CHAPTER THIRTY- FOUR
• always an angel •

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          EVONY PUT PAST the fact the new girl didn't want to talk to her for several reasons, the most important one being it would distract the more important matters at hand.

Thomas had come back down from the treehouse about thirty minutes after originally going up. In his hand he carried two vials of blue liquid, bolder letters printed upon the side of the glass. She wasn't in the least surprised when it read WICKED. She was expecting that now, as it seemed all of their problems were somehow connected to that single word.

She studied Alby as he laid on one of the beds in the med hut. His breathing intensified, and his limbs were slightly thrashing back and forth from the excruciating pain. Clint and Jeff were both watching him with a close eye, apparently he had been mumbling in his sleep and they didn't want him to wake up and freak out.

On her left was Newt. He was running his fingers along his jaw carefully. "We don't even know what this stuff is," he pointed, "we don't know who sent it. Or why it came up here with you. For all we know, this thing could kill him."

On her other side was Thomas. His hands were on his hips, eyes slightly narrowed. "He's already dying. Look at him. How could this possibly make it any worse?"

"He has a point, Newt," Evony agreed, "I think it's worth a try."

Her eyes fell back over to Thomas, which in the process led her to making eye contact with the new girl. A piece of her raven hair had fallen in front of her face; Evony watched as she brushed it behind her ear.

She was standing closer to Thomas than anyone else in the room, but that made enough sense considering she didn't know anyone else yet.

Evony waved her fingers slightly, mouthing a 'hey' in hopes of receiving a greeting back. The girl scrunched her eyebrows together, stole a glance at Thomas, then gave a tight-lipped smile back.

Progress.

She could work with that.

Alby grunted.

"All right," Newt spoke, bringing her back to their current task, "Do it."

He handed off the serum to Thomas and the boy advanced to the table. At once Alby began to stir from his spot.

His eyes snapped open, meeting Thomas'. In one swift motion the leader reached forward and grabbed him at the throat, pulling him downwards.

"You shouldn't be here!" he cried, "you shouldn't be here!"

Newt and Evony rushed to help. They grabbed at Albys hands. Pulled against the force of his strength.

"Get the syringe!"

Her eyes scrambled to find where it had been tossed to the floor. She spotted it a few feet away from her, sitting next to the foot of the bed. Before she was even able to make a move towards it, another hand had already grabbed it and brought it up to view.

In a matter of seconds the needle was brought down into Albys chest.

All done by the new girl.

Once he was free, Thomas backed away quickly, placing a hand over his chest as if his breath had been taken out from him. She saw him skim the lines of his neck, and she already could tell what he was thinking.

"I guess that worked," she sighed.

Newt stepped forward, one finger pointing down at the bed, "Okay, from now on... someone stays here and watches him around the clock."

Everyone nodded.

Footsteps sounded from the doorway. Her head turned to face the newcomer, only to be met with the last person she could've possibly wanted to see. Okay, maybe second to last. Aaron would always uphold the number one spot.

Gallys eyes skimmed over everyone in the room before they landed on Thomas. "Hey. Sundown, Greenie," his eyes flickered to her again and his jaw clenched, "Time to go."

Thomas looked back at her and Newt before he left, pleading one more time if there was a way he could get out of this. As much as it should've been easy for her and Newt to veto the order because of their positions as second-in-command, it was unfair to the rest of the jury at the meeting. They had a democracy. The decision with the highest number of votes would be held accountable.

Newt nodded and she gave him a quick thumbs up.

Next thing they knew Gally was walking him out the door. They could still hear his obnoxious voice from outside.

"Evy," Newt spoke suddenly, a hand laid on her shoulder. She turned to look at him. His eyes were set in front of her, staring at the girl with the bright blue eyes. "Do you mind showing her where she'll be sleeping?"

Her eyes lit up. Newt patted her on the shoulder.

This would be her chance.

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   "So here we have an assortment of different types of hammocks. We usually just set them up in between two trees and tie them to the trunks. Every once in a while the rope comes undone in the middle of the night and you'll hear someone scream bloody murder, but besides that it's actually pretty efficient."

Evony waved her hand towards the sleeping corridors. "You won't have to worry about that, though, because we already have plans for the builders to make a new hut." The girl followed behind her, eyes wandering over the amount of supplies and dirty laundry lying around the makeshift beds.

"Shit, I never asked your name," Evony realized, startled. She felt her heart thumping in her chest. There was no reason for her to be this nervous when giving a first impression. She had done this plenty of times with several boys. The only difference now was she was a girl. The only other girl. The only other girl that would ever come up according to the note in the box.

"Teresa."

"Oh,"-she hadn't meant for that to slip out; the name sounded familiar-"I mean, oh! That's great! I'm Evony, but you seem to already know that, so...

"Thomas told me," she stated matter of factly, "He said you're his girlfriend."

"Really?"

"Yeah, but then he took it back because he didn't know if he was allowed to call you that." Teresa pursed her lips, "Is there a bathroom?"

"Um yeah, it's over there. Past the treehouse."

Teresa nodded once at her then started walking in the direction she pointed. Evony wasn't sure if she was supposed to follow; there didn't seem to be any invitation involved and the girl hadn't looked back once since moving.

Another sigh left her lips and she ran a hand through her hair.

She didn't know what she was doing wrong.

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   Evony knew there was no way she wouldn't be visiting the slammer that night. There was too much to talk about and most of the conversation needed to be done in private. It started to become bluntly obvious that Thomas knew more than he was letting on. The problem was he wasn't admitting to that, which evidently made him seem even more suspicious.

She grabbed him a blanket. A spare one that they only brought out during the colder nights-not that too many nights got below freezing. The sky never even showed signs of snow.

Her trek to the slammer was prolonged by the longer route she had to take to make sure she avoided the Gladers sleeping in the hammocks. Though, it did make for a nice sightseeing trip of the stars that shone above her. Looking down at her in a way, still providing stable comfort.

She didn't see Thomas at first. For that split moment she questioned whether or not he had managed to escape from the makeshift prison. It wouldn't have surprised her. He always managed to do the most whenever he least needed to.

"Thomas?" she whispered.

Evony was pretty sure it was the snapping of twigs beneath her feet that woke him up. He startled out of a daze, eyes blinking open slowly as he looked for his intruder. The moment he realized it was her he sat up quicker, wiping his hands on his pants before tilting his head In his normal fashion.

"What are you doing here?"

"What does it look like I'm doing here?" she responded back. Her fingers worked quickly to undo the lock on the bamboo cage. She swung open the door, sitting down on the ledge. The action gave her a sense of deja vu, especially when he moved to stand in between her legs.

He kissed her softly.

"Thanks for keeping me company."

She shrugged her shoulders, "No problem. Plus, I can't really get good sleep without you next to me anyway."

"Me either," Thomas agreed, shaking his head.

Evony laughed lightly, "That's not what it looked like a minute ago."

"You caught me at a bad time."

"Sure I did."

The two gazed at each other. The sound of leaves rustled around them as a gush of air passed through the area. Evony suddenly felt an urge toward him and hopped the ledge so she could stand on even ground.

"Want to sit?" He asked. She obliged, and the two of them slid their backs against the wall until they leaned against it.

Her head moved towards his shoulder, resting the heaviness from her constant headache onto his body. She wished for the comfort to somehow take the pain away, or at least mask it for the time being.

"You think Aaron's going to run with us tomorrow?" he asked quietly-a hushed whisper -like he was unsure if he should've spoken in the first place and interrupted their moment.

She tilted her head up and sighed. "I hope not. That dick needs to mind his own business."

Thomas chuckled.

"Speaking of which," Evony continued, she sat up from her slouched position and fixated herself, "what did Teresa say?"

His body tensed in a way she could feel the muscles compressing together. Her head came off his shoulder, "Thomas?"

"She told you her name?"

"Yeah, I asked her."

Thomas nodded but still seemed unsure, "she said she recognized me."

Evony furrowed her eyebrows, "Well, we already knew that. Did she tell you anything else?"

Thomas was shaking his head now.

"She remembers water-feeling like she was drowning"

"Drowning?" Evony questioned immediately. It sparked a thought-a memory. She flashed back to her first day at the Glade, when she arose from the box with twenty some other boys for the first time. She had been covered in water. They all had.

Her eyes meeting Thomas' was enough to say that he knew she had made the connection. She leaned her head against the wall now, reconsidering the option that whoever put them here had tried to drown each and every one of them before sending them up.

That seemed like a waste though.

"She also said one more thing."

Evony studied his blank face. "Go on."

He licked his lips nervously. "She said she keeps getting this voice in her head. A memory, she thinks, of a woman. And this woman says the same words over and over."

It clicked before Thomas said the words. 

"...WICKED is good."

He stared at her expectedly, awaiting a reaction. She wasn't letting herself react the way she wanted to though. These matters needed to be discussed, there wasn't time to sit around and mourn the loss of their perfect Glade.

"So what?" she shrugged, as if this didn't mean nearly as much as it obviously did, "That means WICKED put us in here, right?"

"I guess."

"Suits their name. They must be some desperate people to find torturing kids fun."

He didn't laugh at her joke. Not that she expected him too anyway. So instead she curled back into him, letting her eyelids fall shut as she took in the comfort once more.

Thomas' hand moved to her thigh, rubbing gentle circles on the skin. She moved closer to him if possible, reminiscing on the feeling as it wouldn't be for much longer that they had this peace and quiet.

She twisted the ring on her index finger, lost in thought.

Thomas' hand stopped; she could sense him glancing down at her hand as well and back to his own. He grabbed her hand with his, lining up their fingers together so they could look at the matching bands.

"I love you," she mumbled. She paused, weighing her options. "You know, Teresa said you referred to me as your girlfriend."

"Is that okay?" he asked hastily, "I thought since we did the whole confession thing that we would be...you know."

Her head lifted off his shoulder, instead meeting his bright brown eyes that happened to be caving in on her at the moment.

"I'd love to be your girlfriend. Officially that is."

He kissed her again, like before, but harder.

Evony fell into his touch, reciprocating the amount of passion that was being shown. His hand went back to her thigh now. She quickly realized how much she liked it there.

"I love.." he grabbed her by the neck and pulled her closer, "..you too."

Her hands went to his hair. It was her turn to pull him to her. She felt him smile at the sudden action and Evony took that as leverage to turn the kiss somewhere else.

She broke free from his lips and aimed to start trailing down his neck, but he beat her to it. She felt her skin being kissed at before she had time to realize she was no longer in control.

He shifted from his spot on the ground and moved so he could hover over her. Evony didn't pretend and act like she wasn't going to lay down for him, but she did find it endearing to be slightly pushed down by the force of his hands.

Her head tilted back onto the ground. Well, partially; Thomas still had a hand gripped in her hair. She laid back on it almost as if it was a pillow and let Thomas do his work. It was endearing to be so gently handled while he pressed open-mouthed kisses to the base of her neck. However, Evony didn't find herself protesting once the hand in her hair started becoming a bit tighter around her roots.

Evonys hands moved to the end of his shirt, tugging up in indication. Thomas broke away for only a moment to remove the piece of fabric, then he was back on top of her.

She was already wearing a tanktop, which made it easier for him to access more parts of her body. His lips trailed down the parts of her chest that weren't covered with a bra. At one point he began sucking harder at a certain area. Her body reacted in the slightest way, but just enough for Thomas to get the hint.

She didn't know why hickies gave her such a rush. It's not like they're new.

He moved upwards again, kissing at another area he knew was sensitive to her. She was pretty sure it helped his ego whenever she reacted positively to something he did. And that's why he liked to go back to the same areas each time-to make sure she knew he knew the exact areas that made her feel good.

"I don't think this is fair," Thomas muttered lowly. She felt his breath against her ear as he spoke. Evony scrunched her eyebrows together, but her answer was soon given by the action of Thomas riding up her shirt.

A blush lined her cheeks as the tank top was pulled off her body in one swift move.

His pretty mouth went to the corner of her jaw.

"Thomas," Evony breathed. He brushed his thumb over her lips, silencing them. Then he traveled his mouth lower and lower down her body until he was able to press his lips against her thighs.

A loud thud startled them both.

"What's that?"

"Put your shirt on," Evony rushed, reaching for her tank top that had been discarded somewhere near her. She felt the fabric in her fingers and quickly slipped it over her head. Thomas was doing the same. Both of them were looking between each other and the outside of the slammer.

"Who's there?" Thomas asked; his voice was sharper than normal-possibly irritated.

"It's just me," a small voice whispered back.

Both of them glanced at each other, faces equally as flushed from the sudden stop. "Sorry, Chuck," he apologized, "I didn't know you were coming."

"Me either," Evony confessed, though she was by no means surprised to see the younger boy. She helped spot him as he jumped down into the base of the pit.

"Here," he motioned, reaching the parcel he had in his hand towards Thomas, "you'll run better on a full stomach."

Thomas' eyes flickered with appreciation, "Thanks, Chuck."

She watched as he began devouring into the loaf of bread that had been uncovered from the paper. He didn't waste time breaking it into smaller sections, instead shoving the majority into his mouth and chomping down in large bites.

Chuck slid himself closer to her and she wrapped an arm around his shoulder. His curly hair bustled against her neck; she in return played with one of the curls that stuck out from the others. She twisted it around her finger until it fell back into place.

"Hey," Thomas spoke up, mouth still full of food, "what you got there?"

A blush rose on Chuck's cheeks as his fingers fumbled with the wooden doll in his lap. Evony remembered watching him carve it a few days ago. He handed it to Thomas, letting him inspect it.

"That looks so good, Chuck," Evony praised, "I know how hard you worked on it. You should be proud."

"It did come out pretty damn good," Thomas agreed, flipping the object in his hands. He passed it over to her and she took her turn to look at the carving.

"It's for my parents," Chuck confessed. His words were filled with pride. His lips formed the words with a boastful sensation.

Thomas cocked his head, "You remember your parents?"

"No," the younger boy instantly contradicted, "I mean, I know I must have them. And wherever they are, I'm sure they miss me... but I can't miss them because I don't remember them."

"They would love you," Evony assured, "Anybody that has the privilege of meeting you is lucky to have you in their lives."

The boy smiled sadly in return which caused the two teens to mimic the expression as well. Thomas had finished up his piece of bread by now and slumped back onto the wall. He watched the two of them admiringly, simply studying the way they interacted with one another. Evony had pulled Chuck closer to her as a cry from a griever sounded, sending a shrill urgency through each of them

Chucks head turned, glancing behind them at the noise. "What do you think you're gonna find out there tomorrow?" he asked. Evony met Thomas' eye; nodded at him to speak.

"I don't know," he stated honestly, "but if there's a way out, Chuck, the four of us are gonna find it."

"The remaining runners," Evony mumbled.

Thomas grimaced. 

Suddenly Chuck moved. He held out his hand, leaning slightly forward to place the small doll in Thomas' hands. "Here."

"Chuck," he asked, his voice in disbelief, "why would you give this to me."

He pressed his lips together, a certain sadness falling over his eyes. "I can't remember them anyway...but maybe if you find a way out, you can give it to them for me."

Evonys head dropped.

"I'll let you get some sleep," he continued, seeing as neither of them had commented back on what he said. They both stopped him at the same time as he began to stand up.

"Hold on," Evony paused, her eyes glanced back at Thomas and she gave him a pressed smile. "I'll walk you back to your hammock."

She placed her hand on his back, leading him up and out of the pit. She climbed up after him, securing the lock back in place before facing back to Thomas.

His fingers were gripping around the bamboo. He hadn't made eye contact with her as he was too fixated on the object In his hands. "Hey, Chuck," he called; the younger boy spun around on his feet.

"Come here," he said. Evony watched with admiration as he grabbed the boy's hand through the cage.

"Put out your hand"-he placed the wooden figure back into Chuck's palm, closing his fingers around it- "I want you to give that to them yourself."

He nodded assuringly. "We're gonna get out of here, okay? I promise."

"Yeah," Chuck mumbled. His eyes switched over to Evony, but all she could do was offer a small smile at the two boys' interaction.

Thomas smiled, "Goodnight Chuck."

His head turned to her, his voice fading into more of a whisper. "Goodnight, Evs."

The two of them wished him back a goodnight before turning to leave the pit. Evony held onto Chuck's hand as they walked, the silence not lasting long as the boy could barely go five minutes without stirring up another conversation.

"I hope I meet somebody who looks at me like Thomas looks at you." His voice was small but empathetic. Her heart swelled.

"You will." She nodded her head twice, "You're an angel, Chuck. We're going to get out, and once we do you'll find that perfect person. I'm sure of it."

His hand tightened around hers; his body leaned a little closer. "Thanks, Evy."

She simply gripped his hand tighter in return, continuing to walk him until they made it back to his hammock. There she placed his pillow behind his head and-even though it was extra-tucked the blanket under his waist. He was out before she had finished, his slight snores filling the air around them.

Evony admired his peaceful form for a moment. She liked seeing how calm he could look when his body was fully relaxed. It reassured her that he was still a child. Given, a child who did not deserve everything he's had to endure, but a child nonetheless.

She bent down to kiss him on the forehead and whisper goodnight. In the morning she would see how well Thomas and the rest of the runners could keep their promise. She knew that they were their only chance at finding a way out of this place. To do that meant they needed to find something useful tomorrow.

Her thoughts drifted back to Chuck-to his still face.

Chuck deserved peace.

He deserved everything life could give him. Every moment of joy that was possible to occur. She loved him. Not like she loved Thomas. But the amount of space he took up in her heart was the same.

Chuck was an angel.

He deserved so much more than the Glade could ever give him.

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MAE's FUN NOTES!
BACK FROM THE LITERAL ACTUAL DEAD!!

I tried to make this chapter a bit
longer to make up for it but the actual
plot of the movie is so boring to write 😭🤞

ANYWAY UM MISS TAYLOR AND THE
ERAS TOUR IS SLAYING RN
The dont blame be to lwymmd transition
was perfect and THE ARCHER?? There
we're so many suprised while watching
the concert on someone's tiktok live

LIKE
-the archer
-illicit affairs (which was so good in
the like rock style thing)
-miss Americana as the opener??!

ANYWAY love all of u who still
read this book 🫶🫶🫶