~Sara~

They survived the night.

Everyone went back to sleep like usual after the Grievers left, and Sara stayed with Newt in the Med-jack hut all night.

The Glade was in ruins, and everyone was still frightened by the events of the night before, but no one had died except for Gally.

He was right. All the Grievers left after taking one of them, which was him.

Now, the Builders were trying to reconstruct the Glade—what they could salvage, to prepare for tonight.

The Med-jacks disinfected Newt's injury and gave Sara a clean cloth to press it with. As she waited for Newt to wake up, Jeff also cleaned up the massive scratch on her back.

Newt's eyes opened and they landed on Sara right away, and he gave her a confused look.

"What happened?" he inquired frantically before she explained everything he missed while he was out.

She helped him sit on the bed, and she handed him the piece of cloth, which he readily pressed against the wound on his head, causing him to wince in pain.

"Are you okay?" she asked him quietly.

He smiled softly at her, then nodded. "And I'm glad to hear you're okay. You could've died for staying where you were," he said, his tone a bit harsh. But Sara would never just leave him at the mercy of the Grievers.

She helped him to his feet, and they headed out to look for Minho and the others. Newt would just have to walk around with that piece of cloth in hand, as annoying as it was.

"Wait, what happened to your back?" Newt asked, stopping her by the arm as he took a closer look at the blood seeping through her top.

"Don't worry about it, it's just a scratch," she replied, shrugging it off and pulling him along with her, despite his protests.

The sudden smell of smoke alerted her. They gave each other perplexed looks, then they started walking in the direction where it was most likely coming from. Stopping dead in their tracks, they gazed up at the map room caught up in flames.

❀❀❀

"Guys, I wanted to try and follow the Grievers to confirm if they exit over the Cliff in the Maze," Thomas suggested, determination plastered all over his face.

"Wanna try to get yourself killed?" Newt rebuked. "We've got bigger problems at hand."

"What do you mean?" Thomas asked and Minho rolled his eyes.

"You can still see the smoke," Minho commented, jabbing his thumb toward the scene.

"Someone burned the maps. Every single one of them," Newt added.

But Thomas simply headed in a different direction, like he didn't care about a single word being said. Sara didn't even think he was paying much attention, which she blamed Teresa for. The three shared a look as neither expected such indifferent behavior from the aspiring Runner. 

Newt and Sara returned to the burnt map room and found a whole group of Gladers surrounding what Sara thought was... a body?

Once the Gladers cleared the way for them, Newt crouched first, his leg causing him a little more effort than it should've, so Sara lent her arm for support. Then she took the now-bloody cloth from him as they looked over to see Alby's body sprawled on the floor, on the entrance to the map room.

Sara took a chair from Frypan, who brought it from the kitchen, and Minho and Newt helped Alby onto it.

Minutes later, Thomas decided to show up, as if he'd remembered something he didn't want to share before.

"Where the heck were you?" Minho asked, clearly done with Thomas's klunk.

"Talking to Teresa," Thomas replied, noticing Alby. "What happened to him?"

"What's wrong with you? Our map room was set on fire and you go to talk to your shuck girlfriend?" Minho stared him down furiously.

"Just tell me what happened." Thomas looked annoyed, something he didn't have the right to be.

"Alby was attacked. It was probably Gally—I don't know," Minho waved him off.

Newt immediately ordered the Med-jacks to take Alby and cure his wounds. 

A few suspected he was the one to burn the maps, but it didn't make sense since he was attacked. Others agreed it could've been Gally before he was taken, and that seemed the most plausible assumption to Sara.

"Look, there's something I need to tell you guys..." Thomas began.

"Oh, so now you wanna talk?" Sara snapped, crossing her arms.

"Just follow me, come on," he said, turning around and expecting each of them to follow him like a flock of sheep.

Sara knew where this was going.

"No," she blurted out firmly, refusing to move her feet.

"Sara, just listen—" Thomas tried to say, turning back to realize neither the couple nor the Keeper of the Runners had followed him.

"No!" She raised her voice, "...You will not ask Newt to let her out, you hear me?"

His voice also rose in volume. "You don't understand, she—"

"Told you she's innocent!" Sara rebuked, then tilt her chin down in a condescending way. "And you fell for it."

"But—"

Minho had to step in. "Shut your holes, both of you!" Then he turned to Sara with a frown. "I support you, okay? I do. But I think you're just being paranoid. We have to be careful, yes, but you have to calm down."

"Tommy, why do you want us to let her out?" Newt, as opposed to Sara, gave him the chance to explain himself.

Thomas mentioned that everything Teresa talked about had to do with getting them out, and how they both had an idea of how to study the maps in a way never done before. That maybe the maps were hiding a code of letters, and that could be their answer.

"I know the maps got burned, but would you guys be able to remember some of them? She can help us decode them. And she's probably starving too," Thomas added.

Newt and Minho shared a knowing look, and Sara wondered what the heck they knew that she didn't. They didn't seem too concerned about the maps like they should've been, but she was still too skeptical about letting Teresa out to even ask them about it.

Her head was pounding from the stress at that point. "Please, tell me you guys won't let her out. Give her food, but don't let her out. Please," she begged, mostly at Newt.

She was so angry she could hardly contain her urge to cry. She was scared. Sure, Minho was probably right. It could've been paranoia, but she didn't know what else to believe at that point.

"Love, hey," Newt gently grabbed her face in his hand. "Maybe Teresa can help us after all," he said softly.

What?

"How, Newt?" she demanded. "Even Gally confirmed I was right. Why would you consider listening to her?" Sara shook her head. "It took awhile for me to gain your trust, and now you're not even questioning Teresa half as much as you questioned me. Why?" she added, staring back at Newt with pain in her eyes.

He looked down at her with regretful eyes. "Because I'd hate to see you make the same mistake I made. You don't have to treat her the way I treated you. It doesn't feel good at all. You're better than that, and I trust you. My only regret is having not believed you, and it almost cost me to bloody lose you."

Sara choked back a sob. "Yeah, but it's different since there was no way you could know I was telling the truth until the last minute. In this case, I do know about her. She's hiding something. All I'm asking is for you to believe me. We can't count her into our escape plan or she'll let WICKED know right away."

Thomas dared to argue with her again. "But you didn't talk to her like I did. I know she's telling the truth. You really think her helping us get out of here could be a trap?"

"Well, obviously, you klunk-head," she gritted her teeth. "Do you have any idea what this could mean for us? She has her freaking memories, and she's siding with WICKED."

"No, I have no idea! I can't remember anything," he snapped at her, and Sara moved out of Newt's grasp to glare at Thomas.

"This is all your fault," she muttered shakily.

"Why?" Thomas asked. "Because I don't agree with you? You have all your memories—how do we know you're not the one who's gonna rat us out and Teresa's trying to warn us?"

Sara tightened her jaw and was just about to pounce on Thomas, but Newt stepped in front of her to take the matter into his own hands.

"Say that one more time and I will not take responsibility for whatever she does to you," Newt threatened. "Don't you dare try to damage her innocence after it was proven."

Thomas sighed with defeat, stepping aside to look at Sara. "Why do you hate me so much?"

"I don't hate you! I—" she paused, taking a deep breath, "I'm sorry, Thomas. But you're my only shot at finding a way out that doesn't involve following WICKED's blueprint. And now you go side with Teresa without knowing the truth! It's not you..." she finally broke down, "...it's not you—I'm sorry... the odds are not in my favor, and I'm just about to lose my mind!"

"Sara!" Newt shouted as Sara fell to her knees, crying. "Hey, just... we'll figure out how to fix this, yah?" he reassured as he took hold of her.

She clutched him tightly, and no other sounds came out of her mouth. She simply hugged him, embracing his warmth as he rubbed her back. Tears rushed down her cheeks and fell onto Newt's shirt; she was taken over by an overwhelming panic, but he held onto her firmly.

Minho crouched down next to Newt to try to talk to her. "Hey, what's the worst that can happen if Teresa's lying? I'm not questioning you, I just really wanna know."

Sara pulled away from Newt and fixed her terror-stricken eyes onto Minho.

"She'll find a way to tell Janson I'm here. He can't know!" she yelled, clutching his shirt. "You know what that means? If he finds out, we're all screwed! Boom. It's over. Any plans of escaping them will flutter out the window."

Newt's eyes widened and he turned to Thomas. "Tommy, Teresa directly asked Sara if Janson sent her. And she did have 'WICKED is good' written on her arm. So, either she's being forced to act like that, or she's straight up lying to us—especially to you. What do you say to that?" he questioned, sounding irritated.

Thomas gave him a thoughtful look, then he stared at Sara apologetically. "But what do I do? Teresa's giving me ideas about escaping, but you don't want to take them. Isn't escaping the priority, no matter how?"

Sara shook her head with disbelief. "I was supposed to wait for Becca to let me know. And as far as I know, Teresa isn't a part of it. If she's with them, then they want us to do exactly as she says. This is their way of ending the Maze Trials to see how many of us survive. Mine and Becca's mission was to wreck their plans and try to keep anyone from getting killed. We can't go finish their game by their own rules."

Suddenly, what Gally said before he was taken made a whole lot of sense. The Grievers would kill one a night until the Gladers decided to leave. 

If Sara was gonna trust her instincts, she'd say Rebecca would find a way to help them through and out the Maze. But they had to pretend for now, or else WICKED would know beforehand that something was wrong with their experiment. Sara shared her thoughts with them, clinging to that last bit of hope that they'd believe her.

Newt and Minho looked at each other with raised brows and nodded.

Then Newt cupped Sara's face. "Here's what we'll do. We're gonna have to let Teresa out and have her help us figure out what to find in the maps. We'll play their little game to buy us some time, and to keep you safe from being caught." He gave her a quick, sweet kiss as he finished talking.

Minho nodded along with Newt's words. "And when it's time, we'll fight it off our way. Doesn't matter if we don't have Rosetta's help."

Newt frowned at him. "Pretty sure her name's Rebecca."

"Whatever," said Minho with a shrug.

Sara suddenly remembered the maps, and the burning map room. "Guys, but what about the maps? Did you guys at least memorize some of them?"

Newt and Minho shared that same strange look once again. 

"We actually hid the maps; they're safe," Minho answered.

If there were ever a moment where Sara felt like one hundred pounds had been lifted off her shoulders, it would be now. She let out a huge breath of relief.

"Alright, so... what do you guys say?" Newt asked everyone.

Surprisingly, Thomas nodded in agreement along with the rest of them. "I'll let you guys know if Teresa says something important in my head, and I'll act like I have no idea what's going on. I hate doing this to her, but I'm not risking any of you getting hurt in case I'm wrong."

"Meh, it's not gonna hurt her," said Sara, teasing.

"Sara, one second," Newt said, firmly but gently gripping her arms. "From now on, you're in charge."

Wait, what?

He must've noticed the look on her face because he gave her an encouraging smile. "Yah, you're the boss now. You know what we're up against. Whatever you decide will be done. And we'll get out of here. We'll fight 'till our bones hurt, and we'll do it together. What do you think?"

Sara didn't even have to think about it. Gally was taken, and that wasn't supposed to happen. And no one else was going to die. Not on her.

"I'm in."

"Shuck yeah, me too," Minho added.

Thomas nodded affirmatively. "I should probably trust your judgement better than mine. Let's do this."

They plastered fierce, determined looks on their faces as they gripped each other's hands in encouragement, and they formed a circle as they hugged tightly.

"Okay, Thomas," said Minho, and he swatted Thomas's arm as they pulled apart. "It's best if we take our shuck butts out there and stay overnight."

"Wait, what? The maps are more important right now," Thomas complained.

"Not if we want to maintain appearances," Newt mentioned. "If we don't act normal, then Teresa might suspect."

Sara faced Newt. "But we need them to look at the maps with us. And they could even die out there—they can't go."

"We'll be fine. You're talking to professionals," Minho gushed, then gave Thomas a playful, belittling side-glance. "Well, at least I'm one," he said, to which Thomas frowned.

"Fine, fine, fine. You guys can go," she waved him off. "But staying overnight is completely out of the question. I want you guys back before the Grievers start coming again," she warned them.

"Alright, ma'am, but for now, let's go get that shuck girl outta there then," said Minho, clapping once and rubbing his hands.

They made it seem as if they'd been arguing the whole way to the slammer. Minho was the best at it. 

"Fine, Thomas!" he shouted. "Newt, just let the stupid girl out. Let's see what she knows."

"I'm not stupid!" Sara heard her scream as her face popped up behind the bars. "And I could hear you morons arguing the whole way here."

Aren't you a ray of sunshine?

"Real sweet girl you picked up, Tommy," Newt teased him.

"You too," Thomas fired back, and Sara squinted her eyes at him.

Newt frowned at him. "At least mine's not annoying."

"Just hurry," was Thomas's response to the rebuke.

As Newt unlocked the door to the slammer, Teresa gave him such a scornful glare, which she also gave Minho and Sara as she passed them to stand next to Thomas.

After a good while of trying to compromise, they got to work immediately.

With Thomas and Teresa's 'new theory,' Sara had to admit that she was indeed missing something. They began analyzing the maps accordingly with each of the eight sections of the Maze. Thomas even had them bring wax paper from Frypan's kitchen to trace the maps, one on top of the other. Frypan wasn't too happy about that.

Sara took notice of the concentration on Thomas's face, and he stacked newly traced maps on top of one another, growing more determined after each one.

All of a sudden, he stepped back, shocked. He showed the four of them, and they saw a perfectly shaped 'F' in the center of the figure that the Maze maps created with each other.

Their interest was immediately sparked. Right then, however, Minho called Thomas over to go out and run the Maze. Thomas pretended like he didn't want to, but he gave in when Teresa said she'd stay and trace the maps with Newt and Sara.

After the two of them left, the remaining three stared at each other down awkwardly.

Teresa looked at Sara. "In order for this to work, we can't let our differences get in the way..." she said, but Sara avoided her eyes, darting them over to Newt. He smirked at her and Sara smiled. "That means we have to work... together," added Teresa, forcing a smile, trying to make the two pay attention to her.

"I know," said Sara in an innocent tone of voice. "Shall we?" she offered, swerving her hands to exaggerate the friendly gesture as she directed her to the maps on the table.

Newt and Sara got busy tracing the maps, and so did Teresa, but at random times Newt would steal a kiss on the cheek from Sara, or hold her waist, earning constant eye rolls from Teresa. Sara started doing the same to Newt, which pissed her off even more.

"Can you guys knock it off?" Teresa finally snapped. "Really not enjoying being a third-wheel here. We've got work to finish."

"Aw, are you jealous?" Newt playfully teased her. "Don't worry, your boyfriend will be back soon," he said, and Sara snorted. Teresa wasn't having any of it and chose to ignore them.

They spent the rest of the day analyzing and tracing the maps, forming specific letters of the alphabet with each small pile of map tracings.

They organized the finished maps in order, and they discovered something extraordinary—more or less.

Right at that moment, Thomas and Minho burst through the door, back from their run.

"Thomas! Just in time," Teresa sighed with relief. Sara wasn't sure if it was that she missed Thomas so badly, or simply that she'd had enough of her and Newt. Probably both. But she could've been telepathically communicating with him while he was out running, so she really couldn't complain. "Come here, you guys gotta see this," she said.

That sparked their interest after the apparently boring run they had. Sara could see it very clearly on their faces. They'd all known they wouldn't find anything different anyway.

The five of them formed the words in order again, and their former excitement began to fade as they realized the clues seemed almost pointless.

Six completely unrelated words sat in front of them. Six words that didn't even sound all that encouraging:

FLOAT
CATCH
BLEED
DEATH
STIFF
PUSH.

That was it.

"What the shuck is this?" asked Minho, leaning onto the table.

"Guys... I have a crazy idea," Thomas blurted out, and Sara had to brace herself since just about anything that came out of Thomas's mouth was over-the-top. "But you'll see what I mean later, 'cause you might not believe me," he added.

"But—" Sara didn't even get to ask, because Teresa marched right up and stood next to him.

Newt and Sara rolled their eyes and decided to go help the others put new barricades around the homestead, and to get ready for the new night of terror to come. It was either that, or having to withstand Thomas and his wannabe girlfriend.

The horrific moaning sounds of the Grievers were heard in the distance, and everyone looked around in appalling fear. No one was ready to lose another Glader to those beasts.

Seriously, is Becca even watching what's happening?

Once they caught sight of the Grievers, the monsters already had a Glader named Dave in between their metallic appendages.

Sara had promised she wouldn't let anyone else get taken, and she hoped to at least keep that promise despite her poor chances.

As she made a run for it, Newt clasped her wrist so tightly that she couldn't even move. Right before the pack of Grievers even got near the homestead, Thomas burst out of the building and broke into a run.

"Thomas, no!" Chuck screamed. The poor boy had been scared out of his wits, and Sara tried to be there to calm him down. It just didn't always work when everyone was frightened to death.

And this was certainly the time when all of them began to panic big-time.

Thomas threw himself at the Grievers, fighting them off, trying to force them to free Dave, but it only seemed like...

What the heck is Thomas doing?!

"Shuck, he's trying to get stung!" Sara gasped as she turned to Newt. Teresa turned into a screeching psychopath as she screamed Thomas's name. It was so loud Sara could barely even hear anything else.

The Grievers finally left... but they still took Dave with them.

Everyone rushed over to Thomas to see that he was sprawled on the floor, various sting marks on his arms and most likely on the rest of his body.

Sara covered her mouth in horror. Newt, just as terrified, squeezed her hand.

An eerie silence took over the Glade, and Sara couldn't help but think...

None of this was supposed to happen...