Night Six

It was the light she saw first.

Ada stared as their group came to a stop at the dull glow coming from a desk lamp, its feeble light illuminating the back and strong shoulders of a man hunched over a desk. Wherever they were, it was unlike any other room they had been in before – workbenches lined the walls, covered with maps and tools and clutter that looked as if it had become useless easily twenty years ago. A moth-eaten sofa sat to their right, doused in shadow, a stained blanket thrown carelessly over the back.

The entire back wall was made up of windows, as cracked and smeared with dirt as the ones downstairs, and chains hung from the ceiling – there were no cranks attached to these ones, and the shackles lay rusted and empty, waiting. Lights hung from the ceiling in rows of three, but many of them had long since stopped working, leaving areas of the room thick with shadow and secrets.

Whoever the man at the desk was, he didn't turn to look at them. His entire focus was on what looked to be an old radio. Strange, staticky sounds burst from it at random, and from what she could see of the stranger he was hunched over it as if it were his saving grace.

Ada's entire body was tense like a live wire as she cut her eyes to the girl who had led them, the lack of action making her feel unbearably restless.

"Jorge," the girl said at last. "They're here."

There was silence for a moment before, without turning to them, the man raised his finger to his lips. "Shhh... quiet." He fiddled with one of the dials, his movements slow and controlled, before he let out a displeased hiss and flicked a switch.

Immediately the static died, and silence hung heavy in the air.

He sighed, and a crack of thunder split the night, lighting up the window in a blinding crack of white that had the hairs on Ada's arms standing on end. The short-haired girl moved away from them, sinking carelessly down onto the cushions, and Ada couldn't help but envy her. Her locked muscles felt tight with strain and ached fiercely from days walking and sleeping on the unforgiving ground.

Jorge turned to face them at last, and Ada's attention snapped back to him. He looked unassuming enough, with his brown skin and his grey stubble and short curly hair, but there was a mad glint in his eyes that had dread pooling in Ada's stomach. He was dressed in a zipped brown jacket, muddy and torn at the sleeves, and the pocket watch tucked away at his side glinted in the glow from the lamp.

He stared at them, expressionless, his hands on his hips. "Do you ever get the feeling the whole world's against you?" He asked suddenly.

Ada stood before him, caked in sand and dirt, her unwashed hair tangled on her head, and her skin sore and burnt from the sun. "... You're joking."

Jorge stared at her, and the corner of his mouth ticked upwards in a mocking sort of grin. Three questions," he said simply, slowly making his way forwards. "Where did you come from, where are you going, and how can I profit?"

He reached out to a rickety table off to the right, and grabbed a clean-ish glass off a dull silver tray. There was a jug beside it, and Ada watched jealously as he poured himself a drink of water, letting the sloshing sound of liquid tantalisingly fill the air. The mischievous flicker in his dark eyes told her he knew exactly what he was doing.

She stared at him in disbelief. "Well now you're just being mean."

The rest of her group stayed silent, and Ada bit her tongue, not willing to give this man an inch.

The reality of their situation seemed to hit her at once. They were alone, in a room surrounded by strange men who were staring at them as if they were prey, and the only thing stopping them from doing whatever they pleased was the man in front of her, staring at them all as if this were a game.

They were borderline malnourished, severely dehydrated, aching to the point where every step felt like it would be their last – if something went wrong, they had no way of getting out.

Jorge stared at them, thoroughly unamused. "Well don't all answer at once."

How much could they get away with telling him?

How can I profit – she knew this type of man, knew that he wouldn't give a damn about their sob story if it came down to it. Knew that if he knew he would be rewarded, he would hand them back over to WICKED without a second's hesitation. They were cargo, on the run and being hunted, and that instantly made Jorge a threat.

"We're headed for the mountains," Thomas said quietly.

Ada's head snapped towards him, eyes wide with warning. Her voice was low with warning as she spoke. "Thomas."

But he didn't listen – of course he didn't listen, she thought bitterly, why would he listen? Here, information was treated more valuable than money, and of course Thomas was an idiot that was just willing to hand over their greatest weapon to a stranger.

"We're looking for the Right Arm."

A low murmur of laughter broke out across the room, low and humourless, dark and echoing.

Ada's right hand clenched into a fist at her side. "One of these days, Greenie, you're actually going to listen to me."

Jorge smiled and bowed his head, swirling the water around the glass. "You're looking for ghosts, you mean."

Well, Ada thought, that is not a good sign.

"Question number two." Jorge raised the glass to his lips and drained it in one. He stepped forward again, eyes fixed on Thomas. "Where did you come from."

Dull panic grew in Ada's chest, and this time Thomas did look at her. She shook her head slowly, the movement small and barely noticeable, stare fixed right on him, and watched as Thomas's eyes grew steely with understanding.

"That's our business."

His words were met with a ringing silence, and Ada barely had a second to breathe before hands clamped down on her arms, tugging her away from the group. She cried out in panic, kicking back at the legs of whoever was holding her, and the gladers rushed forward, yelling.

But it was the girl on the couch whose voice cut through the loudest. "Not her."

The hands gripping her shoved her forwards, and she crashed into Frypan and Aris, who steadied her with shaking hands. All she could do was gape at them, confused, as Thomas was grabbed and forced forward instead.

"Hey!" Thomas yelled, struggling furiously. "Get the hell off me!"

The short-haired girl lunged from the sofa and grabbed a strange looking device that had Ada's eyes widening as the two burly men forced Thomas to his knees in front of Jorge. Newt and Minho hovered anxiously in front of her, as if wanting to intervene, but there were so many people around she wasn't sure exactly what they could do.

"Get the hell off me, man!"

The girl grabbed him by the hair and forced his head low so that the back of his neck was exposed to her. She pressed the device against it, and a horrible whirring sound filled the air that for one sickening second reminded Ada of the click-whirr that often haunted her dreams.

The girl rolled her eyes. "Shut up, you big baby."

Ada wanted to make a comment about how that girl was definitely flirting with Thomas, but supposed that then wasn't the best time.

A dull red glow emitted from the device, and it didn't seem to be hurting him, but Ada still moved forward anxiously. "What is that?"

A horrible, loaded silence settled over the air when the girl pulled back, and the look on her face as she stared down at the screen on the device had Ada's heart dropping into her stomach. She kept her eyes fixed on her even as the men released Thomas and he scrambled back to their side, his eyes wide. Ada knew before anyone spoke.

They knew.

"You were right."

Jorge quickly shoved a pair of dark-rimmed glasses onto his face as he took the device from her, squinting down at it. A slow, satisfied smile worked its way across his face.

Fuck.

"Right about what?" Thomas asked nervously. "What is she talking about?"

"I'm sorry, hermano." Jorge removed his glasses and shook his head. "Looks like you're tagged. You came from WICKED, which means you're very... valuable."

—

The blood was rushing to Ada's head at an alarming rate.

Black dots burst in her vision, causing what little she could see through the darkness to spin unpleasantly. She was almost certain that if she wasn't on the verge of starvation, the contents of her stomach would have made a reappearance long ago.

Most of her vision was blocked by her hair – it clung to her warm cheeks, copper curls crusted with sand constantly getting into her mouth. She spluttered against it, reaching to try to force it out of her eyes.

She had been in a fair few uncomfortable situations before, but being suspended upside down over a cavernous pit easily took the cake.

"Good plan, Thomas," Minho said from somewhere behind her, his voice slightly strained. "Just hear what the man has to say, really working out for us."

Thomas groaned. "Shut up, Minho."

Ada huffed, giving up on her hair and simply letting it obscure her vision, focussing instead on how much the rope tied around her ankles was digging into her flesh. "I gotta say," she said bitterly, her voice echoing harshly, "this is a new low even for us."

She couldn't see what was below her, nor did she wish to – the gaping hole over which they were suspended was completely pitch black, but she could hear the distant sound of something shuffling far below her, and had a sickening suspicion of what lurked at the bottom.

An image of the box hole forced its way into her mind, of Archie's grinning face and man bun, of his leg-less torso spilling blood onto the grass. Her stomach turned unpleasantly.

She glanced up quickly and shoved her hair aside to try and view the others – she was right in the middle, and she could just make out Newt in front of her. She tried, she really did, not to pay attention to the way his dirtied shirt had fallen around his neck, exposing tanned skin and lean muscle, but she was only human, and found herself being increasingly distracted.

He had been unnervingly silent, and one look at his gritted teeth and pale skin told her that being suspended by his bad leg like that was nothing short of agonising for him.

She wanted to throttle Jorge and his little pet.

"Maybe I can reach the rope," Thomas grunted, straining to curl his body upwards.

"Yes, Thomas, try and untie yourself," Ada said blithely, rolling her eyes. "I'd love to see what happens when you manage it and fall headfirst into the pit we're dangling over."

"Oh... right."

"Not the brightest bulb, are you, Greenie?"

"Shut up, Minho."

"Enjoying the view?" An amused and lightly accented voice came from somewhere off to the side, and Ada had to bite back the retort that yes, she was actually – she doubted Newt's torso was the view that Jorge was discussing.

"Oh yeah," she said instead, her voice sounding foreign to her own ears – she was starting to get dizzy. "Yeah, real picturesque. Love what you've done with the place."

Jorge moved slowly out of the shadows, and Ada wondered briefly how long he had been watching them. His gait was unbothered, completely relaxed, and he idly swung what looked like Aris's metal bat at his side.

Aris swore when he spotted it – she had never heard him so much as utter a curse before. It was unnerving.

"What the hell do you want?" Thomas snapped.

Jorge chuckled. "That is the question. You know, my men want to sell you back to WICKED."

Ada's heart gave a panicked lurch at the thought.

"Life has taught them to think small," he continued, pacing up and down beside the edge of the chasm. He looked incredibly strange, upside down, and his movements made her horrendously nauseous. "I'm not like that. Something tells me you're not either."

"Is the blood rushing to my head or is this shank not making any sense?" Minho asked.

Jorge ignored him and drew to a stop in front of Ada, staring at her curiously. "Tell me what you know about the right arm."

"Yeah sure," she said, "why don't you let us down and we'll have a nice little chat about it."

Newt, whose face had gone incredibly red, cocked his head. His messy blonde hair was sticking up wildly. "I thought you said they were ghosts."

"I happen to believe in ghosts." Jorge shrugged.

Perfect, so he likes to dangle people over pits and he's a nutter. Captor of the year.

"Especially when I hear them chattering on the airwaves."

"The radio," Ada said suddenly. "That's what you were doing. You're looking for them too."

Jorge pointed the bat at her. "Smart girl." He slowed to a stop as he reached what looked like a large lever, and Ada's unease grew. "You tell me what you know, and maybe we can make a deal."

Thomas inhaled sharply, his eyes also on the lever. "We – we don't know much."

Jorge shook his head. He pulled the lever before Ada could so much as blink, and she shrieked in fright as they dropped a few inches.

Gravity dragged them down, and her stomach gave a violent jolt as they lurched to a stop. The ropes dug in harshly against her ankles as her legs snapped tight, and she knew if she was in pain then Newt must have been in roaring agony. She could hear his heavy breathing echoing in the cavernous space.

"Okay!" Thomas yelled. "Okay, okay! Alright! They're hiding in the mountains. Alright? They attacked WICKED, and they got out a bunch of kids, that's it. That's all we know."

Ada was certain that it wouldn't be enough. That he'd pull that lever and drop them down, that they'd fall and their bodies would break on unforgiving stone, that they'd be feasted on by monsters that were once human and now something worse.

But Jorge stared at them blankly, no emotion on his face whatsoever, and withdrew his hand from the lever.

He stepped forward and opened his mouth to speak, something in his eyes intense, but another voice cut through the air.

"Yo, Jorge."

Berkeley moved through the doorway, and Ada felt an involuntary shudder rip through her.

"What's going on?" he asked.

Jorge shook his head. "Me and my new friends were just getting acquainted. We're done now."

"Hey wait, what – you're not gonna help us?" Thomas asked incredulously.

Ada watched as Berkely shot a strange look at Jorge, a look filled with what could only be distrust, and suddenly things became a little clearer. She had been under the impression that the people in this warehouse, whatever it was, were all part of the same group. The same gang. Like she and the gladers. But she saw now that although Jorge may have been the leader, there was far less respect from the others than she had anticipated.

She was reminded suddenly of Stephen, of how he fell in line when he had to but plotted on the sidelines, how when it came down to it he tried to kill her to get her out of the way. She didn't trust that Berkley wouldn't do the same, and judging by the look on Jorge's face he had come to the same conclusion long ago.

"Don't worry, hermano." Jorge said idly to Thomas. "We'll get you back to where you belong."

Clever bastard, Ada thought, begrudgingly impressed.

Jorge shot them a wicked grin over his shoulder as he left the room, swinging Aris's bat at his side. "Hang tight!"

Ada was no longer impressed.

He left them alone, and through her upside-down haze Ada could just make out the hazy figure of Berkley staring right at them. That sense of unease worsened the longer his eyes stayed fixed on them, and she suddenly became hyper aware of the fact that only half of her shirt was tucked in, and she could feel the cold breeze of the warehouse on exposed skin.

"You're lucky he saw you first," Berkeley said after a second, his voice gruff and greedy as it echoed in the cavernous space. "Me and my friends, we wouldn't have been so nice."

Part of her wanted to comment that being strung upside down over a pit of cranks was hardly considered nice, but she was terrified to speak, to draw his attention to her. He reminded her harshly of Dave, but something told her that Berkely wouldn't be stopped by one word from leadership if it came down to it.

She desperately wished Alby was there.

"Don' worry, though." Berkeley continued. "He ain't gonna be around for much longer. Then we can have some real fun." His eyes darted to Teresa, and then to Ada, and she was sure that if she wasn't bordering starvation that she would have thrown up.

He left without another word, chuckling to himself under his breath, and then they were left alone with only the shadows to keep them company.

"Okay we need to get out of here," Teresa said instantly, looking as unnerved as Ada felt.

"Agreed."

"Dodgy bastards," Minho muttered, and when she turned her head she could see him violently wiggling in place. "Fuck, these ropes are tight."

"That's a good thing, Minho." Ada rolled her eyes. "I would once again like to bring attention to the fact that we are dangling over a pit of cranks."

"Speak for yourself," Aris huffed. "I can't feel my feet."

Newt simply grunted.

"We need to get to that lever," Thomas said, jerking his head towards where Jorge had been standing. "We gotta get one person over there."

"And then what?" Newt asked. "They can send us plummeting to our deaths? Do it, I'm dizzy, put me out of my misery."

"If we get someone over there they can untie themselves and then reel everyone else in."

Ada sighed. "That's gonna take forever. Alright, we gotta start swinging."

Minho looked at her incredulously. "I beg your pardon?"

"Start swinging, we can bump into each other and push someone towards the edge."

"And if the ropes snap?" Frypan asked incredulously.

"Well then you'll have bigger things to worry about than a headache, won't you?"

"Teresa's closest," Thomas said. "We'll try and swing her towards it."

There was a general chorus of swearing and then reluctant movement from everywhere around her. Ada huffed, and started trying to swing herself back and forth – it was considerably harder than she had anticipated it being. Using every ounce of core strength she had developed through her years running the maze, she managed to lift herself just enough to allow gravity to do the rest.

"What the fuck are we doin'?" Newt grunted, but eventually they managed to get enough momentum to shove Teresa towards the lever.

She missed.

"Fuck, fuck, try again, try again."

Ada swung herself far enough to shove Minho towards Thomas, who clutched onto his outstretched hand. She watched, baffled, as they formed a sort of human chain so that Thomas could grab Teresa by the waist, ready to push her forwards.

"Okay," he panted, "okay, ready?"

"Three, two-"

"Shit!"

She missed again.

"Fuck!" Ada hissed, lifting her hands to cover her face. Her skin felt very warm, and she didn't need a mirror to know that she was likely bright red.

"Come on, damnit, push her harder!" Newt exclaimed.

Thomas scoffed. "You do it!"

There was a distant, echoing crash from a neighbouring room.

Ada dropped her hands from her face, her head snapping to stare in that direction. "What the–"

"Go," Aris hissed, his eyes impossibly wide. "Come on, hurry!"

They manoeuvred themselves back into position again, and Ada gave a harsh shove to Minho's back. They spun, and she turned back to the door to make sure that no one came in as Thomas once again shoved Teresa forwards.

"Yes!"

"Thank fuck," Ada sighed, allowing herself a moment of relief. Teresa was clinging to the railing that surrounded one quarter of the pit, behind which sat the lever, twisting her body in a way that had to have been massively uncomfortable.

"Teresa, hurry!"

She grabbed the lever and pulled.

Ada shrieked as she dropped a few feet, hissing out through her teeth at the snap of her legs as the rope grew taught. "Jesus, Teresa!"

But Teresa had pulled herself to the ledge, and was safely unwrapping the ropes from around her legs. "Okay, okay, hang on."

There was a large hook propped up against one of the steel poles supporting the roof, its curved end resembling that of a shepherd's crook. She grabbed it and reached out with shaking hands to extend it to Thomas, reeling him in towards the edge.

There was another bang, closer this time, and Ada's hands began to shake. Something was wrong. That feeling in her stomach was back, that all-encompassing dread getting worse and worse until she was practically choking on it.

"Faster, Teresa!" She said urgently, ignoring the eye roll she got in response in favour of craning her neck in the general direction of the doorway to try to figure out what the hell was happening out there. Whatever it was, she knew, meant trouble for them.

Minho was next, then Frypan, then Newt. Ada caught the hook extended to her with an eager hand, dizzy beyond belief from the blood pooling in her head, and tried to resist the urge to throw up as the world moved in a frantic haze as she was brought to the edge. Newt and Minho reached across to untie her, and then she was thudding to the ground in a painful, graceless heap.

"You okay, love?" Next asked, extending a hand to help her up.

"Ow."

"Okay, get Aris, get Aris," Minho said quietly.

Ada was rubbing bitterly at her ankles when the voice came.

"Good evening!"

It bounced off the ceilings, echoed along the walls, chilling her to the core, and she recognised it immediately. Her heart gave a violent jolt in her chest as she stood upright, staring horrified into nothingness, as if Janson would materialise out of the shadows like a spectre come to claim them at last.

"This is the World In Catastrophe Killzone Experiment Department. We have your compound completely surrounded."

"How did they find us?" Newt asked, no longer bothering to keep quiet, his face white as a sheet.

"They must have ratted us out," Thomas snapped.

Ada ran a hand through her hair and immediately wished she hadn't – she longed for the shower back at the facilities and, for a moment, going back there didn't seem so bad. She wanted to be back in that bed with Newt, back in that bubble where they knew nothing but soft sheets and safety and each other – but it was an illusion.

And she'd be damned if those bastards stuck one more needle in her.

"I thought Jorge was going to help us!" Aris said, shaking the last of the ropes from his body.

"You find yourselves," Janson continued, "through no fault of your own, in possession of WICKED property."

"Oh, that dick," Ada seethed. She didn't care who it was that had ratted them out, she cared only that their plan failed. "We gotta go. We gotta run. Find a back door, an exit, get into the mountains. It'll be easier to lose them."

Minho nodded. "I'm game for anything that doesn't involve more sand."

"Return them to us unharmed, and we'll consider this a simple misunderstanding. Or you can resist, and every last one of you will die."

Ada rolled her eyes. "He's as charming as ever, I see."

"How are we gonna get out of here?" Thomas asked. "This place'll be crawling with people and now every single one of them are gonna want to hand us over to him."

Newt threw his head back and groaned in annoyance. "One night," he muttered, "I just want one night."

"It won't be long before the Flare wipes out the rest of us," Janson's voice was thick with fake sympathy, like that of a corrupt king willingly sending his soldiers to die. "The hope of a cure lies in your hands. The choice is yours."

"On that note..." Minho nudged Ada forward, leading the charge to where the door lay waiting in the darkness, and the others followed blindly.

Every limb felt weighed down with panic, and bile burned in her throat at how close it had come. Winston had died for this. His body lay rotting in the desert, a bullet lodged in his skull. Alby had sacrificed himself to get them to this point. She would be damned if it were all for nothing.

They had barely taken three steps before a hulking figure materialised before them. Shoulders bunched, leering face fixed directly on her, Berkeley blocked the doorway with a sickening grin.

The sound of the safety being clicked off a gun echoed far too loudly in the air.

"Woah, hey-" Thomas raised his hands in surrender, the gladers coming to an abrupt halt. "We aren't trying to cause any trouble, okay? We just gotta get out of here."

Ada already knew it was a lost cause. There was nothing on that man's face that resembled even a hint of mercy.

"Is that so?" He asked, and the low light glinted off the barrel of the gun as he raised it in their direction. "Nah... Nah, you ain't going nowhere. You're valuable, is what you are."

He reached into his pocket and withdrew a battered walkie-talkie – where he had gotten it from Ada had no idea, but she had a sickening suspicion of who was on the other side. She wanted to stop him from speaking into it, stop him from selling them out, but with the gun pointed at her there was absolutely nothing she could do without getting one or more of them killed.

She felt absolutely helpless, and she despised it.

"Janson, I got 'em for ya," Berkeley spoke around that horrifically wide grin, "I'm bringing 'em down. Don't shoot us."

If you have to ask your ally not to shoot you, Ada thought bitterly, that's probably a sign that you shouldn't be working together.

Berkeley lowered the walkie talkie and jerked his chin towards the door. "Come on, then. Time to go." His eyes fell on Ada again. "You first, pretty."

She would rather take the bullet.

When she didn't move, Berkeley took a threatening step in her direction. Newt's fingers reached forward to curl tightly around her wrist from behind, and she could feel the tense set of his body just behind hers. She used it to ground her, to force away the overwhelming panic threatening to consume her.

Instead, she set her jaw and stared up at him.

Thomas was fidgeting beside her, a ball of restless energy waiting to be put to use, and it was in times like this that she was grateful for just how well she knew her gladers. How close she and her friends were. She could read every single one of them like the back of her hand, and she knew what Thomas was going to do before he even had the thought himself.

The second Berkely raised the gun so that it stopped a few inches away from her face, Thomas sprung into action. It was stupid, and reckless, and quite frankly she considered it a miracle that he didn't get someone killed, but he reached for the gun and used his forearm to shove it into the air right as the blast went off.

Ada ducked, hands clamped tight over her ears, but the bang was still so deafening that her eyes watered with the sharp echo of it.

Minho staggered back, dragging her with him, and she watched in horror as Thomas wrestled with Berkely for the gun.

Right as she thought he had it, right as that tentative bloom of hope began to grow in her chest, Berkeley staggered backwards, the gun clutched firmly in his hand. Rage was written on every inch of his face, twisting his foul features into something dark.

His narrow eyes were fixed on Thomas. "You little bastard." He raised the gun and took a thundering step forward.

Ada scrambled towards Thomas, aware of Newt and Minho on either side of her, aware of the pounding of her heart against her ribs, aware that every single second counted for everything as they reached to drag him back towards them, as if that would stop the path of a bullet, as if their touch on his shoulders could keep them with him.

The gunshot cracked through the air like a whip.