ALEX WAS HANGING 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 to 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," the boy in the blue shirt 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—"

New 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. Alex was really starting to get frustrated with him. Maybe Gally was right. This kid did ask a lot of questions.

"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 Alex 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 Alex backed up to give him space. He got in a good position before swinging hard at the base of the tree, creating a mark. Alex 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 Alex 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. "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.

She bounced her foot nervously as she stared off into the distance. Her basically nonexistent thoughts were interrupted by someone laying in the hammock next to hers. She looked up to see Gally facing her with an unreadable expression. "You look like you're thinking about something important."

"I just like the rain," she informed him, going back to her staring at the rain. "It's calming."

"You remember that time when Alby got so mad at us that he made us work in the rain?" he questioned with raised eyebrows. There had actually been a couple times that that had happened, but one time was particularly miserable.

She nodded, thinking back to the time. She had been covered in mud by the end of the day, and she had smelled awful. "Oh, yeah. I remember that. What did we do again?"

"Someone left the door to the Homestead open, and a bunch of mud got in there," he reminded her, and she smiled when she remembered. "No one fessed up, so he just punished us all."

"Oh, yeah. That was me," she admitted, a smirk appearing on her face as his jaw dropped. 

He grabbed one of the pillows from a hammock next to him and chucked it at her face. She caught it as she giggled and wrapped her arms around it. He exclaimed, "You shucking slinthead."

"Hey, I did not want to face the wrath of Alby," she defended, throwing her hands up in the air as she explained. "He probably would have made me clean the bathrooms."

"So, you let us all suffer so you didn't have to wash the showers?" he asked her with raised eyebrows.

She shrugged with a small smile, not sure how to respond that made her not look so selfish. "It gets really nasty in there sometimes. What do you guys do to make it so gross?"

"You really wanna know?" he quizzed, moving his eyebrows in a suggestive way that made her scrunch her face up in disgust.

"No, I really don't."

《 ✢ 》

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 to 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 happen 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 Alex 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.

Alex'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 Dors were almost closed, and there was no way that they could make it. "Leave him!"

"Minho, you gotta leave him!" Gally agreed as Alex ran a stressed hand through her hair. They were going to 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 and Alex, 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.

"That shucking idiot."