinthead in over a month now." Alby shrugged.

That branch of concern inside her grew. Her and Newt had talked a lot ever since their conversation by the watch tower nearly four months ago, but not enough to warrant him shutting out the other gladers entirely. "Are you sure?"

Gally nodded, shooting her a pitying smile. "He's just not a very sociable guy, that's all. Like Alby said, I'm sure it's nothing."

"Hmm."

"How did your little talk with him go anyway? You know, the night you two snuck off to the watchtower."

Way to make it sound suggestive, she thought, fighting back a blush. "It was good. We talked things out."

"Yeah?" Alby crossed his arms and stared at her with a look so intense it had her wincing. "That all you do?"

"... what else would we have done?"

"Clueless fools,” he muttered, turning away with an eye roll so severe she was sure he gave himself a headache. "Ignore me, don't know what I was thinking, it's not like you've been plastered to each other's sides for months now."

In all fairness, Ada could admit, they had been spending a lot of time together. But that was what happened when you were trapped inside four walls with someone for nearly a year. They were bound to get close eventually.

Newt had finally stopped ignoring her after that night, and what had first been tentative words shared when running or eating dinner had grown into joking and laughing in a way they hadn't done in a long time. She had missed his bright smiles and banter, the way his eyes would sparkle mischievously whenever he pushed her buttons just for the sake of getting a rise out of her.

But despite the peace that seemed to have settled over them, there was something dark lurking at the edges of her vision.

She saw it every time Newt's smile would dim when he thought she wasn't watching, when he would lock himself in the map room after his shift in the maze and not come out for hours, studying the infernal circles of the maze until his eyes crossed and his shoulders sagged with exhaustion, when she would wake to hear him toeing on his boots and shuffling around the glade after another night of restless sleep.

He thought she didn't notice, but she did. Newt watched the maze, and Ada watched Newt, so she saw it all.

"We lost her again," Minho's voice cut through the fog, and when she looked up Ada was surprised to see him standing in front of her, arms crossed and an amused expression on his smug face.

Ada blinked. "When the hell did you get here?"

Gally rolled his eyes fondly. "C'mon, get your ass over here and help, got a lot to do before tonight's celebration."

Ada shrugged and walked over to them. Newt would be fine, she was sure. As she started unloading the crates into the slammers, she tried to ignore the voice in the back of her head that told her she was lying to herself.

—

The walls of the map room, shabby as they may be, offered a certain comfort to Ada that she struggled to find elsewhere in the glade. The damp, earthy scent, the wooden slats with their lopsided carvings, and the domed wooden ceiling that begrudgingly allowed the sunlight to creep in — she breathed it in, that long missed feeling of peace slowly returning as she watched Newt move around the space.

It was large enough for the both of them, easily, yet she kept her back pressed against the closed door, staring at him silently as he gathered pieces of paper and organised them into groups, muttering under his breath.

Her eyes caught on the half built structure on the table, a colossal thing that took up most of the floor space.

It was the maze, or it was meant to be, at least, the broken twigs bound together by strings of grass forming a massive half circle around an empty square in the middle. Minho had taken one look at it and had demanded that he be allowed to 'spruce it up' and 'make it more accurate', whatever that meant. As far as she knew, he was still gathering supplies to construct miniature versions of the buildings.

‘It's to help us map the maze, it's not supposed to look pretty' Alby had argued when he had found Minho and Newt crouching over a tiny version of the Homestead.

Neither had listened, and the model was coming along nicely.

"That's looking good." Ada nodded her head at the model.

Newt barely looked up from where he was organising the drawings of the maze, humming noncommittally.

Ada tilted her head, eyes narrowing. "Minho was thinking about heading into the maze tomorrow, exploring section five and some of the outer ring. Wanna join?"

"Sure, sure," Newt said, distractedly, still not looking up.

"I'm also gonna raise a litter of Grievers in your hammock, so just wanted to prepare you for that."

"Sounds good." Newt reached over to alter one of the walls on the model, still staring fixedly at the map.

And we've lost him, Ada thought, uncrossing her arms and moving further into the room. "Oi, Newt." She picked up one of the snapped twigs, flicking it at him.

It bounced off his forehead, clearing that distracted from his eyes as he turned to her angrily.

"What the bloody hell was that for?" He asked, rubbing his forehead.

"You weren't giving me attention."

Newt rolled his eyes, but he couldn't stop the amused quirk of his lips as he turned back to the map. "My apologies, I forgot you get needy when people ignore you for more than five minutes."

"Shouldn't be ignoring me at all," Ada grumbled, leaning against the table beside him. "I'm the light of your goddamn life."

"Yes, my earth and stars revolve around you." Newt rolled his eyes, bowing mockingly in her direction before turning back to the wall covered with maps.

Ada hated herself for blushing.

"Goddamnit," Newt said suddenly, tossing the paper onto the table angrily, "This doesn't fit, why doesn't it fit?"

"Maybe you missed a turn," Ada said softly, picking up the map and studying the harsh lines he had drawn whilst out in the maze. "We can go back tomorrow and check."

"I didn't miss a turn, I can't have."

"Hey…" Ada reached forward and put a tentative hand on his arm. "Newt, it's okay. You should have seen the mess Alby and I made when we were first mapping this place out. It's a miracle we made any progress at all."

Newt didn't respond, instead raising his hands up to his forehead, pressing hard as if to stave off a growing headache. His eyes were wild, desperate in a way she felt didn't quite match the situation.

Ada pursed her lips, looking harder at him. She had looked at Newt plenty over the last few months, but she hadn't actually looked at him. Purple shadows hung under his eyes like bruises, weighing down his entire body. His shoulders seemed to be constantly turned downwards as if an invisible weight rested on them.

But it was the look in his eyes that unnerved her the most. She hadn't seen that kind of helplessness in them since he had starved himself nearly eight months prior.

"Newt," Ada said softly, her voice breaking through the quiet of the wooden shack, "are you sure you're alright?"

Newt's voice was muffled against his fingers as he spoke, eyes clenched firmly shut. "We're missing something. We have to be missing something."

"We'll keep on looking–"

"What, for another year?" He snapped. Remorse flashed across his face and he glanced at her regretfully before she could react. "That wasn't fair of me. Sorry, Ada."

"If we have to," Ada said after a moment, the thought twisting her stomach unpleasantly, "then yeah, for another year. But we will get out of here eventually."

"You don't know that, Ada," Newt said, his voice flat.

She wanted to tell him that she did, that she was sure of it, but she couldn't bring herself to. Hope of an escape was an unreachable ship on the water slowly sinking further into the horizon the more they stretched their arms out to it.

So she didn't say anything, and could do nothing but watch as that blankness in his eyes grew and swallowed him whole.

"Newt..."

He turned his head to face her, and Ada felt the words leave her as she processed just how close she was actually standing to him. He was leaning heavily against the table, his shoulders slumped, so the top of her head came level to his eyes.

Her hand fisted involuntarily on his jacket. Newt seemed to have noticed the same thing, for his body tensed and his adam's apple bobbed harshly in his throat. His eyes flickered down to her lips only for a moment before he looked back up and cleared his throat.

"God, I'm tired." He straightened up suddenly, laughing dryly in a way that Ada assumed was supposed to reassure her. It didn't work. "I'm bloody knackered. Might have that day off you've been badgering me about."

Ada withdrew the hand that was still on his arm; she hadn't even realised she'd been touching him for so long.

Newt swiped a hand down his face, erasing that blank expression and smiling lightly down at her. "Where does this one go?" He held up a piece of the mapped paper, crumpled at the edges from where it had been clenched in his grip not a moment before. "Can't remember where I drew the sodding thing."

Ada opened her mouth and closed it again, suddenly feeling as if she were walking on eggshells that couldn't break lest the floor collapse beneath her.

"Don't just stand there like Minho when Nick wants help cleaning out the livestock," Newt laughed awkwardly, and god when was the last time things had been awkward between them? She couldn't quite remember. "I wanna get this bit mapped before tonight."

"You looking forward to tonight, then?" She asked after a while. "I know you missed the last bonfire."

He hadn't been feeling great, so he had told her, and spent most of the night shut away in the very same building they stood in now.

"It's lot's of food and Gally's new secret recipe he won't shut up about." He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "What's not to be excited about?"

Ada laughed, that hollow feeling still in her stomach. Tonight, she thought. She’d ask him about it tonight.

—

The drink burned its way down her throat as she lowered the jar, grinning wildly at Minho. He was blurrier around the edges than usual, his movements as he stumbled his way around the fire sluggish and borderline reckless considering how close they were to the open flame.

The entire glade, green and magnificent, was considerably more hazy than she could ever remember it being.

Alby had, at one point, situated himself closer to them to stop them from falling into the bonfire. When the world had violently spun as Minho twirled her around the flames by the tips of her fingers, Alby had stepped forwards, grinning, and wrapped an arm around her waist to pull her away from the heat of the fire.

He hadn't lingered, the heat of his fingers burning through her clothes, but that familiar feeling of horror didn't come. It was drowned instead by the feeling of giddiness she couldn't seem to shake and the tired buzz that thrummed through her bones.

She quite liked the feeling, she decided, and judging by the blissful expression on Minho and Gally's faces, they did too.

Gally had made far more of his strange drink than she had anticipated, and had passed it around the eager gladers happy to watch chaos unfold as the effects took hold.

Alby, three mason jars in and swaying in his place, grinned down at her as the amber liquid sloshed out of his jar.

"Adaaaa, Ads.” He smiled down at her dopily, slurring her name as he slung an arm around Minho's shoulders. Minho looked as if he were one drink away from falling asleep standing up. "Go tell Newt to loosen up and have some of this stuff."

Ada processed about half of what he said, but the words 'Newt' and 'loosen up' had her looking towards where she knew he was sitting. The world spun as she turned her head back to Alby. "Why?"

"Bastard doesn't like my drink," Gally said miserably, shooting a glare in Newt's direction that was only half diminished by the fact that he was leaning heavily against Minho's side. "Everybody liked my drink." He gestured to the rest of the glade, seemingly in similar states of disarray. "Stupid Newt and his stupid water."

Newt was, in fact, cradling a mason jar of water in his right hand. His left hand was tapping a strained beat against his leg, his blank stare fixed on the ground.

"Ads, Ads," Alby said excitedly, tapping her on the shoulder like an eager child. “You should go tell him to like Gally's drink."

She nodded seriously, immediately leaving her post by the fire and walking over to him, and watched as a slow smile grew across Newt's face when he spotted her.

"Someone's been having a good night,” he said as Ada flopped down onto the grass next to him, huffing at the dull ache as her elbow collided with the log he was leaning against. His hand shot out to steady her. "Easy there."

"Gally told Alby that I should tell you that you should like Gally's drink." Ada nodded determinedly, copper hair spilling into her eyes, and Newt huffed out an amused laugh at the way she tried to bat the strands away with the same hand holding the mason jar.

Amber liquid spilled out onto his shirt.

"That so?" He asked, deftly intercepting her arm and removing the jar from her clutches. "Think you've had enough of this stuff."

He lifted the drink to his nose, recoiling when the strong smell hit him. He had smelt traces of it in the air all night, but the direct smell made his eyes water. It reminded him starkly of the alcohol in the med hut they used to clean wounds.

"What's in this stuff anyway?"

"Gally says its top notch produce." Ada waggled her eyebrows and grinned, giggling at herself. Her head felt heavy, so she rested it on the log behind her, the odd angle only mildly uncomfortable.

"Think I need to have a word with Gally about cutting people off when they've had too much."

"You haven't had any." Ada frowned, nudging the jar with the back of her hand, trying to push it towards him. "You should try some, it's good."

"I'm okay, thanks," Newt chuckled, moving the half full jar further away from her.

Ada shrugged, her eyes suddenly feeling heavier than they had a second ago. Newt watched her, a strange expression on his face she couldn't quite decipher. The firelight made the shine to his hair and the specks in his eyes glow.

She wanted to touch him, suddenly, an urge that shocked her. She had felt the warmth of his body before, but whereas then she had shied away from it, frightened, now she found herself wanting to bask in its comfort.

"You're looking at me weirdly," Newt said after a moment, raising an eyebrow at her.

Ada shrugged and slowly reached out a hand, tracing her finger around the red shoelace on his wrist. It was worn and tattered to the point where the vibrant red was barely recognisable, now a muddy brown colour.

Newt followed her gaze with his heart pounding as he watched the digit move.

"Do you ever wonder who gave you this?" She asked after a moment, and it took Newt a second to remember how to speak as she shuffled closer.

Newt hesitated for a moment, staring down at the red band, thoughts warring against each other in his mind. The shoelace was his one link to the outside world, the one bit of comfort he couldn't bring himself to let go of.

Their clothes and weapons were swapped and changed, he himself had changed since his entry into the maze, but the shoelace had remained wrapped around his wrist for the better part of a year. It wasn't a secret, but it felt like one, one he held closely to his chest and revelled in the small comfort it provided.

The idea of sharing that piece of himself, that comfort, with anyone didn't sit right with him.

But this was Ada, and she was looking up at him with those wide eyes of hers, smiling dopily, and truly happy for the first time in a long time. And for a reason he didn't quite understand he wanted to tell her, wanted to share that part of himself he kept so closely guarded.

"It never mattered who gave it to me,” Newt said softly, leaning closer to her. "It's such a small thing, so insignificant really. Maybe I was just switching the laces out in my shoes and there wasn't a bin nearby, or maybe someone important gave it to me before I lost them, I don't know, could be anything."

Newt swallowed at the fixed expression on Ada's face, how although Gally's drink was clearly getting to her she was still listening to him intently. His chest felt warm and tight.

"It never mattered, because it was still my one link to home. It makes me feel safe, comforted. I can't explain it."

"You don't have to," Ada said softly. "I get it. Well, I don't get it get it because I don't have anything from home, just me myself and I, but I get the whole comfort thing. It's important to have stuff like that otherwise you'll lose yourself." Ada stared at him for a second before withdrawing her hand, slowly placing it on the sleeve of his jacket. "Newt, I wanted to ask you–"

"Don't," Newt said simply, something deeply vulnerable breaking out across his face. "I know what you're going to ask, Ada, but please don't. I'm fine."

"You're not fine, Newt." Ada shook her head. "You're not fine. But that's okay, we'll fix it."

Newt smiled at the determined look on her face, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "You can't fix this, Ada. So don't waste your time worrying about me. Worry about getting us all out of here, okay?"

She didn't seem to hear him. "There has to be something that can make it better."

"You make it better." The words were out before he could stop them, but he didn't regret them, nor did he try to take them back. "That's enough for me."

Ada stared at him for a moment, mouth agape and eyes wide. "I don't understand."

Newt shrugged, staring down at the mason jar to avoid looking at her. "Having you by my side, fighting with me to get out of here... it means a lot to me. You mean a lot to me. Your friendship is everything to me. It makes living in this hell of a place a lot more bearable."

Ada was silent, and it frightened him. She hadn't been silent all night, but now she was just staring at him – he could feel the weight of her gaze on the side of his face.

Slowly, so slowly he was sure he was dreaming, she lifted her hand and placed it gently on his cheek. Her fingers twitched at the contact, but the firm press of her palm on his cheek, the warmth it brought him, had his chest aching so badly he fought the urge to press his hand against it.

"Ada–”

"You'll be okay, Newt. We're gonna get out of here, and we're gonna go home. I promise."

Newt couldn't reply, not with their faces so close. He could barely think through the fog in his mind as he studied the freckles on her nose and watched the firelight dance in her eyes.

He couldn't resist touching her, even though every fibre of his being was telling him not to, that it would spook her, make her pull away, and lord knows that was the last thing he wanted. His hand found her waist, fingers toying with the edge of her shirt. "Don't promise me that, Ada." His breath ghosted against her lips. "Not when you know you can't keep it."

Ada's eyes flitted down to his lips, so close to hers, and when she looked back up at him he could see desire and trepidation all rolled into one, burning into him until he was sure he would burst into flames.

"Ada, can I–”

Ada pressed her lips against his, and the words were lost.

The fire calmed, that blazing inferno that swallowed him whole receded until all that was left was silence as the noise of the glade faded away, reduced to ashes in the background. Her lips against his, soft and gentle, healed his wounds better than any bandage had ever managed to.

His fingers, tangled in her shirt, flexed before moving upwards and winding their way into her hair, holding her so gently, as if one wrong move and she would shatter beneath his touch.

Ada sighed against his lips, and the sound had him pulling away just enough to breathe and rest his forehead against hers, one hand buried in her hair and the other hovering just over her waist.

Ada shuddered, eyes still closed, and he kissed her again, lips pressing against hers hard enough for her to gasp into his mouth.

He tasted the alcohol on her lips, heavy and all consuming.

Ada pulled away, slowly, and it took Newt a second to realise she was trembling all over, her body shaking slightly. Her eyes were still closed, so he couldn't get a handle on her expression, couldn't quite make it out as she leant her forehead against his, their noses brushing. The hand in her hair moved away from her head, settling instead on her waist.

The second he touched her there, Ada seemed to recoil into herself, her hands falling away from his face, and it was like someone threw ice cold water over Newt.

He pulled away from her entirely, ignoring the confused frown that worked its way onto Ada's face as she watched him go, his expression shuttering. "Newt, what–"

"You're drunk,” he said simply, turning away from her, guilt rising like a storm inside him.

"I'm not–"

"That shouldn't have happened."

That light and floaty feeling vanished, and cold rose up inside her. It made her shiver as she leant back against the log, severing contact from him entirely. The emotional distance felt more restricting than any physical space they put between them.

The comfort of his touch still lingered on her skin, but despite the warmth she felt from it her body still trembled and shied away from him, betraying her with an impulse reaction she couldn't get rid of.

"Oh," Ada said, looking away. "Right, yeah." Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment as she picked up the jar of liquid and took a hefty sip.

Newt flinched, looking as if he wanted to stop her, but he didn't. "I'm gonna go get you some water." He got to his feet hastily, avoiding her gaze as much as possible.

As he passed her, Ada's hand shot up and caught at his sleeve. "Newt, I'm sor–"

"Don't be." He smiled tightly down at her, but his eyes were gentle. "It was a mistake, just the heat of the moment. Got carried away, it happens."

"Right." She nodded, and the agreement broke something inside him.

He walked away, shaking his head, leaving Ada sitting against the rock, cradling the jar full of Gally's recipe close to her chest and feeling like the biggest fool in the world.

—

"What did you do?" Alby asked, looking extremely judgemental for someone who had just thrown up in a bush.

Newt was trying not to judge him too harshly as he filled up a jar with water and watched the older boy lean heavily against the stove. He checked quickly to make sure it wasn't on, lest Alby suddenly go up in flames.

"You should have one of these as well." Newt shoved the jar into Alby's hand and nodded down at it.

"Answer the question, Newt." When Newt didn't reply, Alby shook his head. "I'll answer it for you then, because I have eyes, and so does the rest of the glade, and the world may be spinning right now but I'm pretty sure I saw you and Ada getting all up close and personal by the fire. Uness Minho and the tree he was leaning against really hit it off while I've been gone."

"It's a nice tree," Newt said simply.

"Damnit, Newt, what did I tell you about Ada?" Alby asked angrily, slamming the jar down onto the counter with a little too much force. "I told you she doesn't like to be touched and the first thing you do is shove your goddamn tongue down her throat–"

"That's not what happened," Newt said just as angrily, levelling Alby with a glare. "You know damn well that's not what happened. And you don't need to berate me for it, okay? I know. I'm a horrible person. I know she doesn't like to be touched and yet I kissed her anyway. She probably hates me."

"Good,” Alby grumbled, snatching up the jar and taking a large gulp of water. "Making out with the one goddamn person I told you not to. Couldn't have picked anyone else, oh no, had to be her."

Newt didn't bother dignifying that with a response, instead rolling his eyes as he reached for a second jar to fill and take back to Ada. "I'm a bloody idiot."

"Agreed."

"I don't even know why I kissed her,” Newt muttered, running a hand through his hair.

"Because you have feelings for her." Alby rolled his eyes, as if it were obvious.

Newt nearly dropped the jar.

"Excuse me?"

"You have feelings for her." Alby rolled his eyes again, and clearly the feeling made him nauseous as he sank back against the sinks and clutched his stomach.

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Then what's that feeling in your chest?"

"Heartburn."

"Newt..."

"It's not possible."

"And why not?" Alby shrugged. "Seems pretty possible to me. Probable, in fact. Undoubtable, really."

"Why am I even having this discussion with you, you're drunk."

"But no less wise," Alby said solemnly. The look on his face suggested that this supposed wisdom was a great burden to bear indeed.

"I'm not — I don't have — stop smirking like that, I don't have feelings for her."

"Then why did you kiss her?"

"She kissed me," Newt said angrily.

"Yes, and I can tell that it was so one sided." Alby looked at him far too smugly for Newt's comfort.

"Oh, piss off and go to bed," Newt said eventually, turning back towards the glade, where he spotted at least four people in various stages of unconsciousness.

Including, he realised with a strange tug in his chest, Ada.

Her head was still tilted back onto the log, but he could tell by the way her eyes were closed and her breathing was steady that she had fallen asleep waiting for him to come back. Her right hand was slack, the jar tipped over, spilling the remnants of the amber liquid onto the grass.

"Awh." Alby smiled, staring over at Ada like she was the most precious thing on this earth. "It's late." He squinted up at the black sky. "I think. You go get her to bed, I'll round up the rest of the gladers. And get Minho away from that tree."

Newt nodded, carefully making his way over to her, dodging the builders where they gathered round the benches. When he reached her, he simply stared down at her for a moment, not sure how to proceed.

Half of him wanted to scoop her into his arms and carry her to her hammock, but the bigger part of him, the part that still felt disgusted at himself for touching her when she was clearly terrified of human contact, told him that was an awful idea.

Slowly, Newt knelt down into a crouch and prodded Ada's shoulder with his finger. "Ada,” he whispered, ignoring the commotion in the background as Alby tried to shepherd thirty drunken teenagers to their beds. "Ada, love, you gotta wake up."

Her eyes opened with a disgruntled groan, glaring up at him. "Five more minutes."

"You can have a whole eight hours worth of minutes, but we gotta get you to your bunk first,” Newt said softly.

Ada paused, as if considering it, but eventually nodded and clambered unsteadily to her feet. Newt's hands shot out, hovering over her waist and arms, ready to catch her if she stumbled. "You got it?"

"Yeah."

When they reached the Homestead, exhaustion was clear on Ada's face, weighing her down like a ton of bricks. Newt led her to her hammock and chuckled when she fell face first into it, sighing in relief at the softness of her pillow.

"Boots." He tapped the offending footwear, but when Ada didn't move to take them off he huffed out an amused laugh and gently grabbed her ankle, sliding the shoes off her feet and placing them gently next to the hammock.

Slowly, he picked up the blanket and laid it over her, making sure her shoulders were covered so she wouldn't get cold during the night.

"Goodnight, Ada."

"Newt," Ada's voice stopped him before he could walk away, and when he turned back to face her she was looking at him so openly it took his breath away. "This doesn't change anything... right?"

"'Course not." Newt smiled. "Get some sleep, gotta be up bright and early for section five."

"Yay," Ada grumbled, already half asleep. "G'night Newt."

"Night." Newt smiled as he walked away, and as he climbed into his own hammock he wondered if there was some truth to Alby's words after all. The darkness that seemed to be growing inside him thawed slightly, slithers of light creeping through the cracks.

Perhaps, he thought, there was hope for life in the glade yet.

Chapter Text

Day Three Hundred and Sixty Six

Ada was going to murder Gally.

Slowly, dramatically, and very very painfully.

After her headache cleared up, of course.

Half of the glade was officially out of commission the morning after the bonfire, having been given the morning off by an Alby who looked a little worse for wear himself. Shadows hung heavily under his eyes, and he had spent the morning with his head buried under his pillow and a bucket beside his hammock.

The gladers who hadn't drank the night before were too amused to be annoyed at the lack of work taking place, and instead spent the morning mocking those affected and trying to steer clear of the outhouses, both of which had long lines queued up outside of them and puddles of vomit where people hadn't been able to make it to the bathroom in time.

She would have hated to be a slopper, the unofficial term they used for the gladers in charge of maintenance and cleaning.

"How you doing sunshine?" Minho's grating voice was annoying at this time in the morning even if it was two hours later than they usually woke up.

Ada peeked one eye out from underneath her blanket to see Minho's grinning face hovering above hers, Gally and Newt stood beside him. Gally's pale skin had a fine sheen of sweat coating it.

She groaned and turned back over, shoving her face into her pillow. "How do you not look dead?" She grumbled.

Minho ran a hand through his perfectly quaffed hair. "If this is your way of saying you think I'm attractive, then I'll have to return the favour and say you look particularly fetching. Although, the zombie appearance is a new one. Not that you don't make it work."

Newt scowled and nudged Minho's arm. "Lay off and let her sleep."

"No can do." Minho shook his head. "I do believe she promised a fun little field trip to section five today."

The idea of moving, much less running for hours on end, had Ada's stomach turning. "You can piss right off."

"Charming," Gally said, his voice oddly croaky.

"Shush, you. Be glad I'm too dizzy to move right now." She shot him the fiercest glare she was capable of at that moment. "Gonna murder you when I can."

"What did I do?" Gally asked, looking rather alarmed.

"I do believe it was your magical drink that rendered half the glade mostly useless today,” Newt pointed out, looking all too pleased that he hadn't drank any the night before.

Ada looked up at him through half lidded eyes, memories of the night before crashing into her. Heat coloured her cheeks with mortification.

"Oh god,” she groaned, covering herself in the blankets once more. She had kissed him. And she had liked it.

What the hell was wrong with her?

"Come on, sleeping beauty." Minho tapped her ankle and threw her boots onto her bed. "Charles has a big breakfast lined up with all the greasy foods he can find, and I'm pretty sure our water supply took a huge hit today so I'd get moving before we run out of provisions entirely."

Ada grumbled a string of unintelligible profanities into her pillow before sitting up slowly, groaning at the way the world seemed to shift around her. "Why is it so bright?" She squinted, eyes watering.

Her stomach swooped, and she pressed a hand against it, unable to do anything but pray that she wouldn't throw up.

"Here," Newt's voice was soft as he outstretched his arm, a jar of water clutched in his hand. "Got this for you. Should help a bit."

Ada smiled weakly up at him and took it gratefully, unable to properly look him in the eye. Shame flooded her as the memory of his touch flashed across her skin like a gentle ghost, one that faded away before her eyes the more she reached for it. His hand tangled in her hair, pressed against her waist, his mouth on hers, hot and desperate but so tender it hurt...

Ada gulped down the water and looked away hastily.

"Come onnnnnn," Minho whined, hopping up and down on the spot with so much energy it almost made her feel dizzy.

Gally shot him a particularly nasty look as he rubbed his temples. "I'm making your drink stronger next time."

"It is a miracle you aren't dead on the floor." Ada shook her legs out, trying to return feeling to them as she begrudgingly followed them over to the breakfast areas, where the smell of fresh bacon and homemade hash browns and sausage had her stomach rumbling violently.

Newt chuckled and passed her a plate, guiding her to a seat with his hand hovering over her lower back. Alby appeared and plopped down beside her, head sinking onto the table, looking absolutely miserable. Avin followed, grinning madly.

"You look too happy," Ada grumbled halfheartedly at the boy. They had kept the drinks away from him, keeping him strictly on water the night before.

He simply shrugged, gesturing to Alby, the source of his amusement.

"I'm not running today," Alby said simply.

"Yes you are." Ada shook her head, not even entertaining the idea. "If I have to run, so do you."

"Can't I have a day off?"

"That was yesterday," Minho supplied happily around a mouthful of hash brown. "Today we're all going."

"Why?" Newt asked with a frown.

"So we have more people to help these two back when they inevitably collapse." Minho shrugged.

Ada took another gulp of water, willing the dry feeling in her mouth to go away. "You're so kind to us, Minho, truly. A fantastic friend."

"I try my best."

Gally shot him a glare. "Try harder."

"Ada, Gally's bullying me."

"Good,” she said simply.

By the time they had finished breakfast and were standing in front of the maze doors, runners harnesses strapped to their chests, Ada had to admit she was feeling a lot better about the idea. With her belly full and Newt constantly handing her water, the after effects of whatever it was Gally had given her had lessened significantly.

Now her, Newt, Minho, and Ennis were double checking their supplies, not wanting to make any trips back to the glade with the sun already so high in the sky. Alby had been given the day off after all, under the guise that he would make sure the other gladers got to work instead of lounging around in their hammocks all day.

"Section five?" Minho asked as he straightened up, bouncing on the tips of his toes.

Ada nodded, and after securing her hair into as tight a ponytail as she could manage they were on their way, feet pounding against the concrete as the glade disappeared behind them.

The sun had reached its highest point in the sky by the time they turned the corner into section five, and after a quick lunch and water break leaning against the blades, they stood in front of the open space staring out at the pieces of metal and stone.

"Why did you want to come out here anyway?" She asked Minho, running a hand over the grooves in the side of one of the blades. Rust clung to her fingers when she removed them.

Minho took off at a steady jog until he reached the halfway point, staring fixedly at the walls. "Because I saw something when I was passing through here last week. The ivy was covering it so I couldn't quite make out what it was, but it looked like a door. I had to head back because it was getting late, but I wanted to check it out."

Ada knew immediately what he was referring to, and closed her eyes in disappointment. The reminder of Stephen and what he had argued for was stark, as was the memory of her decision not to pursue the lead until it was too late.

The fact that the glade had turned on her so suddenly and without warning still stung when she thought about it, a wound their blame inflicted that would heal but leave a violent scar.

Her eyes sought out Newt before she knew what she was doing, but he was staring at the floor with his jaw clenched, refusing to look at her. His own guilt was obvious on his face, and she knew he was thinking about their conversation by the watch tower months before.

"We know about it already." She said eventually, gulping away the lump in her throat. "Couple months back Alby and I found it and tried to get out. Door wouldn't budge. It was sealed when we came back the week after."

"Then why is it open right now?" Ennis asked.

Ada whirled to face him and followed where he was pointing, her eyes landing on the carved out space in the stone. Whereas before the door was completely sealed, now there was a gap large enough for two of them to walk in shoulder to shoulder, the yawning black abyss behind it as terrifying as it was inviting.

"What do we do?" Minho asked, taking a tentative step towards the door. "Do we go in?"

Ada opened her mouth to protest, and then stopped herself.

The last time she had been faced with this decision, she had been so sure she was right and had cost the gladers their chance at freedom.

There were more of them now, easily forty boys whose fate she held in her hands. She had the option to get them out, and right now the blackness behind the door could very well be the chance they had been waiting for.

The crossroad in front of her was daunting, and her hands shook as she glanced around at the other runners.

Newt was already looking at her, his steady expression tinged with desperation as he slowly nodded his head.

The last time she was faced with this decision, she walked away, and it nearly cost Ada her home.

She wasn't about to make the same mistake again.

"Alright." Ada said as she looked up at the sky, studying the colour. "Alright, we go in now, we make it quick. Have a look around, and if, only if we see a way out, two of us stay here and two go back to get the rest of the glade. I'm not having them all charge this place when we don't know what's behind that door."

Newt reached across, his pinkie finger curling around hers in silent gratitude.

For the first time in a long time, she didn't pull away.

—

The darkness was oppressive as it swallowed them whole, the only light coming from the fickle glow of the runner's torch Ennis carried. Unlike the torches that illuminated the glade, the runner's torches were metal and circular, offering a lot more light in the limited space.

Ada's finger remained firmly curled around Newt's as they manoeuvred their way into the narrow space, leaving the heavy door as open as possible to ensure that it wouldn't close behind them. The last thing they needed was to be trapped there, unable to return to the glade and the family that waited for them there.

An image of Alby pacing by the doors, waiting anxiously for them to return as they slowly closed, of him chipping their names off the wall with tears in his eyes, rose unbidden in her mind.

The urge to turn around and leave was almost overwhelming.

But the feeling of Newt's fingers pressed against hers, of the heat of his body burning into her back, kept her moving forward further into the unknown and away from familiar ground.

The beam of Ennis's flashlight danced along the walls, lighting up harsh white and grey where she expected there to be stone. Overhead lights ran the length of what appeared to be a long corridor, but they weren't turned on. Many were cracked, broken glass littering the steel floor.

"What the bloody hell is this place?" Newt's voice came from somewhere behind her, echoing harshly down the corridor, the vibrations of it vanishing into the black.

Ennis shone his flashlight straight down the middle, lighting up a hallway that looked as if it belonged in a hospital, crisp white and sterile grey, but there were no doors to be seen, only an endless passage vanishing around the corner and out of sight.

"Anyone else getting a bad feeling about this?" Ennis asked, looking back at them with a raised eyebrow.

Ada heartily agreed, but didn't dare say so out loud.

"Just a little further." Minho said eventually, but his voice was significantly less sure than it had been at the entrance. "Then we'll go back and get the others. This clearly leads somewhere."

"Right." Ada agreed, her voice oddly raspy. Dust coated the insides of her throat when she breathed in.

Ennis's flashlight caught on something metallic and shiny, moving over it so fast she barely had time to spot it.

"What was that?" She asked, stopping dead in her tracks. Newt thudded into her back, letting out an 'oomph' at the sudden contact, but she didn't apologise as her eyes scanned the blackness in front of her. "Did you see that?"

"See what?" Minho asked from the back of the group. "What is it, why did we stop?"

Ennis moved his flashlight again, the beam lighting up more metal, long enough for her to watch it move.

She couldn't quite make out what it was, something elongated and sharp that protruded from the shadows. More metal gleamed above it, shaping something that looked almost like a claw.

"Ada, what–"

Ennis's words were cut off right as she recognised where she had seen that before, and horror flooded every inch of her being.

Before she could so much as scream out a warning, something massive and silver shot out of the darkness, latching around Ennis's middle and wrenching him away from the group. His scream echoed in the tunnel as the flashlight rolled out of his hand and onto the ground, lighting up a scene straight out of a horror movie.

A flash of bulbous grey skin, a towering form of steel and rotted flesh, blind eyes and dagger-like teeth that tore down into Ennis's skin.

The flashlight spluttered and died along with Ennis's scream, and blackness descended with the silence.

An all too familiar click-whirr, click-whirr emerged from the gloom, and Ada had only a second to let out a panicked exhale before she was spinning on her heel and grabbing Newt and Minho by the arms, shoving them down the hallway as she ran at breakneck speed. "Griever!"

"Oh shit!" Minho exhaled, sparing a glance behind him, but the lack of a torch meant that darkness swallowed them whole, and not even the suffocation of it could drown out the screech of the griever behind them and the clanking of its metal limbs when they smashed against the ground as it began the hunt.

Her shoulders collided with the wall as she ran, hands outstretched blindly, scuffing against rough textures she couldn't identify. Heart pounding in her ears, she missed Newt's panicked breathing and the sound of his even more distressed swearing.

Something hot and rancid, a gust of foul smelling air, slammed into her back and shifted the hair there, and she didn't need to look back to know that the griever was right behind her, close enough to reach back and touch.

Tears burned their way to her eyes and down her cheeks as Newt reached back blindly to grasp at whatever part of her he could reach, his fingers grasping at her sleeve desperately as he pulled her along behind him.

A patch of light lit up the blackness as the door came into view, the familiar forms of the blades stretching their steel hands up to the sky, searching for a freedom they would never find.

Minho reached the door first, heels skidding as he threw himself behind the slab of concrete and grasped at it, screaming something she couldn't hear at them as the light almost blinded her.

An unholy sound, straight from the mouth of the devil himself, sounded so loudly from over her shoulder that her ears popped. Finally they burst out of the hallway, the fresh air slamming into them as Minho buckled against the door, shoving as hard as he could. Newt joined him, Ada quickly followed, as the gap grew narrower and narrower.

The Griever crashed into the stone right as the door slammed shut, sealing off the hallway and the horror that lay behind it for good.

A tense silence descended over the three of them. Ada slid down the wall, trembling all over, barely able to breathe through the adrenaline coursing through her veins. Minho appeared to be the same as he remained with his hands pressed against the door, head hung low so she couldn't see his face. His shoulders shook, with terror or tears she didn't know.

Movement out of the corner of her eye had her looking up sharply as Newt's runner's harness thudded to the ground, his eyes locked on hers. They were wild and untamed, glistening with tears, his entire body tense like a live wire. His voice cracked as he spoke. "That was a Griever?"

Ada couldn't bring himself to speak, and only nodded.

The confirmation was all Newt needed to descend into a full meltdown as he exploded into movement, pacing back and forth with his hands in his hair.

"Fuck!" He exclaimed, and Ada was shocked to see the tears on his cheeks. "That's what we're up against? That's what's keeping us in here?"

"Newt–"

"Then we're dead. We're all dead, we can't get past those! We're never gonna get out of here, we're not gonna–"

"Newt." She slowly got to her feet, hands outstretched in front of her as if he were a wild animal cornered and afraid. "Newt, it's okay–"

"None of this is okay!" He yelled, drawing to a stop in front of her. "None of this is okay! You told me there was hope, you made me believe that we can beat this thing, you said–"

"We can–"

"That thing tore into our friend as if he were nothing!" His hand shot out in the general direction of the door, where Minho had turned and was watching them with shadowed eyes, all traces of the lighthearted and carefree boy that teased her around a campfire completely gone.

Newt let out a pained exhale, and it was as if someone had cleaved the life from his body as he shrank in on himself.

"We're never getting out of here."

"We need to go," Minho's voice broke through their bubble and shattered it along with any remnant of false hope she could offer him. "We need to get back to the others, tell them what just... what just happened."

Ada stared at Newt for a moment longer, but he was no longer looking at her. He wasn't looking at anything, that blankness back but so much worse than she had ever seen it. Any animation in his body was gone, reducing him to nothing more than a puppet on strings discarded by its owner.

She watched numbly as the light in his eyes blinked out.

"Ada," Minho said, walking into her field of view. "We need to go."

Ada looked away from Newt and nodded, her heart sinking low in her chest.

She had never felt more helpless in her life as she followed Minho, Newt following like a ghost, leaving the maze behind, feeling as if the cliff face she was standing on had finally crumbled away beneath her and all she could do was fall.

—

The council hall was silent, the small group of people gathered inside it so quiet the sounds of their breathing and the buzzing of the rest of the glade were the only things that punctured the stillness.

"Ennis is dead?" Alby said eventually, his voice oddly strained.

Ada recognised the look on his face instantly, could read the thoughts forcing their way through his head as if they were her own. "There was nothing we could do. It came out of nowhere." Her hands were shaking again, so she sat on them.

Avin tentatively reached out and offered her a glass of water.

"A Griever?" Nick asked for the fourth time, as if the idea was so foreign and reprehensible he couldn't quite wrap his head around it.

"I don't get it," Avin spoke up, sitting down as close to Ada as he knew she would let him.

He had grown so much over the year they had been there, had grown up so much she could barely place who he was becoming with the shy little boy whom she had comforted and promised to protect on their first day there.

"It's daytime. I thought they only come out at night,” he continued.

"This was different," Minho said, starting up a slow pace in front of the door, hands twitching at his sides like he didn't quite know what to do with them. "It felt different, at least. Like it wasn't meant to be there, like it was put there deliberately or something."

"To stop you?" Gally asked, speaking up for the first time since the meeting started. "So it is guarding the way out?"

"I don't think so." Ada shook her head. "No, it was like the creators put it there because we found something we shouldn't. This whole time they've been pushing us to find a specific way out and stopping us when we've come too close to getting out in other ways."

"You think this was another case of them asserting authority, then?" Nick asked bitterly, running a hand down his face.

"I think this was another way of them saying that there's only one way for us to get out and this wasn't it."

"What if it was, though?" Avin asked. "Are we sure they didn't put the Griever there as one last test?"

Ada closed her eyes, thinking back to that time months ago when they had first come across the door, how it was unmovable and then sealed shut the next time they went to investigate. Why would the creators have gone through all the effort to keep them from getting inside if that truly was the way out they were expected to find?

None of this makes sense, she thought miserably.

"No, they wouldn't have sealed it up the first time if they wanted us to get out that way."

"Why did they let you in this time?" Alby asked, leaning back against the wooden railings. "Why open that door and plant a Griever in your path?"

"Maybe it was just to get us to rule it out as an exit, or maybe it was just an accident." Minho shrugged, looking troubled.

Ada blocked out the rest of the conversation, exhaustion slamming into her hard as the remnants of the adrenaline rush bled from her system. That headache had come back, pounding against the back of her skull with a vengeance.

She knew they would have to tell the rest of the glade what had happened, why Ennis wasn't coming home, how yet another chance at escape had ended in not only another failure, but more loss of life.

She hadn't known Ennis, not really. His appointment as a runner was sudden and they quite literally ran in different circles, never conversing much outside the occasional hello. She wondered if she had known him whether the loss would feel any different, if she should be glad for the fact that she barely knew him.

But she had barely known Luke, and even though mourning him had been tampered by shock and the discovery of just what they were dealing with, she still felt empty every time she saw his name crossed out on the wall or felt the gold chain shift around her neck.

For what felt like the millionth time that hour, Ada's eyes sought out Newt, as if he could offer her something to soothe the ache growing in her bones, as if just seeing him would, for whatever reason, make everything better.

But from his position against the door, his head bowed and his entire body loose, it was plainly clear that he was barely holding himself together, let alone anyone else.

She wished that he would join the discussion, share his thoughts, share his grief, but his silence had fallen in the maze and hadn't been broken since.

Alby glanced at her fleetingly and his expression softened. "Okay," he said, shaking his head, "we'll finish this discussion tomorrow, when everyone's had some rest."

"It's not even dinner time," Minho protested.

Alby raised his eyebrow sternly and crossed his arms over his chest. "You're seriously telling me you don't feel like death right now?"

"... I could sleep."

"That's what I thought." Alby nodded, slowly making his way over to her. "C'mon, Ads, go lie down. You look a right wreck."

"Charming as usual,” she said half-heartedly, but didn't fight him as he urged her to stand up. The idea of her hammock seemed delightful, sheer exhaustion already hedging the edges of her vision.

She looked at the door, wanting to talk to Newt, but he was already gone, his form disappearing through the glade, in the opposite direction of the Homestead.

As much as she wanted to check on him, to make sure that frightful stillness that seemed to have crept up on him wasn't eating him alive, her tiredness had her walking straight to the bunks instead.

She was asleep before her head hit the pillow.

—

Softness surrounded her, pressed in on her from all sides, lulling her back from the comforts of sleep. But something was tugging her towards wakefulness, a distant rumble of someone's voice she couldn't hear, didn't know.

The quiet of everything told her it was late, likely well past lights out, and she knew the rest of the glade was sleeping soundly around her, inviting her to join them in that sweet oblivion.

But something held her where she was, not quite asleep and not quite awake, instead suspended somewhere in between. The person had stopped speaking now, but she could feel them above her, watching her.

Someone kissed her forehead, a barely there press of lips to the crown of her head, lingering just long enough to breathe her in, so soft she was sure she had imagined it.

Perhaps she had.

The person left, leaving her alone in that warmth, and sleep reclaimed her easily.

—

Ada woke with that warm feeling still tugging at her senses, the crown of her head burning with a touch from a dream.

The smell of fresh food was what had woken her, clearly, something sweet and smoky that hung in the air and called her from her bed.

Ada smiled; the comfort of the glade, with its sounds and smells and greenery, was a welcome sight after the horrors of the day before. She made to sit up, hands grasping blindly for her blankets, when her fingers nudged against something she didn't recognise.

A slip of paper lay face down on her stomach, torn from one of the larger pieces they used to record the maze.

With a confused frown, Ada turned it over, seeing only two words scrawled in a familiar script she could recognise as easily as her own. They were smudged slightly, blots of ink marring the smooth surface, as if Newt's hands had shaken violently as he wrote.

I'm sorry

Ada's frown deepened, turning it over to search for more words, more context, but there was nothing. That warm feeling vanished, and dread rose in its place.

Quickly swinging her legs out of her hammock, she shoved on her boots with her eyes desperately searching around the glade. When they landed on Alby and Minho, sitting opposite each other at the breakfast benches, she didn't hesitate in marching over to them, note clutched tightly in her shaking hand.

"Ada, hey, how are you fee–"

"Where's Newt?" She asked, cutting Alby off.

He frowned, sharing a confused glance with Minho before shrugging. "Haven't seen him."

"Neither." Minho glanced towards the Homestead and then around the benches. "He wasn't in his bunk when I woke up this morning. Figured he needed to clear his head after yesterday and had taken a walk."

Ada's stomach sank even lower — Minho was an absurdly early riser, something she and the others mocked him for relentlessly. His eyes were open far before any of theirs were, as he often felt the need to take a few laps around the Glade, whether walking or running, to clear his head for the day. There was a reason he was their best runner, the strongest and the fastest of the lot of them.

For Newt to have woken before even him and for Minho to not have seen him since had Ada's concern growing until she felt like she could barely breathe.

Alby, always observant when it came to Ada, slowly got to his feet. "What's going on, Ada?"

She didn't reply, merely held out her hand with the note facing skywards.

Alby took it, eyes scanning the words, before he cursed. "Alright, let's not panic. This could be anything. Nick, take a few people and search the north east side of the glade. Gally, do the same with the north west. Minho, search the Homestead and the surrounding buildings, Ada and I are gonna cover the rest." He smiled down at her, but it was tight, concern tightening his features. "If he's here, we're gonna find him, okay?"

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and let him lead her away from the benches.

But thirty minutes later there was still no sign of Newt, and Ada's heart had begun to beat so wildly she was terrified it would break its way out of her chest.

"He's not here," Gally said quietly, leaning in close so that the other gladers didn't overhear. Anticipation hung heavy in the air, and panic would do nothing but cause chaos they couldn't afford.

Minho let out a deep breath. "If he's not in the Glade then that means he has to be–"

In the maze.

Ada took off running before her brain could tell her not to, her feet pounding hard against stone as the grey walls engulfed her.

She was vaguely aware of someone swearing and Minho following her, calling her name, but she didn't stop, not even as a stitch tore its way into her side and her lungs felt as if they were aflame, that damned note still clutched tightly in her hand.

"Ada, Ada–" Minho caught up to her fast, skidding around the corridor with her. “You don't even know where you're going."

"I don't care. If he's in here I'm gonna find him."

"Ada, think about this." Minho followed at her side, and despite his words of comfort she could still see the tension that wracked his frame. "He's a runner, he's allowed in the maze. He goes off by himself all the time. He probably just wanted to run and clear his head, okay?"

"You didn't see him, Minho." Ada shook her head. "Well, you saw him but you didn't see him. The entire time he's been here he's been desperate to find a way out. It's hit him hard, harder than most people, and yesterday when he told me that he knew we were never getting out of here..."

The memory of Newt's eyes, emotionless and fractured, of his desperation turned to acceptance, of that damned kiss she was sure she had dreamed, all of it came crashing into her so hard she could barely stand it.

"If he left that note, it means something's happening. And it's not good. So I'm gonna find him before he gets hurt."

It said something that Minho didn't argue, that concern for his friend outgrew reason as they took turn after turn, ran past wall after wall, keeping their eyes peeled for any glimpse of something out of the ordinary.

Minho found him first.

He skidded to a halt as they rounded a corner, one of many they had taken that morning, and it was all she could do not to crash into his back as he stopped abruptly, staring at something on the ground.

"Minho, what–"

She looked, and then wished she hadn't. She wanted so desperately to return to that warmth she had woken up in, that blissful innocence that kept her safe in her hammock, free of the horrors of the maze and what lay inside it.

"Oh god, Ada don't–”

The ivy was the first thing she saw. There was so much of it, trailing down the wall, heaped at its base, torn and shredded. The wall seemed so tall, she had never noticed just how towering they were.

The body at its base seemed so small in comparison, half concealed by the green vines wrapped around his lower body.

"Did he... jump?" Minho's voice cracked around the question as Ada sank to her knees beside where Newt lay on the stone, his head angled away from her.

One of his legs was still tangled in the ivy, supporting him half upside down against the wall, but the angle of it was... wrong.

Ada couldn't bring herself to look at it too closely, not as she crawled towards him and placed a trembling hand against his cheek. It was so cold, so pale, she gasped at the contact.

It was as if the sound had shattered her own shock, bringing tears with it that blurred her vision so much she could barely see the outline of him sprawled on the ground, stuck in the ivy, at the base of one of the tallest walls in the maze.

"Newt..." Her voice was shaking as she cupped his face in her hands, tilting it towards her. His eyes were closed, thank god, she wouldn't have survived seeing them open and lifeless. She smoothed back his tangled hair from his forehead with trembling hands. "Newt, what did you do?"

"He's still breathing." Minho's voice came from the other side of him, his eyes fixed on where Newt's chest rose and fell so slightly she feared she'd miss it if she blinked.

"Oh God," Ada whispered to herself, pressing her forehead against Newt's chest, turning so that she could hear the sound of his heart beating with her own ears, alive and breathing beneath her despite what he had intended.

"Ada, we need to get him back to the glade. Now."

Chapter Text

Day Three Hundred and Sixty Seven

Despite the med hut being swarmed with people, Ada found herself unable to move from the doorway, simply watching the chaos unfold.

There was a strange staticky sound buzzing in her ears, her mind blurring just enough for her to feel as if she was floating, watching the scene from above, not from the confines of her own body.

She watched, a fine tremor wracking her body, as Alby swept jars and cloths off the small bed in the middle of the room, yelling something she couldn't quite hear. There was a certain panic on his face she hadn't seen in a long time, not since their discovery of George's body all those months ago, every feature tightened with stress until he was barely recognisable.

Alby had been the first to find them when they returned to the glade, Newt cradled carefully in Minho's arms, careful not to touch his leg as much as they were able. Ada trailed along beside them, her fingers clutching onto the ends of Newt's, her entire world narrowing down to the rise and fall of his chest and the opening of the maze doors in front of her.

Alby had swarmed them immediately, clearing a path up to the medjacks and fending off the curious gladers who had come running.

He didn't ask any questions, didn't ask what had happened or if he was okay.

He already knew.

Clint swore violently as he and Connor gently laid out Newt's gangly limbs on the bed, unwrapping the rest of the ivy from his right leg. They hadn't dared remove it as Minho had picked him up off the maze floor – from the horrific angle the limb was twisted at it looked as though the ivy was the only thing holding it together.

Ada gagged as his leg came into view, turning away from the scene to face the window, watching as a small group of gladers pointed up at them and talked under their breaths. They would need a story, she knew, some sort of cover up.

If anyone found out that Newt had jumped, that he had tried to kill himself, what little hope they survived off would die before they could stop it.

"Oh God," Minho muttered, taking a few steps back until he was standing beside her. "Why does it look like that?"

Connor grimaced and squeezed Newt's leg, running his hands up and down to feel the placement of his bones. For the first time since she had found him Ada was relieved that Newt was unconscious.

"Broken," Connor said eventually, his face ashy, "in three places by the looks of things. Gotta cut his trousers off and wrap it, put it in a splint."

"Is he gonna be okay?" Ada asked, speaking for the first time, her voice cracking around the question.

Memories of months back assaulted her mind, when Newt was in that same bed and she was sat vigil at his bedside, carefully monitoring his breathing to make sure his heart wouldn't stop right in front of her.

Connor hesitated, telling her all she needed to know, before he busied himself with crafting a splint from the nearby supplies. "I don't know. You want my honest opinion? It'll be a miracle if he wakes up, and an even bigger one if he can ever walk on this thing again. I don't know if you know this but we don't exactly have the outstanding medical help he needs to get all fixed up right."

"Did he hit his head?" Clint asked, fingers prodding at the back of Newt's skull. His blonde hair was streaked through with blood. "Ada, focus, I gotta know if he hit his head."

She opened her mouth to respond but the words wouldn't come.

Minho cleared his throat. "We don't know. He was on the floor, so I assume so, but we just found him like that. We didn't... we didn't see him do it."

Gally appeared at the door, face pale, staring at Ada with panicked urgency. "You gotta come down here, people are wanting to know what's happened. Some are saying he was attacked, they're worrying about Grievers being out during the day, you gotta come fix this before they spiral into a mob."

Dizziness clouded Ada's mind, her shoulders sagging as she leant against the wall. Alby nudged her foot with his before sending her a comforting smile. "I'll handle this. You stay here with them."

"Okay,” she said quietly.

Clint lifted Newt's eyelid, shining a runner's torch in it, and then winced. "Shit."

"What?" She asked. "What is it? Is he alright?"

"He's gonna have one hell of a headache if he wakes up, let's put it that way."

Ada's head spun. If he wakes up.

Suddenly the reality that Newt might not pull through this slammed into her full force, making her legs weak. Minho grabbed a chair and pushed it under her right as her legs gave out, her head dropping between her knees to fight back the black spots clouding her vision.

"Ada, you should go," Connor said, not looking up from where he was carefully wrapping Newt's leg, forcing the bones back into place. "You haven't eaten yet, and Charles will be serving up lunch soon."

"I'm not leaving."

"At least go get something to drink–"

"I'm not leaving,” she said again, lifting her head to glare up at him. Connor shook his head, returning to his task with steel-eyed precision.

Ada's eyes remained locked on Newt the entire time, watching him breathe, taking comfort in that steady rise and fall even if the rest of him remained motionless. She let out a shuddering breath, lifting one hand to rub at the headache forming in her temple, when something sharp crinkled against her cheek.

The note was still in her hand, she realised, crumpled and torn now from her tight grip, those two words staring up at her, taunting her. A stab of rage sliced through her.

How dare he leave her with only a note, no explanation or reasoning, not even a goodbye – just a simple I'm Sorry as if this wasn't one of the worst things to happen to her since she had come up in that godforsaken box.

As if seeing his body on that maze floor, tangled up in ivy and so still, barely breathing, wasn't one of the most horrifying moments of her life.

The idea of putting him in the ground, of burying him next to George, of crossing his name off that wall – it made her nauseous.

When he woke up – when, not if – she wasn't ever going to let him out of her sight.

"I don't think there's anything else we can do," Connor said eventually, staring down at Newt with defeat written all over his face. "He hit his head hard, likely has a bad concussion but we can't know for sure yet. Broke his leg in three places and all but shattered his knee, and fractured his shoulder."

"But he'll be okay?" Minho asked.

Clint shook his head slowly. "I honestly don't know. These first twenty four hours are gonna be crucial. If he pulls through the night then I'd consider it a gift from God. We'll keep checking on him but someone should stay with him, I don't like the idea of him being left alone."

"I'll stay," Ada said instantly, not looking away from the body on the bed.

"Ada–"

"I'll stay,” she repeated.

Minho hesitated and then nodded, looking down at Newt with his hands twitching at his sides, clearly not knowing what to do with himself. "I'll stay with you. Just for a while."

She didn't fight him, not as Clint and Connor left the room, muttering something to each other she couldn't hear.

Silence descended over them, still and oppressive, but she didn't break it. All she did was sit, and stare.

—

The next five days were the hardest she had ever lived through.

Unlike those three days after Newt's first suicide attempt – she knew that was what it was, when he refused to eat anything and let himself waste away, uncaring if he lived or died – when she had sat at his bedside filled with restless energy, ready to yell at him when he woke up, now she was simply exhausted.

Ada remained at his bedside the entire time he was unconscious, never leaving, using the bathroom attached to the med hut, refusing to even sleep in her own hammock. Her back sent stabbing pains tearing through her entire body every time she moved, a result of sleeping in the wooden chair tucked beside his bed, but she stubbornly ignored them.

When the medjacks had come back to check on him the next morning they had seemed relieved, saying that the fact that Newt hadn't died in the night was a miracle and that his chances of recovery had skyrocketed.

Ada had cried when they had left the room that night, silent tears slipping down her cheeks until she fell into a restless slumber.

Day three brought with it the first true moment of terror since she had found him in that maze.

She had been speaking to him in a hushed voice, cracked from disuse, her hand resting on the bed beside his, when he had started seizing. She had panicked and screamed for the medjacks, and watched helplessly from the door as Alby and Minho held Newt's limbs still as Clint tried to prevent any further damage to his leg.

Minho had stayed with her after that, leaving only to bring her food and update her on the world outside that wooden shack. She hadn't cared enough to listen properly, counting Newt's breaths and trying to match her heartbeat to his.

The sun streaming in through the window was what woke her on day five, the light playing across her face and warming her, cutting through the cold that had taken root inside her. Ada blinked tiredly, groaning slightly as she turned her face into the scratchy sheets of Newt's bed.

Another sensation broke through the tired fog, something heavy moving on top of her head, brushing her hair away from her face. The sensation of it had her head snapping up, and the tired chuckle that came from the figure on the bed was quite possibly the best thing she had ever heard.

Newt was staring at her with a small smile on his face, the hand closest to her falling away from her cheek from where he had been playing with her hair. His eyes were half lidded from exhaustion, the bruises under them stark. Half of his body was black and blue from the fall, and he had to have been aching tremendously.

"Hey." His voice was throaty and barely audible.

Ada let out a relieved sob, lowering her head to the bed again as she shut her eyes tightly to stave off tears.

"Oh, hey…" Newt's fingers twitched with the effort it took for him to brush against her cheek, a touch so gentle it had sparks cracking underneath her skin, leaving a trail of warmth behind them. "S'okay."

Ada lifted her head, looking up at him with wide eyes full of tears. Slowly, hesitantly, she lifted her hand and wrapped her fingers around his, clutching at him as if he were her last tether to this earth and he might slip away from her any second.

She opened her mouth to speak and had to bite back a sob at the way he was looking at her, eyes full of tears and desperation.

"Please don't yell,” he said eventually, voice thick with tears. "I can't take that, not right now."

Ada nodded, looking away from him for a moment, taking a deep breath to steady herself.

A million questions fought each other in her mind, all of them desperate to burst free – why did he do it, why did he not say anything, why did he let it get this bad, why didn't he say goodbye, why did he try to leave her?

"Why?" She rasped out, rubbing her thumb over his. Nausea rose hard and fast, but she would be damned if she was letting go of his hand for anything in the world right then.

Newt's eyes fluttered shut, a pained expression overtaking his face. "Ada, please."

"Why?" She asked again.

Newt took a deep breath, the action clearly painful, and looked up at the ceiling, a single tear dripping down into his hair. "I couldn't do it. Not anymore. I just wanted it to end. Just wanted all of it to end."

Ada took another shuddering breath, not knowing how to respond.

"It hurts,” Newt said, so quiet she almost missed it. "It hurts, Ada. You should have just let me die." He looked down at her fleetingly, his eyes so full of pain she had to look away. "Why didn't you just let me die?"

"You can't," Ada said. "You can't do that. You can't just leave me with a note like that. You didn't even say goodbye. You should have woken me up. Damnit, Newt, why didn't you wake me up?"

Newt closed his eyes and sunk back into his pillows, looking so pale and fragile she worried a gust of wind would shatter him. "Because I knew if I saw you, if you were awake and looking up at me and asking me to stay, I would have."

"So why didn't you?" She pleaded.

"Please don't do this, Ada." Newt shook his head as much as he was able to.

She wanted to push, wanted to demand he open his eyes again and just talk to her, but the terror of pushing him too far too fast rose up in her with enough force to have her leaning back in her seat, squeezing his hand.

"I can't lose you,” she said slowly. "I need you to understand that."

Newt's eyes opened blearily and landed on her.

"I need you to stay with me, because you're one of the only things in this goddamn place that encourages me to keep fighting." She hesitated, staring down at their hands, at the way his fingers were so much longer than hers. "I care about you. I care about everyone here, the gladers are family to me, but I care about you. You snuck up on me, I wasn't expecting you, but what you said the other night by the fire goes both ways. I need you just as much as you need me, so don't you dare do anything like this again, okay?"

"I don't know what you want from me."

"I want you to stay,” Ada said. Tears dripped down Newt's face openly now, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs. "That's all I'll ever ask. Just stay."

He nodded jerkily, hand clutching hers like she was his lifeline.

"I want to," he said after a moment's hesitation, "but it's so hard. I don't know how to live like this. We've lost so many people. Every time there's a shred of hope it gets ripped away from us. It's not a life I can keep living, Ada."

"Yes, it is,” she said firmly. "I'll help you. I'll help you find a reason to keep going."

Newt stared up at her, a strange expression on his face, as if he was trying to tell her something that she couldn't quite figure out, something she was missing.

Ada swallowed heavily. "Please, just let me help you. I can get you through this, if you just let me." She slowly unwound her fingers from his, holding out her pinkie.

Newt's eyes were downcast and filled with tears when he looped his pinkie through hers, squeezing it as tight as he was able.

He nodded, eventually, eyes fluttering shut again, succumbing to exhaustion.

Even after sleep reclaimed him, Ada didn't let go of his hand.

—

Newt was confined to his bed for the next two weeks, unable to do anything but lie there and wait to heal enough for him to be able to move.

Ada had caught him on multiple occasions staring at his leg with a pained expression. He would heal, Clint had said, but the damage was done and there was no way of telling what lasting effects there would be.

His mind would repair itself, she knew, but the reminder of what he had tried to do would be written on his body forever.

When Alby poked his head around the door one night, long after the rest of the gladers had gone to bed, his eyes landed on where Ada was sitting with her head resting on Newt's mattress, fast asleep.

Newt was awake, propped up on the pillows, one hand holding that day's map of the maze that he was studying, the other absentmindedly toying with the ends of Ada's hair spread along the bed.

"She finally sleeping?" He asked, and Newt looked up from the map with a gentle smile. There was more colour on his face now, Alby was pleased to see, the bruises faded to almost nothing. "Bout time, was seriously considering dragging her down to her hammock if she didn't get some shut eye soon."

"She's stubborn," Newt said softly, voice lowered so as to not wake her up. The crease in his brow when he looked down at her told Alby he was more worried than he let on.

Ada had all but refused to leave his side, and had only been doing half days in the maze that last week. After the end of every shift, she had trudged up the steps to the med room with her arms full of paper, and Newt would help her map what route she had taken that day, so that the model in the runners hut could be updated.

"She isn't the only one." Alby shot him a pointed look, which Newt promptly ignored. "We gotta talk,” he said after a beat of silence, moving around to the other side of the bed.

"About what?"

"I told the rest of the gladers it was an accident," Alby said, not looking away even as Newt flinched and looked back down at his lap. "They were worried about it being an attack. Some slinthead spread rumours about you getting mauled by a Griever. Idiot."

"Bet that was fun to clean up." Newt swallowed heavily and glanced up at Alby curiously. "Why didn't you tell them?" He asked. "That I tried to... that I did what I did. Why didn't you tell them?"

Alby sat down slowly, eyes heavy with thought. "Because I know what the people here are like. If there's even a hint of darkness it spreads, and wipes out the hope entirely. We can't have that, otherwise we'll have another Stephen on our hands and will be banishing people left right and centre. Besides," he said after a moment, "they'd treat you differently. Not all of them, I'm sure, but some would look at you as if you were weak. Damaged. Incapable. You don't deserve that."

"Maybe they're right."

"They're not,” Alby said, as if it were the most simple fact in the world. "You were scared and angry, and you lost hope for a second. Lost sight of what we fight for. That's not a crime, Newt. You did what you did, and there's no changing it now. What you can change is how you react to it. You can grow from this, come out the other side stronger. And if you need someone to remind you of that, I know a few people who'll be in your corner." Alby winked at him teasingly, and Newt chuckled as he looked down at his lap again.

His fingers toyed with the edges of the map in front of him, drawing Alby's attention to it.

"She gave you the maps again?" He asked. "Good. We all thought it would be a good idea to keep you involved, even if you can't run right now."

"I can't run at all," Newt said, gesturing half-heartedly to his leg. "Fucked this bloody thing up and now it's useless. Clint reckons it'll heal but he doubts running will be much of an option for me. Not for a long while, if ever."

"We'll take it one step at a time. You're an important part of this, Newt. That hasn't changed. Don't give up on that. When you can, and you will be able to, you'll pick yourself up and finish what you started." Alby nodded firmly.

That crinkle had appeared between Newt's eyebrows again, so he changed the topic before he could get too much in his head.

"There was another thing I wanted to discuss with you. I was thinking about giving you more of a leadership position in the Glade. You're already part of the inner circle, so your say counts a lot more, but we need someone with a level head and some common sense to be second in command around here."

"I thought Ada was second in command?" Newt asked as he looked back down at the girl sleeping at his side, smiling slightly at the tuft of hair that had fallen across her eyes. He brushed it away carefully.

"Yeah, because level headed and rational are definitely words I'd use to describe that girl." Alby rolled his eyes affectionately. "She doesn't want it." He shrugged. "I talked to her about it last night, and she doesn't want the responsibility. She'll always be the head of this place, really. I mean, her and I took charge when we had to, we know this place better than anyone. I value her opinion more than anything in this world, so she'll always have a say really, but I don't think she's interested in her leadership role going any further."

"Why do you think that is?" Newt asked curiously.

"Stephen. He shook her confidence, I think. She made the call not to pursue the possible exit, and in her eyes it cost everyone the chance of a way out of here. Can't imagine that shank helped, turning people against her."

Guilt flashed across Newt's face, remorse for the blame that he himself had placed on her, just because he couldn't get out of his own head long enough to see that she was suffering too.

Alby watched him with knowing eyes, shaking his head slightly. "She'll come 'round eventually. But I agree with her when she said there's no one else better suited. So? You in?"

Newt hesitated for a moment before nodding, shaking Alby's hand. "Yeah... yeah, it might be nice to help out more."

Alby nodded, relieved. Ada was worried, he knew, about Newt slipping back into the cracks of his own mind, feeling useless in their pursuit for freedom. Worse, now, when he couldn't run and help them map the maze.

The glade had been a gilded cage to him before, but now? When he couldn't move? She worried that the bars were shrinking fast and steady enough to suffocate him.

"Good that."

A quiet snuffling sound came from where Ada was blinking her eyes open, stretching as well as she was able to whilst still hunched over.

"Well, hello there." Alby grinned at her. Ada simply huffed and face planted the mattress again. Newt laughed and patted her head carefully, smiling softly down at her.

"What time s'it?" She grumbled.

Alby checked his watch. "Just gone midnight. Everyone else is asleep. You need some proper rest, come downstairs and sleep in your own hammock for once, okay?"

"No, no I should stay here." She protested tiredly, her eyes already slipping shut again.

Newt nudged her and shook his head. "You need sleep, Ada. Proper sleep. Whilst I appreciate you keeping me company like this, it's not good for you to stay here all the time. Go get some proper rest."

Ada frowned, unease sparking in her eyes. "But–"

"No buts." Newt stretched out his hand until it rested beside hers on the bed, his thumb pressing against the side of her little finger. "I'll be just fine here by myself for one night."

"Are you sure?"

"It's not like anything's gonna happen." Newt shrugged. "What am I gonna do, run off again?"

"Too soon, Newt."

"I'm just trying to get rid of you before the yelling starts." He raised an eyebrow at her as she tried to interrupt. "You've been building up to a pretty solid rant for weeks now. At least this time I didn't wake up to apples being thrown at me. A small mercy."

"Don't tempt me,” she said darkly.

Newt shot her a teasing wink only slightly hindered by his own tiredness. "Dictator."

"Moron."

"Idiots," Alby said tiredly to himself. "C'mon, Ada. Let's go get some rest. He'll still be here tomorrow, alright?"

Ada glanced at Newt uncertainly one last time as she rose to her feet, hesitating even as he shot her a supportive smile. When she was sure he wasn't going to try anything, she nodded to herself and made her way to the door. "I'm holding you to that."

—

It was another week before Newt was able to stand up again, and another week after that before he could walk. The stairs down from the med hut were gruelling and painful, Ada could see it with every grimace and wince he tried to hide from her on the way down.

The crutches Nick and Avin had fashioned for him, glorified wooden sticks wound together with ivy and rope, were uncomfortable under his arms, but the weight of his broken leg was too agonising to move without them.

But re-entering the glade almost a whole month after his fall was worth the trouble it took.

Ada watched him intently as they emerged into the sunlight, the dew of the grass crunching under their feet, the smell of pork and hash browns lingering heavily in the air.

Laughter and teasing yelling came from all four corners; from the track hoes as they tended the gardens, the slicers as they cared for the livestock, the cooks from the kitchen as they cleaned away the remnants of breakfast, and the builders as they chased each other with hammers and repaired the hole in the side of the council hall.

All of it created an atmosphere of home that she breathed in with relief, hovering by the Homestead as she waited for Newt to join her. When he reached her side he visibly paused, staring out at the glade with such a lost but hopeful expression that it had Ada's insides flipping.

"This place is home for me,” she said after a moment, staring out at the family she had built before looking up at him with a sweet smile. "Even though we search every day for a way out, this is home. I know it doesn't feel that way for you now, but it will. I promise."

Newt was silent for a moment before he looked down at her, his eyes unusually bright. "I hope so."

"C'mon," she said. "I wanna show you something. Think you can make it to the deadheads?"

"I can sure as hell try." Newt shrugged and readjusted the crutches, keeping his bad leg off the floor as he hobbled after her. Ada slowed her pace to match his struggling one, and tried to ignore the stares and odd looks they received from the curious gladers around them.

Most of them were unfazed by it – injuries were common in the glade, after all – but it was the first time any of them had seen Newt outside since the 'accident'.

"Why are they all staring at me?" He grumbled, obviously uncomfortable. "I know my leg is a little... unfortunate looking, but this seems extreme."

Trying to take his mind off it, Ada shot him a smug smirk. "Your leg looks fine, it's your face that's unfortunate looking."

"Is that so?" Newt grinned down at her. "And to think you once called me pretty."

Ada huffed. "That is taken out of context."

"How dare you. I'm stunning."

You certainly are. The thought appeared before she could stop it, and it almost had her tripping over nothing as she flushed a deep red.

"You, uh–" Fuck. "You keep telling yourself that, sunshine. Whatever helps you sleep at night."

"Oh I'll sleep fine now that I'm out of that goddamn hospital bed." Newt shuddered dramatically, seemingly not picking up on her internal panic. "Honestly, I nearly died and that's the treatment I got. Pretty sure the sodding thing was made out of bricks."

"Encouragement to recover fast, I'm sure." Ada snickered.

They reached the edge of the deadheads at last, and the lights and sounds of the glade faded into nothing behind them as they walked further and further towards the back walls. Newt grew quieter the deeper they went, from pain or unease she wasn't sure.

He had to have recognised where they were going by now, lord knew he had spent enough time in this part of the forest in his first few months in the glade, but he didn't speak and simply followed her blindly until they reached the cemetery.

Ada paused at the edge of the small clearing, staring down at the seven lopsided graves in front of her, more overgrown the further back they went. She walked over to Luke's, carefully picking off the moss and fixing the wooden slats where it had tilted over time.

Newt watched her silently by the trees, but after a minute of quiet he broke the silence with a soft but guarded voice. "Why did you bring me here, Ada?"

"I wanted to show you."

"I've seen them before." Newt's eyes were mapping the final four graves, glossing over Stephen and Isaac's before fixing on Archie and Ennis', the soil still overturned and fresh.

"Yes." she nodded, "But you don't know."

"Don't know what?"

"Who they were." Ada crouched down in front of George's grave, a tear slipping silently down her cheek as she placed a hand against the wood. "You don't know their stories, what happened to them. What they sacrificed."

Newt hobbled over to her, pausing before the first row of graves. Slowly, he sank himself down into a seated position, stretching out his bad leg, and stared at her expectantly. "So tell me."

So she did.

Ada told Newt of the boy who had first walked into the maze, of his red hair and kind eyes and the golden chain around his neck. Told him about the funny faces he had pulled at the beetle blades, about the panic in his voice as the doors were closing, about how he had shoved her through before they closed and sacrificed his safety for hers.

She told him about the first boy who had died there, on their first day in the glade, and how she still wore his chain around her neck over a year later.

She told Newt about the boy with the dark hair and the serious eyes, who was the worst cook there but somehow the only one who either didn't burn the kitchen down or give them food poisoning, about how she missed his god awful vegetable stew at times. About how he was the only one brave enough to climb the wall, and how he screamed as he fell when the creators stopped him.

She hesitated when she got to George, sitting cross legged staring at the patch of grass where she knew he lay peacefully, ignorant to the suffering and trials of those around him.

"Who was he?" Newt asked, speaking for the first time since she had started speaking. He squinted at the lopsided lettering on the wooden slat. "George. Who was he?"

"He was my... he was my friend," Ada said after a moment. "He was the only one who understood. Who got what it was like. He was never cruel, or snappish, but he was smart, and witty, and so unfailingly loyal. He stood by me through everything, made me feel that there was hope to keep going when I thought there was none."

"... What happened to him?"

Ada swallowed heavily. "He killed himself."

She could hear Newt's sharp intake of breath behind her, but didn't turn around. She couldn't look at him, not right then.

"I don't know if he meant to do it or not. He got stung, got violent. It was my fault, really. I took him out into the maze with me, and he got stung. Told us to tie him to a tree overnight, said that he didn't trust himself not to hurt us. When I went back to untie him the next morning he was... it was too late."

"God, Ada..." Newt shuffled in his seat, reaching a hand out to her. It brushed the back of her shirt, just a featherlight touch. "I'm so sorry."

"He would have been proud of this place,” she said, swiping at her wet cheeks. "They all would. Luke, Carson, George... they would have been so proud. I can almost see them laughing and joking around with the rest of the Gladers. It was just us, back then, just the six of us, and there's so many more people now. They would have loved it."

"Ada... why are you telling me this?"

Ada turned her backs to the graves, looking at Newt where he was silhouetted in the streaks of light struggling in through the trees.

"Because all of these people, all of my friends, died to get us out of here. Luke saved my life, sacrificed himself for me, a complete stranger. Carson risked everything and climbed one of the goddamn maze walls to see the top and tell us what we were up against. George killed himself so that he wouldn't hurt us, so we would have a chance to go on and solve this mystery. Stephen and Isaac, as misguided as they were, died for the chance to get out of here. Archie and Ennis both gave their lives searching for a solution."

She gestured vaguely behind her, staring at the tears slowly gathering in Newt's eyes.

"All of them died so we could get out. So that we could keep searching, keep fighting, for a way out and for each other. I refuse to give up on that, and I refuse to let you give up on it too. We are going to get out of here. We are going to see what's beyond those walls. And when we do, we do it together. Okay?"

Newt stared at her for a moment, face impassive, before his eyes tracked over the graves behind her. Each of them someone who died for what they believed in. A new sense of purpose filled him, invigorating him as he looked back at Ada.

A slow smile spread across his face. "Okay. Together."

Chapter Text

Day Five Hundred and Seventeen

"Would you do it, if you could?"

The question came out of nowhere, distorted slightly, as if underwater. Ada looked up at the boy beside her, but his face was trapped in a beam of light reflecting off the glass, and she couldn't quite make it out.

"Do what?" She asked. Her own voice sounded alien to her, something not quite right, but hers nonetheless.

"Get out of here. Go somewhere else." The boy gestured to the window, where an open sea of scorched land stretched for miles in front of them, blackened in places from the sun. Something red gleamed around his wrist. "Escape."

She scoffed. "Is that a trick question?" Ada glanced around at the pristine white walls of the facility around her, at the overbearingly sterile coldness that clung to her. The scratchy fabric of her plain shirt itched at her skin as she looked back at the wall of windows in front of them, thick enough to stop a bullet.

Or something worse than a bullet. They'd all heard the stories of what was out there.

"I'm serious." The laughing tone she usually associated with the boy was gone, his accent slightly more prominent. He looked down at her, and she caught a glimpse of deep brown eyes, threaded through with caramel. "If you could get out, would you?"

"Well, where would I go?" She asked. "They told us that there's nothing out there but death and destruction. I hate this place, but it sounds better than that."

"What if there was somewhere safe? Somewhere where those things don't exist. Would you go then?"

"That depends.” Ada shrugged. "Would you be there? Would you come with me?"

What she could see of the boy's handsome face twisted into a frown. "Maybe. Maybe not."

"You'd want to stay here?" She asked incredulously.

"Of course not,” he replied instantly. "This place makes hell look like a relaxing sauna. I just meant that... that maybe I wouldn't be able to join you, right away. Like, maybe they only send small groups there at a time or something."

Unease rose in her like a tidal wave. "Newt... what aren't you telling me here?"

"Nothing." He smiled, his face fully coming into focus now, younger and happier. "Just overheard the lab techs talking about a glade, somewhere green and full of life. It just made me wonder if that was something you'd... you'd be interested in."

"What glade?" Ada frowned, turning to face him fully. "Are they sending us up there? Did they tell you that?"

"They didn't tell me anything. But I heard them talking about a list–”

"A list? Of names? You said small groups, am I on there?"

"No." Newt shook his head. "No, no. Forget I said anything, really. I was just curious. Honestly."

"Newt–"

Someone was shaking her, a gentle touch of fingers pressed into her shoulder, just hard enough to shake her from the dream. Her heart was pounding hard and fast against her ribs, and when she looked up and saw the same face above her as she had in her sleep she wondered if she was still dreaming.

But Newt was older now, cheekbones slender and eyes more haunted, a slight dimple decorating his cheek as he smiled down at her.

"Ada," he said softly, retracting his hand. "C’mon, wake up. Charles is serving up dinner, and I know you haven't eaten since this morning."

Ada hoisted herself into a seated position, rubbing at the crick in her neck from the angle at which she had been sleeping. "I fell asleep?" She asked in disbelief, fighting back a yawn. "How did I get here? I could have sworn I was in the map room..."

"Alby carried you back when you fell asleep leaning against the door." Newt shook his head, an exasperated but fond smile gracing his features. "I would have done it, but... well." He gestured down at his leg, at the bandages still wrapped tightly around it.

The splint was gone now, and he was walking mostly fine. But carrying strenuous weights was too much pressure, and he had to sit down after any more than fifteen minutes of movement.

But just over four months after his accident, after days turned into weeks turned into months of peace, his ability to move unhindered was a blessing that he refused to take for granted. She had seen the strain that it had put on him to be so useless, so unable to help, unable to even move without assistance.

She, Alby, Gally, Nick, and Minho had been happy to help him, with even Avin wrapping skinny arms around his middle to support him along every now and again, but she knew it had bothered him to not be able to do something so simple as move by himself.

"The slinthead couldn't put me in a position where I wouldn't wake up feeling like a wrung out sponge?"

Newt chuckled, stepping back so she could swing her legs off the side of the hammock and clamber gracelessly to her feet. Now that she was more awake, she could smell the distinct aroma of Charles' chicken and vegetable stew, and her stomach grumbled loudly with longing.

"C'mon you," he said as he nodded his head towards the dining benches. “Let's get some food in you."

The others were already seated when she arrived, and she plonked herself down next to Avin and Alby, effectively cutting off their conversation.

"Nice bedhead," Alby snickered. Like the mature woman she was, her only reply was to toss a bread roll at him.

"Hey," Charles scolded as he walked past, shooting her a stern look. "I spent all morning making those. Pick it up."

"He started it,” she grumbled as she bent down to do as he said.

"What have we got in here today?" Minho asked idly, picking at his stew with his fork. "Carrots, tomatoes, green beans, cauliflower... and potatoes. Lovely." He shot an unimpressed look at Newt, who was sitting beside him. "You couldn't have grown some peppers at least to spice this thing up?"

"When we get pepper seeds then sure, Minho." Newt rolled his eyes. "If you're gonna be that picky then take it out on the creators, not me. I don't control our food supplies."

"It's a good thing, too," Nick said around a mouthful of bread. "If you did, we'd all be living off parsnips."

"What's wrong with parsnips?" Newt asked defensively.

"What isn't wrong with parsnips?" Avin seemed to have a personal vendetta against the vegetables, though no one knew why.

"You enjoying the life of a track hoe, at least?" Alby asked, steering the conversation towards safer waters. "Not as active as running the maze, but I can imagine it still has its charms."

"It's alright." Newt nodded. "Calming. It's quite nice, actually. Didn't really appreciate it enough the first time I was doing it."

"It's shoving seeds in the ground, what's so exciting about it?" Minho grumbled.

Ada leant forward, reaching for her own bowl.

Newt had changed jobs to join the trackhoes only a month after he had woken up, finding the smell of the soil and the constant fresh air to be soothing. It helped him, she thought, though she didn't question why. She supposed it had something to do with the repetitiveness of it, of being productive without too much physical strain.

There was always a job to be done there, whether it was harvesting crops or planting new ones, or simply organising seeds. It was a good way for him to stay busy even on days where his strength failed him and all he was able to do was sit there.

"What's on the agenda for this evening, then?" She asked. "Did you guys finish mapping, or do we need to get that done?"

Newt cleared his throat. "Actually, Ada, I was hoping I could borrow you for a bit tonight." He rubbed the back of his neck nervously, cheeks flushing a pale pink that had Minho snickering and Gally raising a very judgemental eyebrow. "Just to talk."

"Yeah, sure." She nodded. A strange jittery feeling exploded in her stomach that she tried hard to ignore. "After dinner."

"But, uh, we can help with the mapping afterwards," Newt directed at Alby, who was staring at them both with amusement.

"No need, we finished them earlier whilst this one was fast asleep." He kicked her shin under the table. "But you crazy kids go have fun. But not too much fun. I will be checking in after half an hour."

"Checking for what?" Avin asked.

Alby quickly changed the topic. "But there was actually something I wanted to talk to you guys about anyway." He looked around the small group, leaning in slightly to avoid any passing tables from overhearing. The other gladers seemed distracted by their meals and conversation, but they all leant in regardless. "I think I'm gonna pull out of being a runner."

Ada dropped her spoon. "You what?"

"But... why?" Minho asked, gobsmacked.

"We've mapped a lot of it by now. And the map room is in shambles. Newt, you're great and all, but seriously what the hell are you doing to that place, man?"

"It's not that bad!" Newt said defensively. "I cleaned it yesterday!"

"You did not," Alby huffed. "There's maps all over the place, the model hasn't been updated in almost a month, and honestly with all the time we're spending in the maze we're not keeping things as updated as they should be."

"So you're, what, abandoning the squad to clean things?" Ada asked incredulously, trying very hard not to be offended.

For almost a year and a half now, her and Alby had run the maze together, the one constant in each other's lives. Even when other runners joined and left, he had remained with her, a steady comfort. Although he would be in the glade waiting for her everyday after her shifts, something about the thought of him not running with her anymore didn't sit right with her.

"Someone needs to keep a proper eye on the glade, and there's a few jobs where things are slacking because they just don't have enough people. I want to help out here as much as possible."

Minho swallowed, looking extremely apprehensive. "Ada makes a point though, Alby. Ennis is dead and we just lost Newt as a runner, if you leave too it's down to just Ada and me. Are you sure that's smart?"

Alby smiled placatingly at them. "I have every faith in the two of you."

Ada rolled her eyes. "Well I'm glad someone does."

—

The rest of dinner passed with few words between them, a slightly tense atmosphere hanging over them after Alby's decision. Ada tried not to let it bother her, but as the sun set and darkness stained the sky the heavy pit in her stomach refused to abate.

When the rest of the gladers removed themselves from the tables and wandered off to amuse themselves, Newt stood up and smiled down at her, offering her his hand with a curious expression on his face, as if he was testing something.

Ada hesitated before slipping her hand into his, the heat of his skin burning into her own, and removed it instantly the second she stood.

"So, where are you whisking me off to?" She asked playfully as he led her away from the inquisitive and teasing eyes of the rest of their small group. His route became all too familiar as they headed towards the back of the glade, towards where the council hall stood proudly in the corner, blanketed by a half circle of dark trees. "The council hall?"

"You'll see." Newt smiled hesitantly. "Do you trust me?"

Ada nodded instantly, with an ease that nearly shocked her. "You know I do."

She thought he blushed, but perhaps it was the low light casting shadows.

The council hall was dark, the shadows at the edges pitch black, the only light the slithers of dying sun creeping in through the uneven roof. Newt grabbed one of the torches, lighting it seamlessly and shoving it into the ground at the centre of the room, creating a small circle of light for them to sit in, protected from whatever lurked in the dark.

"What are we doing here, Newt?" Ada asked, waiting by the door as he clumsily lowered himself down onto the ground, wincing as he laid out his leg. The walk over must have tired him, she realised, the strain of mild pain making itself known in the creases of his forehead and the crinkle of skin beside his lips.

Newt looked up at her, gesturing to the ground opposite him.

She followed willingly, settling across from him on the dirt. "Why are we here?"

Newt opened and closed his mouth, not knowing where to begin, that pink slowly creeping back into his cheeks. "I wanted to– I needed to say– damnit why is this so difficult?"

Ada huffed out an amused laugh as she watched him struggle.

"Don't laugh at me," Newt huffed. "I'm trying to help you here."

Now he had her attention. "Help me?" Ada lifted an inquisitive eyebrow. "How?"

"Ada..." Newt picked at the red shoelace, a nervous tick she had grown to recognise. "You have helped me so much over the past few months. Before I... before I jumped, you helped me then, too. Even if it was just seeing you smile or joke around with Alby and Minho. You were always so light. I guess it reminded me of why I should keep fighting. And even when it all got too much for me, when I thought I couldn't do it anymore, you still stayed by my side and fought for me. You didn't judge me, you didn't yell, no matter how much I could tell you wanted to shake some sense into me. You were always just there, giving me a reason to keep going."

Ada took in a shaky breath, tears pricking at her eyes.

"The life I have here, with you, and Alby, and even Minho, it's good. You showed me that it was worth fighting for, and I don't think there'll ever be a way for me to repay you for that."

Ada shook her head, wanting more than anything to reach out and touch him. "You don't have to."

"I want to, though." Newt reached inside his jacket, drawing something out of his pocket. The gleam of leather flickered enticingly in the light from the torch, the firelight illuminating the shape of something supple and black. "I had a lot of spare time when I first woke up. I couldn't do anything to help the others, help find a way out of here, but then I had an idea for something I could do to help you."

He held out the object, and Ada took it with trembling hands.

A pair of thick black gloves unfolded in her palm, made from smooth leather and cut artfully to hug her palms and leave her fingers exposed, likely to make holding weapons and tools easier. They were clumsily made, clearly not done by an expert tailor, but the amount of care and love that was in every slightly jagged line and baggy crease was obvious.

She could practically see Newt in that hospital bed whilst she was asleep or in the maze, pouring over these gloves, that concentrated frown creasing his forehead as he struggled with the precise movements.

Ada toyed with the material between her thumb and forefinger, a warm feeling rising up in her.

"You... you made these for me?" Her whispered voice cracked as she spoke.

"I had help." Newt smiled bashfully. "Avin's surprisingly handy with a needle and thread. I don't want to tell you how many times I stabbed myself trying to sew them together."

"You made me gloves," Ada whispered, cradling them in her palms as if they were the most precious thing in the world. They might have been.

"I know you don't like touching people," Newt said. "You've never told me outright, but I could tell. Every time you so much as brush fingers with someone you tense up and lose all the colour in your face. But you seem fine when it's through clothing, when you put a hand on someone's arm and they're wearing a jacket, it doesn't seem to bother you as much. And I look at your face every time, and I can see that you don't want to feel that way. It's like you want to be able to touch people, but your body stops you."

"Not with you,” she said softly, her voice barely audible. "I don't know what it is. But when we touch I'm not scared like I am with the others. I feel safe."

Newt swallowed, obviously affected by her words. "I want you to feel that way all the time. I want you to be able to touch your friends without being terrified. I thought maybe those would be a step in the right direction."

"Newt, I... thank you."

"I also, uh–" He hesitated, choosing his words carefully. "I thought maybe practising would help. Slow steps, building your way up."

"How would I do that?" She asked, carefully laying the gloves over her thigh.

Newt slowly outstretched his hand on the dirt beneath them, palm down. Ada watched it, tension in her shoulders, but slowly did the same.

Without the adrenaline that came with near death experiences or hushed arguments by the watch tower, that ever present fear began to well up inside her, nausea threatening to creep up as her finger brushed his.

Slowly, Newt linked his pinkie finger with hers, the other digits settling over hers tentatively. "Tell me to stop at any point, and I will."

Ada nodded shakily, staring down at their hands, trying not to let the panic overwhelm her. Maybe it's because she was so focussed on it, maybe it was because there was nothing to distract her from her pounding heart and the images flashing through her head, but the press of his skin against hers had her desperate to recoil.

Images of bloated flesh, roped with corded black veins, pressing in on her from all sides, assaulted her senses. She whimpered, eyes closing of their own accord, but she didn't pull away.

"It's okay," Newt said, slowly rubbing his thumb across the back of her hand. "You're doing it, Ada."

His palm covered the back of her hand, and she yanked it away without thinking, reaching for the gloves and tugging them on hastily. "I can't,” she said throatily. "I can't do it."

"Okay." Newt pulled his hand back instantly, jaw clenched. "Okay. It was a bad idea. I'm sorry."

"No, I–" Ada ran a hand through her hair, mussing up the already tangled strands. "I want to be able to do this. I should be able to do this, I don't know why it's such a problem for me."

"It doesn't matter why," Newt said. "It just matters that it is. I will help you with this, Ada, but only if you want me to."

She hesitated, staring down at her hands, watching them shake with fine tremors she couldn't stop. She was so tired, all of a sudden.

Tired of watching her friends walk on eggshells around her, never knowing how to respect the distance she put between them without alienating her entirely, tired of watching them shove each other playfully and hug and touch in the smallest ways that she was desperate to be touched in. She longed for the ease of it, that small intimacy that seemed so far beyond her reach.

"Okay." She nodded. "Okay... where do we start?"

—

Her footsteps pounded on the concrete, a thudding rhythm she felt echoing in her body as she kept one eye on the sky, tracking the colour that was slightly darker than it should have been.

They were playing it risky today, she knew, the threat of the doors closing looming closer and closer until it was a shadow that chased her, biting at her heels. But the unknown corridors and new territories were too hard to resist, especially when they were making such good progress, cutting through the last few corridors of section eight.

Minho huffed slightly a few steps behind her, a thin sheen of sweat shining on his forehead. "We should really head back soon. Sky's gonna get dark fast."

Ada tucked the flyaway strands of sweat soaked hair away from her face, glancing back at him fleetingly. "How is your hair still quaffed?" She panted.

"You will never know my secrets." Minho winked teasingly at her, running a gloved hand along the side of his perfect hair.

It didn't even move.

"Okay now you're just showing off."

"I know my hair is marvellous and truly deserves to be admired in a museum," they rounded the corner, another endless slab of grey and green stretching in front of them, "but seriously, Ada, we need to think about getting back soon. We've covered a lot today, I'm sure Alby will be more than happy with our progress."

They rounded another corner, and Ada opened her mouth to agree when she stopped dead in her tracks. Minho almost slammed into her, stopping so abruptly he had to steady himself against the wall.

"Ada, what the hell?"

She didn't respond, instead staring at something painted on one of the tall walls, her face as white as bone. Static sparked in her ears, a buzzing she couldn't get rid of, and she placed one hand on the wall to ground herself, putting all her energy into not passing out.

"Ada?" Minho asked, waving one hand in front of her face with a concerned frown. "Ada, what is it? You alright?"

Ada lifted her hand and pointed at the number one spray painted onto the grey stone in a glaring red.

"That's not possible." Minho scrambled for his backpack, ripping out the runner's paper, mapped full of lines and drawings that detailed their progress for the day. "Did we miss a section? Make a wrong turn?"

"No.” Ada shook her head. "No, we were so careful."

And it didn't matter if they had, she had long since memorised the halls and pathways of the maze that they had already covered, committing every infernal corridor and clearing to memory. They haunted her as she slept, plagued her dreams with the creatures inside it.

"But..." Minho leant back against the wall, looking confused and terrified all at once. She wanted to comfort him, tell him it would be okay, but she knew it would be a lie. "If this is section one, then that means eight was the last section of the maze. And if we've covered all the sections then that means..."

All the corridors and hallways, all the false doors and failed escape attempts, all of them lacked the one thing they were looking for: a way out.

Ada sank down against the wall, lowering her head into her hands. Her words were muffled into her gloves when she spoke. "There's nothing left to map."