FIFTEEN
「the devil's
revenge」
＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚

ROCKS AND ROOTS. That was what Sylvia felt beneath her when she'd regained consciousness. Her head felt as if she had been stabbed right through the skull, an incessant and painful throbbing accompanying her. She felt herself being dragged along the ragged ground of what she assumed was the Deadheads. She had yet to open her eyes. She felt the stinging pain of sharp rocks digging into her back as she was dragged along, being pulled by her arms.

Sylvia cracked one eye open slowly, the darkness around her blurring and then focusing. She could tell she was beneath a canopy of trees, which meant she was still in the Deadheads. The last thing she remembered was looking out the window of the Map Room, searching for something, and then a splitting pain in her skull.

She swallowed the noises of pain and discomfort she was itching to let out. Sylvia felt warmth trickle down the side of her head, a few drops warming the cool skin of her neck and ear lobe. She was drowsy, but she couldn't let herself slip away. She needed to get out of this situation.

Distant chatter floated about as she regained strength throughout her body. She cracked her eyes only slightly so that she was aware of her surroundings and wouldn't give away that she was awake. They stopped suddenly and she was fully dropped back onto the ground. She felt her hands being bound by a rough material, rope most likely. She was still too weak to move.

She heard boys' voices conversing, possibly arguing. Then she heard muffled groans beside her and she peeked her eyes open. She was on the ground, face pressed against the dirt, with Minho directly across from her. His expression was pinched in pain and then he opened his eyes, furrowing his dark brows at her. He also had a gash on the side of his head.

Mustering all the strength he could, he pushed himself up. He was able to position himself in a kneeling position, resting back on his calves. He moved to stand and a hand pushed him down roughly.

"Stay right where you are, pretty boy." A voice growled.

Sylvia was then forcefully pulled up into a kneeling position, same as Minho. She grunted at the sudden movement, lips twitching into a scowl. She looked up at the culprit and found Wyck staring back at her. One of the newer Runners she'd trained along with the boy Devon.

Small whimpers sounded to her other side and she quickly turned her head to find Quinn in her same situation. A flash of pain seared through her temple at the movement. There were four boys faintly illuminated before them. Wyck, Kaylus, Diego—a Slopper—and Roger, who was undoubtedly the head of this little show.

"What the hell is this?" Minho scowled weakly.

"This," Roger began, brandishing a machete menacingly, "Is an effort to show the Council that we're serious, since you all refuse to listen."

Sylvia closed her eyes briefly, begging any thoughts to come to her. How are we going to get out of this? What can I do? What can I do? What can I do?

"You all think you can do whatever you want and leave the rest of the work to us? You think we're inferior to you." He kept on. His voice was like nails on a chalkboard. Sylvia felt a strong feeling of resentment crawling up her spine.

Her hands were bound with rope behind her, her mind foggy. It felt as if she were trying to reach for her thoughts, all of them floating away into different directions, her fingers only just skimming them before they were too far. She pulled the details together in her mind: stolen weapons from the Slicers, Roger's disappearance, the secret Council meeting.

"You Keepers think you're all so high and mighty," Roger continued, walking back and forth in front of them, sometimes stopping and looking each one of them in the eye, "Think the rest of us are below you."

"That's not true," Quinn said quietly. He was shaking.

"Shut up!" Roger shouted, stomping over and pointing the machete at Quinn's face. The boy recoiled, features overflowing with fear. Sylvia tensed as Roger held the weapon up for a few more seconds before moving back slowly, "I don't want to hear any one of you speak!" He growled, waving the weapon back and forth at them, "Or I swear I'll cut your tongues out."

Not one of them spoke. Then she felt a cool metal brush against her skin on her forearm—she remembered grabbing knives before they were attacked, placing one in her boot and one up her sleeve, attached to the small leather holster she'd made. As discreetly as she could, she inched her fingers of her opposite hand up her sleeve.

Sylvia's fingertips met the handle of the small knife. Minho glanced at her and noticed what she was doing. She felt his eyes on her but she didn't turn to look at him. She fumbled with it silently, trying to get a grip on it as Roger continued with his speech.

"You all need to be knocked off your high horses, and I'm going to be the one to do it. Once I'm done here, Nick won't hesitate to make changes."

"What do you want?" Sylvia spat, taking a risk, challenging him.

He cocked his head at her, "What do I want? I want the Council to understand how fucking arrogant they are! I want you all to understand what it's like to be treated like dirt!"

She tried her best to keep him occupied with words. Her eyes followed his movement and her voice was indignant as she spoke, "If you didn't act like such a bottom-feeder, then maybe you wouldn't be treated like one."

His expression turned ugly and he held the end of the machete to her cheek, the blade cool against her warm skin. Her heart thudded wildly against her ribcage. His face reddened as he shouted, "Shut your mouth, you bitch! You have no idea what I could do! No idea!" He pulled the machete away swiftly and she hissed as the blade cut against her skin. She felt warmth form in drops and trickle down her face.

Neither Minho nor Quinn spoke aloud, but their reactions told more than words could say. Minho's glare darkened further and Quinn's hands clenched into fists behind his back. The air felt tight with tension. Sylvia couldn't deny the fact that she was almost shaking with fear. Nothing like this had ever happened before, not even during the dark days in the early weeks of the Glade. She was scared, but she couldn't let it show.

"The order here is out of line! Something needs to be done about it and if you people won't listen when I try to tell you, I'll make you listen."

Sylvia finally found purchase on the blade and slid it down so that it was between the rope and her hand. She subtly made slow movements with it to fray the edges of the rope and began to cut through it.

Roger seemed to contemplate something in front of them, his eyes scrutinizing each of them, even the ones helping him. Sylvia's blood stained the edge of the machete in his hands. He spoke, his voice dark, "I know what I'll do. I'll leave one of you alive to tell the Council what happened here. You'll tell Nick if he doesn't change his ways, more of you will die..." He trailed off, his eyes glazed over. Roger looked so eerie in the dim lighting, machete in hand and eyes wild, confessing his vile plans to them. Sylvia shivered.

She risked a glance at Minho and saw that he had started to do the same thing, finding the knife he'd hidden on him and beginning to cut through his ropes. She felt the rope dig into the skin of her wrists as she slowly made progress, the binds beginning to loosen as the rope started to give way.

She glanced at Quinn next, and saw that his head was bowed to conceal his fear. Sylvia could see the jerky movements he was making from shaking so hard. Tears glistened on his tanned cheeks. He didn't have a weapon on him. Sylvia was formulating what she'd have to do in her mind.

It was this: incapacitate the two boys nearest to Quinn, while Minho took out the other two. Then, they would tie the boys up, drag them out of the Deadheads, and throw them in the Slammer. It sounded easier said than done, but Sylvia knew that her and Minho were strong enough for this. They could protect Quinn. She just had to distract Roger from Quinn's meager form. Sylvia would just have to hope Minho would catch onto what she was doing when she moved to attack.

"Now, I'll let you have your last words," Roger smiled evilly, "Let's see if you can say anything that might redeem yourselves."

Is this how I die? She wondered to herself. In the middle of the night, under the canopy of the Deadheads, surrounded by people who hated her? What was the last thing she said to Nick? What was the last conversation she'd had with Cole? When was the last time she'd talked to Oscar? When did she last see Newt? These million things ran through her mind. She thought, maybe I want to die.

But no, she didn't. Sylvia didn't want to die. It was just hard to live with yourself when you had so many conflicting battlegrounds within you. She wanted to talk to Nick, to Cole, to everyone once again. She wanted to feel Nick's hugs, admire Cole and his art, hear Oscar's laugh, see Newt's smile. She wanted to cut Troye's hair like she'd promised, to give Gally a reason to argue, to loathe the sight of Minho for another day. She didn't want to leave like this, without having solved the Maze, without having gotten everyone out. She would get out of this.

Minho and Sylvia glowered at Roger and the others surrounding him. Quinn hung his head low, staring at the ground. Roger walked towards them, pointing at Minho as if to indicate for him to go first. Minho only gave him the sharpest look he could manage, sharper than the edge of a blade. Roger nodded, as if taking Minho's reaction into account, and then pointed to Sylvia. She spat at his feet, then glared up at him through her brows. Roger seemed to take that into account as well. Finally, he got to Quinn. The curly haired boy kept his gaze on the ground beneath him.

Roger walked back to the middle of them, directly across from Sylvia, and let his back face them, "I see how it is."

"You want last words?" Sylvia sneered, coming to the last few stubborn strands on the ropes. She needed more time. She had to keep him busy. "You're a sick, vile, bastard! You're a coward!"

"Sylvia, shut up!" Minho hissed.

"You wanna kill me?" She shouted, blood pumping loudly in her ears, "Come and do it!"

Roger spun and walked towards her in a flash, "Shut up!" He stood in front of her now, machete pointed at her face again, only a couple inches away from making contact with her skin. "I told you to shut up!"

"You wanna know something?" Sylvia jeered.

"Sylvia, shut up before you get yourself killed!" Minho had started thrashing slightly in his spot and two of the boys moved to hold him in place.

Sylvia knew this was bad, that she shouldn't be doing this, but she couldn't stop herself. She had to take Roger's attention away from Quinn. She had to buy time for the ropes to drop from her and Minho's wrists. This anger inside her leaked from the cracks in her exterior, spitting words she knew that, deep down, would only make everything worse. Why was she like this? She didn't have an answer.

Sylvia ignored Minho, directing her comment to Roger. "Your parents probably did this to you on purpose. Didn't want you anymore and threw you in here to be experimented on, like an animal." Roger's expression churned with anger and madness. She laughed coldly, "I mean, who would want a fuck up like you?" She felt the final few strands of the rope around her wrists break and tightened her hold on the knife. He lifted the machete up, ready to swing at her. In a flash of movement, she stabbed Roger in the thigh. He yelled in pain and swung down with the machete and Sylvia quickly rolled out of the way.

She got to her feet as fast as possible and advanced towards the boy. Before she could reach him, one of the other boys whacked her right on the side of the head with a wooden spear. She collapsed on the ground, vision fading and ears ringing. She thought she heard more shouting but it sounded distant. Everything was so far away. Her vision split and merged, distorting madly. Through the ringing in her ears, she faintly heard grunts and punches and yells. No, no, no, no. I fucked up. I need to get up. I need to help them. The world spun above her and the ringing around her was eternal. She tried moving onto her side and found pain rushing from her head to the rest of her body.

Heat pulsed through her left ear, her mind scattered on the ground below. It felt as if someone had poured hot liquid on her left ear, skin tingling and head throbbing. Sound had started to register again, if only faintly, and she heard screams from Minho, "No! Get off of me! Get away from her!"

She heard Roger shout, "I've had enough of this!" and then she felt a kick to her ribs. Pain exploded across her side and she wasn't sure if she screamed or yelped or made any sound at all. He kicked again and the ringing got louder. Her vision went white, then black, then blurry again. Her ribs were on fire.

Sylvia gasped for air, her lungs never getting enough. She felt as if cotton had stuffed her throat and only miniscule pockets of air could make it through. Her left ear felt like it was on fire. She forced herself to open her eyes.

"It ends now!" Roger bellowed. He stood in front of Quinn who looked five years younger with the amount of fear on his face. Before she could even comprehend what was happening, what was about to happen, Roger swung the machete down on Quinn.

Blood was everywhere. On her face, her hands, the ground, pouring out of Quinn's throat. She could hear the terrible sounds of his cries and him choking on his own blood out of her right ear. She felt utterly helpless. She wanted to scream and punch and stab and kick and do something.

Get up, Sylvia!

She forced her arms and legs to lift her off the ground. The ground tilted and tears blurred her vision. Minho shouted and she heard him punch someone. She stumbled and ended up back on the ground, hands and knees digging into the earth. She let the fury inside her fuel her, she finally stood and found Minho grappling with Roger. She didn't know where the other boys had gone. Kaylus was unconscious on the ground.

She found the spear she had been hit with and picked it up, moving jerkily. She staggered over towards the fighting boys. Roger had gained ground over Minho, straddling him and throwing repeated punches at the boy.

Sylvia let out a wild scream as she used all the strength she could muster to hit Roger across the head with the butt end of the spear. The force of it sent both Roger and Sylvia to the ground. She scrambled past Minho and towards Roger, straddling his torso and she punched him. She punched him again and again and again.

All she saw was red. Red on his face, red on the ground, red on her hands. Every other noise faded in the background and all she heard was the sickening crunch of bone beneath her knuckles and the ringing in her ears. Her vision was blurry and she couldn't see his mangled face and unconscious state. She kept punching. Her knuckles were wet with blood and she didn't know whose it was.

"Sylvia!" sound made its way to her right ear again and hands wrapped around her torso, dragging her off of Roger.

She thrashed about, kicking her legs and yelled in a cracking voice, "Get off of me!"

Sylvia fought wildly. She broke out of the boy's hold only to be caught by the shoulders again. She was forced to face the culprit. It was Minho. "It's me, Syl, It's me!" Her thrashing calmed. She hadn't realized her face was wet with tears until his hands went up to her face and wiped them away. He gently turned her head so he could see her ear. She couldn't feel anything. She didn't have the strength to care that she hated him or push him away from her, he was quite frankly grounding her to the reality of what had just happened. "Oh, god," he muttered softly.

Sylvia wished she could slap his hands off of her face, yell at him to never touch her again, hurt him like all of the times he had hurt her, but he was there. This wasn't something they had done to each other, but something that had had been done to the both of them. Something that only left the two of them to remember.

The pad of his thumb brushed over her furrowed brow, wiping the blood caught on it. She screwed her eyes shut and opened them again when his thumb rested above her cheekbone. And she realized he was hurt too. A split lip and a wound cracked open on his cheekbone. A bruised, swollen eye and a bloody nose. Numbly, she wiped the blood above his upper lip away.

Her hands gripped his wrists and she cried softly, "Minho."

WHAT WAS LEFT? Emptiness, that's all there was. A deep, cascading, never-ending emptiness inside her, reaching farther than the farthest galaxy from them. Expanding bigger and wider than the largest black hole. Scary and unknowable. Terrible, lonely, emptiness stretching across the vastness that is the plains and mountains and oceans.

Well, that was a lie. There were three things that were left—the emptiness, Sylvia, and Minho. Somehow, she'd have to learn how to share this emptiness with another. With a boy she hated. A boy who she thought was known to her and believed her perception of him was true, and now she's not so sure anymore.

Never before had she shared this loneliness, this emptiness with someone. Maybe Nick had a glimpse here and there, an idea of what lay inside her, but not in the way Minho now knew. Now she couldn't erase what she'd shown this boy in her weakened state. Sylvia shivered at the thought. She did not feel quite like herself. She still felt far away, taken to a place where she could observe the things around her without much thought or feeling.

So the question was: what was left? Nothing and everything. New things and old memories. An unknowable sickness in her gut and familiar dreadful feelings. She was not sure what would happen next, how she and the Glade as a whole would move on from this. She wasn't quite sure of anything anymore.

"Sylvia, I need you to let me help you." Clint said slowly, as if talking to a child.

She swallowed and muttered hoarsely, "Get away from me."

"I need to examine your injuries, and I can't do that if you won't let me touch you." He continued exasperatedly.

"I told you to leave me alone." Her voice was raspy as she spoke.

Clint tried to dab at the wound on her head with a wet rag, but didn't get far before she had jumped out of the chair she was sat on and started throwing things at him, shouting, "Get out! Leave me the hell alone!"

Clint was swatting the objects away, crying out in annoyance and pain. Nick came running into the room, grabbing Sylvia's raw wrists to stop her. She winced and dropped the next item she was about to throw. "Clint," Nick gestured toward the door, "I got this."

Clint didn't say anything before practically bolting out of the room. Nick had yet to drop her wrists and the red rings around them were beginning to burn.

"You're hurting me," she whispered.

Nick immediately let go of her wrists. He took one look at her blood smeared face, permanently watery eyes, and shaking form before gently pulling her into him. His hand held the back of her head endearingly and her hands wrapped around his back so that her fingers were brushing his shoulders. She gripped his shirt in her hands, breathing in his scent deeply and releasing a shaky breath. Nick had never seen her look so utterly broken. The only other time he could think of seeing her like this was after George's death. His voice cracked as he muttered into her hair, "Oh, Syl..."

She felt tears burn her eyes all over again. She wanted to sink into him. She wanted this feeling to disappear. She wanted to forget everything that had happened today. "Nick," she cried.

"Shh..." he ran his fingers over her hair lightly, "It's okay. It's over now."

Why had Roger chosen to kill Quinn? Why not her? Why not the one who had been antagonizing him? It wasn't fair. He didn't deserve it. She did. Roger should've killed her. Not Quinn. Not perceptive, timid, amiable Quinn. Quinn, who wouldn't hurt a fly. Who replaced the flowers in the Homestead's vase once they'd dried out. Who once found her in a rage and never told anyone about the 'unfeeling' girl's shimmering eyes.

Sylvia begged for an answer, why not me?

She couldn't get the tears to stop, even as Nick pulled away and started wiping the dried blood from the wounds on her face, as he placed a bandage over the spot where she'd been hit over the head, as he fondly placed his hand over the place she'd been kicked in the ribs.

She thought about Quinn, about him choking on his own blood as he tried to take in air, as the blood poured from his neck and stained everything it touched, as the life faded from his wide eyes.

She found herself wondering who was taking care of Minho. Was Newt tenderly wrapping gauze around Minho's wrists as Nick was doing for her now? Did Minho break in his best friend's hold and cry into his shoulder as she had done? Was Newt gently rubbing medicine over Minho's cracked and bleeding knuckles just as Nick was for her? Was Newt muttering reassuring words to him and was Minho trying his best to believe them just as she was?

It was an almost comforting thought to know that maybe she wasn't experiencing this alone. Though, if she could have spared Minho from this, she would. It didn't matter that they hated each other, or that he had done her wrong in the past, she wouldn't wish this on anyone. She would take this on alone if she had to.

No, she wasn't alone. She had Nick. She had her ghosts. They surrounded her now, each and every one of the dead Gladers. They looked somber and mournful, but at least she wasn't alone. Nick was organizing the medical supplies he'd used, his back to her. She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned. Quinn stood next to her. She gazed into his milky eyes. He'd placed a hand on her shoulder, the frigidity of his palm sending a shiver down her spine.

"You lived for a reason. I'm glad you're alive."

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

cried so hard writing this chapter. handing out free tissues. im sorry for doing this to u guys. ily quinn 💔