Day Seven Hundred and Thirty Four 

"Ada," The voice of a woman, hazy and murky, broke through the quiet as she stared out of the window.

The thick glass was clouded with night, but the sky was a clear deep blue showcasing a shimmering smatter of stars. It was clearer out here than it was in the city, with nothing but desolate wasteland and cracked soil stretching as far as the eye could see. The perimeter lights were off, as they often were – too much light attracted the monsters, drew them like a beacon to where they were safely tucked away. She couldn't see them now, not up on the second floor, but she knew they were there, writhing like ants in the black.

Ada turned away from the glass, peering up at the woman. She couldn't see her face, blurred and obscured by shadow, but her hair was like spun gold tucked back into a tight bun. Her white lab coat was stark and pristine.

"You shouldn't be up this late," the woman said. "Go back to bed."

"I couldn't sleep." Ada replied. Her voice was strange to her own ears, younger, innocent almost. "I kept seeing their faces."

"Your parents." The woman said knowingly. "You're safe here, Ada. The cranks can't get to you here."

"I was safe there too." She said, missing the small shoebox of a cottage on the outskirts of the city with a fierceness that burned her chest. "I want to go back."

"It's gone, I'm afraid." The woman stepped forward, coming to stand beside her and turning to face the window. Her heels clicked obscenely on the ground, the sound echoing like sharp gunshots. The angular shape of her nose came into view, as well as bright blue eyes and painted red lips. "There's nothing left outside the facility. Just chaos, destruction, and death."

Ada bowed her head, staring down at her plain shoes. "... If it's all gone," she said quietly, "then why are you trying to save it?"

The woman was quiet for a beat, before she lifted a hand to squeeze Ada's shoulder. "Go back to bed, Ada. You need your rest for what's to come."

Ada's eyes snapped open, and she immediately squinted away from the harsh light of the rising sun. Usually, her hammock was shielded from it by one of the beams holding up the med hut, but this close to the edge there was nothing to protect her face from the harsh glow. She turned her face into her pillow, frowning at the unusual hardness of it. And it was moving.

Her head snapped up, eyes wide.

Newt was still asleep, his face turned towards her, lips parted slightly. A lock of blonde hair spilled onto his forehead, messy and unkempt from sleep, and her fingers itched with the urge to brush it away. She would have, but the hand resting on his chest was held there by his own fingers, cupping hers protectively without realising. The ends of the once red shoelace wrapped around his wrist brushed against her bare skin. His other hand had fallen to her waist, slung over her hip, warming her skin where her tank top had ridden up.

Something warm and giddy swelled in her chest, and she tucked her blushing face back into the front of his shirt to hide her wide smile. There was something so completely right about falling asleep in his arms and waking up the same way, something that made her feel safe and protected, that made her feel loved. Her head rose and fell with the movement of his chest, and she turned her face so that her ear was pressed against his steady heartbeat, letting the sound lull her back into that peaceful state of quiet.

Her hand brushed against something cold and metal, hanging loose on a chain around Newt's neck. She looked up at him briefly, scared to wake him, before lifting the cylinder and squinting at it. It looked like a small capsule, glinting in the morning sun, with two strips of leather securing it around the top and bottom. She ran her hand over the metal, frowning down at it, wondering what its purpose was.

She remembered when she had first seen him wearing it, just over a year in, back when things between them were hostile and every conversation ended in scathing glares and sharp words. He had been fiddling with it at the dinner table, the top coming loose, a thin slip of paper falling out. She could remember the look on his face as he read it, the growing anger and resentment, and remembered how desperately she had wanted to know what could elicit such a reaction out of him.

Her fingers brushed the top of the necklace, pinkie catching on the clasp there.

"It's rude to play with other people's belongings," a deep voice came from above her. Ada dropped the necklace with a squeak of fright, eyes darting up. Newt was looking down at her with a raised eyebrow, head tilted to the side in a way that was almost mocking. His eyes were still heavy with sleep, a lazy smirk toying with his lips.

"It's rude to tug people into hammocks without their permission, but that didn't seem to stop you." Ada said stubbornly.

Newt chuckled, the sound low and throaty, and moved his hand up to rub at his eyes. "You weren't complaining last night."

"I was tired."

"And now?"

"... I'm comfortable." She shrugged. "I don't know if anyone's ever told you this, but you make a good pillow."

"Mhm," Newt nodded, tilting his head back to stretch out his neck, the muscles in his throat straining. "Minho said the same thing to me just last week."

Ada chuckled, lowering her head to his chest again, smiling as he lowered his hand to run it through her hair. She had expected it to be awkward, waking up in his arms, had expected a tense morning followed by an even more uncomfortable afternoon of not knowing what to say to each other. But there was none of that, an easygoing silence settling over them as she burrowed her cheek into his shirt, fingers toying with the buttons.

"You can open it." Ada looked up at him bemusedly, and Newt let out a delighted chuckle. "The necklace, you perv. You can open it. I don't mind."

Ada tamped down her own curiosity just long enough to ask if he was sure, and when she received nothing but a supportive nod she carefully pulled the top off the metal cylinder, catching the paper that fell out into her palm. It was small, yellowed with age and creased in a way that told her that he had folded and unfolded it repetitively over the years. Scrawled on the front in messy writing, oddly familiar, were two words.

Trust Her

"Trust her?" She echoed, a confused frown marring her face as she looked back up at him. "What does that mean?"

"I'm not sure." He shrugged. The movement jostled her, the hand still wrapped around her waist tightening to keep her in place against his body. "I don't know who wrote it, or why I have it, I just know that it came up in the box with me. It wasn't in with any of the other supplies or anything."

"Trust her..." Ada mumbled to herself. Could it mean Teresa? She'd had the vials on her, had the cure that had potentially saved Alby. But this had been in Newt's possession long before Teresa had come up in the box, and the only other her in the glade at that point was Ada herself. "You think this is talking about me?"

"Not sure who else it could mean." Newt shook his head. "I don't know if you remember this, but I was pretty pissed with you back when I first came up."

"Hard not to remember you acting like a total dick."

He pinched her waist, and Ada squirmed against him with a laugh. "I was scared," Newt continued quietly, "and angry. I didn't know who I was, and you were loud and annoying and trying to fix things."

"Being loud and annoying was what I did best."

"That hasn't changed. I found that note just before I collapsed that first time, when I wasn't eating. And it pissed me off, because it was probably the worst thing for me to see right after that argument we had in the maze."

She remembered what had happened as if it were only yesterday, the furious words that were screamed out between them before she could even stop them.

"Stop avoiding the fact that you don't trust me!"

"Stop giving me reasons not to!"

And he had found that note that same night. So that was why he had looked furious.

"Yeah," Newt nodded, seeing the recognition flicker across her face. "Impeccable timing, as always. I didn't want to trust you, not when you so blatantly didn't trust me. But then when I woke up in the med hut, and you were sitting there throwing food at me and yelling, and I realised you hadn't left my side the entire time... I don't know, something just clicked, I guess. I knew even if I didn't trust you with myself I could at least trust you to keep me alive. And it helped, knowing you were there for me like that, even before."

"Before?"

Newt lifted a hand to cup her cheek, pressing a soft kiss against the tip of her nose, and then her forehead. "Before."

"Newt," Ada lifted her face towards him, eyes mapping his soft expression and messy hair, that warm feeling coming back. "I just wanted to say-"

"Rise and shine, lovebirds!" The hammock tipped, sending Newt and Ada sprawling out onto the grass, landing in a heaped pile of bruised limbs. Ada groaned as her rib hit the soil, crunching unpleasantly underneath her. Minho stood above them, a cheeky smile on his face.

"What the hell, Minho?" She fumed, poking her head over the side of the hammock. Newt groaned as he sat up, rubbing his head and squinting up.

"Up and at 'em, sunshines." He grinned, flinging his arms out wide. "It's a brand new day."

Newt climbed to his feet, extending a hand out to help Ada up as well. "Someone needs to chain you to a tree," he grumbled, "or put a tracking device on you."

"What, sad I interrupted a quiet morning with your girlfriend?" Minho smirked.

"She's not my girlfriend."

"I'm not his girlfriend." They said at the same time, and then looked away, cheeks red.

"Then you, my friend," he clapped Newt on the shoulder, "need to grow some balls and ask her out." He clapped his hands together before either of them could do anything more than splutter in protest. "So, ready to go take Thomas into the maze?"

"Uh, I-" Ada cleared her throat, shaking her head in an attempt to get herself together. "Yeah, sure. He still in his little prison cell?"

"All locked away safely in the slammer." He nodded. "Now, say goodbye to your boyfriend so we can get going."

"He's not my-" But Minho had slung an arm around her shoulders and dragged her away before she could finish her sentence, shooting Newt a teasing wink as he did.

—

"I fucking hate this place," Ada panted as they reached the inner ring, passing the large red six spraypainted on the wall.

"What," Minho asked, "tired of the scenery already?"

"Yeah, it's a real vacation spot." Thomas said, almost tripping over a rock. He was wearing Ben's old runners harness and a wide smile, looking around as if he were visiting the most beautiful place on earth and not exploring the inside of a deadly labyrinth.

"Dead Grievers and, even worse, live Grievers to keep you plenty entertained."

"Don't forget the beetle blades," Thomas chimed in, "because who wouldn't want your every move watched by a bunch of potentially evil possible scientists?"

Ada rolled her eyes, not dignifying them with a response. They were awful individually, but put together? Thomas and Minho were a hurricane of bad puns and awful commentary, which would have been amusing if her body wasn't aching in places she didn't even know she could ache. At the least, however, it provided a somewhat amusing reprieve from the repetitive grey on grey.

They turned the corner, reaching the entrance to section seven. She skidded to a halt when she realised it was open, the large walls parted to reveal the blades waiting inside. They stretched high towards the sun, colossal and threatening even from this distance. "Uh, Minho?"

"Huh," Minho slowed to a stop beside her, cocking his head. "That's strange. Seven's not supposed to be open for another week." They crossed through the wide space, sidestepping the blades, enjoying the cool patches of shade they provided.

"What the hell is this place?" Thomas asked, looking around with wide eyes.

"We call them blades." Ada said simply. "Named so affectionately because they're sharp as hell. So," she slapped Thomas' raised hand away, "don't touch them."

It was only when they were halfway down the corridor in the middle that Ada's eyes landed on something heaped on the ground, motionless. Swaths of fabric lay ripped and tattered, dyed crimson with what could only be crusted blood. It looked to be a few days old, and the smell it omitted was horrendous, metallic and sharp as it cut through the air. Splatters of dried blood surrounded it, seeping into the stone. Crumbs from the torn backpack lying three feet to the left were scattered around the scene, and she knew what she was looking at immediately.

"Oh, god." She gagged, lifting a hand to cover her mouth as Minho slowly crouched down, picking the torn fabric up with his forefinger and thumb. His expression was dark, void of any amusement that had previously resided there.

"It's Ben's, isn't it?" Thomas asked quietly, dark eyes unusually serious.

"Yeah." Minho said simply. He dropped the shirt, getting to his feet and quickly backing away. "A Griever must have pulled him down here."

Ada opened her mouth, to say what she wasn't sure, but was interrupted when a faint buzzing whirr split the air. A brief flicker of panic swarmed her, the fear that a Griever had found them almost overwhelming, but this noise was different. Quieter, less ominous, barely more than an annoying hum coming from somewhere in Minho's direction. "What the hell is that?"

Thomas immediately grabbed Minho by the shoulders, spinning him around so he could get to his backpack. "Jesus, Greenie," Minho hissed, "at least take me out to dinner first."

"Shut up," Thomas grumbled, pulling out the metallic cylinder they had found inside the Griever. "The metal thing is making a funny noise."

"Thank you, Einstein." Ada scoffed, snatching the device off him. It was, indeed, making a strange noise, the light on the side of it blinking rapidly. "Is it supposed to do this?"

"How the hell am I supposed to know?" Thomas asked. "Do I look like a scientist?"

"It's getting louder," Minho noted as Ada turned to the side, the volume of the buzzing increasing with her. "Turn back this way for a second." She did, and the device grew quieter.

"Follow it." Thomas suggested, and Ada was quick to toss it over to him.

"Nuh uh, I'm not being responsible for this. You follow it."

"Alright, fine, I'll follow it." Thomas pushed ahead, the device whirring incessantly in his hands. Ada and Minho shared a tense look before following, eyes fixed intently on the cylinder as it led them through the blades, into the outer ring. "I think it's showing us the way."

Minho stepped closer to Ada, lowering his head so he could speak quietly. "How are you feeling about all this?"

Ada shrugged helplessly. "We're following a strange device through a labyrinth. I can't say that's ever happened before."

"You really think this can lead to a way out?"

"I think it's new," Ada looked up at him, "and I think that's a good thing. New means change, and in the maze? Change could mean freedom."

"This way, guys." Thomas said from ahead of them, rounding the corner and disappearing from sight. Ada recognised the hallway immediately, and raised her voice to shout after him.

"Thomas, not that way, it's a dead end!"

"Then how do you explain this hallway?"

"There isn't a-" Ada rounded the corner, stopping immediately. "What the fuck?"

There was usually a wall there. There had been a wall there for two years, stretching high and unmoveable every time they explored this section, never changing, never wavering. But as she stood in front of it, frozen in shock, her eyes scanned the expanse of corridor instead, taking in the colossal space before her.

The corridor narrowed down into a walkway, large enough for five people to walk comfortably in a row, made up of cracked stone undisturbed by ivy and weeds. The walkway cut off abruptly on either side, two gaping chasms framing the path. She couldn't see the bottom, only thick black that roiled with shadows and monsters unseen. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up as she backed away from the edges, making sure to stick to the middle.

There weren't walls, not really, instead towering stone structures made up of various shapes and painted with peeling black lines in some places. They curved upwards into a circular shape, rounding off the room above them. Thick rusted chains hung from them in intervals, vanishing into the ravines.

It didn't look like there was anything on the other side, just a towering wall with a split in the middle was firmly closed.

"Have you guys ever seen this place before?" Thomas asked, slowly moving down the path. Ada followed reluctantly, shaking her head.

"No," Minho said. "No, this is new."

"This shouldn't be here." Ada's voice was thin with barely concealed shock as she gaped up at the walls in disbelief. "This wasn't here before. This has never been here."

"It must have always been sealed off." Minho speculated.

"But why?" Ada asked. "Why would they hide this place from us?" Her voice echoed unpleasantly in the chamber, bouncing every waver and syllable back at her. She looked up at the wall in front of her, having to crane her neck backwards to see the top. It was far taller than any of the other walls, and she wondered how the hell they never noticed it before. W.I.C.K.E.D Loading Bay was painted on the side in white, the paint chipped and faded with age.

"With everything else they've done to us, I'm not exactly surprised."

They reached the very end of the corridor, blanketed in the shadows that the large wall before them provided. There wasn't any ivy, no greenery to be seen, but the cracks and grooves in the stone were worse here than they were in the other areas of the maze. Ada took a step forward, placing a hand on the stone, running it over the smooth surface. It was plain, nothing to suggest that it opened or closed. She tried and failed to fight back the disappointment growing inside her.

The sound of Minho kicking a rock echoed unpleasantly in the air, and Ada watched it tumble over the side of the walkway and into the black below. She never heard it land. "Looks like a dead end." Minho grumbled.

The words had barely left his lips when the device Thomas was holding let out a resounding click, the lights on the side of it flashing luminous green. The sound of metal grinding against metal split the air violently, and Ada quickly retracted her hand from the wall as it began to move. The stone slid upwards slowly, itching towards the ceiling to reveal other walls behind it doing the same, until a square passageway came into view.

"Woah," she took a step backwards, falling in line with Thomas and Minho. As the final wall lifted, she caught sight of what looked like a large vault door slotted into the far end, opening up in a spiral shape to reveal a pitch black hole leading to a place she couldn't see. What looked like crusted slime, deep brown and thick, oozed from the base of the entrance and stuck to the wall. Unease slithered up her spine, lifting the hair on her arms.

Minho looked at Thomas with a raised eyebrow. "You sure about this?"

"... Nope."

"I'm just saying," he looked at Ada, "remember what happened the last time we found a secret passage? I'm not exactly itching for a repeat."

But this wasn't like back then, not like the small passage that was there one day and gone the next. That had felt wrong, like they weren't meant to find it, but this? Something about it felt final in a way that Ada wasn't sure what to make of. The device had led them there for a reason, and she would be damned if she didn't try to find out why that was. "Let's check it out." She said simply, already stepping into the corridor.

Thomas followed, and then Minho, the three of them walking with sure steps until they were directly in front of the circular passage, staring into it curiously. Ada watched in disgust as Minho ran a trembling hand through the slime, wincing at the tackiness of it as it clung to his fingers. She recognised it immediately.

"Grievers," Minho said, confirming her thoughts.

Suddenly standing in front of a pitch black passageway didn't seem like such a good idea.

Before Ada could so much as open her mouth to suggest leaving, a small red light blinked into existence in the black, a strange buzzing sound accompanying it as it slowly grew larger. "A beetle blade?" She asked, but no, it was far larger than the mechanical lizards were, and it wasn't moving.

There was a burst of energy, a gust of stale wind that lifted the hair from her shoulders, and the red light transformed into a beam that moved up and down their bodies before she could so much as blink in surprise. She moved one hand to cover her eyes, blinking against the light, the other blindly reaching out to grab Thomas' arm.

The light was gone as soon as it had appeared.

"What the hell was that?" Minho asked, turning to them as if they had answers.

Ada shrugged, already moving backwards. "I don't know," she muttered, "but I don't think we should wait around to find out. Something doesn't feel right."

A familiar sound burst from inside the passage, a sound that had goosebumps breaking out across her skin. Her eyes locked with Minho, who was already looking at her with barely restrained panic. The siren blared its vengeful tune as they scrambled away from the passage, hands pressed over their ears. Machinery clicked and whirled to life as the floors began to shake, the walls rumbling in a way that Ada knew spelled trouble if they didn't move fast.

"Shit," Thomas looked back at the hole with wide eyes, "we gotta get out of here. We gotta go, now."

"Give me the key," Minho demanded, already breaking into a sprint. "Give me the key, now."

Ada turned back just in time to see the hatch close again, the walls that had risen slamming to the ground with earth-shattering clashes that shook the ground. "Fuck," she cursed, sprinting after Thomas and Minho, heart in her throat. "Why the fuck is this place always trying to kill us?"

"Move, move, move!"

They crossed the walkway at breakneck speed, Ada far too panicked to process the edge that she could very easily plummet off with one wrong move, far too focussed on the stretch of sunlight that shone down on the blades. Stone turned to gravel underfoot, but her relief was short lived as she watched the giant shards of steel close in on themselves, sealing off the exits. "Oh, fuck."

"Run," Minho clamped a hand down on her shoulder, shoving her forward. "Run! We're gonnna get trapped. Damnit, Thomas, move!"

Ada didn't process the fact that Thomas had fallen behind, not as she weaved her way between the blades, clutching her rib protectively. She had bandaged it tightly and iced it just that morning, but the constant movement had slowly transformed the dull ache into a violent stabbing pain that sliced every time she moved. It stole her breath, sweat beading on her forehead and collarbone.

Shadows blocked out the sun, the black closing in. She dodged the patches of dark, clinging stubbornly to the rays of light that fell onto the ground in front of her. She let them guide her, leading her towards the exit, but it was with a heavy moment of dread that she realised just how far away safety was.

"I am so taking a few days off after this." She grumbled to herself, her voice pained and breathy, lost to the wind.

Thomas's cry of alarm was a distant echo behind her, and Ada shot a terrified glance over her shoulder, but he was gone. She could hear his cries of panic from behind the blades, running alongside them. He had about five seconds before he was completely trapped, she knew, but Minho didn't stop so neither did she.

"Now, Thomas!" She heard him yell, right as a figure crashed into the space beside her. Ada steadied him with a panicked hand to the shoulder, shoving him forwards to where the entrance to the inner circle loomed above them. "Keep going!"

Ada skidded around the corner, kicking up sand and gravel as she did, but stumbled to a stop almost immediately. She had never seen the maze when it changed, aside from the wall sliding shut as Thomas crushed the Griever. She had only ever known it from the safety of the glade, where all there was to be heard was the sliding of stone as the walls warped and shifted, the spinning of cogs and the distant crunch of steel. It was so much louder up close, the earth ripping in two with enough force to make her ears pop.

It had split right in front of them, lifting in towering sections either side of her, spilling dust and rubble onto the floor around her. A shuddering gasp of fright forced its way out of her lungs as she watched them rise up and up, stretching all the way up to where the latches on either side of a rusted stretch of wall gave way, and the heap of stone came crashing down towards them.

Minho's hand reached out to snatch hers, pulling her to the side with a frantic yell. Her breath was nothing more than panicked catches in her throat, the urge to look back almost overwhelming as her legs worked overtime, fierce aches creeping up her calves and thighs. The air shifted above her, and she stumbled as the ground shook, the colossal slab of stone smashing into the earth.

The air was thick with black rubble and plumes of debris; it clung to her clothes, streaking in her hair, clogging her lungs as she coughed helplessly. She lifted the hem of her tank top higher, covering her mouth and nose as her eyes watered.

She could hear a riot of noise behind her, a cacophony of crashing and chaos so loud it had her ears ringing. The earth was moving, she could feel it, but she refused to look behind her to see the ground slipping open, threatening to swallow them whole.

"Come on, don't look back!" Minho yelled out, right as Thomas did exactly that. Ada wanted to throttle him.

Another slab of wall tumbled down towards them, blanketing them in shadow. She felt the gust of air as it skimmed her back, propelling her forwards, missing her by a hair's-breadth. They reached the final stretch, the narrow corridor that would officially take them out of section seven and back into the arms of relative safety. But that was closing too, rapidly rising as they approached it, threatening to seal them in.

They wouldn't survive if they got trapped again. Not in section seven, which wouldn't reopen for another week. They had barely made it through one night, seven was surely a death sentence.

Minho got there first, lifting himself up into the gap, Thomas following behind him. They turned, crouched, lowering their arms to lift her up into the small space. Ada had to swallow down the rising nausea as her chest collided harshly with the wall, each movement as she shuffled herself forward on her stomach, making the pain in her ribs violently worsen. She barely had time to gasp for breath, fingers scraping at stone as the wall beneath her lifted, the cold of the roof pressing into her back.

Minho and Thomas thudded to the ground, and she was quick to follow, throwing her hands out to stop her face from smashing into the floor. The rest of her, however, wasn't so lucky, and she collided with the stone in a way that she knew would leave fierce bruises behind. The wall sealed behind them, closing off section seven and cutting off the noise.

Thomas collapsed back down onto the ground, letting out a sigh of relief. "Whew."

The sudden silence was deafening, overwhelming, and Ada pressed her hands against her eyes to quell the rising headache. Now that the noise was gone, and the quiet was restored, she let the fury and confusion wash over her full force. "What the fuck was that?"

"These bastards really want us dead." Minho breathed out, slowly sitting up. "But hey, look at us go. Surviving the maze for the-" He glanced behind him, the easy smile on his face slipping and falling into something confused. "What the hell?"

"What now?" Ada groaned, turning to follow his gaze. Her expression went slack with shock. The maze greeted her, but instead of the twisting and winding hallways she was used to, the corridors were wider, scratches embedded deep into the ground where the walls had shifted. If she hadn't known the maze like the back of her hand, she would have thought they were in a whole new section. But no, there was the seven spray painted on the wall, the corridors she knew like she knew her own name, but different slightly, as if they were warped and wrong.

And there, right down the middle, was a familiar square of lush grass and trees. Figures moved around like frantic ants, gathering at the doors to stare down at them.

"Holy shit." Ada breathed out in awe, slowly getting to her feet. She was vaguely aware of Minho and Thomas doing the same, all of them too shocked to do anything but stare.

Thomas cocked his head to the side, letting out a noise of blatant disbelief. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Yeah, that's the glade." Minho nodded numbly. He reached out to nudge Ada with his elbow, a slow smile stretching across his face. "I think we just solved the maze."