Day Seven Hundred and Thirty Three

They were deep into the bowels of the maze when they slowed to a stop once more. The sun was high above them in the sky now, reaching its peak after hours of running. Ada's legs felt like they were on the brink of collapse when she leant against the wall somewhere deep into section six, hand cupping her bandaged rib protectively.

The others weren't much better. Frypan collapsed dramatically to the ground, hands clutching his sides. "Jesus Christ," he whimpered, "you do this every day? Masochists."

"To be fair," Minho said breathlessly as he wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, "we usually take more breaks. We're just in a tad bit of a hurry."

"I need a nap," Zart groaned.

"You're telling me," Ada scoffed, "I haven't slept in thirty two hours." Her body was quick to remind her of that fact. The aches and pains were so pronounced that she vowed when she returned to the glade, she would collapse straight into her hammock and not move for a week, come hell or high water.

"Good thing we don't have to go any farther then, isn't it?" Thomas asked, pushing away from the wall and nodding his head towards something down the corridor to their left.

Where the walls should have been pressed tight against each other, a forced gap split them in two, held open by something thick and heavy blocking the stone. She knew what it was even without the metallic leg protruding from it, glinting in the sunlight, stretched menacingly towards its prey even in death. She hadn't noticed it the night before, too caught up in the dark and the relief that they had made it, but mottled blood spilled from the opening, red and thick. Clumps of organs intercepted by machinery splattered across the stone floor, barely held together by slimy arteries and blackish veins.

"Suddenly I'm very glad I didn't eat lunch." Ada said, fighting down a gag.

"That's disgusting." Zart simply said.

Ada lifted her gaze, peering into the shadows, just able to make out glossy eyes and dagger-like teeth, still bared into a snarl. She shuddered, taking a step back.

"Hey, there's something in there." Thomas said after a moment, eyes trained on something she couldn't see.

"You mean besides a Griever pancake?" Frypan asked. "You weren't kidding, Ada."

Her eyes scanned the darkness, searching for whatever it was that had Thomas so captivated, when they caught on a small red light blinking in the black. "I see it." She said, cocking her head. "It's blinking."

"It's what?" Winston shrieked.

"Not the Griever, dumbass," she rolled her eyes, "the red light. There, look."

"Oh of course," Winston grumbled, "my mistake."

"Slim it, you." Ada elbowed him. "What do you think it is?"

Minho considered the question for a moment before walking up to the Griever, rolling up his sleeves.

Zart eyed him incredulously. "Woah woah woah, what are you doing?"

Minho ignored him, gritting his teeth as he slowly slid his arm into the chasm, hand vanishing into the dark. Ada's heart leapt up to her throat, pounding away anxiously. She watched intently as he turned his face away from the teeth right next to his head, expression one of utmost disgust as he felt around in the black.

"I feel something," he muttered, biceps flexing as he closed his fist around something unseen. "I think it's-"

A metallic screech split the air as the leg twitched violently, pulling quickly back into the stone. More organs spilled onto the ground, and Ada almost slipped on them as she scrambled backwards, heart in her throat. Minho backed away quickly, falling into Frypan, who let out a startled shriek.

"I thought you said it was dead!"

The animatronic leg jerked once more before falling still. Zart let out a shuddery breath, looking as if he were one breath away from sprinting in the opposite direction. "Was it a reflex?"

"You hope."

"Okay," Thomas muttered, taking a determined step forward. "Okay, c'mon, let's try and pull it out."

"I'm not touching that." Ada said stubbornly, eyeing the slimy entrails and bloodied veins with distaste.

Frypan took a step back to join her. "I'm with her."

"The quicker we do this, the quicker we can get back to the glade." Minho said.

Ada grimaced, rolling up her sleeves. "Thomas, I swear to god, if we don't find anything here I am going to finish what this Griever started, and I am going to murder you." She wrapped her hands around the metal limb, nodding to the others as they did the same. "Okay, one, two, now."

Her feet skidded on the stone, slipping in blood and gore, but after only a few moments there was a horrific crunching noise as the Griever's leg separated from the rest of its body. Strings of tendons and sinew clung stubbornly to the black.

"You good, Fry?" Thomas asked, helping him back to his feet.

"Yeah, thanks, brother."

Ada patted the metal leg triumphantly, licking away the salty sweat that clung to her lips. "I'm gonna hang this on the wall of the Homestead like a trophy."

"I call dibs," Minho grinned, "it's going above my hammock."

"Hey, no fair!"

"Guys," Thomas interrupted, lifting his hand to point at what oddly resembled a large heart, easily the same size as her head. Small wires ran through it where the veins should have been, intercepted by clumps of blood oozing from open aortas. A small red light blinked from inside it. "Look at that."

Minho didn't waste any time in walking towards it, scooping it up in his hand with a grimace. Ada's mouth twisted with disgust as he held it up, peering at the light inside.

"Can you get it out?" Winston asked.

"Yeah," Ada nodded, "I'm not carrying that thing back with me."

With a horrific squelching noise Ada swore she could feel inside her own body, Minho slid his hands through the gaps in the organ and tugged. His fingers closed around something, and as he pulled it out dribbles of slime and blood oozed out onto the stone. Ada lifted a hand to her mouth to clamp down the rising nausea.

Frypan gagged. "You're a braver man than I, Minho."

Minho dropped the heart to the ground, wincing at the sick thud, and held up something long and metal. Ada squinted at it, trying to make sense of what it could be, but she didn't recognise the slime covered cylinder. Torn wires protruded from the end.

"What the hell is that?" Thomas asked, asking what they were all thinking.

Ada walked over to Minho, peering down at the object in his hand. He titled it towards her so she could get a better look. Familiar letters were stamped along the side, along with a small screen with a red seven glaring up at her. "Huh." She said simply. "These are the same letters stamped on our supplies." She gestured at the golden letters spelling out the word W.I.C.K.E.D.

"Okay, that's cool and all," Frypan shook his head, unimpressed, "but can we take this up back at the glade? Because I don't wanna meet this guy's friends."

"He's right," Minho looked down at her. "It's getting pretty late." He tucked the metal cylinder into his runner's satchel, jerking his head back towards the corridor they came from. "C'mon."

The journey back to the glade was spent mostly in silence, broken only by the occasional question or commentary from the others on what a fucked up place the maze was. Ada couldn't disagree. Her thoughts were swimming with this newfound evidence and what it could mean for them. She had spent two years chasing dead ends and praying for a way out, met with failure after failure, dead end after dead end. The thought that things were finally turning around was enough to have her heart skipping in both elation and dread.

By the time they reached the glade once more, Chuck was waiting for them by the doors, biting his dirty nails anxiously. When he spotted them, he waved them over, eyes wide with fear. "Guys, guys! Gally found out you guys left," he said anxiously, "he called a meeting of the keepers."

"He can't do that without us there." Minho frowned.

Chuck shrugged helplessly. "Everyones at the council hall."

"Oh for fucks sake," Ada grumbled, abandoning her plans to collapse into her hammock and sleep the rest of the day away. "Five minutes. Five minutes is all I ask for."

—

Ada shoved open the door to the council hall for the second time that day. She was growing to resent the circular space and the fact that every time she was in it something bad seemed to be happening.

"I don't even know why we're talking about this." Gally was saying, sat on the raised steps with his elbows resting against his knees. "We don't have a choice. If Alby was here, you know he'd agree with me."

"Well he's not," Ada said, catching the group's attention. She didn't miss the way Newt's shoulders relaxed when his eyes landed on her, a relieved albeit momentary smile flickering across his lips. "But I am. What's going on?"

"Nice of you to join us." Gally said sarcastically, getting to his feet.

His tone grated on her nerves. "Watch it," she snapped.

Gally looked away from her, eyes scanning the rest of their small group. "You guys enjoy your little field trip?"

"Yeah," Ada crossed her arms over her chest, "the weather was lovely and the scenery was dynamic as ever. Now will someone kindly tell me why we're gathering here for the second time today?"

"What the hell, Gally?" Minho pushed his way to the front, eyes narrowed. "You think you can call a keeper meeting without us?"

Gally scoffed, his eyes landing on Thomas. "Last time I checked, the greenie wasn't a keeper." He gestured to the door. "Mind waiting outside?"

Minho clamped a hand down on Thomas's shoulder, jaw clenched. "He stays."

Zart leant back against the wall, watching them all with impatient eyes. "What's the point to all this?"

Newt ran a hand over his face, suddenly looking more exhausted than she had ever seen him. His golden hair was rumpled when he lifted his head to stare at them tiredly. "We have two hours until sundown. We have to figure out what to do with Alby."

The blood turned to ice in Ada's veins. "No." Her hands were shaking, so she curled them into fists to hide them. "No, we're not doing that."

"We have to, Ada." Gally said imploringly. He took a step towards her, taking one of her hands in his. His fingers curled around her fist, squeezing it tightly. "I get it, okay? Trust me, I get it. After Nick, and Avin, you think I don't understand how hard this is? I threw my own best friend into the maze because we didn't have a choice. Because we knew it was only a matter of time before he hurt someone else, killed someone else. We all agreed there was no other choice, and as much as I hate to say it, this situation is exactly the same. Alby nearly killed you and Minho, and that was barely an hour after being stung. What do you think he's gonna be like when he wakes up?"

He was right. She knew he was right. But she was shaking her head anyway, refusing to accept that the person she trusted most in this world was nothing more than a monster that needed to be put down.

"You want to banish him." Winston said, shaking his head slowly. It wasn't a question, but an undeniable fact.

"No," Gally protested. He stepped away from Ada, running a hand over his hair wearily. "No one wants to banish anyone, alright? But he's stung, we don't have a choice."

"Yes, we do." Thomas said furiously.

Gally arched an unimpressed eyebrow in his direction. "You say something, newbie?"

"Yes," Thomas nodded defiantly. "We have a choice. We don't have to banish Alby."

"Right," Gally scoffed, "and how's that?"

Thomas reached forward into Minho's backpack, tugging loose their one shred of evidence, of hope. He handed it to Newt, who stared down at it impassively. That crease was back between his eyebrows again.

"We found this," Thomas shot a nasty look at Gally, "on our field trip. It was inside a Griever."

"These are the same letters we get on our supplies," Newt said, mirroring her words from inside the maze. He ran his thumb over the letters, sinking his teeth into his lower lip in thought.

"Exactly." Thomas nodded. "Whoever put us here obviously made the Grievers."

"This isn't exactly new information," Ada felt the need to point out, crossing her arms over her chest. "I mean, we've pretty much known that for years now."

"Yeah," Thomas nodded patiently, brown eyes shining with excitement, "but this is the first real clue, the first anything you've found in over two years, right?"

"He's got a point." Minho nodded.

"Newt," Thomas said imploringly, "Ada, we have to go back out there. Who knows where this might lead us?"

Newt looked over at Ada, taking in the tired slouch of her shoulders and the bags under her eyes. There was a certain dead look on her face that he never wanted to see on her again, and he knew that the stress of it all was getting to her. When she looked over at him, he could see the indecision in her eyes. "It's your call, love." He said eventually. "You're the runner. It's up to you. I'll back your play."

Gally turned to Ada expectantly, scoffing in disbelief when he saw she was actually considering it. "Ada, come on. You see what he's trying to do, right? First he breaks our rules, the rules you and Alby put down, and now he's trying to convince us to abandon them entirely? The rules are the only thing that have ever held us together! The rules were followed when Stephen stabbed you, when he wanted to go into the maze and you didn't let him!"

"This isn't like that." She shook her head.

"If it's any consolation," Thomas said, "I don't plan on being stab-happy with knives anytime soon."

"Ada," Gally continued, "you know damn well I'm right. The rules hold us together, and they have since we built this place from the ground up. Why now are we questioning that? It's like I said, if Alby were here, you know he'd agree with me. This shank," he gestured angrily at Thomas, "needs to be punished."

"Newt," Ada shook her head, pinching the bridge of her nose tiredly. A fierce headache was beginning to pound away behind her eyes, only increasing that sickly feeling. She was in no place to make important decisions right now, and she damn well knew it, not with her body so close to succumbing to pure exhaustion.

Newt knew what she was trying to say immediately, handing Minho the metal cylinder before placing his hand on Ada's shoulder. His palm was warm through her shirt, and she leaned into his touch appreciatively. "You're not wrong, Gally." He said quietly, the tiredness only making his accent more pronounced. "Thomas did break the rules. One night in the pit with no food."

"Oh, come on, Newt!" Gally exclaimed. "One night in the pit? You think that's gonna stop him from going into the maze?"

"No," Newt shook his head. "And we can't just have non-runners running into the maze whenever they feel like it. So let's just make this official." After a quick glance down at Ada to confirm his decision, Newt looked back up at Thomas and nodded. "Starting tomorrow, you're a runner."

A shocked silence descended over the group for a second before Gally let out a huff of disbelief, staring at Newt as if he didn't know who he was. "Wow. And Ada, you agree with this?"

Ada looked up at him, lips turned downward in an apologetic frown. She had known Gally for almost her entire time in the glade, had watched him go from a curious and relatively well natured man to a suspicious and exhausted one, always fighting for his friends survival and seeming to come up short anyway. She knew by the way he was looking at her he was thinking about those years of friendship, the regret they had both shared when they let Nick go into the maze, the quiet talks and speculative moments where they felt they truly understood one another. "It's a good decision, Gally." She said almost regretfully. "He's a runner. That's the final call."

"Unbelievable." Gally looked almost betrayed as he stormed towards the exit, dodging Frypan's attempts to catch his arm. "Nah, Fry." He left the council hall, slamming the door behind him, not looking back once.

"He's more of a drama queen than I ever was." Minho said, but the joke was half hearted.

Ada chuckled tiredly. "I don't know about that."

"Thank you." Thomas said, looking between Newt and Ada with a small smile on his face. "I can appreciate that this is a change, and that you guys don't really do change, but I won't let you down."

Ada looked up at him, remembering George and Nick and Ben and everyone else who had asked to go into the maze with them only to never make it out the other side, and just hoped that she wouldn't be the one letting him down.

The hand that was still resting on Ada's shoulder tentatively moved across her back, tucking her in closer to Newt's side. She rested her forehead on the space where his neck met his shoulder, closing her eyes and humming contently. He pressed his cheek against the top of her head, speaking lowly so the others wouldn't hear. "You okay, Ads?"

"Tired." She said simply.

Minho, who apparently had the ears of a bat, let out a dramatic groan and rubbed at his eyes. "Ugh, same. I could sleep for a week."

"You should go get some rest," Newt turned his head to address the rest of the group, "you three must be knackered. You look dead on your feet."

"Charming, as usual." Minho winked. "But no, for real. You ready to get some quality shut-eye Greenie?"

Thomas grimaced sheepishly, his hands twitching at his sides. "Actually... I'm sorta not tired."

"How?"

"That adrenaline crash is gonna kick your ass tomorrow." Ada snorted. "Rough, since it's up bright and early for the maze."

"I can show you the map room, if you want?" Minho asked, tucking his hands into his runners harness. "It's pretty damn impressive, if I do say so myself."

Newt cleared his throat, looking at Minho with a wrinkled brow. "Are you sure?" He looked down at Ada, and she knew instantly what he was getting at.

The model of the maze was in the map room, and it was complete. If he saw it, Thomas would know immediately that they had finished mapping the labyrinth and that there was no exit to be seen. Then again, she thought, Thomas was the one who had found them their first real clue. He had wormed his way into their inner circle in the three days he'd been there, and she knew somehow that she could trust him.

"It's okay." Ada nodded. Zart, Winston, and Fry had left the council hall when she hadn't been paying attention, leaving just them in the room by themselves. "He deserves to know." She looked up at Newt, hoping he wouldn't disagree. She remembered the months of silence and strained avoidance between them after he had found out what she had been keeping from him, but when she looked into his eyes she didn't see any of that.

Instead, all she saw was trust.

"Alright then." Newt nodded. "Minho, tell him everything."

"C'mon, Greenie." Minho clapped Thomas on the shoulder, steering him towards the door. "I'm gonna introduce you to my pride and joy."

"It's not another monster, is it?" Thomas asked. "Because I think I've had enough of those for now."

The door closed behind them, leaving Newt and Ada alone. His hands lifted to cup her cheeks, thumbs tracing the bruises beneath her eyes. "C'mon, love," he linked his hand with hers, tugging her towards the exit. "Let's go get you some sleep. You've more than earned it."