❝now you're passing your people like a ship in the night❞

WHEN IRIS WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING, SHE NOTICED THAT JEM WAS GONE. For a moment, she thought the whole thing was some really weird dream until she realized that the blanket that he brought her was spread across her.

There was no sign of Ben anywhere, and she figured that someone would have woken her if he showed up, so she just took a deep breath and headed somewhere to find something to help with. She went to hang out with Newt and the Track-hoes since it was another slow day, and she did not want to be alone after the Banishing. She and Newt were taking turns hitting a partially chopped tree with an axe while Zart worked on getting roots out of the ground. Thomas and Chuck sat there doing nothing.

"All right, but why would Alby go into the Maze? I mean he's not a...he's not a Runner," Thomas pointed out as if it weren't already obvious to the rest of them.

The girl sighed as she wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead, stopping it from trickling down her face as she panted a bit. "He's the leader. He can be anything that he needs to be."

"Plus, things are different now. Alby went to retrace Ben's footsteps before sundown," the second-in-command explained as he got a bit tired of the new boy just sitting there. "Look, are you gonna help?

"Okay, so he's gonna go back to where Ben was just stung—"

Newt cut him off before he could even finish the sentence because they all knew what he was going to ask. "Alby knows what he's doing. All right? He knows better than any of us."

"What does that mean?" Thomas questioned, stabbing the ground with the machete in his hands. Iris was really starting to get frustrated with him.

"All right, it's like you have heard, yeah?" she piped in, pausing her chopping to inform him, "Every month, the Box sends up a new arrival. But someone had to be first, right? Someone had to have spent a whole month in the Glade, alone. That was Alby."

Newt nodded along with what she was saying as he cut. "I mean, it can't have been easy. But when those other boys and Iris here started coming up, one after the other, he saw the truth, and he learned that the most important thing is that we all have each other because we're all in this together."

Thomas nodded, showing them that he understood before making his way over to them with his machete. He kneeled on the ground as Newt and Iris backed up to give him space. He got in a good position before swinging hard at the base of the tree, creating a mark. The girl looked to Newt and smiled a bit.

"There you go, Greenie."

After a couple of minutes, it started to rain, so they were forced to take shelter under the tent-looking thing where most of the boys slept. Alby and Minho still were not back yet, and everyone was a bit on edge.

"They should be back by now," Thomas said, and Iris fought the urge to roll her eyes. It might just be because she was stressed, but it was really annoying how he had spent only a couple days in the Glade, and he thought he knew better than the rest of them. She was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, though. "What happens if they don't make it."

"They're gonna make it," Newt assured him as he stared out at the Walls.

The dark-haired boy walked over to the blonde with a questioning and worried expression. With all of the questions, he was scaring the people around them even more. "And what happens if they don't?"

"Slim it," the girl snapped, and deciding that she could not just stand there anymore, she walked further into the tent and found a hammock toward the back where she could just sit and watch the rain.

《 ✢ 》

IRIS WAS LYING IN A HAMMOCK AND STARING AT THE ROOF. Her leg was shaking because she was so nervous and anxious for Minho and Alby to get back. Minho was one of her best friend, and she needed him to survive. All of a sudden, she heard wood creak, indicating that someone had climbed into the hammock beside her. After a moment, she heard his voice. "Hey."

"Hey," she responded.

They had not even looked at each other since the night before when she was pretty sure that she fell asleep on his shoulder. When she woke up, she was lying on the ground, and he was gone. She was not mad, just extremely confused as to what was going on between them. He apologized, "Sorry about this morning. I had to help Alby and Minho pack up before they went out."

"Do you think they'll make it back?" she asked, choosing not to discuss the first part about what he said when their friends and two of their leaders were out in the Maze suspiciously late and might not make it back. Someone was already Stung during the day, so who knows what could happen to them?

"You sound like Thomas," he chuckled out, and she sat up for a moment to glare at him. She had just snapped at the Greenie for asking too many questions while they were all worried. He sighed, and she lied back down as he answered her question. "They better make it back. It would really suck if we lost our leader."

She added, "It would really suck if we lost Minho." She knew that he was annoyed with that statement because she could feel it from there. She furrowed her eyebrows even though he could not see her. "Why are you rolling your eyes?"

"How did you know?" he asked, almost scared. He turned to see if she could see through the hammock fabric, but he could not see a thing. So, either she was a superhuman, or she had weirdly good instinct. She knew what his footsteps sounded like, so it was most likely the latter.

"I could practically hear it," she answered with a slight smile at his reaction before getting back to the reason that she asked in the first place. What did he have against Minho? They had never seemed to have any problems with each other, especially none that resulted in Jem not wanting him to come back. "Now, why are you doing it?"

He exhaled, and he seemed hesitant about saying whatever the reason was. He paused for a moment before saying, "It's always Minho this, Minho that with you."

"No, it's not," she insisted, and she would turn to look at him if there was no fabric in her way. She almost never talked about Minho. She remembered the time that he came in for a cut, and she told him that Minho was taking his gash like a man and running with a wound. She remembered how he reacted.

He nodded, confirming in a sarcastic voice, "Oh, yeah. Sometimes it's Winston."

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were jealous," she commented, almost jokingly. Although, she was not so sure with everything that had happened lately between the Bonfire night and the almost kiss in the Med-jack Hut and the previous night when she fell asleep on his shoulder.

He scoffed, "Good thing you know better."

As soon as he said it, he regretted it. He wanted to catch it before it reached her ears, but he couldn't. She pursed her lips and nodded slowly to herself. She did not know what she thought they were or what they could be, but that just confirmed that there was nothing, that he did not care.

"I'm gonna go look out for Alby and Minho," she told him, climbing out of the hammock without even sparing him a glance. She made her way over to where Newt and Thomas were standing because she would rather answer the Greenie's incessant questions than stay in that awkward conversation.

He sat up and watched her go, and once she was out of sight, he collapsed back in the hammock and ran a hand through his hair, wondering how he could be so stupid. "Shit."

As the rain slowed to a stop, every single Glader crowded around the doors since they were going to close any minute, and Alby and Minho still had not gotten back yet. Every little noise that came from the Maze made them jump and try to peek around the corner to see if it was their friends.

"Come on, guys, can't we send someone after them?" Thomas questioned curiously and nervously. Him and all of the Keepers had a bad feeling about the situation.

"That's against the rules," Gally responded from where he was crouching on the ground. This had happened a couple times before, and when they sent someone after the person, they both ended up dead. That is how the rule that no one goes into the Maze except for Runners was created. "Either they make it back or they don't."

The boy in the blue shirt still looked a bit confused, so Iris explained, "We can't risk losing anyone else." There was a loud creaking, and the Doors began to close slowly as they were hit with a gust of wind.

"There!" Thomas yelled, pointing down the hall of the Maze. They followed his finger to see Minho and Alby making their way back toward the Glade.

Iris's relieved smile fell when she realized that the Runner was halfway carrying their leader, grunting as he did so. She furrowed her eyebrows and muttered, "Something's wrong."

"Come on, Minho! You can do it!" Chuck called from next to Thomas, and the rest of the Gladers joined in, shouting words of encouragement desperately. Alby fell off of Minho's back, so the boy tried to drag him by his feet.

Newt muttered, "They're not gonna make it."

"Leave him, Minho!" the girl ordered when she realized that the Greenie was right. The Doors were almost closed, and there was no way that they could make it. "Leave him!"

"Minho, you gotta leave him!" Gally agreed as Jem ran a stressed hand through his hair before repeating the words. They were going too slow.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion as the girl looked to Thomas who had a glint in his eye like he was about to do something. By the time she realized, it was too late. He sprinted into the Maze, barely making it through before the Doors closed behind him. Multiple people, including Newt, Iris, and Jem, reached their hand out in an attempt to grab him, but it did not work. She kicked a rock angrily when her view was blocked by the stone.

Jem shook his head and muttered, "That shucking idiot."