IT HAD BEEN ABOUT A WEEK SINCE the welcoming bonfire, and the Greenie was still adjusting to life in the Glade. No one had scheduled any weapons training for that day, so Alex was hanging out with Clint and Jeff in the MedJack hut.

One of the cons about being the only person in her specialty was that it got really lonely sometimes out there in the woods all by herself. Sure, she had some people that helped her out sometimes, but that wasn't their main job — it was something they did when they were free or she really needed help. 

"How is it possible that you slintheads managed to mess this up so much already?" she questioned as she stood over the supplies drawer, trying to organize it. She had done the same thing just the week before, but now, everything was in shambles.

Clint shrugged, leaning over her shoulder to watch what she was doing. "We just did it to give you something to do when you came here."

"Sure, you did," she muttered sarcastically.

"Hey," a voice called from the doorway, causing all three of them to turn to see who it was. Gally was standing there, wiping the sweat from his hands onto his shirt. He was looking at Alex. "I know I didn't schedule anything, but we just finished the Medjack hut. I figured I'd get some of my time for this week out of the way."

She nodded, "Yeah, sure."

"What about the drawer?" Jeff asked as she made her way out of the Hut to do her job.

Alex rolled her eyes, shooting a look toward Gally, and yelled back at him as they left, not turning around. "I'll fix it later!"

The two made it to the Weapons Range after a few minutes of hiking through the forest. They made small talk on the way there, talking about the new Slicer Hut. Once they got there, Gally just started with the spear and began hurling it at the target.

"I swear, one of the Newbies almost hammered a nail into my hand," he informed her, recounting the tale. He was complaining about how annoying new people were when they first started their jobs. Thankfully, Alex rarely had to deal with that since she was the only real worker.

She chuckled in shock. "No way."

"Yes way," he responded, and then he flung another spear at the hand-painted target that the raven-haired girl had made. This time it landed almost perfectly in the middle, hitting the bullseye.

"I don't know why Alby still makes y'all come to these," she sighed as she watched him. "You've been practicing for, like, a year and a half. Everyone's already mastered everything, all the Keepers, at least. I don't really do anything anymore. The only time I get some action is when we get a new Runner, which is almost never. Sometimes someone random comes here in their free time, but usually everyone's working."

He glanced at her as she spoke but went back to practicing, grunting before he asked, "Well, if you didn't do this, what job would you want to do, other than Med-jack, obviously?"

"I don't know. I've never really thought about it," she replied, and after a moment of thinking, she answered the question. "I would be a Runner, but I'm not that big a fan of running. I feel like that would be an essential part of the job."

"Eh, I'm sure you could work around it," Gally joked with a shrug as he picked up one of the knives on the ground beside him, tossing it around in his hand so that he could get a better grip on it.

She watched as muscles in his arms subconsciously flex as he lifted the dagger and threw it, and she scrunched up her face in overdramatic disgust as she added, "And what if my partner was, like, Ben?"

"Oh, that would not be good," he exclaimed.

"Exactly," she replied, leaning back on the rock that she had been sitting on and putting her hands behind her head like a pillow. "What about you? What would you be if you weren't a Builder."

He made a face like he was thinking for a moment before answering, "I think I would become a Runner again. It was probably the least boring out of all the ones I've tried."

"Oh, yeah. I remember when you were a Runner for, like, a week," she told him, recalling the time from a couple years ago when they first arrived in the Glade. "It's weird to picture you as a Runner."

"Why?" he asked, turning to face her and leaning on a spear that he had stuck in the ground.

"I don't know. You're just very arghh," she responded, saying the last sound in a deep voice while flexing her arms beneath her and laughing. He chuckled at her antics as well. "Why'd you stop again?"

He scoffed, explaining, "The Builders were a mess without me, so I had to go back."

"You sure your shank ass didn't get scared of the big, bad Grievers?"

《 ✢ 》

"WHY ISN'T HE BACK YET?" Alex questioned as the Keepers stood together outside of the Dining Hall. Greg hadn't come back from the Maze yet, and they were beginning to get worried. They were outside so that they didn't worry all of the other Gladers with their talk.

The walls were going to close any minute now, and he still wasn't back. This had only happened a handful of times before during their time in the Glade, and it was usually because the person got hurt. They usually made it back, though, but there were a couple of times that they didn't.

Alby just shook his head and stared at the walls. "I don't know."

"You sure we can't send someone after him?" Winston asked, but he was met with silence because they all knew the answer, even him. They couldn't risk losing someone else.

"Well," Alex announced after running a hand through her hair. She kicked off of the pole she was leaning against and uncrossed her arms. "I'm gonna go lock up the Shed."

Minho straightened up as well and glanced at her. "Want some company?"

"No, I got it. Holler if anything happens," she informed them before waving at them with a small smile and walking off into the woods and in the direction of the Weapons Range. 

As she trekked through the leaves, she heard the snapping of some branches. She whipped her head around, but when she did not see anything, she just assumed it was a bird or something and kept going. She made it to the Range, but she froze when she heard the snapping again. Her eyes widened when she saw a person standing next to the Shed.

Greg.

"Oh, Greg. There you are. We were starting to get a little worried. Minho said you never came back from the Maze," she told him after breathing out a sigh of relief. Her gaze drifted down to the cut in his pants, but what shocked her even more were the dark veins running up and down his leg.

He had been stung.

"Hey, Greg, why don't you come to the Med-jack Hut with me?" she asked cautiously, taking a few steps toward him slowly. "I can get that patched up for you."

They both knew she was lying. There was no cure for a Griever sting, at least not one that they had found, but she was hoping that he was so out of it that he wouldn't realize that she was lying. She was wrong.

He lunged at her, pushing the Weapons Shed out of the way, and it fell over, all of the weapons spilling everywhere. She was more worried about the fact that she went tumbling to the ground with him on top of her. She groaned when her left arm got sliced on a rock beneath her, and Greg's nails were digging into her shoulder right above the cut.

"Help!" she screamed, desperate for someone to hear her and regretting not letting Minho come with her. "Help! Someone help!"

When it was obvious to her that no one was coming anytime soon, she grunted as she struggled below him. She tried to lift up a hand to punch him, but he had both arms pinned to the ground. She was still able to move them side to side though, so she figured her best shot was to try and reach one of the weapons that fell out of the knocked over Shed.

He lifted one hand up in order to punch her in the face, and she took the opportunity to reach her arm out for anything that could help her. She couldn't see anything both because he was blocking her and because of the blinding pain she felt in her eye because of the blow to the face.

She gasped when she felt a wooden cylinder under her hand, and she recognized it as a spear. She wrapped her fingers around it tightly before hurling it as hard as she could at his head. Luckily, she hit him with the side that wasn't sharp, so he just got knocked out of place a little.

She hit him hard enough that his grip loosened, and she was able to push him off of her. She climbed to her feet with the spear still in her hand, and when she saw him groaning on the ground, still conscious, she hit him again with the blunt end for good measure. He slumped motionless against the ground.

There was a rustling in the bushes, and she looked up quickly with the spear in her hand, ready to attack even though she had just taken down the threat. She sighed in relief when Minho poked his head out from behind a tree, his eyes widening when he saw the scene in front of him.

"What the hell happened here?"