EVONY GENTLY TAPPED her fingers along the edge of the steel desk. Her back rested on a chair, which was cool from the air conditioning that had been circling the room. The room itself was a small closed in space, which was barely big enough for the three pieces of furniture that accompanied it.

She was well aware that she was about to be interrogated. What she hadn't been aware of was that she was hooked up to a lie detector. When several guards came in and forced the blood pressure cuff along with a heart rate monitor, she felt herself begin to panic. She didn't know how to moderate her breathing, or keep her heart at a normal pace. There was never a need too.

The guards soon left after hooking her up to the machine. A few minutes went by before the door swung open once again, and a single man walked through. His hair was disheveled, probably from all the times he ran his hand through it. His once sleek suit was cricked and unbuttoned. In all honesty he looked like a mess.

"Stressed?" Evony smirked as he pulled out the chair from the other side of the wobbly table and took a seat.

Janson ran a hand over his face before resting his fingers on the table. He leaned in. "Let's just get right to it, shall we?"

She crossed her arms, and twisted her head away from his gaze. "Sure whatever."

"Evony-"

"Look," She slammed her hands down on the table, shaking from the uneven legs. "I honestly don't care for what you have to say. So, just go ahead and ask me your stupid questions, and I'll respond with the bluntness answer I can think of. Deal?"

He sighed. "No, Evony. No deal."

"Whatever then." She waved her hand, slouching back farther into her chair. Adjusting the straps around her arm, she refused to make eye contact with the man.

Janson cast a sharp glare, clearly unimpressed with her attitude. After a few moments of supposedly trying to intimidate her, he gave up. "Okay, question one. How long have you actually known Thomas?"

She tapped the edge of her chin. We're her and Thomas still pretending that they didn't know eachother like how they actually did? If they were, how long would it take for one of them to slip up? Because in all honesty how long can you pretend to not be in love with someone. "Let's see, around an hour now."

"He managed to give you a nickname in an hour's time?"

"Yes." She claimed, fiddling with the cuticle on her thumb. A loud beep cut through the air, slicing whatever tension was being created from the lack of explanation. She glanced down at her armband which was growing tighter by the second. Next to her heart rate, a little red button on the monitor in front of her was flashing rapidly, indicating that she was in fact lying.

Janson pressed his lips together, his eyebrows knitting in concentration. He grabbed a piece of paper and a pen from one of the shelves next to him and began scribbling some words down in ink.

"So, are you going to lie every time I ask you a question." He asked not to break his rhythm in writing.

She just shrugged her shoulders.

He scoffed in return, "Evony I know you're lying, there's no point in hiding it."

"You seem a little on edge-"

"Evony!" This time it was him slamming his hands on the table. In response to the action she smirked, slowly turning around in her seat so she could delicately lay her folded hands across the table.

"Look, sir." She mocked. "I already told you that I don't care. So please continue trying to get answers out of me, because I can assure you that you won't catch me dead revealing anything to someone like you."

"Fine," He spat, "What were you two actually doing?"

Evony tilted her head, giving him a slight chuckle of disbelief. "What is this 20 questions?" She leaned forward in her seat, "Well here's my question for you. Why is it such a big deal that Thomas and I saw each other? Huh. And also, I know that you slipped up when you called me a test subject, but it's too late, I already have my theories."

She tapped her fingers against the metal table. "I know there's something you're not telling us-me, all of my friends. You're using us aren't you?" She paused searching for any shift in expressions or body language. His face remained blank, which led her to believe that her theory was true.

"Wow." Evony relaxed back in her chair. "I mean-wow. I was only like fifty percent sure I was correct, but now? Now I know that you're nothing more than a no good filthy lying asshole."

"Evony you're wrong." He justified. Another beep went off signaling that her heart rate was once again rising.

"Oh really-do tell."

Janson stood up from his chair and made his way over to her side of the table. Placing the piece of paper down he used his pen to point to a section of names he had previously written.

"See this? This is a list of everybody who has a very important use to us here at WCKD." He stated, pointing to each one in red ink.

She briefly scanned the list. Some names caught her eyes more than others.

Newt A5 - the glue

Minho A7 - the leader

Frypan A3

Thomas A2

Teresa A1

Evony

Aris B1 - the partner

Rachel B2

There were obviously some noticeable things she picked out. One, the inhabitants of the list were mostly her closest friends, or at least people she recognized. Two, mostly all of the names had a letter and number beside them. All except hers. Three, some of the names had a label next to them. She tried to decipher what the possibility of the names the glue, and the partner could be, but her eyes kept flickering to the boy's name who was waiting outside, chasing away any ideas.

He was A2, and Teresa was A1. She knew that those two were separated from the rest of them, so that led her to believe that it couldn't be a coincidence that Aris and Rachel seemed to have matching tags. Maybe those two were in charge of something else? And if so, were they also trapped away on the other side of the floor?

"How come my name doesnt have anything special after it?" She quizzed, the corners of her eyebrows raising ever so slightly that even she could barely realize she was doing it. Janson didn't waste any time, it was like he was expecting her to ask that question.

"Were still deciding what to do with you." He calmly replied. In one swift motion he snatched the paper out of her hands and crumpled it into a ball. "I'm sorry Evony, but I'm afraid our time is soon up and if you don't start answering this instant we're going to have problems."

"Deciding what to do with me?"

"Yes, you're a quite difficult case too-"

"Yeah, no." Rising from her seat she kicked at the chair, flipping over the flimsy piece of furniture. After that she ripped off all of the wires attached to her body, which sent the monitor into a frenzy of shrilling beeps. She knew Jansons eyes were following her every move, but she didn't care. She never had cared for what the man thought anyway.

"Have an awful night." She called back in a cheerful voice, racing to exit the room. She made it all of two steps before the door swung open revealing three heavily suited guards, each with a loaded rifle in their hands. Hands grabbed at her waist and shoulders as she attempted to push through the crowd of grown individuals. Somewhere in the mix of the thrashing and squirming, a space between the adults opened and she spotted Thomas standing in the hallway. In that moment he had looked over to her, and instantly began to advance in her direction once he saw the current situation.

"Hey, let go of her!"

Her head snapped over to his voice, but before she could yell back a hand clamped over her mouth, resulting in a muffled scream. Her throat teared open as she tried to make a noise through the clothed glove, resulting in her insides twisting into a knot.

"Evony stop this behavior right now!" A voice shouted from behind her. She knew it was Janson and it disgusted her that he always just had to be one step ahead of her. Her hatred for him was abnormally high, but somehow in this moment he had managed to make it spike even higher. If her anger levels were put on a chart right now, there would be one very vibrant green line shooting straight up into the heavens.

The guard holding her mouth used his other hand to grip the side of her waist. Then on command from Ratman the other two aqquantances grabbed her shoulders, tossing her over one of their own, leaving her to dangle helplessly from their back. She punched powerlessly at the man. She absolutely hated how vulnerable she felt right now. She hated that there was nothing she could do.

A while back Thomas had attempted to fight one of the guards.

He was now lying flat on the floor.

The guard carried her about ten feet farther before dropping her onto the ground. And when she said drop, she didn't mean gently resting onto her feet. She meant to let go of her knees and allow her to fall face first onto the floor.

Thankfully she had been ready and had put her hands up, or else she was pretty sure she would have a broken nose right about now.

She scrambled up from the floor, glancing over to see that Thomas was doing the same. In sync the two stood up and rushed to one another, their hands reaching out.

They crashed into one another before taking the other into a strong embrace. Evony wrapped her arms around his neck, while he kept his firmly situations on her waist. When the couple pulled away, his hands immediately flew to her face, his eyes roaming her body for any injuries. "You're okay right?" He asked, concern laced into his words. "They didn't do anything to hurt you?"

She shook her head rapidly.

A weight seemed to lift from Thomas as relief started to set in. She was okay. They hadn't hurt her.

"Good," He smiled, "I'm glad you're okay."

The moment lasted no longer than those last words. Seconds later his once bright smile was replaced by a look of fear. She squinted her eyes, confused about what was wrong. That was until she felt the cool metal barrel press against the side of her head.

She froze.

There was a gun pressed to the side of her head.

Barely shifting to the side, she turned to make sure that she wasn't hallucinating and the weapon was actually against her scalp. It was.

Evony attempted to swallow but her throat suddenly felt clogged, like there was a rock blocking her airway. The guard, who was holding the gun, was masked. His bushy eyebrows and bright blonde hair seared into her mind as she counted down her final moments.

They wouldn't seriously kill her. Right?

"That won't be necessary, Ryle." Janson called. From the corner of eye she was just barely able to see the man stride up to where the three of them were standing. "I think they are now aware of what could happen the next time one of them decides to be uncooperative."

He shifted his gaze between the two teens. "Right kids?" He then looked directly at the boy next to her, his eyes burning holes through their sockets. "Right Thomas." He finally said. But it wasn't a question. It was a message that said something deeper than she knew-probably something only the two of them knew.

Thomas never replied, instead he went willingly with Janson into the interrogation room with nothing more than a mere glance back. She knew that he only obliged so that she didn't get hurt, but now she couldn't help but wonder what was going on back there. If ratman was to do the same thing to him as he did her, did that mean he was about to play another round of 20 questions with Thomas? If that was the case-and he answered differently than her, then the two of them were about to be royalty busted.

The guard lowered the gun only after the door to the interrogation room was shut. However, that didn't mean that he left. Oh no, the guard decided to stand right in front of her, holding his rifle as if it was his lifeline.

So she waited.

For an hour.

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Thomas slugged into the room behind Janson. Briefly scanning over the tiny area he saw an assortment of wires and monitors displayed on the ground, next to that was a wobbly chair that looked like it had been kicked over. He smirked at this, knowing it was probably Evonys doing.

He was infuriated with the whole situation that went down outside. Honestly he didn't care that he had been tossed on the ground by one of the guards. He was just pissed about the fact that Evony was too. That blonde haired guard dropped her face first onto the floor with zero remorse. That set him off even more. Then the guard came back with a gun to her head and it had taken everything in him to not put up another fight. For a moment he could only imagine the worst. Like a film, clips of her bleeding out on the floor shot through his mind at a rapid pace. Thankfully nothing had happened, Thomas wasn't sure what he would've done if a bullet had actually been shot.

Scream? Probably. Cry? Most definitely.

Chances were, if anything like that ever happened to her he would lose any sense of masculinity in him, and a river of tears would pour out as he crumpled to the ground. That's why he went so willingly with Janson. There was no way he was going to jeopardize her life.

Not again.

"Please take a seat Thomas."

He did as he was told. Once again not because he wanted to, but because he didn't want his bad behavior to get projected onto Evony. Picking up the chair he allowed himself to set it up and slide onto it. He knew his next conversation with Janson was going to end in one of two ways.

Either bad.

Or very bad.

At this point he would honestly settle for the first option.

He watched as Janson waved away the guards who were holding the many different monitors and stickers. "There will be no need for that," He dismissed the individuals telling them to go outside and wait. Thomas studied them as they left, wondering if by waiting outside they were actually going to go swarm Evony. He didn't want anything to happen to her, even if that was just a couple extra guards to surround her and give her anxiety. She told him once when they were younger that she struggled with that, and since then he had tried to do everything in his power to limit her from experiencing any type of stressful situations.

He wasn't doing such a good job anymore. He felt like he had failed her.

"Thomas, did you hear me?"

The boy snapped out of his thoughts, peering up to find the Ratman looking intently at him. Ratman. That was what Evony and her friends called him. Over all of his time spent with the kids the name began to rub off on him, becoming a familiarity to him. Now, with the name permanently scarred into his mind, he wasn't able to refer to him as anything else.

He leaned back in his chair. "Sorry sir, what did you say." His words might have seemed polite, but he made sure that his tone of voice was not. Janson clearly caught onto this as his jaw hardened, his teeth clenching together.

"Thomas are you going to behave, or are you going to pull the same stunt your little girlfriend did. Do I need to remind you how that ended for her?" He asked him. Feeling incredibly enraged, the tips of his ears started to redden, probably from the anger that was bubbling up in him at the moment.

"She's not my-"

"Look Thomas." Janson rose from his seat. "I know you know I'm not stupid."

Thomas cocked his head in a smug like fashion. "Sure. And I know that you know that I know that i'm not stupid either."

This seemed to do the trick since ratnam's next action was temporarily paused as he thought through the boy's riddle of an answer. He held up a finger, "Im not entirely sure what you said...but" His eyes set on a stack of papers across the room. The man quickly walked over and grabbed the sheets before sitting back down. "I have something to show you."

Thomas crossed his arms over in his lap. Whatever Janson had to show him did not interest him, and besides, he wasn't planning on giving him any of his attention anyways.

"Thomas, please." He tried again, but failed to get the teenage boy to do as much as look in his direction. The man scoffed and reshuffled the stack of papers until he found the one he needed. Taking the piece of parchment out he laid it down delicately on the table, pushing it in the brunette's direction. This caught his attention, his eyes moving slowly over the printed paper in front of him.

At first he didn't notice, but a double take made him realize just exactly what he was supposed to be looking at. He sat up in his chair and leaned forward. His fingers tentatively traced the outlines of the people as he felt his heart begin to pick up in pace. Two young faces were staring back at him, their smiles prominently showing that they were happy to be in each other's presence.

"We're going to get in trouble. I'm going to get yelled at and then-"

"Will you shut up already? Come on, smile for the camera."

No, this wasn't right. WCKD shouldn't have been able to see anything that happened when he snuck out because he had turned off the cameras. Right? There was no way he had forgotten.

"How did you get that?" He croaked out. It made him furious that ratman had found a way past his tricks to use as leverage against him.

His statement clearly pleased him as the corner of his mouth curved up in pleasure. "Your lie about meeting each other today doesn't sound so convincing now, doesn't it?" He conceded, his voice lowering a substantial amount.

Thomas didn't even look at him. He was too focused on the endless printed pictures of him and Evony wandering the halls of WCKD. There were pictures from when they were ten, all the way to fourteen-their current age.

Some of them, like the one taken the night the two had snuck out to the cafeteria-were of them looking directly at the cameras. The others, unlike the first few, were taken from the side or behind. In these pictures it became ever so clear to Thomas just how close him and his Evs had become.

In almost every photo the two were either holding hands, leaning into each other, or he had his arm wrapped around her shoulder. He was pretty sure Janson could tell that when he started to blush from embarrassment.

"And you know what the best part is Thomas." Janson spoke smoothly. He pulled out a corner of one of the sheets and layed it over the others. "Look at this one-all the way back when you were just clueless little kids."

He studied the picture. The longer he stared at it the more his heart broke. It was the moment when he was told that he and Evony would have to seperate. The two of them were in the midst of launching themselves at each other for a chance to get one last hug.

"Let me go!"

"Say goodbye Thomas!"

He licked his lips in thought while fighting to hold back tears from brimming in his eyes. The worst part about this specific moment was the fact that only he remembered it. He was well aware of the fact that Evony had her memories wiped-the doctors had made sure to tell him only moments after it happened.

Thomas still hadn't spoken a word-he was much too shocked to force out any sort of excuse.

"I don't know what you thought you were doing by lying about knowing each other. I was there-I witnessed this exact moment."

Thomas ran a hand through his hair, "I didn't want her to get hurt." He mumbled.

"What?" Janson asked, a very annoying knowing tone to his voice. It was obvious he had heard what the boy had said the first time around-he just wanted to make him say it again.

"I didn't want her to get hurt!" He repeated more forcefully this time.

"And why is that Thomas?"

He didn't answer. He didn't have too. Ratman already knew.

Janson sighed, "Look, I'm going to let you in on a secret."

Once again no response.

Then slowly he spoke. "We were going to choose Evony."

That did it. That was what finally made Thomas snap his head up and start paying attention. "You we're going-"

"To choose Evony," The man finished for him. "Instead of you-we were going to have her take your place."

His mouth gaped open, unable to form any words. He wasn't jealous, no-he was just shocked. He knew Evony was smart, and sometimes he had wondered why he was chosen over her. So hearing that the doctors had intended to pick her just confirmed his theory. The confusing part was just why they didn't do it.

"But then we came up with the plan for the mazes, and we knew that it had to be a boy and a girl. We already had Teresa so..." His words faded out at the end, leaving Thomas to think through the rest himself.

Janson continued on. "You see Thomas, we were actually still in the midst of deciding what to do with her. However," He paused, reaching into his pocket. Out he pulled a crumpled piece of parchment. "Now I think it's pretty much been decided for itself."

Then he unfolded the paper, making sure to smooth down the edges so Thomas could get a clear look at it. The boy instantly recognized the drawing, which led him to frantically patting down his pants in search of the missing item.

"I'm guessing you recognize this?" Janson gibed. He brought his hand back down on the drawing and quickly swiped it back before Thomas could reach out and grab it. "Yeah that's what I thought."

"Did your dear little Evs give this to you for the holidays?" He said the nickname as if he was disgusted by it. Like it was a wild animal, or some sort of deadly disease. It sounded almost mocking. He checked out the piece of paper one last time before taking it in his fingers and effectively ripping it in half.

Thomas sat up straighter in his chair. By now he was furious. Ignoring the last question he decided to ask one of his own. "What are you going to do with her?" He queried.

The Ratman paced around the room until he was standing behind him. "Dodging the question huh?" He gripped the back collar of his shirt.

"What are you going to do with her?" He asked again. His voice was much firmer this time.

Janson pulled up on his shirt, evidently choking the boy. As a reflex, Thomas' hands flew to his neck where he attempted to yank away the fabric from his airway. "You're not supposed to communicate with test subjects!" Janson yelled into his ear, ripping the fabric farther up. Thomas fought to pull the material down, but the lack of air was starting to get to his head, making everything go fuzzy.

"Do you understand?"

"Y-yes s-sir." Thomas gasped out his words. Even though they weren't true by any means, he knew he just needed to give the man the answer he wanted. Evony was still out in the hall waiting for him, and all he could think about was how once he got out of here he was going to hold her in his arms and never let go.

Minutes went by and now he was slipping. Slipping into the light. He didn't know how long someone could last without air, but he was about to find out.

Then, just as he felt like all the remaining air had been used up, Janson yanked him. Letting go of his grip on his shirt, Thomas lurched forward, his hands hopelessly thrashing at his neck. Air poured down his lungs, the crisp feeling refueling his system allowing his body to function again.

"W-what are you going-"

"I cut off your airway and you still have the audacity to ask that stupid question again." Janson chastised. He hit the table once. Twice. "What is it going to take for you to listen! Maybe if I do the same to Evony then-"

"No!" Thomas launched out of his seat, one hand still clasped around his throat as the other pulled back before making contact with the adult's face. Janson recoiled from the action, stumbling back and clenching his nose as blood leaked through the cracks of his fingers.

"Answer the question!" The boy commanded. This time it was him with the upperhand, and him who had the grip on the other's shirt.

Janson choked out a cough, "And you said you were smart."

Thomas tilted his head in a confused fashion. Immediately he wished he hadn't, since that gave his opponent another advantage.

"Come on Thomas if she's not staying at WCKD where else would she go?"

He visibly paused. His shoulders, back, face, his whole body tensed. Releasing his death grip on the Ratman's shirt he took a couple of staggered steps back, his mind racing with endless possibilities. However, he knew exactly which one it was. He knew now what the punishment was going to be for the two of them. The exact thing he didn't want to happen, was going to happen.

He was going to lose Evony. His best friend, his favorite person. Dare he say the love of his life.

With a shallow breath he whispered the answer.

"The maze."

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MAE's FUN NOTES-
-so...how we feeling? Next chapter
is gonna hopefully be the last before
the maze chapter which means its
gonna be super sad :D