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. 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 30 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 stood 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. "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 the hostile expression on Stephen's face as he was removed from the building, and the disappointed look on Isaac's. 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.