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Chapter Text

The elevator rocketed upwards at a frightening speed, the air stale and musty and verging on downright suffocating.

The floor jolted erratically beneath Lesley’s feet, the contraption rising faster and faster with every passing second. She could barely see, the shaft lit by sporadic, blinding flashes of white lamps.

It was horrifyingly familiar.

“No,” she rasped. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t -

Another violent lurch of the cage and she collapsed to the floor, gasping as she flung her hands out to catch herself, palms slamming into the cool metal of the grated surface. “No, no, no, no, no!” she shouted.

Lesley’s gaze snapped skywards. She could see the concrete slabs high above, tightly shut and rapidly growing closer. The lift wasn’t slowing.

Her head reeled, her thoughts whirring so fast she couldn’t breathe, icy terror gripping her, choking her, paralysing her. Shuck, she was gonna pass out. The Box, the Box, the Box -

Claustrophobia clawed at her, the walls pressing, shrinking. A nauseating sense of deja vu slammed into her. The Maze, the Glade, the memory swipe -

But no. She remembered. It couldn’t be happening again, it couldn’t. Why?

Why?

A deafening roar echoed up the shaft, the world quaking around her. It was a sound that made every cell in Lesley’s body lurch to a stop; the jarring, sheer escalation of the cage was unreal; time was nonexistent; she was floating, suspended in a bubble of mounting, paralysing terror.

It was a raw, guttural, earsplitting shriek that she would know anywhere.

Forcing back the rising bile in her throat, she chanced a glance through the crisscrosses of metal beneath her feet, the lead weight of dread plummeting to the depths of her stomach.

In the flashes of light, she saw the outline of a Griever. It bared its saber teeth, oozing with slime as another piercing shriek ricocheted up the shaft; Lesley slammed her hands down over her ears, a gasp tearing from her throat.

The Griever scrambled towards her at an impossible speed like a culmination of all her worst nightmares, mechanical limbs clawing, scrabbling for purchase on the minuscule ledges lining the metal walls; climbing.

The entire time, its beady gaze was fixed on her.

Lesley scrambled towards the sides of the cage, nails ripping, eyes scanning the roof, searching frantically for the latches, the hinges, any way out. “HEY!” she screamed, the utter ferocity of the word shredding her vocal chords. “HEEEEEY!”

Another jolt threw Lesley to the ground, flat on her back with a stuttered gasp of agony as her head hit the grated floor with a resounding clattering noise. Pain rocketed up her spine. She stared upwards, chest heaving and tears pouring down her face unbidden as the roof surged closer and closer, the cover sliding open and a blindingly white light burning her eyes.

The Gladers; she had to warn them. The Griever. The Griever the Griever the Griever -

A giant stinger plunged through the grate beside her, the two foot long needle stabbing into the air and making her lurch with horror as grunge and saliva sprayed out and hit her from beneath, the dagger-like teeth barely inches from her body as the Griever opened its mouth and let out another soul-chilling roar, arachnid limbs gripping the cage and violently shaking it within the narrow confines of the shaft. Metal shrieked, sparks flew; the bright light, closer and closer and closer -

Lesley screamed until her throat was excruciatingly raw; she screamed and she screamed and -

“HEY, WAKE UP! LES!”

Chapter Text

Lesley jerked awake with a gasp, her eyes snapping open to see the dim outline of Minho looming over her in the darkness, his face barely inches from her own. Her chest heaved; hell, it was all she could do to just shucking breathe -

“Griever,” she choked out, shaking violently, her hands scrabbling for a hold in his shirt, desperate for the touch of something tangible, something real. “The Box - there - there was a Griever -”

Minho roughly grabbed both sides of her face, thumbs digging into her cheeks as he stared at her with wild, frantic eyes. “Snap out of it, shank! We gotta go! Come on, grab my hand!”

Lesley looked around blearily, coming back to the present. The air was filled with the deafening whir of the chopper’s blades; she was still in the helicopter cabin, but the rocking movements of the craft had ceased. She couldn’t see any of the other Gladers around her in the blackness of the night. Icy terror surged through her like a glacial river.

The Maze. Their escape.

Chuck.

“LET’S GO!” Minho yelled again. “COME ON! HEY, TOMBOY -!”

The warm feeling of his palm against her own jerked Lesley out of her reeling thoughts as Minho hauled her forward to the edge of the craft, her nightmare rapidly slipping away ... to be replaced by an entirely new one altogether.

“What the hell is going on?” she gasped over the roar of the wind outside the chopper.

The aircraft was on the ground, and Lesley was abruptly blinded by bright white searchlights sweeping the area; raising her arm to shield her eyes, she could see the nearby vicinity swarming with armoured men.

“Let’s go! Let’s go!” a uniformed officer yelled. It was one of the soldiers who had helped them onto the craft after fleeing the maze - no, WCKD - compound. Carl, she remembered his name was. “We gotta go!”

Minho frantically shoved her forward. Lesley’s feet hit the concrete and she hissed at the pain that shot up through her legs, making her stumble.

Another arm grabbed her. “You alright?” Thomas yelled as Minho dropped down beside them.

Lesley stared at him, bewildered. Where the hell had he come from?

“Les!” Thomas cried over the cacophony, giving her a shake. “You good?!”

Snapping back to the present, she nodded jerkily. “Yeah. Yeah!”

“Go, go!” Carl hollered, pointing. “Get out of here, follow the others!”

Lesley’s gaze darted. Squinting, she could just make out the familiar silhouettes of the other Gladers, the boys running towards yet another towering concrete complex, much like the building they had just abandoned. Minho grabbed her shoulder tightly and started forward.

Thomas’s eyes widened. “Wait, wait, wait!” he yelled frantically, rushing back towards the helicopter, jumping back into the cabin.

“Thomas!” Minho roared.

The soldiers around them shoved them forward. “Move! Move! Where are you going?” one of them yelled at Thomas. “We don’t have time!”

Lesley’s feet dug into the sand with every step. She gritted her teeth, clutching tightly to Minho’s arm, and chanced another glance over her shoulder. Thomas suddenly slid back into view, something small clutched tightly in his hand. He looked at them and nodded quickly.

“Come on!” Carl yelled, roughly grabbing his shoulder and shoving him towards Lesley and Minho. “Get out of here!”

“Thomas!” Lesley shouted above the noise.

“Go, go!” he yelled back, catching up.

A distant, piercing screech made them all freeze. Her blood curdling, Lesley looked around wildly, the blackness of the night suddenly just as frightening as it had been back in the Maze, as horrific as it had been in her nightmare.

“Cranks!” someone roared. “We got Cranks!”

Stumbling in the sand, Lesley craned her neck, squinting into the pitch black to try and see what the soldiers could. Cranks? What the hell were Cranks? From the way the men clutched at their guns, expressions tight, she gathered they weren’t something good; if the soldiers were afraid, then they had good reason to be, too.

“Gotta move! Gotta move!” one of the soldiers roared. “Not safe out here, kids!”

“Got a swarm to the flank!” another yelled.

Several men surrounded them, dragging them, escorting them away from the helipad with frantic haste. “Go, kids, go!” the voices were screaming in Lesley’s ears from all directions. “Set a perimeter! Hold them back on the right side!”

Gunshots went off, thunderous blasts that rattled Lesley’s eardrums. Searchlight beams swept across the sand, blinding them. The sheer noise was overwhelming, deafening. She wanted to scream, or cry, or something - she couldn’t shucking think -

“Get those kids inside!”

The soldiers herded them along. “Come on, kids, let’s go! Move it, come on!”

Adrenaline surged through Lesley’s veins as icy fear gripped her insides. She picked up her pace. Newt threw a glance over his shoulder, and Lesley saw the relief flood his expression at the sight of Minho, Thomas and herself.

Soldiers were pouring out of the building ahead of them. Gunfire roared amidst the chaos. “Keep moving! Keep moving!” someone yelled.

Finally, finally, they caught up to the rear of the Glader group as the gargantuan concrete complex towered over them. Shapes loomed out of the darkness around them, twisting shadows on the verges of Lesley’s vision. Another shriek pierced the night.

Another soldier waved his arm. “Tell him to take off! We’re clear!”

Wind gusted around them as the helicopter roared to life, lifting off the ground. Lesley spun around to look, raising her arm to shield her eyes against the gale. As the searchlights lifted to provide light for the craft, a jolt of fear hit Lesley; there was a figure dangling from the helicopter, screeching as it then plummeted to the sand thirty feet below.

A hand shoved her forward. “Don’t look! Keep moving!”

They ran through the gap in the doors and the gargantuan slabs of metal slammed shut behind them. As a collection of locks and bolts were slammed into place, Lesley exhaled the breath she hadn’t even realised she had been holding in, but when she turned around her mouth fell open in a mixture of awe and dismay.

They were in a massive hangar. Alarms blared, warning lights flashed yellow across the space. People ran in all directions hefting weapons, many of them shouting orders to the other personnel sprinting across the space. The sheer chaos was overwhelming.

Lesley stumbled back against Newt, a gasp tearing from her throat as he grabbed her shoulder to steady her. “What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?”

“This way, follow me!” a man shouted, waving to the Gladers.

He sprinted across the hangar and down a wide, concrete side passage, urging the group to keep up with him; about halfway down, he lunged towards the wall and wrenched a door open for them. “Get inside!” he yelled. “Hurry! Hurry!”

The Gladers didn’t need to be told twice; they surged through the entranceway. Teresa, Winston, Frypan, Lesley pushing Minho ahead of her, Jack, Newt and Thomas piling in behind her.

Lesley stopped short, causing Jack to crash into her at the abrupt halt. It was pitch black inside the room.

Thomas whirled around, staring. “Wait, what was going on out there?”

“Nothing we can’t handle,” the man told him, slamming the door shut. There was the sound of it being locked from the outside, a sharp clanking of metal that filled them with dread.

“Hey!” Thomas yelled, banging on the metal slab. “Hey! Hey!”

The other Gladers began shouting out in panic, terror grabbing hold. Lesley gripped one of the boys’ arms; she couldn’t tell whose in the blackness. “Let us out!” she screamed over the indiscernible noise.

“Ow, right in my bloody ear -”

“Shit, sorry, Newt -”

The lights flickered on. All of them squinted against the brightness until their eyes finally adjusted. Everyone fell silent at the sight before them, shock flooding their expressions.

They were standing in a large storage room filled with various benches and piles of sacks and crates, but placed in the middle of the floor space was a long picnic-style trestle table. A table filled with trays and platters of food.

Minho’s stomach growled loudly as the smell of fresh hot food hit them. “I’ve been shucked and gone to heaven,” he breathed. Lesley’s mouth watered.

“Dibs on the rice!” Frypan shouted gleefully, sprinting forward with the rest of the Gladers on his heels. Plates and spoons were thrown around at an alarming speed.

“Finally!” Lesley groaned, sinking her teeth into a chocolate chip cookie and reaching for the roast potatoes at the same time, moaning lowly at the sugary sweetness flooding her tastebuds. Hunger gnawed painfully at her stomach; she was shucking starving.

Newt gnawed at a chicken leg with little grace, humming deeply in appreciation as he tore chunks off with his teeth; Thomas dug into the rice as Frypan handed him the dish in order to bite into a juicy red apple instead; Minho downed an entire jug of water, stuffing pieces of meat into his mouth; Winston chomped on a pear, grinning widely. There was so much food, more than they’d ever seen in the short lives they remembered, and the Gladers shoveled it down with great enthusiasm.

“This is way better than Frypan’s slop,” Winston laughed.

“Yeah, Les, now we can finally put some meat on those bones,” Minho teased. “Fatten up your skinny shank ass.”

“You been looking at my butt?” Lesley smirked, playing along.

“OOOOOOH!” the boys crowed.

To Lesley’s great satisfaction, Minho blushed and averted his gaze.

“Thought his eyes mighta been elsewhere on occasion,” Newt grinned, winking playfully in her direction. “Now, Les, the real question is - did he ever wanna run behind you? And, more importantly, did you let him?”

Oh, that was a bait if she ever heard one. Grinning back, Lesley grabbed a handful of rice from her plate and threw it in his direction, showering Thomas in the process. Everyone around the table erupted into hoots of laughter, and suddenly food was flying.

Minho chucked some beans at Lesley, a wide smile splitting his face. Grapes were fired over the table mercilessly; cobs of corn were launched across the room, Newt successfully hitting Winston in the face with a gleeful shout. Chicken legs soared; one smacked Jack on the head, causing the laughter to turn hysterical. Lesley clutched her sides, laughing so hard she could barely breathe. Further along the table, Teresa was wheezing as well.

“Not the rice!” Frypan shrieked dramatically as Thomas staggered away from the table, doubling over laughing. “The rice! The rice!”

Looking at the shining, pink faces surrounding her and seeing the cheek-splitting smiles brought back memories of the bonfire nights. It dulled the impact of the wrenching losses  they had suffered mere hours earlier; a reprieve, a chance to rest. Lesley clamped down on the emotions, forcing them into a box and sealing it. There would be time, but not now.

Teresa smacked her in the head with a banana, jerking her from her thoughts. “Oi -!”

o-o-o-o-o

The room was quiet, the plates cleared of all food. The Gladers lounged lethargically around the storage space with their bellies full, all of them feeling warm and content.

Suddenly, things didn’t seem so terrifying any more. They didn’t know how much time had passed since their arrival, but all was silent now; there wasn’t a noise to be heard outside the room.

“I don’t know who these guys are,” Frypan started lazily, glancing at his empty bowl in awe as he let loose a belch, “but they can cook.”

“But who are they really, though?” Teresa asked, leaning against a pile of sacks beside Newt, with Thomas sitting opposite. “I mean, we don’t know anything about them.”

Sitting at one of the tables, Lesley hummed quietly in thought. “Maybe they’ll tell us once they’ve finished sorting out whatever the hell that was before.” She scratched her head, pulling a face at how greasy her hair felt. “They rescued us. That’s what matters, right?”

Newt’s brow creased. “Well, we know they’re no friends of WCKD.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Minho piped up, sitting up. He had been lying on the table surface directly behind Lesley. “You guys think too much,” he told them. “We’re free. Enjoy it.”

Thomas sighed, a troubled look on his features.

There was the sound of the door creaking open, the sharp shrieking noise grating to Lesley’s ears. Everyone leaped to their feet, suddenly tense and alert as they all stumbled towards the singular exit of the room. Staying close to Newt and Minho, Lesley squinted at the silhouette before them.

Standing in the entranceway was a tall man with a drawn, rat-like face and thinning grey hair; he wore a black leather jacket over a grey-blue turtleneck.

He smiled. “You kids doing alright?” he asked concernedly. “Sorry about all the fuss. We had ourselves a bit of a swarm.” He looked almost amused. “But it’s over now. The threat has passed.”

“Who are you?” Thomas asked, speaking for everyone.

He shrugged nonchalantly. “I’m the reason you’re all still alive,” he told them simply. “It’s my intention to keep you that way.” He motioned for them to follow him. “Now, come with me. We’ll get you kids squared away.”

Chapter Text

The man led them through the facility; it resembled a gargantuan concrete bunker, intricate corridors twisting around them. People in dark shirts and overalls milled about, some talking, some carrying out construction jobs, others walking past with a sandwich in hand as they answered questions over a hand-held radio.

“You can call me Mr. Janson,” the mysterious man informed them. “I run this place. For us, it is a sanctuary, safe from the horrors of the outside world. You all should think of it as a way station; kind of a home between homes. Watch yourselves,” he added.

They all ducked as sparks flew from the ceiling. Lesley glanced up and saw several men welding a level above them, their faces obscured by protective masks.

“That mean you’re taking us home?” Thomas asked hopefully.

Janson turned around to look at them. “A home of sorts.”

“What about our families?” Lesley piped up. “Will we be going back to them?”

Janson shook his head. “Sadly, there wouldn’t be much left of wherever you came from.”

Lesley’s breath shuddered in her chest, realisation hitting her like a brick wall, like an icy torrent of water through her veins. They didn’t have anyone to go home to.

Therein lay the crux of the situation: none of them remembered anything. They couldn’t remember a single thing from their previous lives when it came to their personal relationships; faces had been wiped into a blank canvas, voices whispered torturously in their ears, faint and ghostly. She didn’t know who to miss.

Lesley glanced at the Gladers around her; they had become her family, the teenagers who had been orphaned just like her, bound together by a bond that ran deeper than she could ever have anticipated, the boys - with the addition of yet another girl - who had helped her survive, given her hope in what by all appearances had been a despairing situation.

“But we do have a place for you,” Janson continued smoothly, as if he hadn’t just thrown her entire world into chaos. “A refuge, outside of this desert wasteland, where WCKD will never find you again. How does that sound?”

It all seemed too good to be true. Minho shared a glance with Newt and Lesley, all three of them frowning. “Why are you helping us?” he asked.

Janson kept walking. “Let’s just say the world out there is in a rather precarious situation. We’re all hanging on by a very thin thread.”

“How bad is it?” Thomas pressed.

Janson paused, turning around. “You really don’t remember anything, do you?” he said softly. He stared at them for a long moment, his curious expression shadowed by that same hint of amusement as before, and then he was off walking again. “God willing, you’ll never have to find out. What’s important is the fact that you kids can survive the Flare virus makes you the best chance of humanity’s continued survival. Unfortunately,” he added, “it also makes you a target, as no doubt by now you’ve noticed.”

He walked towards a solid metal door, the entrance at least ten-feet square. About halfway up was a long, narrow window stretching sideways.

“Beyond this door,” Janson continued, swiping a key card on a control panel set into the wall, “lies the beginning of your new lives.”

With a beep of confirmation, the door slowly began to ascend into the framework, sliding upwards to reveal a long white corridor stretching out before them.

“First things first,” Janson began with a chuckle, clapping his hands, “let’s do something about that smell.”

o-o-o-o-o

“Whoo!” Jack cheered.

There was a laugh from Winston. “All right! Feels great!”

“Frypan!” Minho called, unceremoniously gargling a mouthful of water. “How you feel over there?”

Lesley smiled at the shouts of joy, closing her eyes as the hot water streamed over her body, soothing her aching muscles. She sighed in contentment, relieved to finally wash away the dirt and grime; blood dripped to the tiled floor from her various cuts and grazes, washing away down the drain and filling her with a strange sense of peace, as if she were cleansing her soul of the horrific things she had seen, the heat numbing the pain. She turned the handle, cranking up the water pressure and smiling wider as steam filled the cubicle, the thick beams of water providing her with a welcome massage.

“You’re awfully quiet, Les,” Newt commented from two stalls down as he lathered up his hair with what was probably an unhealthy amount of shampoo.

“Want us to come check on you, shank?” Minho shouted teasingly, his voice suspiciously cheerful.

Memories surged. “No! No peeking!” Lesley yelled.

“Aw, come on, Les, would we ever do a thing like that?” Winston called from directly to her left, a grin clear in his voice.

“YES. Don’t know how I ever survived two months with you lot with my sanity intact -”

“What about your virginity?”

A bar of soap suddenly went flying into the next stall. “THAT WAS UNCALLED FOR, YOU SHUCKING SLINTHEAD!” Lesley yelled over the roars of laughter, the boys teasingly hollering at her. “Besides, I think I’ve seen more action than you.”

Newt guffawed. “Bloody savage!”

“Yeah, I can imagine,” Frypan called out in response. “What with you and Minho out in the Maze together. Ya know. Alone.”

“Sounds about right,” Minho replied seriously; Lesley’s eyes bulged. “We had to go out there and do naked dancing rituals to scare away the Grievers.”

Lesley grinned, rolling her eyes. Thank the Creators the other boys couldn’t see how red her face was. “Yeah, they weren’t the only ones running away screaming at the sight of your bare ass -”

“OOOOOOOH!” the boys howled, all of them collapsing into fits of uncontrollable laughter as Minho launched his bar of soap across the top of the cubicles in an attempt to get back at Lesley.

He missed, if the second resulting swear word from Winston’s stall was anything to go by.

o-o-o-o-o

Next, they were given new clothes. The sheer kindness they were being shown almost made Lesley sob. Slack-jawed, they hurriedly changed into the crisp, warm garments; the scent of laundry powder clinging to the apparel was oddly comforting.

Once they were decently attired, the waiting doctors took their names and ushered the group into a lab crowded with beds and various pieces of medical and fitness equipment. All of them were split up and placed under the studious watch of various technicians as they ran each of the Gladers through a series of tests.

Newt was one of the first to receive a nasty looking injection, the orange serum filling the syringe. “Uh, wait, what is that?” he asked, eyeing the needle nervously.

“Just a little cocktail,” the doctor told him. “Calcium, folate, vitamins A through Z. Pretty much everything you’ve been deprived of out there.” He gave a small smile, swabbing Newt’s arm. “Try to relax.”

Pursing his lips, Newt turned his attention to the other side of the room, where Lesley and Minho were running on treadmills side by side, wires attached to their arms and torsos to monitor their vitals. Both the Runners were laughing.

“Looking good in red,” Lesley commented, eyeing Minho’s burgundy shirt.

He grinned. “Looking good in brown,” he shot back, reaching over and tugging on her sleeve. “You tryna distract me, Les? I’m already two miles ahead of you.”

“You started before me,” Lesley pouted, barely holding back a laugh.

Minho’s eyes twinkled. “Too bad, shank.”

Behind a set of screen curtains nearby, Thomas was having his fifth sample of blood drawn. He grimaced as the doctor placed the sample with the other vials, glancing up at the man. “Sure you’ve got enough there?” he asked.

The doctor merely gave an apologetic smile. He looked over his shoulder as a dark-skinned lady in a crisp white lab coat strode past. “Evening, Doctor Crawford,” he called out to her, finally pulling the tube out of Thomas’s arm.

She nodded, adjusting the stethoscope slung casually around her neck. “Good evening,” she greeted. “How are the new arrivals holding up?”

“So far, so good.”

“Alright,” Crawford said, coming to a stop at a bed at the far end of the room. She smiled at the girl sitting on it. “And you must be Teresa.”

The curtains were drawn around the bed. Lesley turned her head at the sound, her brow creasing; Minho laughed. “You’re in a room full of boys,” he smirked. “You don’t think they’ll offer you ladies some privacy? Maybe they’re checking to make sure we shanks didn’t knock you up.”

Lesley grinned. “Good that. Not that we would’ve touched you slintheads with a ten-foot pole,” she teased.

Minho swatted at her. “Rude!” he exclaimed, clutching his chest in mock offence.

“Thomas?”

They watched as an armed man came to a stop in front of Thomas, who looked visibly nervous, his eyes flicking to the handgun hung from the man’s belt. “Yeah?”

“Come with me, please.”

After a moment, Thomas stood up and followed, his movements tight and cautious. Minho stared after him, frowning slightly. “Wonder what that’s about?”

Lesley wished she knew. “Maybe they’re making sure he didn’t get knocked up,” she said, shrugging. Minho sniggered, but the unease didn’t disappear from his eyes.

“Lesley?”

She flinched as Crawford came over to them. She slowed her pace on the treadmill and came to a stop, eyeing the doctor expectantly and slightly warily after what she had just seen with Thomas.

“We need to run a few extra tests on you,” Crawford told her with a kind smile as another nurse stepped forward and quickly detached the wires from Lesley’s body. “If you’ll follow me, please.”

After a moment of hesitation, Lesley nodded sharply, quickly stepping off the exercise equipment.

“Later, shank,” Minho told her.

Crawford directed her to the far end of the room, where another doctor was waiting for her with a warm smile. A young brunette woman with round glasses.

“My name is Doctor Andrews. Please, take a seat,” she instructed.

Lesley perched on the edge of the indicated bed. Still staring after her with an unreadable expression on his face, Minho’s gaze was unnervingly intense; she was almost relieved when the curtains were drawn and her second examination began.

Her height was measured, and her weight taken a second time. Andrews tested reflexes, response times; she shone a light in Lesley’s eyes, searching for something beyond her irises. Lesley shivered under the extreme scrutiny.

Finally, after a full ten minutes of note-taking on her tablet, Andrews smiled warmly at her. “Now, have you been ovulating regularly?”

Lesley blinked. She hadn’t even thought of that. “Uhm. No.”

“Hmm, interesting.” She made another note. “Possibly an IUD. Don’t worry,” she added with a reassuring smile. “They only last a few years. We’ll look into it later, okay?”

Lesley nodded.

“I won’t make you uncomfortable, but there’s no chance you’re pregnant?”

Lesley felt the hysterical urge to laugh. Hadn’t Minho just mentioned that? “Shuck no.”

“That’s good.” Even Andrews looked amused, fingers dancing across the tablet. “Lastly, we need to take some samples from you.”

Lesley flinched away from the syringe on the bench beside her as she caught sight of it, her heart hammering painfully in her chest.

“Everything alright, sweetie?”

She snapped her gaze away from the needle to Andrews’ kind face. Swallowing thickly, she nodded. “I - I don’t like needles,” she muttered, ashamed.

Memories surged, sharp and excruciating, threatening to burst free. She firmly stamped down on them, crushing them into the depths of her mind. Not now, not now.

Andrews leaned forward conspiratorially. “You want to know a secret? Neither do I.”

She stepped back and cleared her throat, turning to her table of instruments. “Tell me about your friends,” she said. “Who was the boy on the treadmill with you?”

Staring determinedly at the tiled ceiling, Lesley blinked rapidly. “Uhm, that’s Minho. He’s my best friend. Well, apart from Newt and Thomas. And Winston, and Fry, and Gally -”

Her heart twisted in agony. Not now, not now.

She jerked her head. “Minho and I ran together every day. He can be mean as hell, but he’s one of the best people I know. He’s always looked out for me.”

Gloved fingers brushed her arm. “Newt is the blond boy over there, yes? He was ever so polite when I spoke with him earlier.”

“Yeah, that sounds like him. He’s always so kind and patient.” She fought to keep her eyes up. “We call him the Glade Mother or Mama Newt to tease him -”

Lesley glanced down as something sticky touched her arm. She barked out a laugh; the needle was nowhere to be seen, and Andrews was carefully placing a bandaid over the injection site.

“There, the first one is all done,” the doctor smiled. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Lesley bit her lip, the humour vanishing from her eyes. “I’ve seen worse.”

Chapter Text

Lesley felt like a used pincushion by the time she walked out of the lab, guided by one of the men who worked at the facility. Doctor Andrews had given her directions to the mess hall the moment her stomach started grumbling embarrassingly loud. Their arrival feast already felt eons ago.

Still woozy from the blood loss and her attention wandering, she nearly smacked into someone very familiar.

“Thomas!” she exclaimed happily as they fell in step with one another. “Getting some food as well?”

He nodded, the silence stretching.

Lesley frowned; it was most unlike him. “Where did they cart you off to, anyway?” she asked.

Thomas rubbed the back of his neck, glancing at the man standing behind him, watching. “That Janson guy wanted to ask me some stuff.”

He didn’t seem to want to talk about it, and so Lesley left it at that. The two of them continued walking, the distant babble of voices growing louder as they neared the end of the corridor.

Lesley’s mouth dropped open in amazement at the sight before them. It was a massive room, filled with boys and girls alike, all about her age. They were sitting at the same type of benches the Gladers’ own feast had been laid out on, the tables set up in uniform rows. Everyone was chattering and laughing, digging into trays full of food.

“Hey, Lesley! Thomas!”

It was Minho, striding towards them with a wide smile on his face.

“Hey, Minho,” Thomas greeted as Lesley threw the Keeper a grin. “What’s going on?”

“We weren’t the only Maze!” Minho exclaimed excitedly, grabbing Lesley’s arm and pulling her along with him, Thomas trailing behind. “Come on! This kid, David, is telling us about their one.”

He led them over to one of the benches, and Lesley smiled at the familiar faces. She sat in the space between Minho and Newt, who threw her a warm smile in greeting. Thomas plonked down on his other side. Sitting opposite were two boys Lesley had never met.

“And there was this big loud explosion and these guys came out of nowhere,” David was telling the other Gladers. He was a dark-skinned kid with curly hair and kind eyes. “Started shooting up the place. I stuck with Emilio here through the whole thing.”

“It was intense,” the Hispanic boy next to him agreed.

“What about the rest?” Newt asked quietly. “The other people left behind in the Maze, what happened to them?”

David shook his head. “I don’t know. I guess WCKD still has them.”

Lesley glanced at Minho, her expression tightening. He shook his head in understanding; there wasn’t much hope for the Gladers they had left behind. Her chest tightened; in some ways, the lack of closure was worse.

Thomas looked at Newt meaningfully. They had to find out as much as they could.

“How long you guys been here?” Newt asked.

“Not long. Just a day or two.” David jerked his head at the hooded boy sat alone on the far side of the cafeteria. “That kid over there has been here the longest. Almost a week.”

“His Maze was nothing but girls,” Emilio added.

Minho’s eyes flicked to Lesley before he raised his eyebrows at the other boy, a curious expression settling on his features. “Really?”

David smirked, shrugging. “Some guys have all the luck. Speaking of which, what’s your name, lovely lady?”

Lesley’s cheeks reddened as she let out a nervous laugh. “Lesley,” she said shyly. She didn’t mind the teasing, borderline flirty conversations with the Gladers because she knew it was meant in a goodnatured, brotherly way. This was something different.

Newt frowned, noticing Lesley shifting uncomfortably with the sudden, clearly unwanted attention, her hands fidgeting beneath the table. He put a hand on her arm, out of sight of the others, and was relieved when she visibly relaxed under the touch.

“You were in the Maze with these guys?” Emilio asked her.

Lesley nodded. “Was the only girl until a few days ago.” She winced at the words; it felt like a lifetime since Teresa had arrived in the Box.

David laughed. “Bet the boys were lining up to get a shot at you.”

Despite the teasing tone of his words, Minho bristled.

Newt cleared his throat loudly, hoping he was the only one who saw the literal hackles rising. “Actually, she took on a more ‘touch me and you die’ attitude,” he told them, his lips quirking upwards. Lesley threw him a grateful look. “We didn’t dare.”

“Spunky!” Emilio grinned. “I like that!”

“Not only that,” Minho ground out, trying to keep his voice as pleasant as possible, “but this shank survived a night in the Maze.”

She hadn’t been alone. Lesley opened her mouth to protest but Minho kicked her beneath the table.

There was a low impressed whistle from Emilio, a deep look of newfound respect in his eyes. “Holy sh -”

“Good evening, gentlemen, ladies,” Janson’s voice suddenly rang out across the cafeteria as he strode in through a side door, flanked by two other men. He came to a stop in the centre of the room, a clipboard in his hands.

Immediately, everyone put down their food, the chatter quickly dwindling into silence as people swung around in their seats to face Janson, giving him their utmost attention. The atmosphere turned expectant, hopeful.

“Firstly, the warmest of welcomes to our newest arrivals,” Janson began, gesturing to the Gladers’ table. “We hope you’ll find our accommodations comfortable.”

There were smiles and cheers, people applauding as heads swivelled in their direction. Lesley found herself sitting up straighter, grinning suddenly.

“Now, you all know how this works,” Janson continued. “If you hear your name called, please rise in an orderly fashion and join my colleagues behind me,” he gestured to the two men standing against the back wall, “where they will escort you to the eastern wing. Your new lives are about to begin!”

There was another thunderous round of applause throughout the room.

Clearing his throat, Janson opened the clipboard. “Connor,” he began.

Lesley turned around as two boys behind her high-fived, one of them grinning as he made his way to the front of the room.

“Evelyn.”

There were gasps of excitement. “Ev!” one girl exclaimed as Evelyn stood up, smiling.

“Justin,” Janson said, continuing down the list before him, more and more people moving to join him as their names were called. “Peter. Alison.” A pause. “Squiggy.”

There were bursts of laughter as another boy swaggered to his feet, a grin plastered on his face. Even Lesley couldn’t help giggling at the sight.

“Alright, settle down,” Janson reprimanded gently, smiling slightly in amusement. “Franklin, and Abigail.”

With that, the clipboard slammed shut. There were groans and mutters from the remaining people in the room.

“Now, now, don’t get discouraged,” Janson told them kindly. “If I could take more, I would. There’s always tomorrow. Your time will come.” He smiled again. “Go on, eat up.”

With that, he left the room, those whose names had been called trailing behind him in a long line. Everyone except the Gladers applauded as they left.

“Where are they going?” Minho asked quietly.

David was silent for a long moment. “Far from here.” Slowly, he turned around in his seat again. “Lucky bastards,” he muttered.

“Some kind of farm,” Emilio informed them. “They keep talking about greener pastures; a safe place. They can only take a couple of people at a time.”

Looking out the window on the far side of the room, Lesley suddenly grabbed Thomas’s arm. “Teresa,” she gasped.

His brow creased in confusion. “No, I’m Thomas,” he corrected, but then he followed her gaze.

There was Teresa, being escorted down the corridor by two doctors.

“What the hell?” Thomas uttered, immediately standing up, his dark eyes fixated on her as his jaw fell open. He was suddenly on the move, his feet carrying him across the linoleum floor towards her.

“I don’t like this,” Lesley muttered as he stormed across the cafeteria. “I don’t like this at all.” Why had Teresa been separated from them, and why hadn’t they been told? Where had she been?

“Hey, Teresa! Teresa!” Thomas shouted, rushing towards the doors where two guards were standing. Just before she disappeared around a corner, Teresa’s eyes met his.

The guard closest to Thomas stepped forward. “Hey, hey, hey.”

Lesley clambered to her feet, pushing Minho back down as he started to get up. “I got him, I got him. Shit.”

“Where are they taking her?” Thomas demanded, his voice carrying across the space.

“They just have to run a few more tests,” the guard told him, smiling reassuringly. “Don’t worry, they’ll be done with her soon.”

Thomas was persistent. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine.”

Lesley finally reached the confrontation. Swallowing nervously, she put on an air of nonchalance. “Come on, Tommy,” she implored, smiling and lightly punching his arm. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving after all those blood tests. Let’s grab some of that pizza before it runs out, yeah?”

She used the nickname deliberately to grab his attention; it worked. He turned to look at her with a pinched brow, and she stared back, trying to convey with her eyes what she couldn’t with words. Not now. We’ll find out later.

“I would listen to your friend, if I were you,” the guard said. “Miss ...?”

“Lesley,” she answered, raising her chin.

The man smiled in response, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes as he tilted his head in acknowledgement. “Miss Lesley.”

The silence stretched, the tension in the air thickening with every passing second.

Finally, Thomas nodded rigidly. “Pizza sounds good,” he said tightly, visibly fighting his own thoughts. “Come on, Les.”

o-o-o-o-o

They came to a stop in front of a door directly at the end of the corridor. A plaque on the wall read BUNK ROOM B-3 5.

The armed facility worker who had been escorting them cleared his throat. “Now, we have a designated room for the lady here,” he said, “if you’ll just wait outside -”

Lesley froze, anxiety gripping her at the thought of being separated from her friends, not after all they had just been through. The fact that Teresa still hadn’t returned weighed heavily on her mind. “N-No,” she stuttered.

“Lesley stays with us,” Thomas said forcefully.

The other Gladers tensed at his tone, eyes flicking nervously between them. Minho’s brow pinched; Lesley was taken aback by the sheer protectiveness in Thomas’s voice, his tone borderline threatening.

Ever the peacekeeper, Newt stepped forward. “She’s lived with us for months,” he said, shrugging nonchalantly. “It doesn’t bother us; we can handle it.”

“Suit yourselves,” the man told them, pushing the door open for them. “Lights out at nine.”

The first one to enter the room, Frypan surged forward. “Ooh, I got top bunk!” he shouted gleefully, dashing towards one of the ladders.

Minho ran forward and grabbed the bars bracketing the upper bunk, nimbly pulling himself up onto the bed. “Too slow,” he grinned.

Lesley rolled her eyes, trying not to stare at his taut arm muscles. “Show off,” she muttered fondly.

They were in a long dormitory with five sets of bunks taking up the centre and left side of the room. On the right side were several tables and chairs, and a block of lockers against the far wall. There was another door there, presumably leading to a bathroom.

Winston flopped down onto one of the beds, grinning as he sank his head back into the soft pillow. “I could get used to this!”

Newt stepped forward to join Lesley in the middle of the dorm, both of them looking around in admiration. “Yeah, it’s not bad,” he reckoned with a smile.

Suddenly, the door slammed shut. There was the distinct clanking noise of it being locked from the outside.

Thomas licked his lips anxiously, rocking on his heels beside Lesley. “Hey, what do you think those guys want with Teresa?” he asked quietly.

“She was the last one to turn up in the Glade,” Lesley pointed out, but she knew she was trying to reassure herself as well. “Maybe they want to compare the long term effects. It’s probably fine.” Probably.

Nodding, Newt turned to look at Thomas. “Now, if there’s one thing I know about that girl, she can take care of herself,” he said adamantly. “If Les is anything to go by, WCKD sent us girls who are tough as nails. Don’t worry about it.”

With that, he clambered up the nearest bunk ladder, sprawling out on the bed adjacent to Minho’s one.

“At least they gave us a ton of blankets,” Lesley commented as she plopped down on one of the lower beds. “It’s cold in this place.”

“Care to snuggle, shank?” Minho asked, winking cheekily.

Lesley reached behind her and threw her pillow at him, smacking him in the face as it soared across the room at high speed. “In your dreams, slinthead,” she laughed.

Minho clutched at his chest. “By my honour, that’s not what you told me that night in the Maze,” he said in mock offence. There were catcalls and crows of laughter.

“You and I remember that night very differently, then,” Thomas muttered.

“Yoooooo!” Winston howled, grinning from ear to ear.

Newt smirked wickedly, propping himself up on his elbows. “Maybe those screams we heard were something else entirely,” he drawled, his eyes alight with mischief.

Lesley groaned and flipped Newt off as there were more sniggers around the room. Minho scowled. “Slim it, salamander,” he retorted.

“Oi, bugger off!” Newt shouted, slamming his pillow against Minho’s face with a satisfying thud.

The next second, the dormitory was a raging war of pillows being thrown and smacked in all directions. Lesley squealed with laughter, her worries softening to a distant hum in her mind as she ducked a throw from Winston and attacked the side of Jack’s head.

“Hey!” Jack laughed, his dark hair falling in his eyes as he grinned widely, tossing his pillow at Frypan.

“Aw hell nah!” Frypan shrieked, grinning.

The bunk room was in uproar. It was the kind of Glader roughhousing the shower stalls had prevented mere hours earlier, but had now returned with full and uncontainable force, the boys and Lesley attacking each other with boisterous enthusiasm - not even Thomas could hide from their antics as Newt battered him with his own pillow, a smile finally spreading across his face.

Giggling, Lesley ducked under the covers of the bed she had declared as her own. “Sanctuary, I claim sanctuary!” she shouted.

Silence. Lesley frowned at the suspicious absence of noise, and just when she was about to check what was going on, a loud battle cry tore through the air and she was suddenly pummeled with pillows from all sides.

“No sanctuary here, Les!” Frypan yelled, clearly grinning despite his voice being muffled through the blankets.

The covers were wrenched back and the boys surged forward, Minho’s arms seizing her around the waist as Winston grabbed her legs; Lesley shrieked and flailed as the three of them tumbled to the floor.

Lesley swatted at them, fighting back a grin that threatened to split her face. “You wanna piece of me?” she roared. “I’ll kick you so hard your grandkids will feel it!”

The howls of laughter were contagious, filling the drab bunk room with joy. Warmth oozed into Lesley like the moonshine on bonfire nights, seeping into her core as she glared fondly at the surrounding boys toppling over laughing on the floor beside her.

Winston scooted backwards with a mock horrified cry of, “Not the jewels, not the crown jewels!”

o-o-o-o-o

Eventually it quietened down. One after the other, the Gladers collapsed onto the beds, rapidly falling asleep as their bodies sank into the mattresses, their faces softer and a little less pale than they had been previously.

Lesley was much the same. For once, her heart was at peace and no longer stuttering with anxiety. She was asleep within moments of her head hitting her pillow, the blankets tucked protectively around her like a cocoon. A small smile tugged at her lips even in slumber. Her cheeks were still faintly flushed from their roughhousing, and the hard lines of stress across her features had finally started to disappear.

Unbeknownst to Lesley, a pair of dark, tender eyes watched her, softened with wonder and contentedness in a way he usually never let anyone see.

“See something you like there, mate?”

Minho threw Newt a withering look, but it was only for a moment, his gaze quickly returning to Lesley. “Haven’t seen her this peaceful since before Ben got Stung,” he said, his voice painfully gentle.

Both of them were lying on two of the upper bunk beds across the aisle from Lesley. Newt turned his head to look at the girl in question and his smirk faded, his features softening with something akin to fondness. “I think we all really needed tonight,” he said, his voice low so as not to disturb the others. “Just a bit of a reminder that we’re all in this together, ya know?”

Minho’s expression shifted, a touch of something nostalgic and tinged with longing. “Yeah. Yeah, I know,” he answered quietly.

Silence lingered once more. Newt smiled, noting how Minho’s gaze was still fixed on the girl in the opposite lower bunk. “Remember to get some sleep, yeah?” he said, ruffling his pillow and settling down, his eyes closing.

Minho nodded, even though he knew Newt couldn’t see him. “G’night,” he said.

A few minutes later, the lights flicked off.

Chapter Text

Lesley jolted awake at a harsh grating, creaking sound to find herself lying in near pitch blackness, with only a few small lamps to dimly illuminate the room. Frowning, she blearily looked around, trying desperately to orientate herself; she was still in the same bunk room she had fallen asleep in, and from what she could hear of the snoring, the other boys were still fast asleep.

Her heart twisted, an ache that made her chest tighten; for one heartrending moment, she thought she had been back in her hammock, lying beneath the stars.

“Psst!”

Lesley jumped at the sudden exclamation, but couldn’t place where - or, more specifically, who - it could have come from. The silence stretched, and just as she was starting to think she had imagined the sound, Thomas abruptly sat up on his lower bunk bed, his body a faint outline in the blackness.

“Hey!” came the same whispered voice. “Down here!”

Lesley squinted into the darkness, and as her eyes began to adjust she saw Thomas lean sideways over the edge of his bed ... as well as the faint orange glow across someone’s face beneath the cot. Her heart raced with a rush of panic.

“Oh, my god!” Thomas whispered, clearly reaching the same conclusion.

“Shh!” the voice - now evidently belonging to a boy - hushed. “Come on, follow me!”

Lesley sat up, suddenly wide awake. “What the hell?” she hissed.

Still half upside down, Thomas turned his head sharply, his gaze snapping to her with an expression akin to a deer caught in the headlights - an analogy Lesley somehow strangely remembered.

The boy beneath the bed stared at Lesley for a long moment, his brow pinching. “Follow me,” he finally muttered again. “Both of you.”

Her frown deepening, Lesley slipped out from beneath the warm, scratchy bed covers and knelt down on the linoleum floor beside Thomas. They both peered into the ventilation tunnel the boy had disappeared down.

“Curiosity killed the cat,” Lesley grumbled.

“But satisfaction brought it back,” Thomas reminded her quietly.

Lesley glanced at him. “Thomas, you sure this is a good idea?” she asked. “Going without backup?”

Thomas threw her a small smile. “I have you,” he told her.

Without another word, he dropped onto his stomach and slid gracefully under the cot. After one last apprehensive glance at the sleeping Gladers, Lesley steeled her nerves and followed.

The metal was cool against Lesley’s skin. About five feet in from their bunk room, the vent widened enough that she could crawl along on her hands and knees.

“Hurry, this way!” the boy’s voice called down to them as they reached the first corner.

Lesley peered past Thomas and saw the boy crouched there waiting for them.

“Come on!” he called, disappearing down an adjacent passage.

Thomas threw Lesley an exasperated look but nevertheless continued to follow, Lesley right behind him. Her mind chugged along, remembering their route; old habits died hard, she supposed. Left, right, right, another left ...

“Come on!” the boy whispered again.

Lesley gritted her teeth. “Hey, wait a second!” she hissed.

The grimace on Thomas’s face told her that the farther they ventured from the dormitory, the faster he was coming to his senses. “Yeah, what the hell are we doing?” he asked the boy up front, being careful to keep his voice low.

However, he just hurriedly waved them forward. “Come on, we’re gonna miss it!”

It was the sense of urgency in his tone that struck Lesley. Grudgingly, she started forward again, Thomas at her side.

“What the hell are we doing?” he muttered again, exhaling deeply.

They crept down the tunnel around another corner, and suddenly found themselves emerging into a larger room still barely four feet high, and appeared to be the meeting point for multiple ventilation shafts.

And there sat the boy in the centre of it by a metal hatch. In the faint light emanating from the opening, Lesley could finally get a better look at him. He had dirty blond hair, a thin frame, and a sharp pointed face that was dotted with freckles.

“What are we doing?” Thomas whispered.

The boy raised a finger to his lips. “Shh, come here,” he said, beckoning to them. “Keep your voices down.”

Lesley stood up into a low crouch and moved past Thomas, dropping down onto her knees again when she reached the other boy. A moment later, Thomas carefully sat down beside her, sighing reluctantly as he bent his knee and rested his arm on it.

“Watch,” the boy instructed.

Her brow furrowing, Lesley peered through the grated hatch. They were looking down into a corridor, all grey tile and white strips of lighting. The sound of footsteps made her ears perk up, and a few tense seconds later someone stepped into view below them.

It was Doctor Crawford.

Reaching into the breast pocket of her white lab coat, she glanced behind her as a bed rolled into view ... except it wasn't just a bed. Lesley’s heart fluttered uneasily in her chest; on the edge of the covered bed was a medical screen displaying bodily functions, brain activity and heart rate stats.

There was clearly someone lying beneath the dark sheets.

Thomas shifted around to the other side to keep Crawford in view. Lesley silently followed, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

Doctor Crawford swiped her keycard on the control panel and the display flashed green. With a loud clank, the set of thick metal doors slid open beside her. Looking satisfied, she stepped back.

The gurney was swiftly wheeled into the room and out of sight, and was promptly followed by a second one that looked exactly the same: a body and a display of life signals. Lesley gulped, and Thomas went rigid.

When the doors finally closed behind the party below, Thomas finally turned to look at the other boy. “What the hell was that?”

The boy’s gaze was unrelenting, his eyes like steel. “They bring in new ones every night like clockwork,” he told them quietly.

“What do they do with them?” Lesley pressed.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. This is as far as I’ve ever gotten.” He glanced behind them at the tunnels they had unceremoniously crawled through. “The vents don’t even go into that section,” he informed them. “But once they go through that door, they don’t come back out; the beds are empty.”

Lesley’s blood ran cold.

The boy swallowed thickly, and for the first time since their bizarre introduction, he looked strangely unnerved. “I don’t think anybody ever really leaves this place,” he admitted in a whisper. “These people ... they’re not who they say they are.”

Lesley’s mind reeled, thinking back to all the kids whose names had been called out mere hours earlier; was this shank implying that those gurneys concealed the same people beneath the sheets? But, how could that be?

She shook her head. “No. No, that can’t be true. They helped us escape the Maze.”

The boy smiled sadly. “Did they, though?”

A chill ran through Lesley. He was right; technically, they had done the hard work, had fought tooth and nail to survive and only been rescued after half their numbers had been decimated by Grievers - and other weaponry, she shuddered. From that perspective, it was suspiciously convenient timing.

It felt wrong. They had been looked after by these strangers, fed, showered, had medical exams, and been shown nothing but kindness. Yet why had such an uncomfortable feeling suddenly settled in Lesley’s gut?

If the Maze had taught her anything, it was to trust her instincts.

“Come on,” the boy said, interrupting her train of thought. “We gotta go before somebody notices we’re gone.”

Thomas didn’t move. “Why did you show me this?” he asked. “Show us this?”

The boy tensed. “Because maybe the others will listen to you. There’s something weird going on here, and I know you think so too.” His gaze flicked to Lesley. “Both of you. Saw it in the cafeteria.”

Lesley grimaced. “He’s right,” she told Thomas quietly.

There was the shuffle of movement, and the boy began to climb back into the vents.

“Hey, wait,” Thomas called out, keeping his voice low. “What’s your name?”

A pause. “Aris.”

The admission suddenly made him seem less like a stranger. Lesley threw him a small smile. “I’m Lesley,” she introduced herself. “And this is Thomas.”

The corners of Aris’s mouth turned upwards. He nodded. “Good to put names to faces.”

With that, he disappeared into the shadows, leaving Lesley and Thomas sitting together in the darkness.

o-o-o-o-o

The two of them were restless for the remaining hours of the night. Both unable to sleep, they ended up sitting on Thomas’s bed, trying to process what they had seen and heard. Eventually, they fell into an uneasy doze one after the other, and woke up with their backs pressed together, lying on the same cot ... and with multiple confused faces staring down at them - including, Lesley noticed, a vaguely annoyed Minho.

Newt raised a brow. “Got something to share, you shanks?”

“Actually, yeah,” Lesley retorted, not noticing Minho stiffen as she pushed herself up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She winced, her head spinning at the sudden movement. “While you slintheads were getting your beauty sleep last night, we snuck out of here.”

“How did you sneak out?” Winston piped up, his tone incredulous. “The door’s locked.”

“The vents,” Thomas supplied, his voice rough with sleep as he sat up. “But that’s not the point. We found an opening. It looked down into a corridor we hadn’t seen before.”

Minho raised his eyebrows. “This whole place is pretty big, you shank,” he said. “I doubt they’ll ever show us all of it.”

Bristling, Lesley ignored the unreasonable flash of irritation she felt at Minho calling someone else a shank. “Exactly,” she said. “This area looked off-limits to everyone except those doctors and security guards.”

Thomas nodded fervently. “They were pushing beds down the hallway into a lab,” he told them. “There were human shapes on the beds. We think they were bodies.”

Silence. The Glader boys looked at one another, disbelief settling on their features as their eyebrows rose skywards.

“Man, you two are a butt-load of sunshine,” Minho finally muttered.

Newt cleared his throat. “Did you see any actual bodies, though?” he pressed.

Lesley frowned. “Well, no, they were covered by sheets, I guess for obvious reasons. But there were medical charts on the end of each -”

“So, you don’t really know what was under those covers; you’re only making assumptions based on what you saw,” Newt concluded.

Thomas shifted. “Well, yeah, but -” he started.

“Look, guys, maybe it’s not as bad as it looks,” Frypan interjected. “I mean, you saw what happened that first night coming out of the chopper.”

“Fry’s got a point,” Minho said, crossing his arms. “Maybe it’s to do with whoever they’re fighting outside the facility.”

“Maybe,” Lesley countered. “But if they are bodies, where are they all coming from? What about those kids that keep disappearing every night in the cafeteria?”

It sounded absurd even from her own mouth.

“Man, you gotta listen to yourself, Les,” Frypan said, shaking his head slowly. “We’re not tryna write a conspiracy here. Maybe those other kids really are being taken to that safe place they were talking about last night.”

“Let me put it this way,” Lesley snapped. “They were too small to be adults.”

“And what about Teresa?” Thomas piped up. “She still hasn’t returned and they just keep saying they’re running tests,” he air quoted. He looked pleadingly at Newt, trying to make him understand. “They’re hiding something.”

Newt stared at them long and hard, the flicker in his eyes the only indication he was thinking it over. “Well,” he finally drawled. “For all we know, this could just be a simple misunderstanding rather than the good versus evil scenario you’re bloody painting it out to be. Let’s just see how the next couple of days go and keep an eye on things before we come to any decisions, yeah? Who knows, Teresa might be back tomorrow.”

Still fuming, Lesley quietly conceded, having to admit that the other boys had a point. Perhaps she had been letting her imagination run away from her, conjuring up all sorts of images that probably didn’t actually exist.

“I don’t think anybody ever really leaves this place.”

But if what Newt was saying was true, then why did Aris’s words haunt her so?

Glancing sideways at Thomas, Lesley could tell he liked the compromise as much as she did, but she held back a grimace and nodded. For now.

Chapter Text

Teresa did not magically appear the next morning.

Despite that, Lesley almost wondered if she had dreamt up the entire encounter the previous night, or if she and Thomas had shared some kind of hallucination; even Aris hadn’t paid them any attention at breakfast, ignoring them as if he weren’t even aware of their existence.

The day passed by as normal, crammed with exercise routines, free periods for mealtimes, another round of medical checkups, and an unexpected bout of team-building activities.

It was how Lesley found herself in the gym court in the lower levels that afternoon, lined up for a three-legged race alongside at least ten other pairs, strangers and brothers alike.

“Ready?” she asked Minho.

He grinned, gripping her waist tighter. “If we don’t finish first, Newt’ll never let me live it down, the slinthead.”

“I heard that!” Newt hollered from the sidelines, cupping his mouth with his hands.

Lesley laughed, her leg muscles tensing. Despite her earlier misgivings, she found herself starting to have fun, her worries slipping away as her heart began to pound with adrenaline.

“Ready to lose, Minley?” Winston called across to them, grinning cheekily over Thomas’s shoulder, who looked reluctant to participate.

Minho snorted. “What the hell kinda shuck name is Minley?”

“It’s the single brain cell you two share.”

Lesley sniggered. “Slinthead!” she yelled back.

“On your marks!” the call went up, rising above the hubbub. “Get set -"

Silence fell, the thrum of anticipation in the air.

"Go!”

The thunder of footsteps rolled across the gymnasium, a roar that made Lesley grin as she and Minho charged forward. “Let’s get ‘em, Min, come on!” she screamed.

Their first few steps were awkward and clumsy, but they quickly found their rhythm again. It was as easy as breathing, a routine they had followed every day in the Maze, heartbeats and footsteps thundering in tandem. They powered ahead of the others.

Everyone was shouting, screaming, cheering; people were falling over one another, legs entangled. Lesley threw a glance over her shoulder, her hair falling in her eyes, her chest heaving with laughter.

“Come on, shank!” Minho hollered in her ear, his eyes gleaming as they hurtled towards the line of grimy orange cones at the far end of the hall.

“You slintheads have training!” Frypan complained as he and Jack started to fall behind.

“Come on, Thomas!” Winston howled; they were only feet behind the leaders.

On the benches, Newt was laughing so hard his face was a rosy pink, his eyes alight in a way Lesley hadn’t seen in a long time. “Move it, Tommy!” he wheezed.

But it was to no avail. Minho and Lesley tumbled across the finish line mere seconds later.

“YEAH!” Lesley roared, pumping her fist triumphantly in the air, whooping and hollering.

“So close,” Winston groaned as he and Thomas staggered to a halt beside them, panting heavily. All along the hall, other pairs were stumbling across the finish line but with far more reluctance now the prize had been claimed.

“We won, shank!” Minho yelled victoriously, twisting around to punch her shoulder - but grievously overbalancing, sending both of them toppling to the floor with their feet still tied together. “Oh, shuck -!”

Laughing so hard she could feel tears streaming down her cheeks, Lesley barely noticed the instructors making notes on their tablets, her heart roaring with triumph.

o-o-o-o-o

The hours continued to pass. As they settled into the beginnings of a routine, Lesley felt her heart start to settle again, her anxieties easing. The staff had all been exceedingly kind and willing to help them, going above and beyond to cater to their needs. There was nothing to suggest something sinister was going on behind the closed doors of the facility.

That is until Janson strode into the cafeteria after dinner, a clipboard in hand. “Evening all!” he called pleasantly.

Unease settled in Lesley’s gut as the room fell silent, her state of contentment vanishing. Memories of the previous night slammed into her, dragging her thoughts back to a place she had been loath to touch for fear Aris had been right. Her blood ran cold.

“Thank you for your attention,” Janson said, smiling as he looked around. “As you all know, if I call your name, please stand and join me and my colleagues up the front here, so that we can chaperone you to the eastern wing in preparation for the start of your new lives.”

Applause filled the room, and the clipboard opened. “Alice,” Janson called. “Barry. Walt.”

There was a crow of glee from the back of the room; Lesley stiffened. Yesterday, she had felt hopeful with every name called, even jealous that neither she nor her friends had been chosen; now she wondered if she were listening to a death knell.

You’re being paranoid, a voice in the back of her head snapped, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right.

Her gut instincts had never led her wrong in the Maze.

“Edgar,” Janson continued smoothly, his gaze darting around the room as he searched out the individuals. “Samantha.”

Thomas stared at the set of doors the kids would soon walk through to exit the cafeteria. “I wanna know what’s through there,” he murmured.

“Aaron. Dennis -”

“Yeah, man!” someone cheered.

Newt exhaled sharply through his nose. “Now, we’ve been over this,” he told Thomas quietly. “You said they were covered up so you don’t know what you saw. It could’ve been anything under there -”

Lesley couldn’t believe they were going in circles again. “We know what we saw, Newt,” she ground out, being careful to keep her voice low. She couldn’t deny what they glimpsed through the vents, as much as she tried to convince herself.

“They were bodies,” Thomas said firmly. “Aris said they bring in a new batch every night.”

Listening in as he sat on the bench beside Winston, Minho frowned. “Who the hell is Aris?”

“Henry ... Tim ...”

Lesley subtly nodded towards Aris. He was sitting all by himself on the other side of the room, staring contemplatively at an orange he had just peeled.

Minho raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’m sold,” he said flatly, making Jack snigger. Newt looked like he was biting back a laugh, and Lesley frowned in annoyance.

“And, last but not least, David!” Janson called.

Lesley started at the name, her eyes widening; the dark-skinned boy they had talked to the previous evening stood up on the far side of the room, grinning widely as his friend Emilio reached up to clap him on the shoulder. Even as groans filled the air when the clipboard slammed shut, the cafeteria erupted into applause again, people waving enthusiastically to their friends.

“Thank you for your attention,” Janson smiled, turning on his heel. “Enjoy the rest of your evening!”

Lesley swallowed hard as the kids were ushered towards the doors. A guard swiped a keycard on the control panel, just like Doctor Crawford had done the previous night, and the metal slabs slid open to permit them entry into the connecting corridor.

Lesley felt Thomas go rigid beside her. It was clear Newt did too, for he said, “Okay, until we know anything for certain, we should just keep our heads down and try not to draw any attention to ourselves, alright?”

A knot loosening in her chest, Lesley exhaled. If anyone could settle Thomas, it was -

And then Thomas jolted to his feet.

“Oh, shit, Thomas!” Lesley hissed as he swung his legs over the bench and hurried after the selected kids. Across the room, she noticed Aris staring with analytical, keen eyes; it was the first display of recognition he had shown since the previous night.

“What the shuck’s gotten into him?” Minho muttered.

Newt’s gaze followed Thomas across the cafeteria. “What is he doing?” he asked warily, his expression tight.

Frypan started to rise from his seat. “I think he’s drawing attention to himself.”

They watched as Thomas came to an abrupt halt in front of the doors, the guard pressing a hand against his chest. The armed man was laughing about something, but the smile on his face was visibly strained.

“Ohh, I don’t like where this is going,” Winston said.

Thomas tried to dart around the guard only to be pushed back with increased force. Lesley groaned. “This guy doesn’t know when to give up,” she complained, keeping her voice low so only the Gladers could hear. She glanced about, thankful that no one else had noticed the commotion; yet.

The guard stepped in front of Thomas, blocking his way. The smile on his face had vanished to be replaced by a deep scowl as he stared Thomas down. His mouth moved harshly, and although Lesley couldn’t hear the words, she could almost feel the coldness of the tone from where she sat. She shuddered.

Slowly turning around, Thomas began to walk back towards the Gladers’ table. He kept his eyes fixed on the floor, a dark expression settling on his features.

“Come on, Thomas,” Lesley muttered. “Get back here, that’s it.”

Beside her, Newt was rigid as a statue, and Minho’s jaw was tightly clenched. As if somehow seeing what was happening with an invisible eye, a cool, calm female voice blared over the announcement system: “Breaking the rules will not be ...”

And then Thomas did the unthinkable; he spun on his heel and launched himself at the guard.

Pandemonium erupted. Lesley was on her feet before she was even aware of it, starting after Thomas, swearing under her breath as the others followed, all of them bolting towards the confrontation. Blood pounded almost painfully in her ears.

“Back off!” the guard roared, shoving Thomas away from him. Other people around the room were gaping at the scene, utensils clattering onto trays as cries of alarm went up.

“What’s your problem, man!” Thomas screamed, slamming his hands against the guard’s chest again and forcing the other man back. “What the hell, huh?”

“Back off!” the guard yelled, pushing Thomas with such force that he stumbled.

The Gladers haphazardly caught him, all of them grabbing Thomas’s arms and torso and hauling him backwards, hands clamping around his chest to restrain him. His body was rigid with anger.

“You idiot!” Lesley growled through gritted teeth.

His chest heaving, Thomas glared at the guard, his face flushed. “Why won’t you let me see her?” he shouted desperately.

“Calm down, Thomas!” Newt yelled, tightening his grip on his shoulder.

Instead of answering, the guard jabbed his finger at the Gladers. “Control your friend!” he snapped.

Someone in a leather jacket pushed past the guard; Janson. “What’s happening here?” he asked loudly. His gaze landed on the boy standing before him, held back only by his friends.

Under the iron gaze that was suddenly upon them, the Gladers let their hands drop, all of them stepping away. Lesley gulped, dread pooling in her gut; there was a glint in Janson’s eyes she didn’t like.

“Thomas!” Janson exclaimed, stepping forward. “I thought we could trust each other.” He grasped his shoulder. “You know we’re all on the same team here,” he implored gently, his voice soft as if he were talking to a confused child.

There was a sharp twist in Lesley’s chest; something didn’t sit right with those words.

Thomas stared back levelly. “Are we?” he asked quietly.

Minho looked around nervously at all the faces staring at them, the other kids frozen in shock at such a blatant show of disrespect. The tension in the air was suffocating.

Janson’s expression flickered with amusement, a smirk tugging at his mouth as he turned to the guard. “Get them to their bunks.”

o-o-o-o-o

“Get your asses in there!” the guard barked. “All of you!”

Her shoulder slamming into the doorframe, Lesley grunted in pain as she was shoved forward, the other Gladers piling in behind her, all of them forced unceremoniously into their room. The moment Winston’s boot was over the threshold, the door slammed shut, the lock clanking firmly into place from the outside.

All eyes turned to Thomas.

“What the hell was that about?” Minho demanded, rounding on him.

“You do realise that if we weren’t on their radar before, we certainly will be now?” Lesley bit out, massaging her shoulder.

Newt’s expression had hardened into an angry mask. “You didn’t really think they were just gonna let you through?” he exclaimed in disbelief.

Thomas rolled his eyes. “No, of course I didn’t.”

He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a shiny blue keycard. The identification picture on it matched the face of the guard Thomas had attacked.

“Brilliant,” Lesley breathed, her anger rapidly dissolving; she felt a surge of respect for him.

“Oh,” went the soft murmur of realisation around the dormitory.

Thomas’s expression hardened with determination. “I’m gonna find out what’s on the other side of that door,” he said fiercely.

Newt hummed noncommittally, not even bothering to hide his exasperation. “Right.”

“Newt, they’re hiding something, okay?” Thomas said stubbornly. “These people are not who they say they are.”

This time, Newt was the one to roll his eyes. “No, Thomas, you don’t know that!” he snapped. “You probably don’t know half the bloody things about this place!”

Lesley was taken aback by his surge of anger; Newt was usually the one to finish fights rather than start them.

Newt wasn’t done. “The only thing that we do know is that they helped rescue us from WCKD. They gave us new clothes; they gave us food; they gave us a proper bed. Some of us haven’t had that in a long time,” he told Thomas.

Thomas sighed. “Yeah, but -”

“Some of us a lot longer than others,” Newt interrupted sharply.

And there it was.

There was a shadow of anguish and longing in his voice that wrenched at Lesley’s heart. From the way his body went rigid, she could tell that the words hit home for Thomas too, his cheeks flushing with shame.

Lesley grimaced; she had been struggling with the same thoughts, those same annoyingly logical answers. Miraculously, they had been presented with the concept of a proper home mere hours after escaping the Maze.

But, no. The Glade had been home. Here ... they were like prisoners in a rigid routine. Voluntary captives, duped into believing otherwise. There was something artificial about this place she just couldn’t put her finger on; it was sterile - false - in a way the Glade had never been with its roaring fires and pounding drumbeats. There was no heart here, and that made her strangely nervous.

Lesley had known exactly where she stood in the Glade. Everything had been presented at face value; what you saw was what you received - the Grievers the only exception. Here, there had been such a lack of emotion apart from the same fixed, shucking smiles that she wasn’t sure what went on behind the mask. No one smiled that much; it wasn’t natural. And then there was Janson, who always looked amused as if he knew something they didn’t.

“I don’t think anybody ever really leaves this place.”

The words clung to her mind, haunting her; they had been driving her crazy the entire day. Every time she tried to rationalise things, thinking of the three-legged race and laughter in the cafeteria, where she had felt safe and warm and happy, her mind kept coming back to the same conclusion: where the hell was Teresa, and why hadn’t they been told anything?

And thirdly, where were all those kids really disappearing to?

As the uncomfortable, tense silence stretched between the Gladers, Lesley cleared her throat, reaching out to put a comforting hand on Newt’s arm. “Look, how about we take a deep breath,” she suggested. She looked around at the boys. “I’m sorry that we dragged all of you into this mess, but we’re not about to just let this go. Not after what we saw last night.”

There were a few nods of understanding from Jack, Frypan and Winston. Now they were getting somewhere, despite the hardened and painfully uncertain looks on both Newt and Minho’s faces.

Lesley exhaled heavily. “If we’re wrong, we can forget about this and laugh about it later; we’ll deal with the consequences of Thomas’s little brawl,” she continued firmly. “But I sure as hell ain’t gonna sleep easy until I know we really are safe, alright? After everything we’ve been through, we deserve that much.”

Minho’s expression tightened, thinking how peaceful she had looked the previous night; a fleeting moment of reprieve.

Lesley turned to Thomas. “Now, whatever you’re thinking, count me in. I’m not about to let you go by yourself.”

Thomas smiled slightly. “I don’t think I will be alone anyway.”

They were interrupted by the sharp rattling of metal and the piercing screech of the vent hatch as it went skating across the floor. “Whoa!” Winston cried, reeling backwards into Jack.

“What the -?” Frypan started.

Aris suddenly stuck his head out from beneath the bed. “Hey, Thomas,” he greeted with a cheery smile. “Lesley.”

“Hey,” Lesley grinned shakily, feeling oddly relieved to see him; the reassurance that they were all in this mess together, that what she had seen had been real.

Aris turned to Thomas. “You got it, didn’t you?”

Lesley almost laughed. So he had seen Thomas grab the keycard; his detachment from the confrontation had apparently given him better perceptiveness than all the Gladers combined.

“Who is this kid?” Minho muttered.

“Aris,” Lesley told him. “Appearances can be deceiving, remember?” She didn’t care about the bite to her words; they had to figure out what was going on.

Thomas nodded at Aris, showing him the keycard. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Come on, Les.”

“You’re serious about this, aren’t you?” Minho asked as Newt put his hands on his hips beside him.

Thomas’s expression pinched as he glanced at them. He sighed. “Alright, look, maybe you guys are right,” he said, getting down onto the floor. “Maybe we’re just being paranoid, but we gotta find out for sure.”

Lesley nodded in agreement, staring determinedly at the other Gladers as she dropped roughly onto her backside. “Just cover for us,” she said. “We’ll be back before they even realise we’re gone.”

As he and the other boys crouched down around them, Newt swallowed hard. “Good that,” he said hoarsely.

Taking that as his cue, Thomas slid agilely under the bed and out of sight. Just as Lesley went to follow, she felt a hand wrap around her wrist. She turned to see Minho watching her with an unreadable expression on his features.

“Hey, be careful, okay, shank?” he said quietly.

Lesley smiled tightly. “As I’ll ever be.”

Tearing her gaze away, she followed after Thomas. Watching her go, Frypan sighed, and Newt ran a finger over his chin as he stared worriedly at the door.

This was going to be a long night.

Chapter Text

Lesley wondered if Thomas and Aris could hear the thunder of her pounding heart, the blood rushing deafeningly in her ears.

Their trek through the vents was quiet and tense, even as the air rippled with anticipation. Lesley shivered; it was like stepping out into the dark corridors of the Maze again ... except this time, they had no idea what was waiting for them.

Focus, Lesley, she told herself. She longed to be back in the bunk room with the other boys, with Newt and Minho, but curiosity was a dangerous thing. She felt the quiet thrum of adrenaline through her veins, the urge, the impulse to do something; she would have been driven crazy sitting in the dormitory waiting.

Crouching above the vent hatch in an eerily similar fashion to the previous night, they waited quietly for a few minutes, listening for footsteps or any signs of life from below. The seconds ticked by, but all was silent.

Lesley took a moment to collect herself before grabbing the metal grate and carefully unlatching it, lowering it down inch by careful inch until it hung vertical into the corridor. “Let’s go,” she murmured before she lost her nerve.

Thomas was the first to descend into the hallway. His arm muscles bulged through his thin shirt as he used all of his upper body strength to swing down; Lesley would have been lying if she said she hadn’t been admiring the lines of taut skin.

He landed agilely despite the distance between the floor and the ceiling being nearly twice his own height. As soon as he found his footing he stepped aside, beckoning to Lesley and Aris.

“After you,” Aris whispered.

Nodding, Lesley perched on the edge, letting her legs dangle as she grabbed the adjacent side of the opening. Come on, you can do this.

Aris tilted his head. “This is gonna sound crazy, but you look familiar,” he told her, his brow creasing. “Like this isn’t the first time I’ve seen your face. Or your eyes, if I really think about it.”

Lesley frowned, humming noncommittally. She could focus on that at another time; they had a job to do now. “Well, let me know when you figure it out.”

Steeling herself, she pulled herself forward off the ledge, a hiss of shock breaking through her clenched teeth as her lithe arms abruptly took on the strain of her body weight. Slowly lowering herself down, she finally dropped to the floor, wincing at the pain that rocketed through her shins the moment her feet made contact with the linoleum.

“Geez, Les, where did you get those muscles?” Thomas breathed, so quietly that even she could barely hear the question. “Thought you were more a cardio girl.”

Lesley smiled, feeling a surge of fondness even as her chest tightened painfully. “I used to help Gally and the other Builders in the evenings. Once we got back from the Maze.”

She was still immensely proud of that; it was on those sorts of nights she learned how to erect posts, how to chop wood and carve designs into it. She could still remember the bug-eyed looks of some of the boys as she sauntered across the fields with Gally, both of them with freshly hewn beams of wood slung easily across their shoulders. Her heart ached for those simpler times with Gally, before the world had fallen down around them.

Before they’d left him for dead, in a lab with a spear through his chest beside their dear little Chuckie.

Inhaling sharply and forcing the harrowing image from her head, Lesley looked around as Aris swung down behind her. The passage curved around to the side in both directions, lined with blinding white lights; a large sign on the wall indicated they were on the fifth level of the facility.

Once Aris had his feet firmly on the ground, Lesley stood on tip-toe and grabbed the metal hatch. She shoved it upwards; it latched into its rightful place on the ceiling with a firm click.

She exhaled deeply; this was it, there was no turning back now.

A soft beeping sound made her turn to see Thomas standing before a now green-lit control panel, the keycard held tightly in his shaking hand. With the hiss of escaping air and the clanking of steel, the double doors slid open to permit them entry into the same lab Doctor Crawford had visited the previous night. With a shared look of apprehension, the three of them walked through the doorway.

They found themselves in a foyer with another set of doors ten feet ahead. It was dark, with only pale blue strip lighting on the ceiling to illuminate the space. The walls were lined with racks, crammed with lab coats and full length hazard suits.

She bumped into Thomas as he came to an abrupt halt, staring through the large window on the wall into an adjacent lab. Following his gaze, Lesley had to swallow back the bile that surged up her throat, her hand clamping over her mouth. “No,” she choked out.

The room on the other side of the glass was crowded with cylindrical tanks about six feet tall and four in diameter, placed in uniform rows. Each of the eight containers held a metal arachnid hybrid of sorts, all of them curled into balls as they floated eerily in their separate tanks.

They were unmistakably baby Grievers.

Lesley could feel the colour draining from her face. There was a warm pressure against her other fingers; she glanced down to see that Thomas had grabbed her hand and was squeezing tightly. When she met his eyes, he nodded jerkily, his own face just as pale; he understood.

WCKD. It really was them.

“What are they?” Aris whispered.

Lesley swallowed hard. “Grievers,” she whispered hoarsely.

Perhaps it was the looks on their faces, but Aris didn’t press them for details, something Lesley was immensely relieved about. A quiet thought occurred to her: if Aris didn’t recognise the Grievers, perhaps there had been different, equally sinister monsters lurking in the other Mazes. She shuddered violently.

Without further conversation, the three of them moved into the next part of the lab. They immediately found themselves standing frozen in the entranceway of a room the size of the cafeteria, slack-jawed and wide-eyed.

“What the ...?” Thomas trailed off.

It was filled with bodies.

They lined an aisle that cut through the middle of the room, hanging from the ceiling several feet off the floor and strapped to machines, wires snaking around their heads and arms, breathing masks attached firmly to their faces. There were boys and girls alike of various ages, all of them with their eyes closed, dangling limply.

Lesley stepped nearer to one of them, having to force herself to breathe properly as her head swam. Upon closer observation, the computer monitors connected to each person held the only indication of life, monitoring heart and brain activity just like the screens they had seen on the gurneys.

“What’s that?” Thomas whispered, pointing.

Beneath the monitors hung a drip machine, connected to the bodies by thin needles and tubes. It was dispensing a clear blue liquid into a vial, drop by careful drop.

“I don’t know,” Lesley breathed, suddenly queasy. Did she want to know?

She hesitantly moved down the line, Thomas and Aris at her side. Much to her rapidly increasing sense of horror, Lesley began to recognise faces: the boy who had been dubbed ‘Squiggy’; the girl whose friends had squealed their joy for on that first night, Evelyn; David -

“Teresa!” Thomas gasped, rushing towards one of the girls with Lesley close on his heels, her heart fluttering anxiously in her chest. With shaking fingers, Thomas reached out and brushed away the dark hair cascading across the girl’s face.

It wasn’t Teresa.

Lesley exhaled sharply in relief, but the vice-like grip of horror around her insides didn’t abate in the slightest. There was a chance Teresa wasn’t in danger, but -

No. All of them were in danger; had always been in danger the moment they stepped through the doors of the facility. Whatever the shuck this place was proved it.

Why were all these kids here in the first place? What the hell were these people up to?

Aris came to a stop beside them, staring up into the round, freckled face of the comatose girl. “It’s Rachel,” he whispered brokenly. “They took her the first night.” He blinked rapidly, his eyes glistening. “I - I told her it was going to be okay.”

Lesley swallowed thickly, her heart lurching. For the first time, she realised that Aris was truly one of them, a Maze kid torn from his friends. “Aris, I’m so sorry -”

There was the distant sound of a door opening. All three of them froze in shock for a split second before bolting for cover behind the metal columns separating the rows of bodies, their boots skidding on the tiled floor in their haste.

They crashed down in a heap. Lesley had barely tucked out of sight when the door at the far end of the room slid open with a hiss as the seal was broken. “Are you sure this can’t wait?” Janson’s voice echoed towards them, his tone terse and annoyed.

“Oh, crap,” Aris breathed. Lesley swallowed thickly.

“She was very specific, sir,” an unfamiliar male voice replied apologetically. “She wanted to speak with you personally.”

The footsteps neared and the two men passed by moments later, apparently unaware of the presence of the three other people in the room. Lesley hardly dared breathe, her heart pounding erratically in her chest.

“As if I don’t have enough to do deal with,” Janson growled.

Lesley peeked out from behind the post as they came to a stop halfway down the room at a cross-section in the aisle. As Janson started to turn, she hurriedly skidded backwards, not wanting to be caught.

“Wait,” Janson called suddenly.

Lesley went rigid at the soft sound of footsteps moving in their direction. Moments later, Janson came to a stop mere feet from Thomas; if he turned his head, he would see all three of them.

This was it. They were done for -

Janson inspected a body hanging nearby. He flicked the tube half full of blue liquid. “Not as fast as I’d like,” he muttered.

He strode away. Lesley clutched a hand to her chest. Shuck, she could hardly breathe -

“Just, uh, bear with me,” the other man said as Janson rejoined him, frowning at the digital tablet as his fingers moving rapidly across the display. “I’m getting some interference from the storm.”

“Come on, it’s good enough,” Janson snapped with an almost audible eye roll. “Make the connection.”

There was a soft beeping sound, and a holographic image materialised in front of them as millions of pixels gave way to a clear picture. It revealed another room, showing a woman sitting at a desk. Her blonde hair was pulled back from her face, bright red lipstick highlighting her pale features. She wore a white suit jacket.

“Good evening, Doctor Paige,” Janson greeted.

Thomas grabbed her wrist painfully tight. Lesley had to clamp her other hand down across her mouth to stop herself crying out as her eyes bulged in horror. There was no way that was her; it couldn’t be. Paige was dead; they had all seen her shoot herself on video right in front of their eyes -

“Lovely to see you again,” Janson continued pleasantly. “Although, I admit, I ... wasn’t expecting to hear from you quite so soon.”

Lesley’s mind reeled. She glanced at Thomas, desperate for any sort of confirmation that she was imagining things, but he had the same slack-jawed expression on his own face.

“Change of plans, Janson,” Paige said briskly, standing from her desk and walking towards the screen so that she appeared to be standing directly in front of him. “I’ll be arriving a little sooner than expected. First thing tomorrow.”

“Oh.” A note of surprise. “Well, we’ll be delighted to have you,” Janson told her warmly, quickly regaining his composure. He cleared his throat. “I think you’ll be pleased with the progress we’ve made.”

He motioned to the man beside him, who activated an image projection of a brain analysis onto the holographic screen. It was illuminated to show different areas of the muscle being used, graphs and percentages scattered across the picture.

“As you can see,” Janson began, gesturing to the data, “early results have been extremely promising. Whatever it is you’ve been doing to them in there, it’s working.”

He sounded obnoxiously smug. Paige stared at the results, carefully analysing them; Lesley narrowed her eyes, watching the woman’s facial expressions closely.

“Not well enough,” Paige said finally, a little sadly. She straightened up, the sliver of emotion disappearing back behind a rigid mask. “I just received board approval. I want all the remaining subjects sedated and prepped for harvest by the time I arrive.”

Lesley thought she might be sick, a wave of nausea hitting her.

Janson tensed. “Doctor Paige,” he said with deliberate emphasis, as if he were running out of patience, “we are going as fast as we can. We are still running tests -”

“Try something faster,” Paige cut him off abruptly. “Until I can guarantee their security, this is the best plan.”

“Ma’am, security is my job,” Janson told her, his tone strained. “We’re on twenty-four hour lockdown here. I am assuring you, the assets are secure.”

Paige stared at him with disbelief, her eyebrows rapidly rising. “Have you found the Right Arm?” she asked icily.

Janson paused. “Not yet.”

“Hmm.”

“We tracked them as far as the mountains,” Janson tried again.

“So, they’re still out there,” Paige snapped. “They obtained far more intel than we originally thought after that slip; they’ve already hit two of our installations. They want these kids as badly as we do.”

Lesley’s thoughts were floundering. She was out of her depth; every single word spoken threw her deeper into fear, into confusion. She glanced at Thomas and Aris. Right Arm? she mouthed, but both boys looked as bewildered as she felt.

However, a single clear thought emerged amongst the chaos: there were other people out in the world besides WCKD; people who were evidently fighting them.

“The stakes are higher than ever before; we - you - need to get these rebels under control before they ruin everything. I cannot -” Paige’s voice rose to a shout, “I cannot afford another loss. Not now, when I am so close to a cure.” She took a deep breath to steady herself. “If you are not up to the task, I will find someone who is.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Janson said quickly as Paige made her way back to her desk and sat down. “Might I suggest we start with the most recent arrivals? Site A has yielded the most promising results so far.”

Lesley’s heart stuttered in her chest in horror. Site A. That was their Maze.

“Just get it done,” Paige responded tersely.

Janson exhaled sharply. “I must ask, what about the control subjects? I notice that Group A is rather protective of Miss Lesley -”

Paige perused the paperwork on her desk. “Dispose of them if you wish; they have served their purpose in the Maze Trials.”

Aris and Thomas froze; what little colour that was left in Lesley’s face vanished.

Control subjects. Dispose. Maze Trials. Lesley shrank back against Thomas, icy terror suddenly gripping her. She could feel him shaking violently against her.

“However, I feel they could still be useful,” Paige reasoned. “They went through the same motions as the others in the Maze. My advice would be to put them where you can keep an eye on them for the moment; keep them isolated. If need be, use them as leverage to ensure the full cooperation of the other subjects.”

Janson nodded as he took a step backwards, clearly taking her words as a dismissal.

“Janson,” Paige called, the hardness in her voice suddenly gone. Something unexpectedly tender crossed her features. “I don’t want them to feel any pain.”

Janson nodded. “They won’t feel a thing,” he assured her.

He turned away, strutting arrogantly towards the doors, a satisfied smirk on his face as the hologram of Ava Paige flickered and disappeared behind him. Her chest constricting with panic, Lesley lurched back behind the column as Janson passed them ... striding towards the Gladers’ doom. She gripped Thomas’s hand painfully tight.

One glance at him told her he was just as terrified as she was.

o-o-o-o-o

Newt anxiously paced the dorm room, his hands on his hips as he muttered under his breath about dumb shanks with minimal brain cells. Sitting on the edge of Lesley’s bed beside Winston, Minho tapped his foot against the floor in a frantic rhythm, his expression tight with worry.

“They’ve been gone too damn long already,” Frypan said suddenly.

“I agree,” Minho said, jolting to his feet. “I can’t sit around much longer. I’m gonna -”

An unexpected shrieking sound made the rest of the Gladers jump, all of them leaping back in shock as the metal vent cover went cartwheeling across the floor.

“Thomas!” Minho called as he scrambled into view, and then he caught sight of the girl following close behind. “Les!”

Thomas staggered upright, his gaze darting wildly. “We gotta go, we gotta go right now!” he told them frantically.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Minho asked, grabbing Lesley’s arm and helping her up, noticing how violently she was shaking, her eyes wild with panic.

“What do you mean, we gotta go?” Newt repeated incredulously.

“They’re coming. Come on,” Thomas babbled, barely listening. “We gotta go.”

Pushing Minho away, Lesley hurtled forward and ripped the pristine sheets off one of the beds, throwing it at Thomas. “Tie the door!” she shouted, her heart thrashing in sheer terror. “Stop them getting in!”

“Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?” Winston shouted.

Thomas whirled around, his face frighteningly pale. “They’re coming for us, and they’re gonna kill Lesley!” he yelled.

Newt balked. “Thomas, woah, slow down, no one’s killing anyone -”

Minho grabbed Lesley’s arms. “Talk to me, shank!” he shouted, shocked by how ashen her face was. “Les? Please.”

She jerked her head, lurching away from him. “Later. We’ll explain later. We have to go!”

She wanted to scream; her mind was spinning, fast, too fast; everyone was just standing around asking questions. Didn’t they understand? Why weren’t they listening?

“What happened in there?” Frypan demanded. He turned on Aris, who was standing well out of the way of the riled Gladers, a shellshocked expression on his features. “Aris, what happened?”

Thomas’s hands moved furiously, tying the sheet between the door handle and the metal pipe snaking up on the wall. “They tricked us; she’s still alive,” he ground out.

“Thomas, can you just calm down and talk to us?!” Newt implored, shouting back. “Lesley, what the shuck is going on?”

“She’s still alive,” Thomas muttered again.

“Who’s she?” Frypan yelled, confusion rapidly turning to annoyance. “Teresa?”

“Ava!” Thomas bit out, frantically tying another knot in the sheet.

Newt’s brow furrowed. “Ava?” he repeated.

“The lady who shot herself in the video!” Lesley shouted, fingers knotting in her hair. “Ava Paige! Please - shuck - just listen -”

Newt stuttered. “How the bloody hell is she relevant?” His gaze snapped back to Thomas, frustration lining his face. “Look, will you just turn around and talk to us?” he asked angrily.

“IT’S WCKD!” Thomas roared.

The rest of the Gladers stared, shocked into silence. The tension in the room verged on suffocating; Lesley could barely breathe.

Thomas’s chest heaved. “It’s still WCKD,” he told them. “It’s always been WCKD!”

As the other boys stood there gaping, Lesley and Thomas hauled the mattress off the already destroyed bed, planting it firmly against the door.

Newt darted forward, digging his fingers into Thomas’s shoulder. “Thomas,” he called forcefully, commanding his attention. His gaze shifted. “Lesley.”

Finally, Lesley turned to face him; she shivered violently from the terror flooding her, her face shining with sweat. Beside her, Thomas didn’t look much better.

Newt swallowed thickly, his gaze unwavering as his dark eyes flicked between the two of them. His jaw tightened. “What did you see?” he demanded quietly.

Lesley shook her head, trying desperately to sort out the thoughts crashing around her brain. Shuck, there was too much information, too little time. “The cafeteria,” she choked out. “The names. The farm.”

“Greener pastures,” Minho remembered, stepping closer. “Yeah, yeah, I know -”

“No!” Lesley shouted, her voice rising with panic. “No, you don’t! It was all a trick; WCKD’s been playing us this whole time. She didn’t actually die, and now she’s coming here, and -”

“Woah, woah, shank, slow down!” Minho exclaimed, reaching out towards her.

“No, I can’t, we’re out of time!” Lesley screamed at him, flinching away. “She told Janson to harvest the remaining subjects, starting with us.”

Newt lurched backwards at the implication of her words, his face paling. “What do we do?” he asked weakly.

“We need to get out of here,” Thomas said, his voice deadly quiet. “Now. Through the vent. I’ll lead; the rest of you follow. We’ll find Teresa, then get the hell outta this place.”

No one moved.

“What are you shanks standing around for?” Lesley shouted incredulously. “Do you wanna live or not?!”

Seconds later, the boys were diving onto the floor ahead of her, squeezing under the bed one after the other and scrambling after Thomas at a mad, desperate speed as the reality of the situation finally hit them.

“Go, Les, go!” Minho yelled, shoving her in front of him as he looked anxiously at the door, his heart hammering in his chest at the distant sound of approaching footsteps. The words rang in his head; they’re gonna kill Lesley.

Thomas’s voice roared down the vent. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

Chapter Text

They scrambled out of the vent one after the other; Thomas, Aris, Winston, Frypan, Jack, Lesley, Minho and Newt, all of them nearly tripping over one another.

“Come on, come on,” Thomas said, beckoning them out.

Relieved to be standing upright again, Lesley looked around. They had emerged out into a long deserted corridor sloping away from them in both directions. A sign on the pillar next to them said Pit 12; the word almost made her smile at the memory of the Slammer.

Minho squeezed her shoulder; she nodded at him. Her heart was still thrashing painfully in her chest, but she could breathe a little easier, could think a little clearer outside the confines of their bunk room.

Thomas started down the passage. “Okay, let’s go. Let’s go!”

“You guys go ahead!” Aris called, drawing everyone’s attention. “There’s something I gotta do.”

Thomas’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

Aris’s expression turned strangely desperate. “Trust me, it’s important. That keycard won’t last long; you need someone on the other side,” he told them. “You guys wanna get outta here, right? Just go!”

Lesley grimaced. “Don’t die, alright? Don’t wanna add you to this hell hole’s casualty list just yet.”

“I’ll be careful,” Aris promised, crouching down again.

“Wait!” Winston called. He glanced at the rest of the Gladers. “I’ll go with him.”

Indecision swept across Thomas’s face. Finally, he nodded. “Okay, Winston. Go!”

Lesley squeezed Winston’s shoulder as he passed her; he flashed her a reassuring grin before ducking back into the vent after Aris.

“Go, come on!” Thomas called, waving them down the corridor after him as Frypan shoved the gate shut behind the other two boys.

“You sure we can trust this kid?” Minho gasped as they hurried down the corridor. His hand brushed Lesley’s arm; checking.

Thomas shook his head. “You don’t wanna know where we’d be without him!”

Her face paling, Lesley shuddered at the thought of the laboratory, of what could have now been their own bodies slung up in there. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to put one foot in front of the other. “Thomas is right,” she bit out. “If Aris says it’ll help us get out of here, we’d better believe him!”

Thomas and Minho darted around a corner and abruptly skidded to a halt. Lesley crashed into them, a shout of alarm dying in her throat, her eyes widening.

It was Doctor Crawford, standing directly in front of them.

Her brow creasing, Crawford’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What are you kids doing out?”

Lesley squeaked, her arm catapulting forward with the ferocity of an uncoiling spring; her fist smashed into Crawford’s nose with an audible crunch.

“Bloody hell!” Newt yelped as the woman was sent stumbling.

Realising what she had just done - she had actually punched someone, and an adult no less - Lesley clamped both hands over her mouth, so horrified she was on the verge of hysterical laughter, her nerves completely shredded.

“Oh, my god, oh, my god,” Thomas gasped at the same time the alarms started blaring, spinning orange lights illuminating the corridor.

Minho stared at Lesley. “You punched her in the face!”

“I panicked!” she exclaimed defensively, but the impressed look on Minho’s face made her flush with pride.

As blood dripped down from Crawford’s nose, staining her crisp white lab coat, Thomas lunged forward and grabbed her by the lapels. “If you think that was a good punch, just wait until the rest of us get to you,” he hissed. “Now tell us where Teresa is.”

Crawford stared at him. Thomas shoved her against the wall. “WHERE IS SHE?”

“Woah, Thomas!” Newt yelled, rushing forward and grabbing his shoulder.

“Calm down, man,” Frypan begged, glancing nervously about the corridor; the alarms were still wailing piercingly.

Crawford swallowed thickly, her eyes watering. “The med wing,” she croaked finally. “She’s in the med wing. Follow - follow me.”

o-o-o-o-o

They ran down the corridors at a frantic pace, dragging Crawford with them.

Lesley glanced up, her chest tightening. Cameras, everywhere she looked, tucked into the corners. She shuddered. They were being watched; just like back in the Maze.

The announcement system boomed over their heads, the monotone voice echoing eerily off the cold concrete walls. “All R-16 personnel, non-lethal force only, proceed to ...”

They bolted into an adjacent hallway, the corridor stretching before them - but blocked by a single guard.

He looked just as surprised to see them. “Freeze!” the man yelled.

They staggered to a halt, tripping over one another. Lesley’s eyes widened as she saw the gun. “Shit!”

Everyone scrambled backwards, frantically pushing and shoving at one another as they hurtled around the corner again. “Go, go, go!” Newt cried.

“Stay where you are!” the man roared, cocking the weapon.

“Fat chance!” Lesley yelled back.

The bullets started flying. Only they weren’t bullets; they were compact taser bolts, small metal discs crackling with blue electricity as they smashed into the wall where the Gladers had been standing seconds earlier. The hairs on Lesley’s neck shot up on end.

“Why are they shooting at us?!” Frypan yelped as they sprinted back down the corridor.

There was the faint, sharp crackle of a radio. “I’ve spotted them!” the man called. “They’re in L-3, I’m in pursuit!”

The warm stoic presence had disappeared from Lesley’s side. “Min!” she cried, skidding to a halt as she swung around.

He was standing in the middle of the corridor, every muscle in his body taut, staring in the direction of the guard, his torso heaving.

“Minho!” Thomas called frantically, crashing to a stop. “What the hell are you doing!”

Minho’s legs tensed - a tell Lesley had become incredibly familiar with during their time in the Maze - and he suddenly charged forward. “No, Min!” she shrieked.

“Minho!” Newt roared.

With a bellow of raw adrenaline, Minho launched himself into the air as the guard burst around the corner, brutally slamming his foot into the man’s stomach and sending him flying backwards into the wall. The guard’s head crashed into the concrete, leaving a smear of dark red on the stone as he crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

As she darted to Minho’s side, Lesley found herself staring at the prone form of the guard. It was the same realisation she’d had following Ben’s Banishing, proof of what she and all the other Gladers were capable of when backed into a corner, the lengths they were willing to go to when their own survival was at stake. It was a frightening thought.

Even Crawford looked horrified as she was dragged forwards with the group. Lesley had to fight back a hysterical laugh; the same people who had put them in the Maze were only now questioning their tenacity? How the hell did they think they’d made it this far? A surge of bitterness swept through her.

Newt slowly shook his head. “Shit, Minho,” he uttered in disbelief.

Thomas stooped down and grabbed the guard’s weapon. Looking it over, he cocked the gun with shaking fingers before shoving it against Crawford’s back. “Okay. Let’s go,” he said, manhandling the doctor down the hallway. “Come on, let’s go!”

With one last unnerved look at the limp form on the concrete, Lesley gritted her teeth and ran after him, the thudding sound of her friends’ footsteps directly on her heels.

o-o-o-o-o

The med wing was in its own isolated section of the complex.

Lesley stared at the room, the one Crawford had revealed as Teresa’s. There were no windows bar a small, rectangular sheet of glass on the door; they would be going in blind.

“You go first,” she ordered, elbowing Crawford, and Thomas nodded firmly in agreement.

Nervously eyeing the gun still pointed at her, Crawford swallowed audibly. She stepped up to the door, twisting the handle and opening it several inches.

“Doctor Crawford!” a chirpy male voice exclaimed. “Are you alright? Your face -”

Thomas shoved his way into the room, the rest of the Gladers storming in behind him. Lesley was quick to take note of her surroundings; the space was crowded with surgical equipment, monitoring screens and hard drives stacked against the walls, blazing with lights and coloured buttons.

The first medical technician took one look at the gun and threw his pudgy hands in the air. “Woah, woah, okay!” he garbled, stumbling backwards and tripping on a chair. “Just wait, okay!”

The other two doctors in the room, a male and female still in their green scrubs, stared in blatant shock, their faces paling.

One of them was Andrews, her eyes shockingly wide behind her glasses. Lesley seethed.

Thomas herded all four staff into the corner, the weapon shuddering in his hands. “Where is she?” he demanded, the terror in his voice audible amidst the fury. “WHERE IS SHE?”

Lesley’s gaze was drawn to a curtain around one of the beds across the room. She darted forward, tearing the flimsy plastic sheet aside. She gasped. “Thomas!”

There was a figure lying in the bed, and the long dark hair was unmistakeable.

Thomas shoved the gun at Minho and scrambled to Lesley’s side, his eyes wide and terrified.

“Get down,” Minho ordered, his knuckles white around the weapon, the stance visibly unnatural to him. He stabbed it at the doctors. “Get down!”

“Okay, hands!” Newt roared as the medical staff sank to the floor. “Give me your hands!”

“Just do what he says!” Frypan advised, reaching into one of the drawers and pulling out a roll of white bandages. “Here, Newt!”

Lesley’s eyes drifted over Teresa, horror washing through her. Barely conscious, she had an oxygen tube threaded around her face and up her nostrils. She was only wearing a thin white singlet on her upper body, her arms covered in gooseflesh despite the blankets cocooning her.

“What the hell have they done?” she whispered, a bolt of anxiety shooting alarmingly through her chest, her thoughts spiraling as rapidly as the nightmare they had found themselves in.

“I dunno. I dunno.” Thomas reached out and brushed his trembling fingers over the top of her head. “Teresa?” he called worriedly. He exhaled shakily. “What did they do to you?”

“Hey, there you are,” Lesley said softly.

Teresa blinked slowly to alertness. She stared at them dazedly for several eternal seconds with unfocused eyes before her gaze abruptly sharpened, a crease appearing in her brow. “Thomas?” she croaked. “Lesley?”

The clamour in the background was distant. “Give me your hands!” Newt yelled again.

Lesley looked over her shoulder. Newt was hurriedly wrapping a heap of bandages around Doctor Andrews’ wrists, the skin pale from the tightness of the wrappings. The terror and adrenaline in the air was palpable.

“You’re never gonna get away with this!” Crawford cried, her hands already bound.

“Shut up!” Minho snapped, jerking the gun in her direction.

Teresa lurched upright, catching a glimpse of the other Gladers past Thomas’s shoulder. “What’s going on?” she gasped, clumsily tearing the oxygen tube from her face.

Lesley grabbed her shoulder to steady her. “Woah, woah, easy.”

Thomas grimaced, staring at Teresa. “We gotta leave right now,” he told her. “Come on -”

“Guuuuuys?” Frypan hollered nervously from the door, peering out through the window. Suddenly, Lesley could hear the distant thunder of footsteps; dread flooded her. “They’re coming! Where do we go?”

His voice had shot up an octave out of sheer panic. Thomas stared at their only exit as he and Lesley pulled Teresa to her feet, grasping her as she stumbled. “Shit,” he cursed.

Newt looked around frantically. “Frypan, move!” he shouted, grabbing one of the tables and tipping it onto its side, equipment spilling everywhere as the stand hit the linoleum. Catching on, Frypan grabbed the other end of the fallen table, the two of them shoving it against the entranceway.

It wasn’t a moment too soon. Seconds later, a guard slammed into the other side of the door with the clear intention of forcing it open; the gap was barely two inches wide.

“Get back! Get back!” Minho cried, ushering the others behind him, his gun raised.

“They’ve got hostages!” the guard reported to someone behind him. “I repeat! They’re armed and they have hostages!”

Lesley was struck by the man’s words. They were just kids. Just a bunch of teenagers. What the hell were they doing? What the hell kind of messed up world had they found themselves in?

But we have to get out.

“They’ve got the door barricaded!” someone else shouted. “Send backup!”

Lesley’s chest constricted, terror clawing at her throat as the Gladers stumbled backwards in a tight mob towards the other side of the room, as far away from the door as possible.

“Okay, we gotta get out of here!” Minho yelled. “Where do we go?!”

“Push!” one of the guards roared. The door rocked on its hinges, smashing against the table again and again, the men battering, hammering.

It moved another inch, and another.

Stumbling, Lesley’s back hit a solid surface - only, not quite; she felt the material flex against her shoulder blades. Whirling around, she pressed a hand against the transparent pane in front of her. “The window,” she breathed. She raised her voice. “The - the glass, we can break the glass!”

Thomas’s mouth fell open as he stared at the window, his eyes suddenly alight. “Everyone stand back!” he yelled, darting towards the bed and grabbing the chair beside it.

“Cover your faces!” Lesley roared.

Thomas threw it against the glass; the sheet visibly flexed as the chair bounced off with a dull thud. A wild look overtaking her features, Lesley seized a chair of her own and hurled it at the glass. She threw all her weight against it, shrieking, her limbs shaking.

The window remained intact. The guards began to shove the table aside, the doorway widening inch by inch.

“Newt! Help, help!” Thomas howled.

Newt grabbed a stool from beneath the lab tables, fingers clutching at the upholstered seat. “Ready?” he called.

“Go!” Lesley yelled.

Using as much force as possible, they launched the seats at the glass. It finally shattered under the impact, showering them with crystals. Lesley threw her arms over her head to shield her face from the hailing shards.

“Go, go, go!” Thomas shouted, smashing the remaining edges and scraping the jagged fragments away with the chair leg. “Move!”

“Hurry up!” Frypan yelped as one of the soldier got a leg in through the door gap.

“Come on, come on, come on!” Thomas bellowed as Teresa snatched the blanket from her bed and threw it down over the sill. He scrambled over the sill and into the adjacent medical suite.

“Get someone on the other side!” one of the soldiers yelled over his shoulder.

Teresa stumbled over the low wall. “Watch your feet,” Thomas said, catching her in his arms and setting her upright. Newt was next, followed by Frypan and Jack, all the boys launching themselves into the next room.

“Hurry, let’s go!” Minho screamed, frantically backing towards the window, sweat pouring down his face.

“Come on, move!” Thomas hollered. “Move! Move! Come on, Lesley, I gotcha!”

With one last desperate glance at Minho, Lesley gritted her teeth and placed her foot on the edge, pushing herself up and over. Thomas’s arms wrapped around her; he pulled her the rest of the way over, the movement frantic but not careless. “Thanks,” she gasped as he set her down.

“All good. Minho!” Thomas called.

Minho spun around and threw the gun at Thomas before vaulting himself over the sill, his arm muscles taut. “Let’s go!”

The gun clutched firmly in his grasp, Thomas sprinted across the room and wrenched the door open. “Stay behind me!” he yelled -

- only, he threw his arms across the doorway, everyone crashing into him. Lesley swore as she rammed into Newt, the air knocked out of her, only for her eyes to bulge with fright.

There was an armed man standing directly before them.

Blanching, Thomas slammed down on the trigger, shooting the guard at point blank range. The taser disk hit the man in the stomach before he could even fire; he went flying backwards across the floor, yelling out in agony as his body spasmed with every bolt of electricity crackling across his torso.

Thomas stared at the gun in disbelief. “Shit,” he whispered.

Lesley realised it was probably the first time he had ever fired a gun at someone. Holding the weapon at Crawford’s back had been child’s play, had been Thomas channeling fear through his anger, their sheer desperation to survive. It was frightening, horrifying to see how the push of a button, the flick of a switch, could maim or kill someone with barely any effort.

“Thomas!” Minho called.

Thomas jerked his head, shaking away whatever thoughts were hurtling around his mind. “Okay, come on!”

They sprinted off down an adjacent hallway, their boots stomping against the concrete like the thunderous pounding of Lesley’s heart within her chest, the air thick with tension and adrenaline and filled with ragged panting. After a long minute that seemed to last an eternity, Lesley frowned; their route looked vaguely familiar.

“This way!” Minho suddenly yelled, taking off down another passage on their right.

Skidding on the concrete, Lesley immediately followed without question, the others on her heels. She was used to abrupt orders from Minho; it was just like when they used to run the ivy corridors of the Maze together. She found it strangely comforting.

“Minho, do you even know where you’re going?” Newt asked roughly, panting heavily as he kept pace with Thomas.

Minho grinned. “Don’t worry,” he said, tapping the side of his head. Everyone understood; the Runners all had exceptional memories. “I got it. It’s right over here!”

They rounded a corner and skidded to a halt, their hopeful smiles vanishing. There was a long corridor ahead of them with limited exit routes - Lesley counted three - and striding directly towards them was Janson, flanked by a team of armed soldiers.

Lesley’s entire body went rigid, adrenaline thrumming through her veins. She felt Newt stiffen beside her as he glanced sideways at Minho, then Thomas.

Thomas’s hands tightened around the gun, his knees bending as he pushed off. “Come on!” he shouted, surging forward. “Come on, hurry!”

They charged down a passage to their left just as Janson and his men broke into a run. A gunshot rang out. “Hold your fire!” Janson yelled.

They swept around a corner into a wider, longer stretch of corridor; it was the same one they had traversed on their first day, right after Janson told them to hit the showers. Lesley’s heart leapt; they were nearly out.

Thomas realised it too. “There it is, there it is!” he shouted excitedly.

“Go!” Lesley screamed. The wailing alarms were a dull echo in her ears now.

The speakers blared. “Converge on Level Three. All R-16 personnel, non-lethal force only.”

“Here comes the cavalry,” Minho growled, his jaw clenching.

“Thomas!” Newt called. “Where’s the keycard?!”

Not even pausing in his stride, Thomas pulled the shiny blue card from his pocket, waving it in the air.

They slammed into the metal door at the far end of the hallway. Lesley peeked through the long horizontal window; there were no guards on the other side. Not yet, at least. “Come on, come on!”

His hands shaking violently, Thomas swiped the card, jamming the piece of plastic through the thin slot on the console, but the light stayed red. “Shit,” he muttered. He ran the card through again and again, each time with more force, the card bending under the strain, on the verge of snapping. “No, no, no, no!”

The keypad stubbornly denied him access.

“They must’ve locked the bloody card!” Newt exclaimed, running a hand through his hair in distress. Lesley swore.

“Thomas!” a voice hollered, the sound echoing through the space. The Gladers froze.

Janson.

Chapter Text

Thomas threw the card to the ground. Gritting his teeth, he cocked his weapon and began walking towards him. “Janson!” he roared.

“Tommy, don’t,” Newt hissed. He was ignored.

Their shields raised in front of them, the guards were stretched from wall to wall across the passage, effectively blocking their path. Only Janson was unprotected.

“Open this door, Janson!” Thomas demanded.

The man in question raised his arms, hands open in surrender. He shook his head but didn’t slow, continuing his advance on the Gladers, step by careful step. The distance was shrinking by the second. “You really don’t want me to.”

“Open the damn door!” Thomas yelled.

Minho seized the keycard from the floor and frantically started to swipe it again, needing to do something with his hands. Newt hovered anxiously at his shoulder.

“Listen to me!” Janson implored. “I’m trying to save your life. The Maze is one thing, but you kids wouldn’t last one day out in the Scorch.”

It was then that Lesley started forward. Frypan grabbed her arm but she roughly shoved him off. “The Scorch?” she pressed.

She didn’t know if the slip had been intentional or not. If the conversation they had overheard in that lab had been anything to go by, he never did anything without conscious thought. But finally, finally, they were getting somewhere. If Janson was being honest with them for once, it was a shot worth taking.

Janson merely smirked. “Wouldn’t you like to know. If the elements won’t kill you, the Cranks will. And I’m certain,” he emphasised, glancing at Lesley, “that you won’t want to take any chances. I believe you got a glimpse of them on your first night here.”

Lesley’s temper flared, red hot anger surging through her veins; she was mere feet behind Thomas now. “How on earth do you think we got out of the shucking Glade in the first place?” she snapped. She wanted to smack the all-knowing smirk off Janson’s face. “You think we did it by sitting on our asses? We ran out into that maze preparing to die to get out of there.”

Thomas’s breath stuttered. A surge of grief swept over Lesley, dampening the fiery anger blazing in her eyes. Chuck, Gally -

Janson’s eyes gleamed. “The Maze was just the beginning,” he said, his voice low and dangerous as he turned his gaze to Thomas, “and leaving this compound is nothing short of a death sentence, I assure you that.”

Thomas’s jaw clenched, and Janson sighed. “Thomas, you have to believe me. Let’s get you all back to your bunks and talk this through. I only want what’s best for you.”

Thomas’s expression turned cold. “Let me guess ... WCKD is good?”

Oh, shit. Lesley’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction as Janson’s face twisted with rage.

“Maybe that’s one thing your precious studies didn’t show you,” Lesley hissed. “We are bound beyond blood by everything you threw at us in the Glade; you threaten one of us, you rattle the whole shucking cage.”

A muscle feathered in Janson’s jaw. “So be it.” He squared his shoulders, straightening up and dropping his hands. The meaning was clear: the truce was over. “You’re not getting through that door, Thomas.”

Beep.

Lesley whirled around at the piercing noise, all eyes in the hallway both Glader and WCKD alike darting to the now green-lit keypad. “Minho!” she shouted.

“Wasn’t me!” he yelped. He was staring at the control panel incredulously, the identification card in his hand broken in two. Even as he spoke, the thick door at the end of the corridor drew upwards into the ceiling with the uncomfortably loud blare of a klaxon -

- to reveal Winston and Aris standing in the entranceway with smug grins on their faces beside an unconscious guard. Lesley felt a bubble of hope expand in her chest as she gasped in relief, choking out a laugh.

“Hey, guys!” Aris greeted cheerfully.

Frypan was the first to move, grabbing Jack’s arm and hauling the younger boy forward with him. “Come on!”

With those two words, it was as if everyone snapped out of a trance. “Thomas! Lesley!” Newt shouted as Teresa and Minho darted across the threshold. “Come on, let’s go!”

Lesley turned on her heel, setting off at a dead sprint. There was a muffled blast from behind her, mixed with stifled cries of alarm; she threw a glance over her shoulder only to realise Thomas wasn’t directly behind her. He was firing at the guards.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Thomas hammered the trigger. Lesley was frozen, watching with wide eyes. Bang! Bang!

The weapon spluttered, the ammunition spent. With a grunt of frustration, Thomas threw the gun to the ground and started sprinting after Lesley. He waved his arm frantically. “Go, go!” he roared.

The guards ducked out from behind their shields the moment they realised Thomas was defenseless. “Go, go, stop them!” one of the men yelled just as Lesley crossed the threshold, Minho catching her as she skidded to a stop.

And Thomas was still so, so far behind.

Janson grabbed his radio. “Shut the main vault door!” he barked into the device.

Lesley’s heart skipped a beat out of sheer terror. The guards were still firing, and Thomas had nothing. He’s not gonna make it.

“Shit!” she exclaimed. Stooping down and snatching the blaster weapon from the stunned guard at their feet, she hurtled back into the corridor with wild eyes.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Newt roared, his fingers barely missing her shirt, rough nails grazing her arm.

A guard fired a warning bolt to the left of Thomas’s head. Gritting her teeth, Lesley lifted her arm and fired back mercilessly, her shoulder jerking backwards uncomfortably at the rebound. The roar of the shot was deafening, matched only by the thudding of her heartbeat in her ears. “Go, Thomas!” she screamed.

Just as Thomas ran past her, there was another blare of an alarm, followed by the slick sliding sound of metal on metal.

“No!” Teresa cried.

“Thomas!” Frypan shouted.

Minho cupped his hands around his mouth. “Lesley! Get out of there, you shank!”

Lesley glanced over her shoulder, her chest heaving, and the lead weight of dread settled in her gut like a stone.

The door was starting to close.

For one frightening moment, she was back in the Maze, watching the Doors close on them, her sweaty hands clutched around Alby’s arm, dragging him towards the Glade, Minho’s tortured breathing in her ears, both of them shaking, exhausted, knowing they weren’t going to make it -

“LES!” Thomas howled.

Wrenched back to reality, Lesley fired again and again. The taser discs ricocheted off the corridor in quick succession, sending the guards and Janson scrambling for cover. She was made of adrenaline and a fire that was burning in her veins, a desperate, wretched determination to survive.

Lesley threw the gun to the floor with such force the cartridge detached, the bulky cylinder flying out and smashing against the wall, flashing sporadically and rapidly growing brighter.

Janson’s eyes widened. “TAKE COVER!” he roared as Lesley floored it towards the exit.

The casing of taser discs exploded, bolts of crackling blue electricity streaking across the corridor to shouts of terror and agony from the guards. Lesley shrieked, throwing her arms over her head as the panels of white lights over her head sparked, briefly plunging the corridor into an all consuming darkness. She caught a glimpse of Thomas in the chaos, sprinting with his head ducked, spine hunched just like her own.

The other Gladers were screaming at them, their voices rebounding down the passage as the blackness lifted. “Come on, Thomas! Les! LESLEY! Move it, you shank! HAUL ASS, TOMBOY!”

Lesley didn’t think she’d ever run faster in her life; not in the Glade, not in the Maze, not towards the facility to escape the horrors of the desert night around them. She could see the gap between the door and the floor getting smaller and smaller. Her heart thundered in her chest, beating a wild tattoo against her ribcage. Thomas was just ahead.

Lesley’s throat tightened painfully. She put on a burst of speed she hadn’t known she was capable of, as if there were Grievers snapping at her heels again. She couldn’t slow down, not now; at this point, she would either make it or smash into the door and shatter every bone in her body - not that it would compare to the horrors WCKD had in store for her.

Every. Second. Counted.

Angling his foot sideways and skidding on the floor, Thomas crashed down onto the concrete and slid agilely beneath the door on his stomach, his shirt riding up. His wide, horrified eyes watched Lesley’s every move. “LES!” he bellowed, his torso painfully red with friction burns.

The roars of her friends were ringing in her ears, muffled and faint compared to the constant crashing of blood she could hear. Terror was etched into every line of their faces, morphing rapidly into despair as the door descended lower, lower -

Lesley clamped her eyes shut and took a dive onto the floor, her chin scraping the hard surface as she rocketed forward, the friction grazing her skin through her clothes in a burst of heat. She felt something brush the air over her head -

“HOLY SHUCKING HELL!” Minho yelled.

Hands grabbed Lesley’s arms as a thunderous slamming noise echoed around her.

“Lesley!” Thomas?

“Les! Bloody hell, you alright?” Newt yelped.

She forced her eyes open, her head reeling. Thomas was stumbling to his feet with the help of Frypan and Winston, while Minho and Newt had a tight grip on her own arms. Her chest rising and falling raggedly, she staggered upright, her lungs clawing for air. “Shit,” she gasped, hardly daring to believe it.

She’d made it.

Minho hauled her into a brief, tight hug, sweat seeping through his shirt. “Don’t ever pull klunk like that again, shank,” he muttered.

“Man, Les, that explosion was legendary!” Frypan hollered.

She grinned weakly at him, her face flushed as she pulled away from Minho. “Thanks.”

“Thomas, what’s going on?!” Teresa shouted as Winston bent down to grab the remaining weapon off the unconscious guard nearby - a black handgun.

“Move, move!” Aris yelled, surging forward and smashing a piece of piping against the control panel beside the door; it erupted in a burst of sparks, rendering it useless.

“Nice one!” Lesley crowed gleefully.

Aris grinned. “Been planning this for days!”

Janson and the remaining guards slammed into the glass on the other side, faces twisted into furious snarls. Two of them bent out of sight, and the control panel started sparking again; they were trying to access it.

“Come on!” Frypan urged, beckoning them away from the door.

Nodding, Minho grabbed one of the bulging packs off the crates beside the door, a water canteen clearly visible on the side. Lesley glanced up and saw the clipboard tossed haphazardly on the pile, stating that the supplies were for the outdoor surveillance parties. Bingo.

Janson angrily slammed his hands against the glass. “You little shits!” he snarled.

His expression mutinous, Thomas raised a fist and flipped him off. Lesley barked out a hysterical laugh.

Minho clapped Thomas on the chest as he ran past. “Let’s go, Tomboy! Come on, Les!” he shouted, grabbing Lesley’s arm.

Her body shaking violently from the burst of adrenaline, she let Minho haul her along with him as they charged through the facility, the others ahead of them. The panic clawed at her; they were so close, they were so shucking close -

“Come on, keep moving!” Thomas yelled, waving his arm from the back of the line behind Winston. “Go!”

They sprinted across the compound, alarms screaming around them as they hurtled into the gargantuan main hangar. Soldiers swarmed the decks all the way to the roof, bolting along the landings and shouting to one another as they thundered down the staircases, guns clutched to their chests. Lesley hunched her shoulders, cowering down. There were no walls to hide behind anymore. Anyone could shoot them now.

“Come on, come on!” Minho hollered.

They reached the towering metal doors they had entered the facility through, all of them skidding to a stop against one another. Thomas craned his neck, staring at the doors with his chest heaving, his gaze darting across the surface. His hands snapped out, grabbing the inlaid red lever and wrenching down on it.

There was a low hissing sound, a seal breaking, and the doors slowly slid open, a blast of frigid air hitting them. Lesley inhaled sharply; it was pitch black out in the night. Grains of sand struck their faces, making them raise their hands to shield their eyes.

This was it.

The Gladers glanced at one another, and Lesley met their gazes with steel in her eyes. It was that final morning in the Glade all over again; a choice between the false safety of the inside, and the unknown dangers of the outside.

Except now, she knew exactly where they stood.

She knew for a fact they would die if they stayed within the compound, if the conversation they had eavesdropped on had been anything to go by. She knew she would rather take her chances out there.

They had managed to survive in the Glade. They could do it again.

One by one, they all nodded in agreement. Thomas rolled his shoulders. “Come on, come on!” he shouted. The guards were getting closer; too close.

Gritting her teeth, Lesley sprinted out into the darkness, side by side with her brothers and lone sister; into whatever fate awaited them beyond the doors.

Chapter Text

Sand.

That was all Lesley could see, feel, taste. Grit flew around them, encrusting itself on every exposed part of her body, swept up by ferocious winds blustering across the plain, screeching in her ears and tearing the air from her lungs, battering her, wrenching her hair at its roots. The sand was warm beneath her, but the night was frigid, the cold air seeping into her bones and chilling her to her core.

She stayed close to Minho and Newt, the Gladers sprinting, stumbling past the aircraft pad. Lesley’s eyes were mere slits in an attempt to see. She focused on the shapes of her friends around her, constantly counting them, terrified she’d lose another.

Blinding searchlights swept across the front of the compound. They clambered up the dune rising ahead of them, feet scrabbling for footholds in the soft sand. They clutched at one another, dragging each other up the hill.

“Alright, come on, keep going!” Thomas encouraged as loudly as he dared, not wanting to draw attention to their location.

The roar of an engine made them whirl around, eyes widening in horror as the wind swept through their clothes and hair. “Shit!” Lesley gasped, terror surging through her.

The guards had brought out terrain vehicles, quads that moved faster than any of the men. They were surging out of the facility and across the sand, engines growling fiercely over the wind noise.

“What the hell do they want with us?” Frypan asked weakly.

“I don’t know!” Lesley gasped. Something to do with their brains?

Gritting his teeth, Thomas shoved Jack ahead of him. “Just go!” he cried. “We’ll lose them in the storm!”

They scrambled, faster and faster, cresting the dune and hurtling down the other side as the searchlights lifted, increasing in brightness as they steadily swept the vicinity. The roar of engines filled the night, reverberating through Lesley’s bones. Indistinct shouting cut through the chaos, steadily moving closer; distantly, radios crackled.

“Notify on visual.”

“Copy that, sir. Standby, Two. Be on my six.”

Hidden in plain sight, the Gladers peered over the top of another dune, lying on their stomachs in the sand. Jammed between Minho and Frypan, Lesley swallowed thickly. “We won’t be able to outrun them for long,” she whispered.

“No,” was all Minho replied, his expression taut.

Thomas shifted, drawing Lesley’s attention. Keeping his eyes fixed on the searchlights, he beckoned to the rest of them. “Everybody, go, go, go,” he hissed. “Stay low. Stay low!”

They shuffled away and out of sight. Stumbling down the sand hill, Teresa’s eyes abruptly widened; she picked up her pace, chest heaving and arms lifting to keep her balance.

“Teresa, hang on, stay together!” Thomas called urgently.

“Watch out!” Jack cried, skidding.

They staggered down the dune together, careful not to stray far from one another. Lesley could barely see with the combined darkness and sandstorm around them, her eyes slitted against the howling wind. She grabbed the first arm within reach; Winston. He clutched back, his own expression just as desperate.

“I think we lost them!” Aris gasped, throwing a harried glance over his shoulder.

Thomas nodded jerkily. “Keep going, guys. Let’s go. Teresa!”

“Look!” she called to them, pointing.

“Where are we even going?” Minho hollered.

Suddenly, a half-buried building loomed out of the darkness, keeling over in the sand.

Her eyes widening, Lesley ran faster, stumbling over to where Teresa had finally stopped. She was staring at what appeared to be a long strip of paneled glass, all of it covered by dustings of sand except for one section that had been smashed in, jagged shards of glass surrounding the edges. “Hey, Thomas!” she called.

Thomas surged forward, everyone else following. A moment later, the other Gladers were gathered around them, staring into the dark hole. “What the hell is this?” Frypan asked.

Teresa waved her hand dismissively. “Come on!” she exclaimed.

“No, don’t go in there!” Minho cried.

“Teresa, wait!” Thomas shouted above the wind, but it was too late; she had already jumped through the gap, her body disappearing into the darkness.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Winston shouted, grabbing Lesley’s arm as she started forward.

Lesley shook her head. “What choice do we have?” she yelled. “We should at least wait out the storm!”

The boys looked at one another, silently deliberating. “I mean, the shank’s got a point -” Minho started.

There was a clattering sound from below. “Get down here!” Teresa suddenly called, her voice echoing eerily.

“That’s it,” Lesley muttered, ignoring Newt’s shouts as she plunged after Teresa.

Her feet sunk into several feet of sand and she was sent stumbling, sliding, down a steep sand slope, arms flailing in an attempt to steady herself. “Shuck!” she swore.

“Okay, come on!” she heard Minho yell distantly above her. Finally, those shanks were getting their asses in gear.

“Get inside!” Thomas shouted. “Aris, Jack, get in! Let’s go, Fry!”

Out of the wind, the silence was deafening, disconcerting. Her concentration thrown, Lesley just about toppled over when her feet finally hit solid ground, staggering forward and barely missing crashing into Teresa. “Sorry!” she gasped.

“It’s fine!” Teresa said, grabbing her arm.

The rest of the Gladers weren’t doing much better, Newt and Thomas grunting as they slipped and skidded on the indoor dune. Frypan outright face-planted when he tripped over Aris, rolling the rest of the way down. Lesley fought back a snigger as Winston helped him up.

Minho’s feet hit the ground beside Lesley. He heaved the bag off his shoulders. “Can you hold onto this?”

She nodded. “Sure.”

Both of them crouching, Lesley squinted as Minho tugged the pack open, both of them trying to see the contents by the faint moonlight streaming in through the glass above.

“Gotcha,” Minho muttered victoriously, pulling out a flashlight and clicking it on.

The room exploded with light, making Lesley hiss as it shone in her face. “Hey -!”

“Sorry,” Minho winced, standing up with the torch grasped firmly in his hand. Lesley shouldered the pack and rose to his side.

Minho swung his flashlight beam around wildly, staring at their surroundings with wide eyes. “Where the hell are we?” he breathed.

They were in a foyer of sorts, wide and open with barely identifiable tiled floors. There was rubble everywhere, slabs of stone littering the space and metal pipes jutting out amidst the chaos. Lesley didn’t know how long the structure had been standing, but she assumed it was at least a few years if the thick layer of sand coating the place was anything to go by, blown in during the sandstorms.

She squinted into the darkness. Beyond the fallen blocks of concrete, she could see decaying columns etched with designs and motifs, shimmering with dulled bronze inlays. The walls were lined with grates and roller doors at regular intervals, faded and graffitied signs hanging limply from above.

“I think it’s a shopping mall,” Lesley said slowly, frowning at the memory that drifted to the forefront of her mind. She couldn’t remember physically visiting a mall, but she somehow knew what one looked like.

“Yeah,” Winston agreed. “Don’t ask me how I know, though.”

Lesley bit her lip. That makes two of us.

Thomas beckoned, starting to head further in. “We gotta go,” he said urgently. “We gotta keep moving. Just in case they search this place.”

Lesley pursed her lips. She wanted to stay put, but he was right; the soldiers would only need to stick their heads through the broken glass to find them. “Good that,” she said briskly, setting off after him, Minho trailing behind. “Even if we only -”

“No,” Teresa called out firmly. “Thomas, stop!”

All three of them lurched to a halt, staring in confusion. No one else had moved.

Teresa still looked awfully pale. “Tell me what’s going on,” she pleaded.

Sighing, Thomas took a step towards her. “It’s WCKD,” he explained. “They lied to us. We never escaped. Me and Aris and Lesley, we found bodies. Too many to count.”

Minho started in horror. “What do you mean? Dead bodies? You never told us that!”

Thomas shook his head. “No, but they weren’t alive either. Remember the ones we saw under the sheets to start off with?”

Frypan and Jack shifted uncomfortably; something flickered in Newt’s expression, a quiet guilt. Teresa frowned, absentmindedly scratching the back of her neck.

“They were hung - hung from the ceiling,” Lesley continued shakily. “Strung up row by row with tubes coming out of them. Hooked up to machines, recording brain activity or something. That’s what the so-called safe place was; a human farm.”

“They were being drained,” Thomas told them. “There’s something inside of us that WCKD wants, something in our blood.” He swallowed thickly. “We have to get as far away from them as possible.”

Finally, Newt nodded. He suddenly looked exhausted. “Okay,” he exhaled, his voice barely audible. “So, what’s the plan?” When Thomas paused, his eyes narrowed. “You do have a plan, right?”

Thomas shook his head uncertainly. “Yeah. I don’t know.”

Newt gaped at him in disbelief. “Well, we followed you out here, Thomas,” he exclaimed, his voice cracking, “and now you’re saying you have no idea where we’re going and what we’re doing?”

Thomas didn’t respond, but that was answer enough for Newt. Taking a deep breath to try and calm himself, he ran his long fingers through his hair in distress. Minho reached out and gripped his shoulder.

“Wait,” Aris spoke up. “Janson said something about people hiding in the mountains. Some kind of resistance army.”

“The Right Arm,” Lesley remembered.

Thomas nodded, his eyes lighting up with hope. “The Right Arm,” he confirmed. “If they’re really against WCKD, maybe they can help us out.”

Newt stared at him as if he had gone mad. “People,” he repeated incredulously, his face hardening with anger. “In the mountains. Mountain people. That’s your plan?”

“Hey, unless you want to go back to that facility,” Lesley snapped, suddenly furious. “Yeah, I was really happy about the part where they served me up on a sacrificial platter to make you shanks cooperate. Hell, I might have even stayed to watch your lifeless bodies being slung up!”

Minho stiffened at the harshness of her voice, his features twisting in shock. His heart pinched at the tears streaming down Lesley’s cheeks, her breathing ragged, her eyes tight with pain.

Newt was visibly taken aback by her words, his features flushing in shame. He’d forgotten the stakes for a moment in his tiredness, in his anger. “Shit, Les, I didn’t -”

She didn’t let him finish. “You weren’t there, Newt; you didn’t hear the stuff we did - what they’re planning to do to all of us - and it was shucking terrifying. Try hearing the words prepped for harvest and dispose of them when you’re backed into a corner with bodies hanging around you.” She pushed forward into his space. “Try it, Newt, and then tell me you wouldn’t have gotten the shuck out of there as fast as all hell!”

She was exhausted, she was scared, she was tired of being scared; she just wanted one more shucking moment of peace without having to run for her life -

Minho pushed her back. “Slim it, shank,” he ordered, his voice gentle but firm. “Come on, Les. Back off.”

No one else moved. Barely inches from her, Newt swallowed thickly, his eyes churning with despair.

Exhaling shakily, Lesley reeled back just as quickly. She ran a hand through her hair, forcing her emotions back under control. “At the moment, we’re stuck choosing between WCKD and these mountain people, as you so graciously called them,” she said, her voice hard, “and I’d rather rake my chances with the Right Arm.”

Thomas nodded in agreement. “It’s the only chance we have,” he uttered quietly, silently begging Newt to understand.

Finally, something flickered in Newt’s gaze, his expression losing some of its hardness as he nodded. Thomas sighed in relief. Minho hesitantly rubbed Lesley’s back as she turned away, furiously wiping her face with her hands.

“Hey, guys!” Winston called out. He was knelt on the floor in the centre of the foyer. “Check this out. Minho, give me a light!”

The whole group anxiously gathered around him, Minho shining his flashlight across the sand in front of Winston ... and the imprints amongst the grit and dirt.

“Footprints,” Lesley whispered.

Winston nodded. “Someone’s been down here,” he said quietly.

A wave of unease rippled through the group, everyone suddenly looking nervous. Lesley shifted closer to Minho, goosebumps rising on her bare arms.

Thomas swallowed audibly. “Alright,” he said quietly. “Let’s start searching this place.”

o-o-o-o-o

They made a beeline for the first shop within sight.

Minho shone his flashlight through the plastic roller door covering the doorway, attempting to see inside. Lesley stood beside him, her face flattened against the cool surface.

“See anything?” Frypan asked.

Squinting through the grime, Lesley gasped in relief at the sight before her. “Tanks of water, clothes, drinking canteens -”

Minho nodded. “Come on,” he told the others urgently. “Open up!”

Fingers scrabbling at the bottom of the frame, they smashed through the rusting lock with a broken piece of piping and hauled the door open, showering them all with dust; Lesley coughed as the grit hit her throat.

They cautiously branched out into the store, being careful not to stray too far from one another. Newt blew piles of dust off the shelves, searching. Jack found a couple of flashlights lying around; they quickly snatched them up, the room exploding with beams of light. Teresa flinched backwards as she turned on a flashlight and it shone blindingly in her face.

Her flashlight gripped tightly in her hand, Lesley turned in a slow circle, observing the space around her. It had once been a clothing store, if the faded posters and the clothing racks were anything to go by, but the shop had changed drastically since then.

The other Gladers were carefully shifting through the mounds of clutter the store was drowning in. Only, it wasn’t just for purchase; Lesley realised many of the items around her looked personal, like they had been cared for at some point in time; a time capsule.

It was eerie, unsettling ... like maybe they shouldn’t have been there; like they were touching a grave. She shuddered, trying desperately to steel her fraying nerves.

Minho picked a jacket off the floor, shaking it free of dust. “Looks like people lived here.”

Newt swung his flashlight beam across the room, his brow furrowed as he took in the various belongings littering the floor. “Where are they now?” he wondered softly.

Lesley swallowed nervously, a shudder rippling through her. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to find out. “People don’t just ... disappear,” she whispered.

“That’s giving me the creeps now,” Frypan muttered.

Aris spluttered, scrunching his nose as he grimaced at the canteen in his hand. “The water’s stale, but it’ll do,” he rasped.

Nearby, Thomas tugged on another coat. “Alright, let’s pack some of this stuff up,” he said, looking around at all of them. “Anything you think you might need.”

Newt nodded. “Fry, grab those scarves,” he said, pointing to the pile behind him.

“I got protein bars over here!” Winston called, clutching a fistful of wrappers.

“Grab as many as you can,” Thomas told him.

“Here!” Lesley said, tossing an empty backpack to Winston.

He caught it with a grin, nodding his thanks as he set to work, shoving as many bars into the pack as he could get his hands on, fingers scrabbling at the shelves.

Newt turned away, and guilt churned the contents of Lesley’s stomach; she couldn’t afford to leave their conversation like they had. She had to fix it.

We only have each other.

She swallowed her pride. “Newt, wait,” she called quietly so the others wouldn’t hear.

He stared at her with cautious eyes, his shoulders lined with tension. “Yeah?”

She exhaled heavily. “Look, I’m sorry for - you know, back there.” Her cheeks flushed with shame. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

A moment passed. Reaching out, Newt squeezed her wrist gently. “I lost my head a little, too,” he admitted. He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have forced the issue. You and Thomas were having a bloody panic attack back at the dorm, and I know you wouldn’t have without good reason.”

Lesley glanced away.

There was another long pause. “There’s something else, isn’t there?” Newt asked quietly.

Lesley swallowed hard. “I thought we were safe, Newt,” she whispered. “That we wouldn’t have to run anymore; that it was all gonna be okay.”

“And it will be,” Newt emphasised gently, grabbing her wrist. He exhaled heavily. “We’ll get through this, alright? Just gotta pull ourselves together first.”

Huffing with quiet laughter, Lesley gave a small, tentative smile, and he returned it within moments; it was all they needed, acknowledging the problem and moving forward. Relief surged through her. “I’ll be over on this side with Teresa.”

“Good that.”

Their flashlights clutched tightly in their hands, Teresa and Lesley headed into the next wing of the shop. The floor was littered with mattresses and sleeping bags, tucked away around the corner in front of barren clothing racks.

Teresa shifted her flashlight beam; faces loomed out of the darkness.

Lesley stumbled backwards. “Shit!” she swore as Teresa gasped loudly, grabbing her arm.

It was a collection of mannequins, dulled and faded and stripped of their garments, their yellow painted faces peeling monstrously.

Another flashlight beam struck them. “You alright?” Newt called worriedly.

They turned to look at him. Teresa nodded sharply. “We’re fine.”

“Just - just some stupid dolls,” Lesley added shakily, her heart thundering erratically.

With rattled nerves, she stepped further into the room with Teresa. There were belongings everywhere she looked, pieces of the people who had previously lived there, fragments of lives that had once been.

Teresa reached down and picked up a piece of paper. Leaning over her shoulder, Lesley exhaled sharply; it was a photograph of a little girl, laughing as she clutched a giant teddy bear. It was such a normal depiction of life it made her heart ache with longing.

“Where did you go?” Teresa whispered.

A weight sinking in her chest, Lesley stepped away, carefully sweeping the room with her torch beam, searching. She paused; strewn across the tables on the far side of the room were piles of clothes, covered in dust and cobwebs but still wearable. “Bingo,” she uttered.

They ducked behind a torn dressing screen at the rear of the store, only tall enough to cover up to their chests as they went through the stack of shirts they had amassed; their long pants would do for the moment.

Teresa threw an unnerved glance over her shoulder at the boys. Thankfully, they were all busy with their own jobs; gathering water bottles, tugging on jackets and hoodies.

“Don’t worry about them,” Lesley told her, tearing off her thin shirt in favour of slipping on a warmer garment, the glow of the flashlights highlighting her tanned skin. “Come on, let’s get these on. It’s shucking freezing.”

Across the room, a pair of eyes drifted towards the low murmur of voices, curious but not leering; they had never been granted this sight even in the Glade.

A soft, amused smile creeping across his features, Newt lightly pressed against Frypan’s chin with two fingers and turned his head towards him, away from Teresa and Lesley.

“What?” Frypan asked innocently.

Newt chuckled. “I will find a shovel, mark my words.”

After a moment, Frypan grinned, teeth gleaming in the darkness. He’d just about forgotten Newt’s speech following Lesley’s arrival in the Glade; Newt, evidently, had not.

Nearby, Minho forced his eyes away as well, his cheeks flushing. He’d seen more than he had ever had the right to, and it was a secret he kept delved away in the crevices of his mind.

Thomas tugged on a jacket, walking forward and drawing their attention. “We’ll split up, see what else we can find,” he announced, his voice echoing eerily. “Meet back here in a few minutes. Minho?”

Minho viciously shook himself from his thoughts, grabbing his backpack. “Copy that,” he answered, striding towards the entranceway to join him.

“Wait, Thomas,” Newt called, tossing him a spare flashlight.

Thomas nodded his thanks, clicking it on. “Let’s go.”

Lesley darted out from behind the dressing screen, tossing a scarf around her neck. “I’m coming with you,” she told them, heaving a pack onto her shoulders.

Minho shrugged nonchalantly. “Your call, shank.”

However, when she reached them, he knocked his shoulder against her own. She smiled to herself; he looked grateful to have her there.

Moments later, the darkness of the shopping centre swallowed them up.

Chapter Text

They crept down an escalator, the stairs immobile and covered in debris, slabs of stone and tile strewn about. Every footstep was uncomfortably loud in the suffocating silence as they wandered cautiously across the atrium. Lesley’s eyes drifted to the domed ceiling high above their heads, the glass fractured and leaving only the metal framework. The distant howl of the wind was still audible.

“Thomas,” Minho called, shattering the quiet.

“Yeah?”

“All those kids that we left behind back there, the half dead ones you found? I don’t want to end up like that. I want to get out of this shucking place alive.”

Lesley shivered. Reaching out, she squeezed Minho’s wrist, the unexpected vulnerability in his voice making her heart clench. She could feel his pulse thrumming beneath her fingers.

When Thomas didn’t respond, Minho frowned. “Hey? Do you hear me?”

Thomas swallowed audibly, his pale features flickering with quiet horror; Lesley knew he was picturing what they had seen. Finally, he looked at Minho. “Yeah, I hear you.”

Minho exhaled sharply, nodding. He lifted his hand from Lesley’s grasp, instead locking his fingers around her own; her heart stuttered in her chest. “Good.”

Lesley swallowed thickly. “We just gotta get away from those WCKD people,” she bit out. “Whoever they are. Whoever they think they are.”

Because who had given them the right to do that to innocent teenagers? Had society truly deteriorated to the point they were willing to sacrifice kids for - for what? Their blood?

Minho nodded. “Agreed. Now what are we looking for out here?”

Thomas wandered around, his flashlight beam sweeping the atrium. “Signs of life. People. Survivors.”

“Anyone who can help us, I guess,” Lesley added.

Thomas nodded. “Yeah.”

Minho stiffened. “Does he count?”

His light was fixed on a threadbare armchair across the hall from them. There was a figure sitting in it.

They inched closer, staying tightly together as they carefully rounded the piece of furniture. Lesley had stopped breathing, gripping her flashlight in a white knuckle hold. Minho’s posture was rigid, knees bent in a defensive stance, ready to run, to bolt.

It was a rotting corpse.

A plastic bag was tied over the man’s head, maggots crawling over the flesh. Lesley gagged, clamping a hand down over her nose and mouth to block the stench. There was no question about it; it had been an intentional death, but on whose part she didn’t know - didn’t want to know.

“Shit,” Minho breathed.

Frowning, Lesley tugged her hand free and approached the lamp hovering a foot from the dead man’s face. Bracing herself, she hesitantly reached out and flicked the switch at the base of the light. There was an audible click, but they remained suffocated in darkness. She turned the switch again, only to have the same result.

“They had power,” Minho realised.

Lesley swallowed. “Okay. Okay, if we can find the central power source of this place -”

She cut herself short as Thomas’s flashlight beam struck a thick collection of coloured wires clamped against the far wall. He trailed his torch downwards, across the floor ... following the path of cables streaking across the room beneath their feet.

Minho gulped audibly. “Guess we know where to go, then.”

o-o-o-o-o

They followed the cables deep into the building.

Lesley shivered. It was reminiscent of following the Griever device through the Blades, but this seemed far more sinister. Back then, she had prepared herself to come face to face with another Griever. Now, she had no idea what lay waiting at the other end of the cable lines. Something about the entire place unsettled her.

She felt like they were being watched.

They pushed through a set of double doors, the hinges shrieking in protest. Lesley looked around; they had stumbled upon a maintenance room. Wire fencings lined one side of the room in a series of compartments, plastered with high voltage warnings.

Minho’s flashlight beam was fixed on a power generator on the far wall. “This is where the trail ends.”

Thomas nodded. “Go check it out.”

He wandered off towards the metal cages, Lesley following him. She gripped her flashlight tightly in her hand, her palm sweating around it.

Minho crouched beside the generator, peering at the switches. “This looks promising,” he murmured.

Lesley barely heard him, her gaze drifting across the piles of belongings before them. Clothing, books, dirty and ragged soft toys that had seen better days. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, as if they had not been touched in a long time.

She shivered. Where did they go?

Thomas shifted closer, steadily sweeping the flashlight beam across the scene before him as Lesley’s bounced from one object to the next. She could feel the slow, choking feeling of anxiety starting to squeeze her throat, her heart fluttering unevenly.

“Look,” Thomas murmured.

A mattress lay beyond the metal barrier. Lesley flinched. She could see another body, lying beneath several woolen covers. Thomas moved his flashlight beam and -

Lesley’s heart shuddered, skipping a beat as she grabbed Thomas’s arm painfully tight. “Is it - are you sure it’s dead?” she choked out.

She could have sworn she saw the blankets move.

Behind them, Minho flicked a switch. A low whirring sound filled the air, punctured by dull clicks and clunks, before it shifted into the deafening roar of a motor.

Thomas spun around. “Hey, Minho, wait!” he yelled.

Rocketing back to her feet, Lesley’s gut clenched with anxiety, with dread. Unperturbed, Minho grinned proudly, brushing off his hands.

One by one, lamps began to flicker on, illuminating a previously unseen stretch of corridor moments before the lights around them winked into existence, casting a soft orange glow across the space.

Minho’s victorious expression suddenly twisted with terror. “Thomas, Les, watch out!”

Lesley spun around just as a figure launched itself at the wire fencing in front of them, the barrier flexing. She screamed, stumbling backwards.

Minho grabbed her arm. “Get back, get back!” he roared at Thomas.

They stared in mounting horror as the woman flung herself at them, ripping at the wire, shrieking and snarling. Her clothing was disheveled and torn, nails gnarled and hair wild, but that wasn’t what seized their attention.

There were dark, bloody pits where her eyes should have been.

“Jesus,” Minho gasped weakly.

Bile surged up Lesley’s throat; she clamped a hand over her mouth.

There was a retching noise from behind them. Another figure stumbled into view, his body jerking violently as he staggered towards them, clawing, reaching.

“Oh, shit!” Lesley swore, her face blanching. Icy sweat poured down her torso.

Minho snatched a metal rod off the floor. “Stay back!” he warned.

The man lunged. Minho hurled the rod at him, slamming it against his neck with brutal force; he crumpled, collapsing heavily to the floor. Lesley forced her flashlight on him as he spasmed on the ground, limbs jerking and flailing as he vomited blood. He was covered in monstrous dark veins, the skin on his face visibly rotting.

“What the hell is that thing?” Minho gaped.

“I don’t wanna find out!” Lesley yelled.

Out of nowhere, the answer hit her with frightening clarity. The Flare.

A thunderous roar echoed up the passage. Her chest heaving with rising panic, Lesley swung her flashlight around. Shapes were emerging out of the darkness, figures charging towards them, stumbling, screeching, clawing; three - five - no, seven, eight -

Their way out was halfway between.

Thomas started. “We gotta move, we gotta move! Go!”

They bolted towards the entranceway, hurtling sideways and crashing through the doors. Snapping at their heels, one of the monstrous figures lunged towards them. They threw themselves at the doors again, slamming them shut in the man’s face. The doors flexed painfully into them as people began to pile themselves against the other side. Lesley swore as the metal smacked against her head.

Minho’s face suddenly lit up. “Hold it down!”

“What?” Lesley yelled, every one of her limbs splayed across the door.

Thomas balked. “Minho, what are you doing?!” he roared as the Keeper darted off to the side, barely visible in the blackness.

“Hold it down, just trust me!”

Gasping for breath, Lesley glanced up through the hair falling in her eyes, her shoulder jammed uncomfortably against Thomas’s. Her eyes widened; beside the door was a cabinet.

Always pay attention to your surroundings, shank.

Roaring, Minho rammed his weight against it, shoving with all his might. It wasn’t even connected at its base; a few seconds later, the cupboard began to topple.

“Watch out, watch out!” Lesley screamed, cowering down.

They waited until the last possible moment. She and Thomas stumbled backwards a split second before the cabinet came crashing down. The door flexed again, but the cabinet wouldn’t budge. Snarling, rabid faces pressed against the glass.

Another shriek sounded from their side of the barrier. Lesley whirled around, her heart plummeting to the bottom of her stomach. Creatures - people - were swarming out of the shadows from every direction, bursting from dimly lit corridors all around them. Icy terror surged through Lesley, a panicked sob bursting from her throat.

“Okay, go, go, go, go!” Minho cried.

They bolted across the room, flashlight beams ricocheting off the walls as they sprinted half blind through the choking darkness the lamps didn’t reach. Lesley vaulted herself over a shopping cart, not seeing it in time to get out of the way. “Go, go, go!” she shrieked.

“Let’s get the hell outta here!” Minho roared.

o-o-o-o-o

The lights flickered on.

The strings of fairy lights strung up around the walls burst blindingly into life, illuminating their surroundings. The store looked strangely homely in the orange glow; a sanctuary people had made for themselves amidst the barrenness of the outside world.

Frypan raised his eyebrows, appraising the space. “Not bad.”

The words had barely left his mouth when a scream pierced the silence, pitched with terror and unmistakably female.

Newt went rigid with mounting anxiety. That had been Lesley, he was frighteningly sure of it. He would recognise that shriek anywhere after that horrific night in the Glade, when Lesley had bolted across the fields with three Grievers snapping at her heels.

He could suddenly hear distant movements, sounds that had his ears straining. The mall was no longer unnervingly silent.

Around him, Teresa, Frypan and Aris had gone still, their gazes nervously darting to the door. Newt rocketed to his feet, wincing at the stab of pain through his bad leg. “Grab what you can and get out of here,” he snapped. “Find the others, too.”

Their packs crammed with the last few supplies, they slung them over their shoulders and hurried outside, looking about wildly. A faint, unnerving roar filled Newt’s ears.

Winston sprinted back towards the store entrance, Jack at his side. “What’s going on?” he asked, panting.

Frypan glanced around, unnerved. “I don’t know.”

Jack counted the people in front of him. “Wait, where’re the Runners?”

Teresa shook her head. “They’re not back yet.”

His fingers tightening around his bag straps, Newt shuddered. Something wasn’t right.

The clatter of footsteps reached their ears, pounding eerily against the tiles. “Hey!” a voice bellowed. “HEY!”

Chapter Text

They sprinted down corridor after corridor, the passages stretching for an eternity before they found themselves careering across the atrium. Screams echoed around them, chilling Lesley to her core. It was the Maze all over again, the night crawling by, Grievers snapping at their heels.

They charged up the escalator, taking the steps two and three at a time as they hurtled back towards their starting point. Lesley’s chest was so tight she could barely breathe, her leaden pack thudding painfully against her spine.

“Hey!” Thomas bellowed. “HEY!”

They charged around the corner and down the main promenade. The other Gladers stood outside the store, staring at them with bewildered expressions.

Lesley’s boots crashed against the tiles in a wild, haphazard rhythm, matching the thunder of her beating heart. “Run!” she screamed.

A piercing shriek sounded, and a horde of people surged into the passage behind them, dripping tar and covered in veins, eyes wild and crazed.

Stumbling backwards, Newt’s mouth fell open in horror. “Oh, shit!”

Minho waved his arm. “Go, go! Get out of here! Run!”

As he reached them, Aris tossed Thomas a pack; he threw it on his back, not slowing for a second. “Let’s go, go, go!” he roared.

Clumping together, they sprinted down the atrium. Lesley shoved Jack ahead of her as they clambered up another escalator at the end of the passage, leaping up the stairs.

“Thomas, Minho, what the hell are those things?!” Winston shouted. “Lesley?!”

“I don’t know!” Thomas shouted.

“Just keep going!” Lesley yelled.

Minho threw a glance over his shoulder. His face paled even further. “Move, move!”

The others swarming around her, Lesley rounded the top of the escalator, grabbing the railing and launching herself forward as they hurtled down the next passage. Shuck, she couldn’t breathe -

“Where do we go?!” Winston roared.

Thomas jerked his head. “Just keep moving!”

“Come on!” Teresa cried.

Flashlight beams ricocheted chaotically around Lesley, blinding her. The walls were pressing in, suffocating her, her heart stuttering at the flashes of faces on the faded posters around her, looming. Screams echoed from all directions, inescapable.

A figure launched itself out of the darkness at them; a man, his skin desecrated and rotting with the same dark veins.

“Oh, shit!” Thomas swore.

Snatching a broken piece of piping off the ground, Aris charged towards it, shoving past the other Gladers.

“Wait!” Lesley screamed, fingers just missing his pack.

“Aris, no!” Winston yelled.

Aris slammed the rod against the man’s knees. He crashed into the floor; Lesley staggered backwards into Frypan as he went sliding past her on the tiles.

Newt gave them a rough shove. “Escalator ahead, come on!” he roared in Lesley’s ear.

They scrambled frantically towards the staircase, skidding and slipping on the grimy floor. Thomas, Teresa, Minho, Winston, Newt - Lesley counted them ahead of her, the panted breaths of the others beside her, constantly counting, terror surging through her as she gasped raggedly.

“LESLEY!” Minho yelled.

A figure lurched out of the blackness, a woman with one of her arms ripped off. Screaming, Lesley slammed her boot into her stomach, bile surging up her throat as she felt bones crunching nauseatingly beneath her shoe. The monstrous excuse for a human crashed to the floor, her head cracking against a block of fallen concrete; blood spurted.

Jack shoved Lesley ahead of him. “Move!” he shrieked.

But he wasn’t fast enough.

One of the manic people lunged, throwing himself at Jack and heaving him backwards as another woman appeared, shrieking piercingly as she dragged him over the balustrade in a surge of inhuman strength. Jack snatched at the railing, dangling by his fingertips over the chasm below, screaming for help.

“NO!” Frypan screeched, sprinting back down the stairs, reaching.

“Jack!” Lesley screamed, clambering towards him, vaulting the steps two, three at a time -

The creatures swarmed. Another figure threw themselves over the railing, landing on Jack and wrenching him from the banister, yanking him down, down, into the depths of the mall, his screams horrifically cutting short.

“Oh, shit!” Thomas swore as Winston hauled Frypan away from the balustrade.

Lesley’s ears rang, memories slamming into her like a freight train and wrenching the air from her lungs. In her mind, she was back outside the Griever hole; Chad had fallen off the cliff; Jeff was being ripped away from them in the jaws of a Griever -

“Lesley!” Thomas howled, jerking her back to the present.

Minho seized her pack, dragging her up the escalator. “Come on!” he roared. “He’s gone, shank; we gotta get out of here!”

“Minho, Lesley, come on!” Frypan shrieked, tears pouring down his face.

Her heart pounding with a harrowing mix of terror and wrenching agony, Lesley forced her feet to move, barely able to hear Minho’s footsteps beside her over the rush of blood in her ears, a roar achingly similar to the sound of the Doors closing.

Where the comforts of a home had dulled the pain, the bandaid had now been ripped off, the raw wound beneath pulsing with poison; an excruciating devastation that surged to the surface, suffocating her, the chasm in her chest torn wider, wider.

“Keep moving!” Newt bellowed, his voice echoing as they crested the stairs and thundered into the adjacent corridor.

They were on one of the upper levels now, their path lined by glass balustrades on one side as they surged past another wall of shops. They were running, running, the passages stretching as endlessly as the Maze.

Yet Lesley had never felt more trapped.

“Where the hell are we gonna go?!” Winston shouted.

Frypan’s chest heaved. “We gotta find a way outta here!”

Another tumultuous roar echoed up the passage towards them. Lesley hand snapped out - or maybe Minho’s did first - and suddenly they were holding on for dear life, fingers locked in a death grip.

“Go!” Thomas bellowed.

The air exploded with glass as a figure crashed through one of the shop windows they tore past. Her arm flying up to shield her head, Lesley looked back, her heart crashing to a stop in paralysing terror. “No -!”

“Newt! Newt!” Minho roared, both of them hurtling forwards.

“Guys, help!” Newt screamed.

The diseased man hung over him, tearing at him. Newt had his hands jammed against his throat, shoving him as far back as possible. The man snarled, black spittle hitting Newt’s face, a ragged gasp tearing from his throat -

Thomas smashed his boot into the man’s ribs, sending the monstrous figure crashing through the glass barrier and down into the abyss. His shrieks died within seconds.

“Newt!” Lesley yelled, her chest so tight with panic she could barely breathe. “Oh, my shucking god - Newt -!”

“You good?!” Minho shouted as Thomas grabbed Newt’s jacket and hauled him to his feet.

Newt jerked his head. “Thanks, Tommy!” he gasped, hands frantically clutching Thomas’s arms.

The corridor quaked around them, rattling beneath Lesley’s shoes. With a piercing shriek, more figures emerged out of the gloom, charging down the corridor towards them.

Lesley stumbled backwards, trampling on Minho’s foot. “We gotta move!” she screamed.

Thomas jerked Newt backwards, still panting heavily. “Come on, Newt!”

They were running, running again, bolting down the passage, heartbeats and footsteps crashing in sync, a frantic rhythm Lesley could both hear and feel in every part of her body. She chanced a glance over her shoulder, her blood running cold; they were catching up, moving impossibly fast; inhuman in every possible way.

“Keep going!” Newt yelled.

Aris pointed at something up ahead. “There’s a door!” he hollered.

Frypan was the first to reach it. He grabbed it and hauled it open. “Come on, move it!” he shrieked.

They barreled past him. Lesley caught a glimpse of the maintenance labels on the door as she hurtled through the opening, Minho shoving her ahead of him. Her insides churned with raw adrenaline, hot and angry and pulsing.

“Through here, through here, let’s go!” Minho roared.

They burst into a narrow concrete tunnel, the space barely lit. They didn’t stop; didn’t dare to. The darkness pressed in on all sides, crushing Lesley, choking her with claustrophobia as she bolted frantically for the next light.

“Run!” Teresa hollered. “Go, go!”

“Guys, where are we going?!” Newt shouted, his voice tight with panic as Thomas pushed through to the front of the group.

There were metal doors set into the walls at irregular intervals. Swearing under his breath, Thomas frantically wrenched down on every handle, sprinting from one to the next.

None of them would open.

“We’re trapped!” Lesley screamed desperately.

A roar echoed up the passage, frighteningly loud in the enclosed space. She spun around, her stomach plummeting with dread at the sight of the grotesque people surging into the corridor, the air suddenly reeking of rotting flesh.

“Shit!” Winston swore beside her.

“Just keep going!” Teresa screamed. “Get us out of here, Thomas!”

“Come on, they’re coming!” Newt shouted.

They were pushing and shoving at one another now, forcing each other forward, tripping over feet and limbs. A hand slammed between Lesley’s shoulder blades, punching the air from her lungs and sending her crashing into Teresa as they scrambled forward, the monsters hurtling closer - closer - like something out of their worst nightmares.

They barged into the room at the far end of the passage just as Minho yelled, “It’s a dead end!”

Every cell in Lesley’s body screeched to a halt.

Thomas threw himself at the singular exit, a faded red door. It fought against him, opening a mere inch before slamming back into place.

But not before they all saw the catch with the padlock on the other side.

“This one!” Thomas cried. “Come on, come on!”

He launched himself at the door again, battering it with his body, shoving, grunting, roaring as he fought to break the lock open. Behind them, the cacophony in the passage grew louder, shrieks piercing Lesley’s eardrums, rushing towards them like a tidal wave.

“I’ll hold them back!” Winston yelled, snatching the gun from his pack and aiming it down the corridor, tremors shuddering down his arm.

The thunderous roar of a gunshot ricocheted through the small space. Lesley slammed her hands down over her ears, swearing.

The boys threw themselves at the door one after the other; Aris, Newt, Minho. Lesley gritted her teeth and charged, crashing into the slab of metal just as Thomas rocketed forward again, the two of them slamming into one another; pain bloomed across her shoulder, the impact jarring through her bones.

Bang, bang, bang, bang! Winston held his ground, face screwed up in concentration. The monstrous people began to topple, bloodshot eyes rolling back in their heads; the others clambered over the fallen bodies, trampling them, shrieking and snarling as they staggered closer - closer -

“Get that door open!” Winston roared.

Frypan waved his arms. “Move, move!” he ordered. “Get outta my way!”

Lesley swung around to stare at him, lurching backwards to clear the path as the others did the same. She suddenly realised: he was the heaviest of them all.

“Come on, Frypan, let’s go!” Minho urged.

A war cry tearing from his mouth, Frypan sprinted forward and rammed into the door, throwing all his weight against it. The brittle lock shattered, the door swinging open and sending Frypan flying out the other side.

“Come on!” Lesley screamed, shoving Newt ahead of her. “Go, go!”

“Everyone through! Come on, come on!” Thomas roared.

They barreled through the entranceway, scrambling over one another as they emerged out into a wide concrete room stretching away into the darkness, littered with vehicles and white lines.

Just as Winston stowed the gun and made his move, the creatures lunged, arms snatching his waist. He slammed painfully to the floor before being hauled backwards towards the feral, hungry mob.

“Winston!” Lesley screamed.

“Help me! Help! Please!” Winston shouted, desperately grabbing the doorframe mere seconds before he slipped through the gap. “Help!”

The Gladers surged back into the room. Minho and Thomas grabbed at the door, holding it open just enough for Winston as Lesley, Newt and Frypan all lunged for him, grabbing his arms precious seconds later.

It was tug of war, the monsters in the darkness dragging Winston backwards with all their might; Lesley was screaming, her grip slipping, slipping -

“Please!” Winston begged. “Oh, my god!”

“Keep pulling!” Teresa shrieked.

Hands scrabbled at Winston’s torso, clawing rabidly with gnarled fingers. Nails tore at his skin where his shirt had ridden up; Winston screamed.

His legs kicked wildly, his boots slamming into someone’s chin, crushing another’s face. It was the leverage they desperately needed; with one final heave, they hauled Winston free. Minho crushed his entire body weight against the door; it flexed against him, furious shrieks piercing the air from the other side.

“Go, go, go!” Thomas roared, hands splayed across the entranceway.

Lesley threw herself sideways and slammed her weight against the door, shoving against Minho and Thomas. “Get him out of here!” she shrieked at the others. “Go on, move it!”

Newt and Frypan hauled Winston upright, clutching frantically at his waist as he staggered sideways, groaning, his eyelids fluttering.

“Get up, Winston!” Frypan begged, yanking one of his arms over his shoulders.

Newt did the same, his teeth gritted. “Win, come on, mate!”

“Hurry!” Teresa shrieked at them.

Finally - finally - they lurched away, stumbling, the concrete of the parking lot echoing with their footsteps as they half dragged, half carried Winston before he finally regained his senses, his features exploding with sheer agony.

Thomas gasped as the door battered them a fourth, fifth time. “Minho, Lesley, go! I’m right behind you!”

Minho nodded sharply. “Let’s go, let’s go!” he yelled.

He took off.

“Go, Lesley!” Thomas roared.

“Shank!” Minho screamed, suddenly realising she wasn’t behind him. “Come on!”

“We’ll go on three!” Lesley cried, gasping as the door crashed brutally against them. She jammed her feet against the concrete, shoving with all her might. “Winston needs a head start!”

A furious roar sounded from the other side. The door lurched again, the hinges shrieking ominously as the manic people threw themselves at the door, pounding against it with unrelenting force.

“Three!” Thomas yelled.

They took off, shoving off from the door and hauling ass in the opposite direction. People burst out behind them in a crushing wave, surging through the doorway in an unstoppable tide of madness.

Lesley didn’t look, didn’t dare; didn’t dare think as she careened across the remains of the carpark towards the others, abandoned vehicles cluttering the space around them. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, eclipsing all other sound as the lights flickered out, plunging them back into darkness.

They ran, and they ran, and they shucking ran. They ran until Lesley was stumbling with exhaustion, her pack a crushing weight on her back, her lungs burning as they clawed for oxygen, every sense of orientation torn from her as blind panic obscured every other thought she had. Screams rang in her ears from all directions, the jagged blade of terror slashing at her insides.

They finally found refuge on the far side of the mall, on the outskirts of the building beneath crumbling blocks of stone. They scrambled into the alcove, the Gladers crashing against one another as they wedged themselves as far beneath the concrete ledge as possible.

When Lesley made it to the shelter, Newt snapped an arm around her shoulders and yanked her against his side, out of sight. “Shh, shh,” he breathed.

“Thomas, get in!” Frypan urged.

“Quiet!” Minho hissed.

Skidding on the dusty ground, Thomas frantically blinked off his flashlight.

“Shh,” Newt whispered again as Thomas slid in beside him. Lesley could feel the pounding of his heart where her shoulder was wedged against his chest.

And that was how they stayed, the Gladers huddled together shivering in the darkness, each of them exhaling frosty, shaky breaths as the hours wore on and the piercing cries and shrieks continued to echo around the building.

Lesley bowed her head, her tears eclipsed by the blackness as she cried silently for Jack, mourning, horrified by just how fast they had lost another of their own. Newt reached down and squeezed her hand, gripping tightly.

They were in for a long night.

Chapter Text

“Hey, hey! Get out of here!”

It was the sound of Thomas yelling at a crow that jolted Lesley awake, the bird cawing painfully loud as it took off from the pile of rucksacks, several energy bars clattering to the ground. But that wasn’t her immediate problem.

Lesley’s face was wedged against Minho’s shoulder.

She lifted her head, realising the two of them had been lying with their foreheads nearly touching, her curled fist resting comfortably on his torso as it rose and fell serenely with each breath. Her cheeks instantly burned crimson as she glanced self-consciously at the others.

She needn’t have worried. Against all odds, all of them had managed to fall asleep the night before, stretched out beneath the alcove and wedged together like sardines in a tin amongst the rubble. Despite sitting next to Thomas and Newt, Lesley had somehow ended up beside Minho; just as she did when she was awake, she had gravitated towards him in her sleep. He still had his arm wrapped loosely around her torso, Lesley squeezed against his side, but that wasn’t the most unnerving part; the weight of it felt natural ... but also strangely intimate.

Embarrassment rocketed through her.

Thomas groaned as he slowly stood up, his muscles looking as stiff as Lesley’s already felt. He looked around, his gaze carefully sweeping the area.

“Are they gone?” Newt asked in a hushed voice, squinting at the rising sun as he pushed himself into a sitting position.

Thomas nodded. “Yeah, I think we’re safe for now.”

Lesley exhaled deeply in relief, carefully propping herself up on her elbow. She suddenly realised just how mercifully silent the shopping centre was now. “Finally.”

“Hmm, Les?” Minho murmured.

Three sets of eyes turned to look at him. Newt’s gaze darted to Minho’s hand, where it rested lightly on Lesley’s hip; his mouth pulled sideways in a smirk, his eyes twinkling with mischief. Lesley glared at Newt, causing his expression to turn into a shit-eating grin. Thomas blinked, but Lesley felt strangely annoyed that he didn’t look more shocked by the sight.

She forced herself to ignore them. “Yeah, Min?” she whispered.

His lids snapped open, his dark eyes meeting her own. He didn’t pull his gaze away, instead staring at her for a long moment, blinking lazily as he woke up.

Lesley swallowed nervously at the unusual intensity of his gaze. She cleared her throat, acutely aware that Thomas and Newt were still watching them. “Come on,” she said with a small smile, sitting up and holding out a hand to help Minho up. She instantly regretted the loss of warmth around her torso.

Minho glanced down and pulled a face. “You left a spot of drool, shank.”

Lesley’s cheeks flushed again. “It’s good luck,” she retorted, stretching her sore muscles in an attempt to hide how flustered she was.

He snorted. “That’s bird klunk, shuckface.”

“You’re bird klunk -”

Thomas finally turned away. “Okay, we should get moving,” he announced. He reached down and clapped Teresa on the shoulder. “Let’s pack it up! Aris, come on. Fry, Winston, let’s go.”

Winston groaned loudly as he pushed himself upright, his features contorting in pain. The bandage around his waist was already heavily spotted with purple, blue and red splotches that had seeped through the material overnight.

“Hey, man,” Frypan said softly, his features twisting with concern as he extended a hand to help him up. “You okay?”

Breathing heavily, Winston nodded and grabbed his arm. “Yeah. Thanks, man.”

The forced composure on his face shattered something in Lesley’s chest. She had seen the way those monsters had ripped at his skin, the scene replaying in her dreams like a broken record. Swallowing thickly, Lesley stepped over to them.

“Hey, just say the word if you need to rest a little longer,” she told him quietly, squeezing his shoulder as he staggered upright. “We can wait, it’s okay.”

He shook his head firmly. “That sun’s only gonna get hotter,” he said, stumbling past her and Frypan. “Come on.”

“Winston,” she started, pleading.

He threw her a wan smile. “I’m alright, Les. Really.” He glanced at the others, all of them hauling their packs onto their shoulders. “I didn’t spend months juggling knives only to be nicknamed Captain Slowpoke.”

Frypan snorted. Lesley cracked a grin, shaking her head. “I mean it, Win.”

“I know. I’ll tell you if I need to stop. I promise.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that.”

Winston’s eyes flickered with amusement. “I don’t doubt it.”

o-o-o-o-o

The Gladers carefully threaded their way up the haphazard staircase of concrete blocks they had scrambled down the previous night in the pitch black; Lesley found it miraculous none of them had been injured in the process, consumed by panic and terror as they had been and simply hell bent on finding a way out.

They continued to climb, higher and higher. Eventually, they reached a fractured railing on the outskirts of the mall that appeared to have once been part of a balcony.

Lesley staggered to a halt. “Holy shit,” she muttered.

Spread out before them was a city - or, rather, what was left of it. Buildings stood rusting and abandoned, tilting alarmingly on their foundations, walls gone and metal frames open to the elements; chunks of concrete and stone littered the main boulevard below them.

Thomas’s quiet voice jolted them out of their stupor. “Come on,” he said quietly. “We need to cover as much ground as possible before nightfall.”

It was easier said than done. They jumped and skidded down the piles of crumbling concrete blocks as carefully as possible, avoiding the jutting rods of steel that threatened to impale their feet.

Eventually they made it down onto the main boulevard, walking single file through the debris. Teresa found herself at the front; behind her trailed Frypan, Newt, Lesley, Minho, Winston, Aris and Thomas in a long line, the Gladers snaking through the city.

“It’s like a war zone,” Lesley said quietly, staring awestruck at the destruction around her. She couldn’t see any signs of human life. She squinted up at the sun, thinking of Ava Paige’s words to them about how it had scorched their world.

The Scorch, she realised bitterly, laughing silently to herself. Janson hadn’t been lying to them about that, at least. The sun was mercilessly hot over their heads.

“What the hell happened to this place?” Frypan wondered.

Newt shook his head. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s been here in a long time. If that mall was anything go by, I’m pretty sure we just arrived in bloody hell.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Always thought you’d end up here, Min. Not me.”

“Slim it,” came the muttered retort.

Aris sighed heavily, despair seeping into his tired features. “I hope the whole world’s not like this.”

Silence stretched between them once again. Lesley shifted her pack on her back, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other; one more step away from WCKD, one more step towards the mountains, one more one more -

Lesley’s thoughts began to wander.

She thought back to the video they had seen upon escaping the Maze, when Ava Paige had shown them images of a world falling into chaos and ruin, of people turning into monsters before their very eyes; the Flare. It had been a world so far removed from the paradise of the Glade, where they had lived and worked in lush green fields, that it had been difficult to believe until the helicopter had swept them away to what they had thought was a safer shore.

She could still picture the desert stretching out before them, shimmering and endless. It had been mere days ago, yet a lifetime had already passed since that moment.

“Woah, woah, hang on, stop,” Thomas suddenly garbled from the rear of the line, tugging her from her thoughts.

As if they were a single entity, the Gladers swivelled around to stare at him. Lesley eyed him nervously, swallowing audibly in the quiet; it was unnervingly quiet.

Thomas’s brow furrowed. “Do you hear that?”

Squinting against the glaring daylight, Lesley’s gaze lifted upwards. Beside her, Minho and Newt were already scanning the sky. She strained her ears, listening hard.

A distant low rumble filled the air; the unmistakable whirring of an aircraft steadily growing louder.

Thomas’s eyes tightened with dread. “Get down!” he shouted urgently. “Everybody, hide! Hide! Hide!”

Barely aware of the others sprinting away, Lesley was frozen where she stood, panic gripping her as a memory slammed into her with debilitating force; Grievers had been invading the Glade the last time Thomas had given that order.

A hand grabbed her arm painfully tight, wrenching her back to reality. “Come on, Les!” Minho yelled, dragging her forward.

Coming to her senses, she hurtled after him, frantically slamming down on the torrent of emotion threatening to overwhelm her, her chest tightening as she remembered every scream, every Glader, every frightening moment -

“Get in here!” Thomas was shouting. “In here! In here!”

The two of them sprinted towards him, all the Gladers scrambling for a broken section of highway overpass, everyone ducking past the crumbling support pillars to squat beneath the remains of the bridge. Thomas, Aris and Winston were hunched down on one side; on the other, Lesley found herself jammed awkwardly between Minho and Frypan, Teresa and Newt crouched nearby.

They hid themselves just in time. Barely seconds later, a massive craft soared over the city at high speed. It had a thick metal belly, and attached to the wings on either side were two immense helicopter-style blades, with jet engines visible at the rear. Lesley’s splotchy memory told her it was a berg. It was flanked by two white choppers hovering beneath the larger aircraft.

“Oh, shit,” Newt breathed as all of them peeked out to get a glimpse of it.

Unaware of their presence, the berg continued on its way, carefully weaving in and out of the broken buildings and skyscrapers, heading into the distance.

Minho bit the inside of his cheek. “They’re never gonna stop looking for us, are they?” he said softly.

No one responded, all of them knowing the ugly truth. Lesley swallowed thickly, the reality of their escape hitting her. They were going to be mercilessly hunted down until WCKD had them in their clutches again.

She exhaled shakily. “Come on,” she said. “We need to get away from here as fast as possible. The quicker we get to these Right Arm people, the better.”

Frypan nodded. “Hear hear, sister.”

o-o-o-o-o

The mountains of rubble rose up above them, a towering death trap of crumbling concrete and rusting steel.

Slowly, they began to climb, following each other up in a haphazard line. Thomas led the way, marking out footholds for the rest of them; they followed without question, trusting him. Dust rose with every misstep, sometimes sending their feet plunging into the debris. Lesley coughed raggedly as the dirt scratched her throat, reaching for her water canteen in search of even just a brief moment of relief.

“Everyone good?” Thomas called down to them.

There were a few mutters and grunts. Winston let out a weak, “Yeah.”

He was falling behind, stumbling along at the very rear of the group. Her heart twisting, Lesley clambered back down past Aris and Teresa, holding out a hand to Winston. “Here,” she said softly. “I gotcha.”

His torso heaving, he looked up, and Lesley blinked in abject shock. His tanned face was alarmingly pale, highlighting the dark shadows beneath his eyes.

Winston threw her a weak grin. “Thanks, Les,” he said, clasping her arm and allowing her to haul him up the rubble stacks with her.

His hand was warm in her own. Too warm.

They reached the top and began to clamber down the other side, the blistering sun bearing down on their backs. The heat was relentless; Lesley wanted to claw her skin off, never mind her clothes. Every breath was harder than the next, the sweltering atmosphere tearing the air from her lungs, making her head spin.

As they neared firm ground again, Winston let go of her hand with a grateful smile. “I can manage now,” he told her. “Thanks, Les.”

She smiled tightly. “Don’t mention it,” she replied as Frypan offered her his arm to help her down the next collection of blocks.

Their path took them out of the disintegrating remains of the city and beneath a crumbling overpass. Abandoned cars still lined what little remained of the stretch of highway, covered in grime and dust; a moment frozen in time.

Lesley breathed a heavy sigh of relief to finally be out of the main centre, away from the monsters she knew now lurked within the ruins; she could feel the tension draining from the boys around her too. They weren’t out of danger yet, but they were a little closer.

From there, a steep sand dune rose up before them. “A little further, guys!” Thomas called, starting up at a run.

Lesley bit back a groan. “Thomas, if I have to hear you say that one more time ...”

Minho let out a short laugh, panting heavily. “You’re gonna wish it was the Grievers waiting for you at the top instead, Tomboy!” he crowed.

“Since when did I have a nickname?” Thomas shouted down to them.

Lesley raised her eyebrows. “Oh, so it’s okay when Newt calls you Tommy -”

Newt rolled his eyes. “Just shut up - and walk,” he panted. “Your conversation - is lowering my IQ - with every - bloody word.”

Both Lesley and Minho sniggered, knocking their shoulders together.

“Come on, just a few more steps!” Thomas yelled, excitement seeping into his voice; he was only a few steps from the summit of the dune. “I’m serious this time!”

Somehow finding a hidden energy reserve in her body, Lesley picked up her pace, digging her feet into the sand and taking bigger steps.

“Hey, wait up, Les!” Minho puffed.

Finally, they staggered to the top, the Gladers joining Thomas along the crest of the dune. A gasp tore from Lesley’s mouth as she stared at the sight before them. It was a sea of sand; hundreds more decaying buildings were sinking into the ground, the ruins stretching as far as the eye could see. There was even the rusting remains of a bridge.

Lesley squinted at the horizon; gargantuan, jagged peaks could just been seen through the haze. Her heart leaped. “There!” she pointed.

Thomas nodded fervently. “Those mountains, that’s gotta be it. What Janson was talking about.” He stood there panting for a second, trying to get his breath back. “That’s where we’re going,” he announced.

“That’s a long way off,” Newt pointed out, the concern audible in his voice.

Thomas set his jaw, a vaguely grim look in his eyes. “Then we better get moving.”

Winston lifted his bag off his shoulder and took a step forward - and suddenly collapsed in the sand, his face blanching.

“Shit!” Lesley exclaimed, scrambling forward.

Thomas lunged for him. “Winston!” he yelled. “Hey, Winston!”

Everyone rushed forward, collapsing to their knees around him. Winston gasped, coughing raggedly as Lesley and Teresa hurriedly pitched him onto his back. Lesley’s chest was so tight she could barely breathe; shuck, they should have let him rest -

“Shit,” Newt muttered, his voice shaking with terror as he clutched at Winston’s shirt, trying desperately to rouse him. “Winston? Can you hear me?”

Frypan eyed the soiled bandage around his midriff, grimacing. “He’s hurt pretty bad.”

“What do we do?” Teresa asked Thomas frantically.

Thomas slowly stood up and looked towards the mountains, his expression pained.

For a brief moment, the world ground to a halt for Lesley. “No, no, no,” she gasped. They had a long way to go, but there was no way they were going to leave Winston behind; no way in hell they were going to lose another of their own.

Jack, her heart keened.

Steeling herself, she looked around, forcing her frantic thoughts to slow the shuck down and assess their resources. They had their pack supplies, and they were in a wasteland of potential spare parts. “We need to make him a stretcher,” she started.

“She’s right,” Teresa said.

“A what now?” Frypan asked distractedly.

“A stretcher!” Lesley bit out in annoyance. “You know, carries injured people?”

“Yeah, it’s okay, Les,” Newt told her, forcing himself to keep his voice calm. “We know what it is, it’s alright.”

“What are you thinking, shank?” Minho asked, tilting his head curiously.

Lesley waved her arms. “Bed rolls. The pack. Any spare clothing or blankets we have.”

Newt nodded slowly in thought. He glanced in the direction of the ruined buildings ahead. “Let’s see if we can find some metal or something for the mainframe,” he said. “We can use strips of material to tie it all together.”

“Might just do the trick,” Minho agreed, wiping the sweat off his forehead.

Thomas nodded, tuning in to the conversation. “Let’s get to work.”

A short while later, they were taking it in turns to pull the stretcher. Teresa and Aris had managed to find some broken pipes amongst the rubble, and together with their blankets they had managed to construct a fairly decent stretcher. Volunteering for the first shift, Frypan and Minho each gripped a side, dragging Winston across the desert.

“Hang in there, Winston,” Minho panted.

Lesley took a deep breath. One foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other.

Chapter Text

The blistering sun crawled across the sky.

Lesley had been grateful for her two jackets in the frigidity of the previous night, but now she was sweltering, her body drenched in sweat. Beads of moisture clung to her forehead, dripping down and stinging her eyes, her hair plastered to her neck. The Gladers around her were in similar states of discomfort, tugging at their shirt collars, throwing their coats over their heads or tying them to their packs as they each took turns heaving Winston across the barren landscape.

The winds began to pick up with the passing of the day. The Gladers maneuvered Winston around rusting buildings jutting out of the sand and beneath the twisted frame of the bridge Lesley had spotted earlier. The ground was rife with sinkholes, where a thin layer of sand dangerously covered jagged pieces of metal from the foundations; Lesley was waiting for someone to impale their foot. In some places, they had to do without Winston’s crutch until they made it to the next stretch of flat ground.

“Thomas, grab his legs!” Minho instructed as Teresa stumbled down the dune with the stretcher.

Lesley gritted her teeth, tightening her hold around Winston’s upper torso as he drifted in and out of consciousness, moaning in pain. She was careful not to touch his stomach; the dark, bloody fluid oozing from his wounds frightened her.

Thomas surged forward, carefully grabbing Winston’s lower legs. “I got him, I got him.”

And then the sandstorm rolled in.

Lesley’s eyes stung from the sand whirling around them. She gritted her teeth, ducking her head and squinting. The cruel, blistering winds seemed determined to quite literally scorch the very skin off their bones. She tightened her scarf around her face.

“We gotta find shelter!” Thomas yelled over the noise.

“No shit,” Lesley bit out. Beside her, Minho huffed out a laugh.

Newt squinted his eyes. “There’s something up ahead!” he roared over the howl of the wind. “Keep moving!”

o-o-o-o-o

The storm finally abated.

Lesley sat on a slab of concrete between Frypan and Minho, all of them tucked beneath the decaying archway of a sunken overpass; mercifully, it had given them ample protection from the sharp granules of airborne sand and the screaming winds. Crouched nearby were Teresa and Aris, both of them looking as shellshocked as Lesley felt. The air was so quiet now she wondered if her ears had stopped working; the silence itself was deafening.

There was the light sound of footsteps crunching in the sand. She glanced up, squinting her eyes against the glare. “Hey,” she greeted Newt, wiping her forehead on her sleeve; the heat was unbearable even in the shade, like an overly warm blanket they couldn’t rid themselves of.

He nodded in response and sat in the sand at Minho’s feet, the Keeper wordlessly passing him a canteen. “Thanks,” Newt said gratefully, taking a long sip of water. His once crisp white shirt was now a discoloured beige, sand mixed with sweat and grime. Glancing down at her own clothes, Lesley realised the rest of them didn’t look much better.

“Damn,” Frypan mumbled.

Lesley glanced at him. Her lips twitched in amusement at the sight of Frypan tipping his boot upside down, both of them watching the sand comically pouring out of it in a steady stream.

“Your feet smell,” Lesley complained, her nose wrinkling involuntarily.

“You smell,” Frypan retorted, his eyes twinkling.

Lesley snorted. “The wit of Sir Fry of the Pan is unmatched,” she commented dryly. Minho sniggered, and even Newt looked like he was fighting back a smile.

Frypan grinned and jabbed her in the ribs. “Shove off, Les.”

Lesley laughed, knocking her shoulder against his. However, any humour she felt instantly died as her gaze flicked to Winston. He lay asleep in the sand nearby, breathing raggedly as his eyes moved frantically beneath his lids; his condition was rapidly deteriorating.

Teresa abruptly stood up. “I’m gonna check on him,” she announced, turning on her heel and stomping determinedly up the sand dune, at the top of which Thomas stood alone, his back to the other Gladers as he stared out at the horizon.

Frypan sighed. “Wonder how much longer it’s gonna take us to reach those mountains.”

Minho shook his head. “It’ll be a miracle if we’re even going in the right direction after that shucking storm,” he told him glumly.

Humming in response, Lesley began chomping on an energy bar. The heat barely made her want to consume anything, but Newt had been at them all day about keeping up their strength; lethargy was setting in with the heat.

Newt clambered to his feet and moved towards the edge of the shade, leaning against the concrete pillar. “How’s it looking?” he called loudly, raising a hand to shield his eyes against the sun.

Thomas finally turned around. “It’s a little further!” he shouted back.

Lesley grimaced. “Just great,” she grumbled.

Sighing heavily, Newt turned back to the group. “That’s not very convincing,” he muttered in agreement, sitting down beside Minho again.

Minho, however, stood up and reached for Winston’s pack. “Might as well get this over with,” he said bluntly. “Find out when we’re gonna starve.”

“Man, tone down the optimism,” Frypan snorted.

Kneeling in the sand, Minho unzipped the bag and unceremoniously tipped it upside down; stacks of tightly wrapped energy bars spilled onto the ground in front of him. “Start counting,” he said.

Sliding off the concrete block and crouching beside him, Lesley began grabbing the food; she had nothing better to do, and decided she would rather keep herself busy. “One, two, three ...” she muttered under her breath.

Minho remained at her side, his gaze darting across the energy bars and silently counting with her as the others looked on anxiously. Aris glanced at Newt, his expression uneasy, but all Newt could do was shake his head and keep watching.

“... Forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine,” Lesley finished, sitting back on her heels and staring at the pile of wrapped food in front of her and Minho.

Silence.

“One a day,” Newt said finally, his voice quiet. “One a day will give the eight of us just under a week to get to those bloody mountains, maybe more if we split the bars in half or find another food source, but I’m not counting on the latter.”

“It’s do or die,” Lesley muttered. “Shit.”

The dry, tasteless energy bars they had scrounged from the mall were their only hope of surviving in the Scorch if they didn’t want to die of starvation. Suddenly, the food she had just devoured didn’t feel so good; she felt a sudden urge to throw the whole lot back up, despite the waste it would be.

No more food for me today, she thought glumly. Her stomach growled quietly in protest.

“Better than nothing,” Minho countered. “We survived on worse back in the early days of the Glade. We can make it.”

The rest of his words went unspoken, but they all heard it. We have to make it.

“We should tell Thomas,” Lesley said.

“Yeah, once he’s stopped brooding,” Frypan commented, taking a swig from his canteen and humming in satisfaction despite the lukewarm temperature of the water.

Lesley glanced up at Thomas and Teresa. Teresa was pulling her hair back and showing him something at the base of her neck, Thomas’s fingers grazing the top of her spine. She quickly turned her gaze away, her cheeks flushing. She felt a burning in her gut, something simmering; it wasn’t jealousy, but a want, a feeling of longing to experience something like that. She thought of Minho’s hand on her hip that morning, her cheeks flushing lightly.

“You good, shank?” Minho murmured, his eyes shifting to where she had been staring, his expression curious.

Lesley nodded, clearing her throat uncomfortably when Newt tilted his head and peered at her as well. “I’m good.”

Winston grunted lowly, his muscles tensing as his chest heaved raggedly.

“This heat ain’t doing him any favours,” Frypan commented, desperation churning across his features.

Lesley’s expression twisted with concern as Winston made another noise of discomfort. “I wonder if he’s -”

Winston suddenly lurched upright, his bloodshot eyes wild as he lunged towards the packs, his bony fingers wrapping around the handgun in a white-knuckle hold before he aimed the barrel directly at his own head.

“HEY!” Newt roared.

Minho launched himself at Winston with frightening force, wrenching the weapon to the side just as Winston pulled the trigger; there was the deafening blast of a gunshot, the bullet ricocheting off the concrete slab tilting precariously over their heads. Lesley screamed, cowering down.

Aris scrambled to his feet. “Guys, get down here!” he yelled to Thomas and Teresa; they were already moving.

“What the shuck was that?” Minho snarled, Winston still pinned to the sand beneath him.

“Winston, what are you doing, man?” Frypan snapped, his voice shaking as hauled Minho off Winston and wrangled the gun out of his grasp. “Give me that!”

“What’s going on, Win?” Newt gasped, staring at him like he had grown a second head, his torso heaving. Lesley clutched at her chest, her heart pounding painfully and racing a mile a minute.

“What happened?” Teresa shouted, skidding to a halt next to them. Thomas stood beside her, taking in the scene with wide, panicked eyes.

“I - I don’t know!” Frypan exclaimed, on the verge of hysterics. “He just woke up and grabbed the gun and - and then he tried to -”

“Give it back, please,” Winston begged, pushing himself up on all fours. He stretched out his arm towards Frypan, his hand shuddering violently, the tendons standing out against his pale skin. “Please ...”

Thomas darted forward and crouched beside him. “Winston?” he called urgently, gripping his shoulder. “Winston, are you okay?”

And then Winston retched, a nauseating, gooey black liquid pouring from his mouth and splattering onto the sand, his body spasming. He coughed as if he were trying to eject his lungs, dribbles of blood blending with the liquid tar.

Lesley’s face whitened. She clutched at Minho’s arm as Winston collapsed to the ground on his back, gasping heavily. “Winston?” she whispered, her voice tight with sudden terror. She wanted to run, but her feet were frozen.

Winston finally stilled, swallowing thickly in a discernible effort to speak. “It’s growing ...” he choked out, reaching for the hem of his shirt and slowly tugging the sweat-soaked material up his torso, “... inside me ...”

Lesley surged backwards, the others recoiling around her, identical expressions of horror plastered across their faces. She didn’t know whether she wanted to throw up, or pass out, or both. Maybe the latter, so she wouldn’t have to look, wouldn’t have to face the wretched truth staring her in the face.

“Oh,” Frypan breathed, sounding as queasy as he looked.

The skin of Winston’s stomach was swollen and discoloured, purple and blue and popping with vivid, grotesque black veins, spreading across his abdomen like a spiderweb.

Lesley heard white noise, her thoughts racing, her mind reeling, suffocating her; shuck, she couldn’t breathe. She could only stare in mounting horror. No, no -

Pulling his shirt down again, Winston’s head dropped back against the sand, his half-lidded gaze drifting across the group. “I’m not gonna make it,” he wheezed, his eyes churning with a devastating blend of defeat and acceptance all at once. He reached out to Frypan a second time, swallowing thickly. “Please. Please, don’t let me turn into one of those ... things.”

Winston had the Flare.

Chapter Text

No one moved for a long moment. Lesley glanced at Thomas at the same time both Minho and Newt did, but he looked just as staggered as the rest of them. Giving Winston the gun would seal his fate, but then how much longer would it be before he turned on them as he mutated into one of the creatures they had encountered at the mall?

He was condemned either way, Lesley realised with painstaking clarity as the heavy weight of dread settled in her gut, icy and nauseating.

Licking his cracked lips, Newt carefully stepped forward, his posture rigid. He reached out and wrapped his fingers around the gun Frypan still held, removing it from his grip.

“Wait, Newt,” Thomas began hoarsely as Newt moved closer to Winston, staring down at him with an unreadable expression.

For one awful, heart-stopping moment, Lesley thought Newt was going to shoot him.

But then he quietly knelt down in the sand and pressed the weapon into Winston’s grasp, giving him a small nod as he squeezed his hand.

A searing relief flashed across Winston’s face, breaking through the mask of pain. “Thank you,” he whispered. He coughed feebly. “Now get outta here.”

Newt nodded again. “Goodbye, Winston,” he murmured, his voice barely audible.

He stood and turned away, grabbing his pack and pushing past Frypan ... but not before Lesley saw the unmistakeable glimmer of tears in his eyes. Her heart wrenched.

“Go,” Winston croaked.

With a brief squeeze of his hand that spoke more than words could, Minho swung his own bag over his shoulder and followed after Newt, both Teresa and Aris trailing behind.

Sniffling quietly, Frypan’s bottom lip quivered. “Hey, man,” he choked out. “Thanks for everything.”

Winston nodded. “You too, Fry,” he rasped.

Frypan sat beside him for a moment longer before turning away as well, his fingers lingering on Winston’s shoulder. Lesley had never thought to ask if Winston had been in the Glade months or even years, but the devastation in Frypan’s eyes said what words couldn’t convey, the bond they shared between them. Shuck, there were so many things she just didn’t know, things she desperately wanted to, but there was no time now.

A pained, heartbroken look crossed Thomas’s face; Lesley didn’t imagine she looked much better herself.

“It’s okay,” Winston told them gently, the corner of his mouth quirking upwards in a barely-existent smile.

Thomas’s eyes were glassy. “I’m sorry,” he whispered shakily.

Lesley was unable to hold back her tears any longer, the apology breaking a dam inside her. “Winston ...” she whispered. She didn’t know where to begin, didn’t know how to say goodbye; with Chuck, they barely had the chance, but with Winston, her mind swam with all the memories they shared, images overlapping, blurring as her eyes burned.

The fire was blazing, the aroma of smoked meat in the air. Her own plate abandoned long before, Lesley threw her hands in the air in exasperation mere seconds before she doubled over laughing, the wooden sticks clattering to the ground around her for the umpteenth time.

“Ah, you’ll get it,” Winston grinned, casually flipping a knife in the air. “And if you don’t, well ... there’s a reason we Slicers are best friends with the Med-jacks -”

As if he could sense her inner turmoil, Winston grinned weakly up at her. “It’s been fun, hasn’t it, Les?”

Lesley laughed despite herself, the sound watery. “Yeah, yeah it has,” she choked out.

And then she threw herself forward onto her knees, careful to avoid Winston’s stomach as she wrapped her arms around his upper torso tightly. He slipped his tanned, wiry arms around her as well, his grip feeble.

“I can’t lose you, too,” Lesley whispered in his ear. This couldn’t be goodbye. It couldn’t be. Not Winston. Not dear, infuriating, teasing, kind -

“Hey, hey, Les, you listen to me right now,” Winston said, pulling back to stare her in the face as if he could hear the thoughts thundering through her mind. His features were ashen and clammy. “Trust me, it’s gonna be okay.” He coughed, his expression pinching as his torso shuddered uncomfortably against her. “Take care of the others for me. Look after them. Good that?”

Lesley nodded, sniffling quietly as she ran a hand over his sweat-soaked bangs one last time. “Good that,” she whispered.

With an unbearably heavy heart, she turned away just as Winston murmured one last thing to Thomas. Catching up to the rest of the group, they moved in a single file line up the nearby dune and along the ridge, the sun already glaring harshly down on them, burning their necks as if in shame for leaving one of their own behind.

They had barely trekked half a mile when the violent crack of a gunshot pierced the air.

As one, they lurched to a halt, all of them turning to look behind them. Lesley’s bottom lip trembled violently, her eyes burning as tears began to cascade down her cheeks. Her heart shuddered with realisation.

There would be no more laughing with him, or watching him cockily juggle knives in the air, or groaning as he made yet another awful joke, or simply talking to him.

Winston was gone.

She caught a glimpse of Newt’s stony expression, barely concealing the broken look in his eyes; Minho was clenching his pack straps so tight his knuckles were white; Frypan’s torso shuddered as he wept silently.

No one spoke; the very atmosphere seemed to still around them. An eternal few minutes later, they continued towards the mountains, each of them in their own minds wondering how the world could be such a cruel, cold place amidst a scorching desert.

“Take care of Chuckie,” Lesley whispered, lifting her grimy face to the brilliant blue sky. She swallowed thickly. “Oh, Win, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

A few paces in front of her, Thomas let out a quiet, choked sound that was unmistakably a barely restrained sob of grief.

o-o-o-o-o

That night, they sheltered beside the remains of a beached cargo ship, all of them huddled around a fire next to a fallen shipping container.

As Aris tossed another piece of wood into the roaring flames, Minho sighed, shattering the pained silence that had settled over the group ever since they abandoned Winston. “I thought we were supposed to be immune,” he said quietly.

Lesley stared into the depths of the fire, swallowing hard. “Not all of us, I guess.”

Newt exhaled shakily, glancing at her. “If Winston can get infected, we should assume so can the rest of us.”

There were silent nods of agreement. Teresa stared despondently at the flames.

“I never thought I’d say it,” Frypan uttered softly, tears running down his cheeks. “I miss the Glade.”

Lesley felt something wrench in her chest. Of course he did; they all did. But as much as she wanted to go back, to escape the hellish nightmare their world was, they hadn’t been any safer there. Rather, they’d been puppets, subjects; that had become clear on their last night in the Glade, when WCKD had torn away their sanctuary and driven the Grievers into their home.

Despite how much she longed for it, they had nothing to go back to. Not even Frypan’s silent wishing they had never left in the first place would have saved them. She had felt the same after they discovered the doorway in Section Seven the first time.

Lesley smiled sadly. “I miss the sound of the Doors,” she said quietly, thinking of that low, familiar rumble that had shaken their home. Minho squeezed her knee, a knowing smile gracing his features.

The corners of Newt’s lips tugged upwards. “I remember when the sun used to hit the Glade at that perfect moment right before it slipped beneath the walls,” he said softly, eyes clouded over with memory.

Snorting, Frypan gave a watery chuckle, unable to help himself. “And the Greenie parties,” he smiled through his tears. “All that moonshine. And the food!”

Minho smirked. “Your stew wasn’t half bad either, Fry, once you got used to it.”

The Gladers instantly sobered, everyone thinking of Winston’s jab during the food fight. “This is way better than Frypan’s slop,” he had laughed.

Barely holding herself together, Lesley’s bottom lip quivered violently, her eyes glistening.

Winston.

The staggering weight of loss finally - finally - hit her. Of every boy viciously wrenched from her life; of every boy she had seen ripped to shreds by Grievers only a few nights before; of their hellish escape, of names struck off a stone wall, of everyone they had left behind both dead and living.

Images, faces, danced across her thoughts, around and around, helpless, suffocating, until she wanted to scream. She was being torn apart from the inside, punched until she couldn't breathe; her heart was in agony, the chasm of pain, of loss, of grief, gaping and raw within her chest. She doubted it would ever heal as long as she lived.

A pained sob burst from her throat. “I don’t know how many more deaths I can take,” she choked out, shaking her head frantically. The tears spilled uncontrollably. “You shanks had better look after yourselves; I can’t shucking bear to lose the rest of you. I just can’t.”

“Oh, Les,” Newt murmured, reaching forward to squeeze her shoulder, his features twisting in torment.

Swallowing thickly, Minho wrapped his fingers around her wrist, giving her a small shake to reassure her as the others watched her, their own expressions wretched. Guilt flickered across Thomas’s face.

Furiously wiping her eyes, she clambered to her feet, unable to withstand the attention. “I’m sorry,” she gasped, stumbling off into the darkness where she could finally breathe.

She collapsed in the sand a good distance from the firepit. The granules were still warm beneath her as the air temperature steadily continued to plummet. Lesley hugged her coat tighter around her, nuzzling her face into her scarf; she no longer cared who it once belonged to.

Wiping the remainder of her tears away, she stared up at the canopy of stars. There were so many, and they felt so close, like she could reach out and touch them.

Ben. Alby. Zart. Clint. Doug. Wyck. Alec. Aidan. Adam. Dan. Name after name after name.

Swallowing thickly, she began to choose the other stars.

Chad. Jeff. Chuck. Gally. Jack. Winston.

Slowly, she began to calm down. With every name, she let the memories surge to the surface, remembering as many laughs, conversations and smiles as she could. She took every moment and forged them together into something stronger, something untouchable, and locked it away in her heart even as she released the fragments of her emotions into the night sky.

She began to feel at peace again.

The sand shifted beside her; Minho sat down, his movements careful as if scared to disturb her. He drew his knees up, resting his arms on them. The minutes stretched, and still he remained silent, peering worriedly at her.

“You’re naming the stars again, aren’t you?”

Startled, Lesley’s head whipped around to look at him.

Minho smiled sadly. “I’m not a mind reader, but I can see your face, shank.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “You always look - I dunno, like you’ve found the answers to the shucking universe up there or something.”

“I wish,” Lesley joked.

There was a heavy silence. “Tell me,” he said quietly.

Lesley swallowed thickly at the intensity of his gaze. Shoving down her embarrassment, she pointed up at one of the dazzling specks of light. “That one’s Chuck,” she started, her voice painfully soft.

Minho tilted his head closer, his hair brushing her cheek as he followed her line of sight. “It’s one of the brightest up there.”

Lesley gave a watery smile. “Exactly.”

Minho exhaled sharply. Lesley fought back a shiver as his breath hit her neck, like there was an undercurrent of lightning beneath her skin.

“Where’s Winston?” Minho asked.

It took her a few seconds. “There,” she showed him.

She went on, pointing out other stars. “There’s a group of six there, see? It made me think of the Runners. Ben’s the highest star, and Chad’s just below him, that faint yellow one. Jeff and Clint are paired up over there -”

When she finally looked at Minho again, the list of names dwindling, his eyes were closed. Silent tears were falling down his cheeks.

Lesley could count on one hand the number of times she had seen him cry.

Her throat constricted painfully. She wasn’t the only one suffering, who had loved and lost. “Hey, hey,” she choked out, her fingers gently brushing his knuckles. “It’s okay. We’ll be okay.”

He nodded jerkily, his lids opening as a shaky breath rattled through his torso. He stared at her for a moment, his dark eyes glistening. “Thank you,” he rasped.

She knew he wasn’t just talking about her reassurances. “Any time.”

Reaching out, Minho wrapped an arm around her, pulling her against him. She fell into him, her head coming to rest on his shoulder. His torso shook, his face wet where it was pressed against her forehead. Lesley slipped her arm around his waist, hugging him as close as she could.

The silence stretched.

“I hope they’re happy,” Lesley whispered, her eyes lifting to the heavens again. “Wherever they are.”

They stayed like that for a long while. The stars wheeled over their heads, and the fire burned into embers behind them as the others settled down for the night. Lesley’s own eyelids drooped, sleep tugging at the vestiges of her consciousness, inviting her into a warm blackness so consuming and empty of thought she was loath to fight it.

Drifting off, she almost missed Minho’s whispered response, his voice rough, a low rumble against her.

“So do I, Lesley. So do I.”

Chapter Text

The fourth day of their trek saw the Gladers weak and starving.

With the passing of each dawn, they found themselves settling into a routine. They would start by eating what little food they had rationed to break their fast, and then the remaining daylight hours were spent walking towards the eternally stretching horizon. They stopped infrequently for bathroom breaks, and that was only when they found a suitable debris field that could provide both genders some privacy; dignity was abandoned, and blankets were shredded for use. Eventually, though, the rolling dunes filled with the crumbling remains of civilisation petered out into a flat, blistering and lifeless wasteland.

Lesley very quickly came to the conclusion that she hated sand.

The sharp granules clung to any part of her that was uncovered, whipped about by the hot, harsh breezes sweeping across the desert. Her skin and clothes were soaked with sweat from the unrelenting, unforgiving sun bearing down on them, and not even tying their jackets over their heads gave them any relief. They all smelled dreadful; the stench of all the Gladers combined would probably be enough to fell a Griever at twenty paces, Lesley thought.

However, the hunger that plagued her and her fellow Gladers was far worse. Soon enough the tummy rumbles faded out to be replaced by a deep, painful ache that gnawed at Lesley’s empty stomach as they walked, like daggers to her abdomen.

Despite their attempts to conserve it, the water began to run out faster than they had anticipated. As the sun crossed the midway point in the sky, Minho unscrewed the cap of his bottle with unsteady fingers and lifted the canteen to his mouth. He gasped quietly in horror when only a few drops of water touched his cracked lips, and with a loud grunt of frustration he threw the bottle away, sending the metal can clattering across the ground.

Reaching behind her, Lesley shakily pulled her canteen from her pack and passed it to him wordlessly. Minho shook his head fervently, his eyes half-lidded and clouded. “No, Les, I can’t -” he croaked.

“Take it,” Lesley snapped, shaking the bottle at him. She winced as Minho visibly flinched, trying to ignore the throbbing in her head. “Sorry. Please ... just take it, Min,” she repeated in a softer tone.

Finally nodding, Minho squeezed her shoulder in thanks and took the canteen, taking a sip of her water and sighing in relief, deep gratitude seeping into his expression.

The conversations were few and far between, and even then it was only a couple of words here and there. All of them were still grieving for the friend they had just lost; they were tired, hungry, and thirsty; the heat made them sluggish as if the sun were sucking their very lives away. Lesley listlessly staggered through the sand in a trancelike state, putting one foot in front of the other, in front of the other, in front ... of the other ...

With a grunt of pain, Newt suddenly stumbled, crashing to the sand on all fours as his right leg buckled beneath him.

Lesley was abruptly wrenched back to reality. “Newt!” she cried, forcing herself to pick up her pace to reach him even as Minho and Thomas lurched forward beside her.

Newt jerked his head, turning his body so he was sitting on his backside. “I’m fine,” he bit out, waving away the anxious Gladers, all of whom had quickly gathered around him. “It’s just my shucking leg.”

Lesley threw a desperate glance at Thomas, who nodded in understanding. He cleared his evidently parched throat. “Alright, let’s have a break,” he called, his voice raspy. “Take five, everyone.”

“Thank shuck, I needed to take a leak anyway,” Minho announced loudly.

“Charming,” Lesley muttered, but was quietly grateful to him for taking the attention away from Newt.

As there were other calls of agreement, far more enthusiastic than usual, Newt frowned even as he massaged his leg. “We need to get as close to those bloody mountains as we can before nightfall,” he told Thomas sharply. He started to stand again but Lesley pushed him back down. “Bugger off, Les - we’ll keep going for a while longer -”

“Too late!” Minho yelled over his shoulder, playing along and walking off to find a suitable spot to supposedly relieve himself. Lesley sniggered.

“Not a chance,” Thomas said firmly. He glanced around at the other Gladers, who were giving them some space and making good use of the excuse for a rest while they could. He sighed, crouching down in front of Newt so he was looking him in the eye. “If you push it, you’ll just end up hurting yourself even worse,” he told him in an undertone.

Lesley swallowed thickly. “Newt, we’ve been going since dawn,” she said quietly. “Judging from the looks on everyone’s faces, we’re not the only ones who’ve noticed your limp’s been getting worse. You need to rest your leg every now and then.”

There was something deeply anguished hidden behind the careful mask Newt kept across his features. Lesley felt a pang in her chest as she squeezed his shoulder, the blond boy continuing to knead his sore limb even as his eyes flickered with pain.

But Newt was unbelievably stubborn. Ten minutes later they were moving again, the atmosphere amongst the Gladers heavier and somehow more desperate than it had been a mere few hours earlier. Lesley gritted her teeth. One foot in front of the other ... one foot in front of the other ...

o-o-o-o-o

That night found them all sleeping in the middle of the open plain, huddled together for warmth with their jackets tucked close around their bodies.

Just as it had that first night in the mall, as soon as the sun went down the temperature plummeted to what they were sure was below freezing. It would have made their journey towards the mountains far easier if it weren’t for the lack of shelter for sleeping under during the day, and so they braved the heat for the chance of a decent night’s rest.

It was the unnerving sensation of the ground trembling beneath Lesley’s head that woke her from her already fitful slumber. As she slowly lifted her head, blinking blearily at her surroundings, a faint roaring sound reached her ears, the air thrumming eerily.

On the other side of Newt, Thomas was half sitting up, staring off into the distance with his brow furrowed in thought.

“Thomas?” Lesley croaked, scrubbing her eyes tiredly. She noted that Minho was still fast asleep beside her.

Thomas started at the sound of her voice, turning to look at her. “You see that, Les?” he whispered, as if hardly daring to believe it.

Frowning, Lesley rolled onto her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows. She stared in amazement. “Lights,” she gasped.

If it had been daytime, she might have believed the heat was making her hallucinate, but here in the frigid darkness, Lesley knew neither of them were imagining things. Both of them were looking at a building with bright, flickering lights perhaps a mile from their current position. How they hadn’t seen the structure before staggered Lesley; it was so obvious in the night.

Thomas rolled over sharply and smacked Newt’s good leg. “Newt, get up!” he called in an attempt to stir him. “Come on, let’s go. Teresa, Aris. I see something!”

Taking that as her cue, Lesley roughly shook Minho. “Come on, wake up!” she hissed, stretching her arm out and lightly slapping Frypan’s cheek as well. “Wake up, Fry!”

It quickly became apparent that they had merely been sleeping lightly, for the rest of them were awake within seconds, roused by the movements of the others. “Woah, what is it?” Aris mumbled, staggering to his feet. “What ...?”

“You guys see that?” Lesley asked, pointing.

All of them woozily stood up, everyone except Lesley and Thomas gaping at their surroundings blearily as they shivered in the night air, the faint mist of their exhales visible in front of their faces.

“We made it,” Newt breathed, his voice hushed and verging on awe as he pushed his hair out of his eyes.

“Thank shuck,” Minho murmured.

Another distant rumble caught Lesley’s attention. She winced. “Please tell me that was someone’s stomach,” she joked anxiously.

An earsplitting crackling sound had them hurtling around to look. Her jaw dropping open, Lesley stumbled backwards into Minho, who had gone rigid in horror.

“What the hell is that?” Frypan squeaked.

It was a thunderstorm of terrifying proportions on the opposite horizon, thick and angry black clouds still visible against the night sky, illuminated by jagged bolts of lightning arcing between heaven and earth.

And the storm was rolling directly towards them at an unfathomably high speed.

Thomas flung his arm out, blindly grabbing at Newt’s jacket as there was another boom of thunder, the roar steadily growing louder with every passing second. “Let’s go. We gotta go. Come on!”

The sharpness of his tone jolted Lesley out of her daze. Swearing under her breath, her chest tightening, she reached down and hurriedly snatched her bag off the ground. All around her, the others were scrambling for their own gear.

“Come on, let’s go!” Thomas urged. “Let’s go!”

Lesley grabbed his arm. “Thomas!” she called. “What if those lights are WCKD?”

She knew the notion was ridiculous, but she couldn’t stop the nagging thought in the back of her mind that they might be walking into another trap, that WCKD had somehow gotten there first in their giant aircraft.

Another fork of lightning hit the ground in the distance, but this time she could see sharp the flicker of light across Thomas’s face as he gulped audibly. “It’s a risk we’re gonna have to take.”

Lesley gritted her teeth and nodded. With no further arguments, their packs thrown across their shoulders, they took off, their boots crunching in the hard sand. The plain stretched out before them, hundreds of feet of desert between them and the lights; it suddenly felt endless.

The storm was rapidly catching up, lightning already snapping at their heels as the thunder roared over their heads.

“Go, go!” Lesley shrieked, the cold air burning her lungs.

“Hurry!” Thomas yelled.

It was chaos; Lesley couldn’t see properly, couldn’t hear anything. She was running blind, sprinting after the vague shapes of her friends in front of her, illuminated by the brief, blinding flashes from the bolts of lightning striking the sand, making the ground heave beneath their feet. The air was filled with the acrid smell of scorched sand, steam rising into the air as grit hailed down on the Gladers.

Amidst the hysteria, a thought occurred to Lesley. Where was the rain? The ground was as parched as her throat, the air sizzling, crackling with electricity, humming with an insane amount of power that sent the hairs on the back of her neck shooting up on end.

“Run!” Teresa shouted.

Thomas waved his arm. “Keep moving, come on!”

A bolt of lightning hit the ground just off to Lesley’s left, her vision flaring white for several incapacitating seconds. The ground thundered beneath her boots as she was showered with sharp granules of sand; a shriek of fright burst from her mouth.

“Let’s go!” Minho roared.

His voice alone was enough to spur Lesley on, to push her to delve into her last remaining energy reserves and settle into a sprint, a gait her body was now incredibly familiar with, harking back to their days in the Maze. The mere memory made her feel stronger.

“Come on, Teresa!” Thomas cried, reaching out to yank her forward as she started to fall behind. “Go, go, go!”

“We’re getting closer!” Minho bellowed over the noise.

He was right; an immense structure was starting to come into focus out of the blackness, illuminated by the brief yet blinding flashes of lightning. It was a massive wall built into the mountains, large slates of metal riveted together to create an impenetrable barrier.

“Keep going!” Thomas yelled.

“Come on! Run!” Teresa screamed.

They reached a minefield of haphazardly strewn oil barrels and abandoned vehicles. They each went separate ways to avoid the obstacles; Lesley hurtled off to one side with Minho and Thomas, and she could barely see Newt and Frypan running ahead of her. Aris and Teresa had somehow made it to the very front of the group.

“There’s a door!” Frypan screeched over the cacophony, pointing up ahead at the hinged slab of steel at the base of the wall. Lesley's heart leapt.

Newt chanced a glance over his shoulder. “Get a move on!” he bellowed.

“Get inside, go!” Thomas yelled back, waving his arm again.

Thunder roared in Lesley’s ears, deafening her; she could see Newt’s mouth still moving, and Thomas’s as he shouted something in response, but she could barely hear the words. She suddenly felt a pressure against her palm; Minho had slotted his fingers around her own and was pulling her along with him as fast as he could, his hand warm, the weight grounding her, halting her spiraling panic.

The ground heaved beneath their feet again, sending them stumbling. Lesley squinted up at the sky, her mouth falling open in horror; the storm was right on top of them now, the clouds pulsing white.

Minho’s gaze darted upwards, following her line of sight. His eyes widened, his grip tightening. “Oh, shit -!”

There was another flash of light, and Lesley’s hand was torn from Minho’s as she was blasted off her feet and thrown through the air.

She landed painfully on the hard ground, tumbling head over heels before finally coming to a stop, mouth open and gasping, her face jammed uncomfortably against the sand. The ground thundered with footsteps around her. She lay there dazed, unable to move until the feeling slowly returned to her numb limbs, dragging her back to reality; it felt like the damn things had been jerked out of their sockets.

The world was silent apart from a deafening ringing. Lesley slowly lifted her head, blearily looking around. Her vision sharpening with a nauseating suddenness, she gasped at the sight before her, everything reeling in slow motion.

Minho was lying on the ground, spread-eagled on his back, smoke rising from his body in lazy piles. He wasn’t moving.

“MINHO!” Lesley screamed, the sound a dull echo in her ears as she scrambled over to him, forcing her limbs to shucking work. She clutched frantically at his jacket as she felt Thomas crash down beside her. “MINHO!”

She shrieked and screamed, begging him, begging someone to hear, her throat shredded raw. Her pulse hammered, her chest squeezing so tight she could barely breathe.

“COME HELP HIM!” someone yelled distantly. Aris.

A hand gripped Lesley’s shoulder; Newt. “Come on, get him up!” he shouted, the noise muffled.

They hauled Minho upright, Lesley dragging one of his arms over her shoulders as Newt grabbed the other. Another bolt of lightning hit the ground nearby; Lesley flinched violently at the blinding flash, the sound of the blast hitting her a moment later, punching through the incessant ringing.

And then they were running, running, staggering desperately through the darkness, sand hailing down on them. Lesley’s eyes burned, her muscles in agony, every nerve ending shot to pieces.

“Keep going!” Teresa shouted ahead of them.

“GO!” Thomas roared.

Frypan reached the building ahead of them, flinging the door open. “MOVE!” he screeched frantically. “Come on, hurry up! Come on! Get in!”

Lesley clenched her teeth, pushing herself forward, her legs burning with every step, her lungs caving, her vision blurring. Finally, they staggered into the building, Thomas and Aris on their heels, and Frypan slammed the door shut.

o-o-o-o-o

It was pitch black inside, the darkness thick and suffocating. Thunder continued to roll over their heads, the deafening booming sounds mercifully stifled by the building.

“Put him down, put him down!” Thomas called urgently.

“Watch his head,” Aris murmured anxiously as they carefully lowered Minho to the floor.

Lesley moved one of her hands to cup the back of his head. “Who’s got a light?” she cried.

“I do,” Newt answered. He felt around in his pockets; a few seconds later a blue flashlight blinked on, the beam shining across Minho’s face in panicked, frantic motions. “Minho! Come on, man!”

Thomas shook him frantically. “Minho!” he shouted. “Come on, come on -”

Minho was so pale Lesley’s heart shuddered in her ribcage, skipping several beats. Gripping his arms, she crushed her ear against Minho’s chest, desperate for the reassurance, for the steady beat beneath her cheek as she had heard it the other morning, loud and warm, in tandem with her own.

There was only silence.

Hysteria surged through Lesley. “His - his heart’s stopped!” she screamed. “Oh my god, Min, please, no -!”

Newt shoved her aside, kneeling over Minho. “Come on, Min!” he growled, clamping his hands together and slamming them down on Minho’s chest, pressing, punching in a steady rhythm. “One, two, three, four -”

“Newt? Newt, what’s happening?!” Thomas shouted.

Newt gritted his teeth. “I saw Alby - ten, eleven - do this when - fourteen, fifteen - some dumb shank fell in the water tank - nineteen, twenty - and half drowned -”

“Brought ‘em back from the dead, good as new,” Frypan interjected.

Back from the dead. A leaden weight dropped in Lesley’s stomach. No, he couldn’t be -

“Twenty-nine, thirty -”

His face a mask of concentration, Newt pinched Minho’s nose and tipped his head back, clamping his mouth over Minho’s and exhaling deeply. A ragged cry tearing from her throat, Lesley watched his chest expand with the air, feeling powerless, useless.

Pulling away, Newt frantically continued the chest compressions, willing the life back into Minho, his ribs flexing beneath his hands. “Come on, come on, you idiot,” he muttered.

“Come on, Min; you didn’t survive the shucking Maze for it to end like this,” Lesley begged, her eyes burning. She could see his life as she had known it flashing before her. Her heart thrashed in her ribcage, her entire soul screaming to whoever was listening to please, shucking gods above, just let him live.

Thomas gripped Minho’s arm. “Minho?” he called again, pleading.

“Come on, Minho,” Frypan begged. Beside him, Teresa swallowed thickly, her eyes glassy.

Choking back tears, Lesley ran a hand through his hair, her face hovering inches above his. “Minho, please,” she gasped. “Come back, Min.”

Silence.

Lesley’s lungs began to cave. Panic and grief clawed at her, threatening to consume her; maybe he wasn’t going to wake up; maybe this was it; maybe she was going to spend the rest of her life remembering the warmth of his palm clasped to her own, a smile etched into her brain -

There was a feeble cough. “Ugghhh ...”

Lesley’s mind screeched to a halt at the low groan that tumbled from Minho’s mouth. All around her, the other Gladers were gasping, crying out, the relief in the air palpable.

“There he is!” Aris laughed shakily as Newt sat back on his haunches, flexing his hands.

Lightheaded, Lesley exhaled a laugh that sounded more like a sob. She thought she might pass out; instead, she began to weep. “That’s it, Min. Come on.”

“There you go,” Thomas coaxed, shaking Minho as he slowly opened his eyes. “There you are. Are you okay?”

Seeing all the faces looking down at him, Minho took several deep breaths, peering at his blackened, singed hands in confusion. “What happened?”

There were light chuckles from Newt and Aris, and Thomas’s lips tugged upwards. “I think you got struck by lightning,” he told Minho.

Minho stared at them for a moment, realisation dawning across his features. “Oh.”

“Remember Doug?” Newt asked, making a show of wiping his mouth. “You gave us a bit of a scare there, Min.”

Minho’s eyes widened in understanding. “Huh. You know, if I’d wanted my brains snogged out, I would’ve asked.”

“Not like you had any to start with. Remind me again which shank got hit by lightning?”

There was a burst of high-strung laughter from the Gladers, all of them looking like idiots, sitting there sniggering in the dark.

The ghost of a smile tugged at Lesley’s lips; he was going to be okay. “You dumb shank,” she uttered hoarsely, tears still streaming down her face. “You scared the shit outta me.”

“Gotta keep you on your toes,” Minho shrugged, wincing at the movement. At the worried stares, he shook his head. “I’m good, I’m good.”

“Think you can get up?” Thomas asked.

“Yeah,” Minho confirmed, reaching up to grip Thomas’s extended hand.

Newt nodded. “Nice and slow,” he added.

“Alright, hang tight, we’ve got you,” Lesley told Minho, grabbing his other hand and holding on for dear life. She suddenly realised she didn’t want to let go.

Thomas, Lesley, Newt and Frypan carefully pulled Minho to his feet, keeping him steady as he stumbled. Still awfully pale, he leaned heavily against them for a moment before regaining his balance, throwing them a woozy smile. “Thanks, guys.”

Darting forward, Lesley barreled into him, clamping her arms around his torso, clutching at him desperately; his heart was thundering just as much as her own now. Just the way she liked it; just the way it should be. “I thought I’d shucking lost you,” she choked out.

His arms wrapped around her. “I’m here. It’s okay.” Minho exhaled shakily. “I’m still here.”

Somehow, Lesley knew he was thinking of their night of stargazing in the desert. When she’d stormed away after her outburst, overcome with emotion; terrified of losing them.

Minho coughed, thumping her on the back. “Your hair smells burnt, shank.”

Lesley laughed weakly into his shoulder. Everything was backwards; he’d nearly died, and yet Minho was still the one reassuring her, teasing her, coaxing her out of her tumult of thoughts when it became too much. “Dumbass. You were holding my hand when the lightning hit.”

“I’m pretty sure it was the other way ‘round -”

“Ladies, ladies, you’re both pretty,” Frypan grinned, clapping Minho on the back as Lesley reluctantly stepped away, wiping her eyes.

Minho scoffed. “Please. I’d beat all you slintheads in a beauty contest, hands down.”

Lesley gave a watery snort, barely biting back a grin. “Yeah, you’re really rocking the smokey eye look there, Min. You should try blasting your face off more often.”

There were hollers of laughter; Lesley’s teeth gleamed wolfishly in the torchlight. Minho swore, flipping her off.

“Hey, what’s that smell?” Teresa asked, wrinkling her nose. Beside her, Aris clamped his hand down over his mouth.

Lesley sniffed and suddenly felt the urge to gag, the stench so foul she wondered how she hadn’t noticed it before. “It’s like rotting meat,” she choked out.

Frypan glanced at her. “You sure it’s meat?”

Newt scoffed. “If you’re suggesting there’s dead bodies in here -”

There was a piercing shriek and something lunged out of the blackness, snarling, scrambling towards them before a thick rusting chain around its throat jerked the creature to a stop mere feet away.

No, not a creature. A human.

Chapter Text

The Gladers lurched backwards in horror, tripping over one another at the horrifyingly familiar sight before them: decaying skin, bloodshot eyes, blackened veins crisscrossing every inch of exposed skin as blood drooled from their lips.

Lesley screamed.

The room was suddenly in uproar, the horrified yells of the Gladers drowned out by the clamour of shrieking and wailing from all around them. Flashlight beams ricocheted around the room in rapid, panicky motions; the creatures were everywhere, scrambling towards them before being yanked backwards with a sickening lurch by the chains around their necks. Jagged nails stretched out on gnarled hands as ragged screams tore from their throats. The stench was nauseating, the cacophony unbearable.

“Oh, shit!” Thomas yelled. “Oh, my god!”

“I see you’ve met our guard dogs,” an unfamiliar, scratchy voice said, almost husky.

A yellow lamp flickered on, revealing a doorway about thirty feet away. A silhouette stood there, a petite figure; a girl.

“Who’s that?” Frypan asked weakly.

She walked - no, danced - towards them, and Lesley’s jaw dropped open in amazement, several of the boys affected the same. The girl slipped gracefully through the crowd of monsters, not even flinching as they lunged towards her, the chains halting them barely inches from her throat.

“Stay back, stay back!” Minho yelped, voice pitched with terror.

Finally, the girl came to a stop in front of them, stepping into the beams of their flashlights. She was undeniably pretty; tan skin, piercing eyes, dark hair styled in a pixie-cut.

The girl exhaled sharply. “You guys look like shit,” she commented, taking in the sight of the singed, disheveled Gladers with a sparkle of amusement in her eyes. She beckoned to them, setting off into the sea of monsters. “Come on. Follow me.”

No one moved.

She turned on her heel, smirking playfully. “Unless you want to stay here with them?”

Lesley flinched. Newt and Thomas exchanged nervous glances, the seconds ticking by. Finally, they went after her, everyone else hesitantly following.

“Single file, guys,” Thomas muttered over his shoulder. “Don’t think, just move.”

Easier said than done. When it finally came to her turn after an agonising wait, Lesley swallowed heavily, a quiet panic gripping her, her throat painfully tight. A cold sweat began to creep across her body.

“Come on, Lesley!” Thomas called out.

“We’ve got you, shank,” Minho promised her, stretching out an arm towards her.

Steeling herself, Lesley focused on him and forced her feet forward, one step at a time through the horde. She flinched at each lunge towards her body, her hands and teeth clenching as she kept her gaze on the boys ahead of her, her eyes boring into Minho’s own. She didn’t exhale the breath she was holding until she was standing right next to him, her knees shaking horrendously. When Newt looked at her questioningly, she nodded; she could do this.

“You can call me Brenda,” the mysterious girl announced once all of them had reached the safety of the other side.

Her words seemed to jolt Thomas out of his stupor. “How do you catch them?” he blurted out.

“Catch them?” Brenda repeated incredulously. Lesley could almost feel the eye roll. “What, do you think we’re stupid? We don’t catch them. We just ... take precautions when people start to turn.”

Brenda led them into another room where several grisly, scarred men were lurking, all with weapons hanging at their belts. Gulping at the sight of them, Lesley shrank back against Newt; he looked just as nervous.

“Wait!” Teresa called out, pushing past Aris to fall in step with Thomas. “Those things back there were your friends? You just chained ‘em up?”

Brenda threw her a scathing look. “No worse than cutting them loose to Crankland,” she countered.

Frypan glanced at Minho, frowning. “What the hell is Crankland?”

Brenda peered at them curiously, her eyes dancing. “You guys aren’t from around here, are you?”

She wrenched a towering metal door open and stepped through the entrance, leading them onwards. Lesley’s eyes widened as she looked around; they were now in a massive warehouse, the walls and roof stretching around them. There were clusters of people around various firepits; they stared warily at the new arrivals.

Aris stumbled. “Sorry,” he muttered. “My head’s spinning something crazy.”

The exhaustion suddenly came crashing back down on Lesley. She lunged forward and snagged Brenda’s wrist. Brenda recoiled as if she had been burned, wrenching her hand away.

“We ... we need food, water,” Lesley gasped. “Something, anything. Please.”

Brenda stared at them, her eyes drifting across their haggard faces, raking in their slouched postures and shadowed eyes, the way all of them seemed to be swaying on their feet. Strangely, something softened in her expression. “Come on,” she said finally. “We don’t have much, but I might be able to scrounge something.”

She set off into the warehouse, the Gladers hastening after her. Lesley fought to keep her thoughts together, trying to remember their path in case they needed a way out. Think of the Maze. Left. Right. Through the doorway. Past the stairs. Left again.

“Wait here,” Brenda ordered them.

They obeyed. Lesley kept close to her friends, all of them protectively clumping together again until the soft patter of steps announced Brenda’s return.

“You have the honour of consuming our oldest stock,” Brenda said, striding back into the room with a flask and two small rusting cans. She smirked. “Don’t mind the maggots if you see any.”

They were like wild dogs, tearing open the cans of spaghetti and slurping up the strings of pasta like it was soup, passing the food along after a few gulps to ensure everyone had a share. Manners went out the window; Lesley wouldn’t have cared even if the love of her life was watching her, she was so hungry.

“Here, shank.” Minho shoved the can in her face. She wordlessly inhaled another mouthful.

Brenda stared. “Jesus, how long has it been since you guys ate anything?”

“Too long,” Aris gasped.

Brenda looked vaguely disgusted. “Well, keep wolfing it down like that and you’ll be chucking the whole lot back up; fat lot of good our generosity would’ve been.”

Lesley forced herself to chew her mouthful properly; she knew Brenda was right. In some ways it was already an effort to keep the wretched stuff down. She took a long sip of water as Frypan tossed the flask to her, sighing deeply in relief.

She looked around at the others. They all looked as exhausted as she felt, but there was a quiet strength to their expressions now that the raging beast in their stomachs had been appeased. At least none of them were going to pass out from hunger now.

A man stomped through the doorway, his face shrouded in darkness. He murmured something to Brenda. She nodded. “Come on,” she called to the Gladers. “Jorge’s waiting. We’ve kept him long enough.”

With that, she walked out of the room. Lesley glanced at the others, all of them looking as bewildered as she felt, and then as one they all took off after her.

o-o-o-o-o

“Come on, keep up!” Brenda called sharply. “Jorge wants to meet you.”

Ignoring the wary stares following their every move, they crossed the main warehouse and reached another rusting set of stairs. The Gladers quickly began to ascend them in single file. The metal steps creaked ominously beneath Lesley’s boots.

A balding man emerged from the shadows, scowling. “So now we’re taking in strays?” he called up to Brenda. He came to a stop in front of Minho, staring him down; Minho stared straight back without flinching, his gaze unwavering.

The man’s eyes flicked to Lesley. “I suppose the pretty girly could stay,” he leered, before very obviously checking out Teresa as well. “Both of ‘em.”

“Don’t you dare touch us,” Lesley snarled, swallowing tightly. Newt took a step in front of her protectively, his jaw clenching. Minho’s hand curled into a fist.

“Or what, sugar?”

Lesley’s voice twisted into a fierce, low growl. “You put even one finger on us and I will break your face.”

The man grinned. “It would be a pleasure -”

“Back off, Barkley,” Brenda barked. She smiled sweetly. “Jorge saw them first.”

Lesley couldn’t breathe properly again until they reached the top of the stairs, away from the lingering gaze of the creep below. She exhaled shakily; beside her, Newt squeezed her shoulder, his expression churning with unease.

Fingers brushed her wrist. “You good, shank?” Minho murmured. Lesley nodded.

“Who’s Jorge?” Thomas asked curiously.

“You’ll see,” was all she replied.

They passed through another room filled with people, all with the same ragged, greasy clothing and unkempt appearances. The stares were relentless.

“No one’s come out of the Scorch in a long time,” Brenda told them. “You’ve just got him curious.” She paused. “And me, too.”

Lesley glanced nervously at the crowd of people beginning to follow them; they pressed uncomfortably close, herding the Gladers together. She looked over her shoulder and met the eyes of an ugly thug of a man; the hungry expression on his face made her shudder as he grinned at her, rotten teeth mixed with gold fillings.

Catching the sickening stare, Newt pushed Lesley ahead of him, keeping her towards the middle of the group. She could handle herself, but it was the other ruffians he didn’t trust. “Anyone else starting to get a bad feeling about this place?” he asked no one in particular.

“Let’s just hear him out,” Thomas told him. “See what he has to say.”

“And then we’re hauling ass,” Minho muttered.

Climbing higher, Brenda led them up a final set of stairs into a wide loft space. All around the room Lesley could see grimy drawers crammed with papers, clothing and tools. Several haphazardly placed lamps illuminated the space with a soft orange glow.

Sitting at a wooden desk against the far window was a dark-skinned man with greying hair, his back to them. “Jorge, they’re here,” she announced, leading the Gladers closer.

“Shh-shh-shh-shh,” he said, raising a finger. “Quiet.”

The faint crackle of radio static shattered the suffocatingly quiet air; barely seconds later there was the high-pitched shriek of interference. “Damn it,” he muttered, shutting the radio off. He exhaled sharply as there was another boom of thunder from outside.

Lesley flinched as he kicked the chair back and stood up, turning to face them. The cosy room began to feel claustrophobic, people creeping out of the shadows to join them. The slow, choking feeling of anxiety threatened to overwhelm her, her gaze darting, searching frantically, wanting - needing - a way out, but there was none.

They were trapped.

Jorge stared appraisingly at the group gathered before him, his hands on his hips. His clothing was surprisingly stylish for their circumstances. “Do you ever get the feeling the whole world’s against you?” he asked suddenly.

Thomas glanced apprehensively at Minho. Unnerved, Lesley shifted on her feet; of all the things she had expected him to say, it hadn’t even come close. Fool me once, she thought with a grimace. Their trust was already stretched thin.

If Jorge noticed, he didn’t mention it. “Three questions,” he continued smoothly. “Where did you come from? Where are you going?” He paused, pouring himself a glass of water from a pitcher on a nearby table, the liquid revoltingly murky. “How can I profit?”

No one spoke. The Gladers shifted uncomfortably, glancing at one another; to Thomas.

Jorge raised his eyebrows. “Don’t all answer at once.”

Thomas sighed. “We’re heading for the mountains.”

Teresa raised her chin. “We’re looking for the Right Arm.”

Jeering laughter rose up around the room. From the corner of her eye, Lesley saw Brenda throw a pointed look at Jorge.

Jorge chuckled, barely glancing at her. “You’re looking for ghosts, you mean,” he clarified. He took a sip of his drink, his dark eyes watching them carefully. “Question number two. Where did you come from?”

Minho’s gaze flicked to Thomas. He raised his chin. “That’s our business,” he told Jorge coldly.

A chill shot through Lesley as the amusement vanished from Jorge’s eyes. They’d stepped wrong.

The silence stretched. Finally, Jorge tilted his head to the side, and suddenly the burly men around them surged forward, clamping their hands down on the Gladers’ shoulders and forcing them to their knees.

Lesley gasped at the sharp scrape through her jeans. “Get your hands off!” she snarled at the man standing over her, but he only tightened his grip painfully, pressing her towards the ground. Nearby, Minho looked frightfully livid.

“Hey, get the hell off me!” Thomas shouted, grunting. “Get the hell off me, man!”

Her hair falling in her eyes, Lesley glanced up at a flash of movement; Brenda plucked a small black device off the table. After a nod from Jorge, she stormed over to Thomas and shoved it against the back of his neck. “Shut up, you big baby,” she bit out.

There was a slow whirring sound from the device, followed by a harsh, incessant beeping.

“What is that?!” Thomas yelled, thrashing about as much as he was able to.

Brenda passed the gadget to Jorge, her eyes wide. “You were right,” she said.

Jorge hurriedly shoved his glasses on, his brow creasing as he stared at the digital display inlaid into the device.

“Right about what?” Thomas demanded. “What is she talking about?”

“To be killed by Group B ... dear me.” Jorge laughed, sticking his glasses back in his pocket. “I’m sorry, hermano,” he said, his expression anything but apologetic. “Looks like you’re tagged.”

Her face twisting in horror, Lesley clamped a hand down on the back of her neck, fingers scrabbling at her skin, but she couldn’t feel anything there. “We’ve got shucking tags in our necks?” she whispered. She glanced at Thomas; his face was white.

To be killed. Killed by Group B. What the shuck did that mean?

Lesley yelped as the device was slammed against her own neck. “Shuck!” she swore.

“The Variable ... interesting.” Stepping around the Gladers, Jorge moved on to Newt, Minho, Frypan, his steps slow and deliberate as if he were enjoying himself. “The Glue ... The Leader ... The Sidekick ...”

“Sidekick?” Frypan spluttered indignantly as there were guffaws of laughter. “Hell nah!”

Lesley felt sick, her head reeling. There was no way they would be able to escape now; their every move would be followed. She knew without a doubt just who had put the tags in, and she knew Jorge did too.

Circling back to the front of the group, Jorge pointed at them. “You came from WCKD,” he announced, his voice quiet, menacing, as he stared at the Gladers with a dark, calculating glint in his eyes. “Which means ... you’re very valuable.”

Lesley’s gut churned with dread. She seized Minho’s hand, needing to know that someone - anyone - was there. This couldn’t be happening -

Jorge jerked his head again. “Take them to the Vent,” he ordered.

Hands slammed down on their arms again. Thomas’s eyes were wide with panic; Aris had gone deathly pale.

“Hey man, get off!” Frypan yelled.

“I’ll punch your shucking lights out,” Minho threatened, earning himself a headlock.

“Wait, wait, hold up, can we just talk?!” Thomas cried, begging as he was dragged away.

The world was spinning. Lesley could hardly breathe as Minho’s fingers were torn from her own, all of the Gladers getting shoved towards the door. “Where are they taking us?!” she shouted frantically.

Were they being taken back? Were they being taken back to WCKD?

Newt stumbled into her as he was shoved forward, his face ashen. “I don’t know. I don’t bloody know!”

Chapter Text

“Good plan, Thomas,” Minho commended sarcastically. “Just hear what the man has to say. Really working out for us.”

“Oh, shut up, Minho,” Thomas groaned. He glanced up at his feet. “Maybe I can reach the rope.”

Lesley looked around, the Gladers all dangling over a cylindrical six-story shaft, strung up by thick lengths of rope around their ankles. She was exhausted, frazzled, her nerves torn to shreds, and the absurdity of seeing them all hung the wrong way up was the final straw. A grin stretched across her face ... which quickly escalated into hysterical laughter.

Newt tilted his head, pink in the face. “You okay there, Les?” he asked, his voice strained.

His words only made her cackle harder, her laughter ricocheting off the walls.

Minho shook his head, his red face visible even with his darker complexion. “It’s official,” he wheezed. “The shank’s finally gone nuts.”

“Having fun, are we?” came another, horribly familiar voice. “Enjoying the view?”

Jorge stepped out of the shadows, twirling an elegant cane in his hand. Lesley abruptly fell silent, the urge to giggle vanishing as dread settled heavily in her gut, churning sickeningly.

“What the hell do you want?” Thomas huffed; they were hanging eye-level with him.

Jorge, unbelievably, laughed. “That is the question.” His gaze swept across the Gladers, his eyes glinting. “My men want to sell you back to WCKD,” he explained. “Life has taught them to think small. I’m not like that; something tells me that you’re not either.”

Minho frowned. “Is the blood rushing through my head, or is this shank not making any sense?”

Lesley snorted, the sharp bite of mirth returning. “Nope. Isn’t it my turn with the brain cell anyway?” she asked. Minho’s eyes glinted.

Jorge’s expression tightened. He pointed his cane at them. “Tell me what you know about the Right Arm,” he demanded, his voice deadly quiet.

The mood changed abruptly. Lesley glanced across at Thomas, waiting for his lead.

Newt’s brow creased as he tilted his head. “I thought you said they were ghosts?”

Jorge turned to him, a smile tugging at his mouth. “I happen to believe in ghosts,” he said with a shrug. “Especially when I hear them ... chattering on the airwaves.”

He stepped over to a lengthy rod of metal, resting his hand on it; a lever. Lesley’s throat tightened; the switch was unmistakably linked to the winch beside Jorge, and coiled tightly around the wooden reel was the rope holding all the Gladers in the air. She began to sweat.

“You tell me what you know,” Jorge commanded, his voice hard, “and maybe we can make a deal.”

Thomas glanced about, everyone staring at him expectantly, the air thick with tension. Finally, he shook his head. “We - we don’t know much,” he started.

Jorge stared at them, blatant disbelief crossing his face. Suddenly, his hand shot out and shoved the lever forward; garbled shouts of alarm tore from the mouths of the Gladers as they plummeted several feet, uncomfortably jerking to a halt a second later.

“Okay, okay, okay, alright!” Thomas yelled, waving his arms.

“You didn’t even give him the chance to talk, shuckface!” Lesley roared angrily, her stomach heaving; Minho looked vaguely green.

Jorge raised his eyebrows at the insult. “That’s a new one,” he commented, turning his expectant gaze to Thomas.

“They’re hiding in the mountains,” Thomas gasped.

“But you already knew that!” Lesley shouted desperately as Jorge reached for the lever.

“And they attacked WCKD,” Thomas continued frantically, his eyes wide with panic. “They got out a bunch of kids. That’s it. That’s all we know!”

Something flickered in Jorge’s expression before he could hide it; realisation, hope. His jaw tightening, he took a step towards the ledge, his eyes flicking between the seven Gladers. He inhaled sharply and opened his mouth to speak -

“Yo, Jorge.”

Lesley’s head snapped towards the doorway as an ugly, balding man appeared out of the shadows. It was Barkley, the same thug who had leered at them earlier. She shuddered involuntarily.

Barkley came to a stop, narrowing his eyes as he took in the scene before him. “What’s going on?” he asked suspiciously.

Jorge straightened his shoulders, appearing nonchalant. “Me and my new friends were just getting acquainted.” He smiled darkly. “We’re done, now.”

“Hey, wait, what?” Thomas blurted out. “You’re not gonna help us?”

Lesley suddenly felt nervous at the accusing expression that settled on Barkley’s face.

“Don’t worry, hermano,” Jorge assured him, that same terrible smile on his face. “We’ll get you back to where you belong. Hang tight.”

With that, he turned and vanished into the darkness, laughing quietly to himself.

“Typical,” Lesley groaned. “We had to get captured by a comic genius, didn't we?”

o-o-o-o-o

They hung there for what seemed like an eternity. The minutes crawled by, the seconds passing like hours. Somewhere, water dripped, the soothing plink of the droplets the only indication that time was passing at all. The thunderstorm had long since died out, the air finally still.

Her head fuzzy, Lesley mind wandered, drifting back to the names Jorge had announced, the tags WCKD had forced upon them, proclaimed them as.

The Variable. That one was obvious. She was the first girl in the Glade.

The Leader. Easy; Minho was a Keeper. The Maze had been his entire domain.

The Sidekick. She snorted to herself. Frypan was so much more than that; she’d always associated him with food, with comfort ... with home. She’d strangle those WCKD bastards with her bare hands if they made him believe otherwise.

The Glue. Newt’s tag made Lesley’s blood run cold. She had uttered those same words to Newt the day Teresa arrived in the Box. It was another sign they had been watched the entirety of their time in the Glade.

And then Thomas. His name was on a kill list of sorts; the mere thought scared the hell out of her. She wondered what horrific plan WCKD had had in mind before they escaped the Maze.

Lesley swallowed thickly. Suddenly, she desperately needed to hear another voice besides the one in her head. “I swear I’m gonna pass out if we’re stuck here much longer.”

“Me, too,” Newt mumbled, eyes half closed.

“Hey, snap out of it!” Teresa barked.

Minho squinted at her. “Got something to say?”

Teresa sighed obnoxiously as if they were all dumb as klunk. “If we swing towards that platform over there,” she started, pointing to where the lever was, “we could lower the rope enough for us to get out.”

Thomas’s eyes widened in realisation. “That could work,” he puffed.

Aris nodded dazedly. “I’m up for anything if it means not hanging upside down any more.”

Teresa awkwardly turned to look at the other Gladers, throwing her weight to spin herself. “Lesley has the best angle,” she decided, her brow creasing. “If you could get her over to Minho, we might be able to swing her far enough.”

Thomas nodded jerkily. “Okay, okay ... Lesley, grab my hand.”

Lesley stretched her arm out as far as she could, grunting with the strain, but her fingers barely brushed Thomas’s. “Shit,” she cursed, jostling around and trying to swing his way.

“Just a bit further,” Thomas gasped.

Newt suddenly stuck his hand out. “Here, I’m closer. Don’t bloody hurt yourself,” he said, reaching out and snatching Lesley’s wrist. In one swift, careful movement, he passed her across to Thomas.

Catching her, Thomas lightly pressed his hands to Lesley’s waist. “Sorry,” he muttered, very aware of the sudden proximity.

“Just do it,” Lesley told him; she would have been amused in any other situation. “Better you than those thugs.”

“Good that. Okay. Minho, you ready?” Thomas called.

“Yeah.”

Twisting around awkwardly, Thomas pushed Lesley away from him with a grunt, sending her crashing into Minho.

“Oof - gotcha!” Minho exclaimed, adjusting his hold on her. “Okay.”

Lesley’s breath caught in her throat at the sensation of Minho’s hands at her waist, long fingers pressing against her hips. What the shuck is wrong with me? she thought. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been close to Minho before -

“Les, you okay there?” Newt asked, seeing her tense.

She nodded. “Yeah, yeah. Come on, Min,” she called. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Strangely, the chuckle that emerged from his own throat sounded vaguely strained. “Good that, shank,” he replied. “On three.”

“Here we go,” Thomas muttered.

“One, two, three!” Minho called, shoving Lesley towards the platform.

She soared across the gap between the Gladers, past Newt and Thomas, stretching her hands out, silently praying -

Her fingers missed the metal railing by mere inches.

All of them groaned, grunts of frustration filling the air. “Oh, shit,” Thomas gasped as Newt grabbed Lesley before she swung in the wrong direction.

“Come on, man!” Teresa exclaimed.

Seconds later, Lesley was back in front of Minho. Counting down, he gave her another shove towards the platform, but this time she missed wildly, not even coming close and spinning away in the opposite direction; she swore.

“Come on, Minho!” Newt spluttered loudly, tilting his head to stop the rush of blood to his temple. “Push her harder!”

“There’s a joke in there, somewhere,” Lesley muttered, the world reeling.

“Shit,” Thomas groaned. He reached out and grabbed Lesley by her jacket as she swung in his direction, throwing her back towards Minho.

Minho grabbed her waist firmly, his forehead shining with sweat as he pressed it against her shoulder blade, his chest heaving. “This is it,” he wheezed, his brow furrowing in determination. “One ... two ... three!”

Grunting, he shoved Lesley as hard as he could. She went flying across the space like a trapeze artist, arms outstretched, reaching ... and finally managed to wrap her left hand around the railing. An elated laugh burst from her mouth. It worked. “Got it!” she yelled.

“Yes!” Newt gasped.

Minho grinned victoriously. “Yeah!”

“Teresa, you are a queen!” Lesley crowed. Teresa grinned, throwing her a wonky salute.

“Lesley, hurry!” Thomas called.

Lesley quickly grabbed the railing with her other hand and flipped herself over so she was facing downwards. “Brace yourselves!” she shouted, reaching out and yanking the lever towards her. Instantly, the boys and Teresa plummeted a stomach-churning ten feet before the rope jerked them to a stop.

Lesley grinned victoriously, heaving herself up onto the platform and hurriedly unbinding her feet. “Not often I get to be the knight in shining armour,” she quipped.

Minho groaned. “Just hurry up, shank.”

Newt abruptly stiffened. “All of you, shut up!” he yelled. “Listen!”

Dumbstruck by the sharp command, the rest of them rapidly fell silent, ears straining. In the sudden quiet, they all heard the faint sound of an aircraft.

“Good evening!”

The Gladers froze at the sickeningly familiar voice that sounded from outside, blasting over a speaker at an unbearably loud volume. “Janson,” Lesley whispered, her blood turning to ice. They were out of time.

“Shit,” Thomas hissed.

“This is the World Catastrophe Killzone Department,” Janson announced. “We have your compound completely surrounded.”

His words snapped Lesley out of her daze. “Shuck, we gotta move!” she gasped. Her gaze darted around the dark room, and she caught a glimpse of a long, rusting pipe lying abandoned amongst the dirt, shining faintly in the moonlight. “Perfect!”

“You find yourselves, through no fault of your own, in possession of WCKD property!”

Lesley rushed back to the edge of the shaft. “Thomas, grab the end of the pole!”

He did as asked, gripping the metal with sweaty hands. Jamming her boots against the floor, Lesley managed to haul Thomas up and over onto the mezzanine level.

“Return them to us unharmed and we’ll consider this a simple misunderstanding -”

“Does that slinthead ever shut up?” Minho groaned.

Lesley ripped the coil of rope off Thomas’s ankles. “Help the others!” she urged, dropping his unbound feet.

Thomas stumbled upright. “Hang on, guys!” he shouted, heading towards Teresa and Aris with another stick of scrap metal he had scavenged.

“- or, you can resist, and every last one of you will die!”

“That’s real pleasant, man,” Frypan muttered.

Lesley made a beeline for Newt, holding the rod out to him. “Here,” she panted. “I don’t like the colour your face is turning.”

Newt grunted, grabbing the metal pipe. “Cheers, Les.”

“It won’t be long before the Flare wipes out the rest of us. The hope of a cure lies in your hands.”

Once Newt had salvaged another piece of piping, the three of them worked methodically, rapidly hauling the others to safety and untying them one by one.

“Thanks, Les,” Minho puffed as she pulled him onto firm ground.

“Don’t mention it,” she gasped.

Janson’s voice rang out once more with a foreboding sense of finality, of one last chance: “The choice is yours!”

“Okay, let’s go!” Thomas shouted as Newt frantically untied Frypan’s legs. “Let’s go!”

They started for the doorway when the cocking sound of a gun had them skidding to a halt. Barkley emerged from the darkness, a shotgun held out in front of him with one hand. Lesley’s grabbed Minho’s shoulder painfully tight, her eyes wide with terror.

Thomas raised his hands in a desperate, placating gesture. “We’re not trying to cause any trouble, okay?” he pleaded. “We just - we gotta get outta here -”

“Is that so?” Barkley grinned, his eyes gleaming triumphantly. He raised his other hand ... in which he held a walkie talkie.

“Shit,” Lesley breathed in despair, her heart in her throat, her stomach churning.

“You said it, sweetheart.” Ignoring the low growls from Minho and Newt, Barkley jabbed a button on the device. “Janson, I got ‘em for ya,” he reported. “I’m bringing ‘em down. Don’t shoot us.”

Thomas swallowed audibly. Lesley could imagine Janson’s twisted smirk from where she stood; it filled her with dread, her heart pounding so hard she thought it might burst from her ribcage, blood roaring in her ears.

“Come on,” Barkley snapped, a smug expression creeping across his face. “Let’s go.”

No one moved. The tension in the air was suffocating.

Barkley took a step closer. “I said,” he snarled, “let’s go -”

Thomas’s hand shot out and grabbed the rifle, shoving the barrel skywards as Barkley pulled the trigger, sending the bullet into the ceiling with a deafening blast.

Lesley roared; hollering, the Gladers charged, crashing into Barkley and sending him flying backwards away from them - but still holding the weapon.

Thomas started towards him again but jerked to a stop with wide eyes as Barkley cocked the gun again, the sound cracking through the air like a whip. Gasping, Lesley and Newt grabbed Thomas and hauled him backwards, the Gladers crowding together protectively.

Barkley staggered to his feet, his expression contorting with rage as he swung the weapon at them a second time. “You little bastard!” he roared, aiming the barrel at Thomas’s chest.

Déjà vu slammed into Lesley like a freight train.

There was another ear-splitting roar of a gunshot. Lesley lurched backwards in horror, everyone around her frantically patting their clothes and staring at Thomas with wide eyes, trying to figure out if they had been shot; if he had been shot.

The radio clattered to the floor. His face paling, Barkley suddenly collapsed to the floor to reveal someone standing behind him with a gun.

Lesley stared. “Brenda?”

Chapter Text

Brenda didn’t answer at first, nudging Barkley with her boot to check the man was dead. Satisfied, she finally looked up at the stunned Gladers, panting heavily. “Okay. Okay, come on.”

When they didn’t follow her, Brenda huffed and rolled her eyes, beckoning frantically as she adjusted the pack thrown over her shoulder. “Come on, let’s go!” she urged.

“Barkley, what’s your location?” the abandoned radio called urgently; it was Janson’s voice. “Barkley, are you there?”

Lesley swore. “Right, I’m outta here,” she announced.

As if that gave them the push they needed, the Gladers bolted after Brenda, pushing and shoving at one another in their haste to get out. Jammed between Newt and Minho, Lesley kept her eyes on the girl up front. They hurtled through the building, up and down stairs, clattering along metal landings and catwalks, running, running -

The soft trill of a voice floated through the air, an old-fashioned song suddenly blaring out of hidden speakers, dancing eerily around them. “I go out, walkin’ after midnight ...”

Lesley spluttered. “What the hell?”

“Out in the moonlight, just like we used to ...”

“Jorge’s playing them his favourite song,” Brenda told them briskly, not even slowing down.

“Charming,” Newt muttered, rolling his eyes. “We’re all about to die and he’s bloody well serenading them.”

Minho shook his head. “I can’t figure out this slinthead’s angle.”

“Just shut up!” Brenda groaned. “Stay quiet and keep moving!”

Suddenly, they were clambering up a familiar set of stairs, vaulting the steps two at a time and finding themselves emerging into Jorge’s office.

“Brenda, hurry!” Jorge shouted, rushing towards them with a hefty pack slung across his back. “We don’t have much time! Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

He ran towards the far side of the room, Brenda and the Gladers sprinting after him, the latter shouting questions after the pair, voices rising in an indiscernible cacophony.

“Changed your tune?” Lesley yelled amongst the chaos.

“What the hell is going on?!” Thomas roared.

“Right this way!” Jorge called, ignoring them and instead shoving open a metal set of gates built into the far exterior wall.

Lesley stared, her stomach dropping. There was a thick cable wire from the ceiling above her head that led out through the opening in the wall, disappearing into the darkness and the ruins of a crumbling building across the way; a zip line, well over a hundred feet long.

“Oh, you gotta be kidding me,” Frypan breathed, his eyes widening.

“You’re shucking joking,” Lesley muttered.

“Plan B, hermano!” Jorge replied tightly. “These guys want you bad. Lucky for you, they’re not the only ones.”

That got their attention. “The Right Arm?” Thomas pressed, his eyes alight.

Jorge nodded. “You kids wanna get to the Right Arm? I’ll lead you to them. But you’re gonna owe me.”

He reached up into the gaping ceiling cavity and pulled down several dirty, coiled stretches of material that were attached to the cable by pulleys, resembling slings.

“Come on, let’s go,” Jorge ordered.

Lesley scoffed, her expression hardening. “You threatened our friends and had us all strung up by our ankles, and we’re supposed to listen to you just like that? We don’t owe you shit,” she snapped.

But her fear of WCKD was far, far greater than her terror for this stranger. He had their ticket to a way out, and for love of all shuck, she’d be damned if she didn’t take it.

Minho nodded in agreement. “You first, hermano,” he shot back mockingly.

Jorge, unbelievably, chuckled. “You kids really need to learn how to trust people. Follow me!” he suddenly yelled, grabbing one of the slings and hurtling forward, swinging out into the blackness of the night.

The Gladers stared after him, their expressions ranging from disbelief to downright awe. Lesley felt a pinch of anticipation in her gut, just like she had before running into the Maze.

“Alright, let’s go!” Brenda called, clapping her hands. “Come on!”

Dragging himself out of his thoughts, Thomas nodded frantically. “Go, go, go!” he shouted, pushing Minho and Frypan ahead of him. “Everyone go!”

“Go!” Brenda implored. “Come on!”

“Get going, Min!” Lesley yelled when he met her gaze.

Grunting, Minho grabbed the sling and sprinted towards the edge of the building, tucking his legs up at the last second and swinging away into the darkness, Frypan close behind on another sling with Newt rapidly following.

“Aris, come on!” Thomas called, beckoning him forward.

“Go!” Teresa cried desperately.

“Go, Aris, go,” Thomas pushed, giving him a hard shove to launch him, sending him soaring away. He pulled another sling down. “Teresa, you’re next, come on. Then Lesley.”

Lesley nodded. “Okay - hey, Brenda!” she yelled as the girl suddenly sprinted away across the room.

Thomas whirled around, staring after Brenda with wide, terrified eyes. “Brenda! Where are you going?” he roared.

Cursing under her breath, Lesley bolted after her.

“Lesley, get back here!” she heard Thomas yell. She ignored him, hurtling towards Brenda as she came crashing to a stop beside one of the old stained desks, yanking one of the drawers open.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Lesley shouted as Brenda began to frantically rummage through the random collection of articles in the desk compartment. “We have to go!”

Brenda tossed things aside; a book, a mangy cloth. “Why do you care?” she bit out.

Lesley seethed. “Look, I don’t shucking know!” she snapped. “But you saved our lives, and Jorge’s also trying to rescue us. It’s between you two and WCKD; our hands are shucking tied! Now, what the hell are you looking for?”

Footsteps, crashing behind her. “We gotta go!” Thomas roared.

Brenda snatched something out of the cavity; a tiny silver box. “I got it, I got it!” she choked out, stuffing the possession into her pocket. Lesley froze; was that relief she had heard?

“Come on!” Thomas shouted, grabbing Lesley’s jacket and hauling her along with him.

Seconds later they slammed to a stop.

“Oh, shit,” Lesley gasped.

Masked guards in black uniforms were surging up the stairs and onto the landing, guns clutched tightly in their hands. Lesley grabbed Thomas’s arm painfully tight, her eyes darting about the room. Her mind was blank; she couldn’t think; taunting the Grievers had been child’s play, a game, compared to this. They were backed into a corner, unarmed and facing a fate worse than death if WCKD caught them -

Gritting her teeth, Brenda yanked the gun from her holster and began firing mercilessly. Lesley rocketed backwards into Thomas with a shriek, the roar of the blast deafening her for an eternal second.

“Take cover!” one of the soldiers yelled, the swarm of men ducking behind the posts with shouts of alarm, hunkering down.

“They’re on the top floor!” someone shouted into their radio. “They’re armed; send backup! I repeat, send backup!”

“Go, go!” Brenda screamed, shoving Thomas and Lesley ahead. “There’s a door, move it!”

Behind them was the sound of weapons firing up.

“What the shuck was that for?!” Lesley roared as they vaulted over the desks and through a doorway she hadn’t seen before. “They know we’re here now!”

The air exploded with bolts of electricity in a burst of rapid gunfire, taser discs ricocheting around the room, crackling with blue lightning. Lesley screamed, her arms clamped over her head as she bolted down the darkened passage after Brenda and Thomas, the bullets blasting through the thin wall beside her.

All around them, WCKD guards were raising the alarm. Amidst the shouting, there was the pounding of footsteps heading towards them, the floor shuddering beneath them.

“Come on, hurry!” Brenda shrieked. “We’re running out of time!”

They burst into the main hangar, hurtling across one of the upper walkways. Lesley could hardly breathe as she vaulted down the stairs after Thomas, taking them two and three at a time as her hands scrabbled at the rusting safety rails.

“On the east!” a voice roared from frightening close behind. “Cut ‘em off!”

“And as the skies turn gloomy ...”

Brenda staggered to a halt at the bottom of the steps, sending both Lesley and Thomas careening into her. A wave of icy terror swept over Lesley; there was a group of soldiers on the same landing, rounding the walkways and heading directly towards them.

“I got eyes on target!” another voice shouted.

“Where do we go?!” Lesley gasped raggedly.

The Maze had made her comfortable; too comfortable. Here, she was running blind, not knowing where to go or where to turn, her independence ripped away. Relying too much on Brenda.

Gritting her teeth, Brenda threw herself sideways over the railing and onto one of the joists crossing the length of the warehouse. “Come on! Hurry!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Thomas gasped, his eyes wide.

“Stop! Stay right where you are!”

Lesley whirled around at the new voice, a stone dropping in her gut at the sight of the armed men now sweeping down the stairs towards them. All around them, the soldiers were pressing closer - closer -

Grimacing, she vaulted over the railing after Brenda, barely giving herself the chance to balance on the strip of metal before following. “Come on, Thomas!” she gasped, not daring to look over her shoulder, arms thrown wide to hold her balance.

There was a soft grunt, and a moment later the beam rattled beneath Lesley’s boots. Her eyes widened, her arms windmilling to keep upright as she surged forward, all of them walking as fast as possible.

The hum of a weapon powering up sent a chill through her; she moved faster, her legs shaking violently. She prayed desperately her knees wouldn’t buckle - not now, not now -

“No, we need them!” a voice yelled. “You go around; I’ll go after them!”

The bar quivered dangerously beneath them once again. “Shit!” Thomas swore.

“I go out, walkin’ after midnight ...”

The song played tortuously in Lesley’s ears, taunting her, putting an almost parodic spin on their frantic escape. A hysterical laugh burst from her mouth even as tears of panic began to fog her vision. She blinked them away frantically; if she lost her footing now, she would die, she would plummet to her death, she would plummet into the clutches of WCKD.

Footsteps thundered around her. She glanced to either side; guards were surging across the walkways, guns and blinding light beams trained in their direction, following them, tracking their steady progress across the warehouse.

“Over here, over here!” one of the men called.

They were going to run out of track at some point.

The sound of a weapon firing up made Lesley go rigid; the sound was close, too close. She glanced over her shoulder, balancing precariously on the strut. Her heart shuddered; there was a soldier standing a mere ten or twelve feet from Thomas, who had frozen under the harsh beam of the searchlight.

“Kid, don’t move!” the soldier yelled.

Thomas swung around, eyes wild with panic. “Brenda, where are we going?” he shouted.

She barely looked at him, vaulting over another rafter. “Hurry!” she screamed hoarsely. “The song’s almost over!”

Lesley’s eyes widened, realisation smacking her in the face as she hurtled over the beam after Brenda. “You’ve rigged this place up to blow?!”

The words had barely left her mouth when there were bursts of sparks from all over the place, blinding flashes of white light coming from rafters, ceilings, stairs ... everywhere. There was a terrifying rumble and an explosion rocked the room, blossoming into a raging fireball and growing with every passing second, blindingly bright and sweltering, a torrent of fierce heat washing over Lesley.

Thomas was slammed against the metal beam with the force of the detonation, his face colliding with Lesley’s shoulder as she clutched at the joist with white knuckles. “Shit, you okay?!” she yelled.

“Yeah, yeah!”

The orange glow faded as fast as it had bloomed. Lesley watched with mounting terror as they were plunged back into darkness ... and another dull roar erupted from the depths of the building. “Oh, shit,” she whimpered.

The world began to cave in around them.

“Thomas, Lesley! Come on!” Brenda screamed.

Lesley bolted, not caring anymore for her balance as she stumbled across the rafter, faster and faster, throwing her body forward, the beam thundering with Thomas’s own steps. She reached the landing on the other side, hurtling over the railing after Brenda onto another mezzanine level. Her heart thrashing as she grabbed Thomas’s hand, the two of them scrambled forward amidst the clashing and groaning of collapsing steel, smoke pouring into the air around them.

Shards of glass showered down from the roof in torrents. With a thunderous bellow from all around, the landing heaved beneath their feet; horror surged through Lesley as they staggered forward, trying desperately to stay upright. She didn’t want to die; she didn’t want to die.

“Jump!” Brenda roared as something loomed out of the darkness ahead.

It was an elevator shaft.

Throwing herself forward, Brenda grabbed the lift wire and swung into the blackness with a low grunt, Thomas on her heels as rubble hailed down on them. Screaming in terror, Lesley clutched the cable in her sweaty hands and plunged down the elevator shaft after them.

Chapter Text

Lesley’s chest was caving.

She came to with a sharp gasp, unaware how long she had lost consciousness for. She coughed raggedly, her lungs clawing for oxygen as there was the clatter of rubble settling around her.

“Hey, hey, Les?”

A hand slapped her face lightly. She coughed again, her eyes fluttering open.

Thomas was hanging over her, his face barely visible in the dim blue torchlight. He heaved a sigh of relief, nodding. “Good, good. Geez, you’re as bad as Minho. You okay there?”

She nodded jerkily, and he grasped her hand to help pull her into a sitting position.

“Are you guys okay?” Brenda wheezed, shining her flashlight around.

“Oh, yeah, great,” Thomas rasped.

Lesley’s eyes watered with the copious amounts of dust in the air. “Well, at least we’re not dead,” she choked out, squinting at the bright beam of light.

Biting her lip, Brenda flicked the flashlight towards the shaft they had thrown themselves down in their desperation to escape. Lesley felt her chest tighten with panic, her blood turning cold; they weren’t dead, but they might as well have been.

It was completely blocked by large chunks of concrete.

“No, no, no,” Thomas garbled as the beam of light swung across the rubble. “How are we gonna get back to the others?”

Brenda shook her head, reaching behind her and grabbing her backpack. “Relax,” she told him. “I’m gonna get us out of here.” She plunged her hand into her bag and pulled out two flashlights. “Here,” she said, passing them to Thomas and Lesley.

As she took the torch, Lesley suddenly recognised the bag as the one Minho had been carrying. It still had his scarf tied around the strap. She felt a pang in her gut.

Brenda saw her expression. “Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s one of yours.” She shone her own light into the bag and frowned. “Thought you said you didn’t have food?”

Thomas shook his head at the accusation in her voice. “That’s the last of it.”

“Sheez. Suicide mission or something?”

Lesley snatched Minho’s scarf back. “To get away from WCKD? Yes,” she bit out.

Brenda didn’t respond to that.

Lesley huffed, running a hand through her hair. “Look, what are you playing at? You don’t owe us anything, but you still gave us food before you even knew we came from ... there.”

Brenda shrugged. “There aren’t many of us left out here. Sometimes it pays to be nice to strangers; either way, they owe you.” There was a lengthy pause. “I saw you revive that guy,” she said suddenly. “What was his name? Mildew? Mushu?”

Lesley sniggered; she’d have to tell him that one. “Minho.”

“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, you lot look about as deadly as a basket of kittens. If there’d been a problem, I figured you would’ve been easy to take out. Call it a moment of weakness on my part.”

“Great,” Thomas muttered.

Lesley, however, grinned wolfishly, clicking on her flashlight to observe the space. They were in a cramped cellar, full of abandoned pieces of metal and wooden scrap. There wasn’t a single exit.

Coughing again, Thomas stared at Brenda, his brow creasing. “Helping us get out of this place is a bit more than being nice to strangers.”

“Trust me, it’s not my idea,” Brenda snapped. “Jorge seems to think you guys are our ticket to the Safe Haven.”

They could have heard a pin drop in the ensuing silence.

“The what?” Thomas finally spluttered.

There was a flicker in Lesley’s heart, something she hadn’t felt in a long time. Hope. “What do you mean, Safe Haven?” she pressed, the words striking her.

Brenda continued to rummage in the bag, barely sparing a glance in their direction. “You know, paradise. Safe from the sun, free of infection.”

Lesley shook her head. “How can such a place really exist?” she whispered desperately. Even the Glade hadn’t been safe, for all that they had believed it to be.

Brenda shrugged. “The world’s a big place. Something had to have survived.” She winced, hauling the pack onto her back. “Supposedly, the Right Arm’s been taking kids there for years. Immunes, anyway,” she added, visibly bristling as she stood up.

Lesley’s heart shuddered as she got to her feet, realisation hitting her as vivid images of Winston came back to her. Brenda wasn’t immune.

“And you know where that is?” Thomas pressed, pulling Lesley from her thoughts.

“No,” Brenda replied shortly. “But Jorge knows a guy. Marcus. He used to smuggle kids up into the mountains.”

Her eyes scanned the floor, her expression brightening at the sight of a discarded crate lid amongst the rubble. Grabbing it, she hauled the hefty slab of wood sideways to reveal a metal grate set into the concrete.

“If Jorge made it out,” Brenda continued, “that’s where he’ll be taking your friends.”

Lesley choked on whatever question she had been about to ask about Marcus; she felt Thomas stiffen beside her. “If he made it out?” she repeated weakly. The others had to have survived; she couldn’t bear a world without Newt, Minho, Frypan, Teresa - not after everything they had already suffered.

Brenda sighed in exasperation. “You know what? You guys ask a lot of questions.” She waved her arm, suddenly looking exhausted. “Can you just ... come over here and help me with this? Please?” she added desperately.

It took all three of them to haul the metal grate up and out of the way, fingers gripping the cold steel. Thomas threw it to the side with a loud grunt as he, Lesley and Brenda crouched around the black pit in the floor.

A screech sounded from below, distant and blood-curdling.

Lesley gulped. “Shit.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound good,” Thomas muttered, glancing at Brenda.

Brenda nodded, not lifting her gaze. “Yeah. Down here they’ll be full term.” She steeled herself. “Let’s go.”

She jumped down into the darkness and vanished. Grimacing, Lesley followed, Thomas right behind her.

It was an old concrete piping system, low and cramped and smothered in graffiti. Brenda took off down the first tunnel, ducking into a crouch. A few metres down, the pipe opened up into a long corridor stretching sideways into the blackness on either side with ample room to stand. There was the scattered plink of dripping water, echoing eerily.

Brenda swung her torch around, biting her lip. “I think it’s this way,” she settled on, turning to the right.

“You think?” Thomas repeated under his breath.

“Really inspiring confidence, isn’t she?” Lesley muttered. Brenda rolled her eyes but didn’t bother retorting.

o-o-o-o-o

“Bet they didn’t tell you how the Flare started, did they?”

When Lesley and Thomas shook their heads, Brenda continued. “You at least know about the sun, yeah?”

Thomas nodded. “We got told it scorched the earth.”

“Sums it up.” Brenda kicked a loose stone; it clattered across the corridor. “There were solar flares. The worst one killed a billion people or something in a day.”

“Shit,” Lesley breathed.

“Yeah. Entire countries just disappeared off the map; crops died, the survivors went hungry. It was chaos, from what I heard. WCKD - they were called something else back then - had this bright idea to control the population, survival of the fittest.”

Lesley’s jaw fell open in realisation, horror washing through her. “No.”

“Got it in one,” Brenda replied tightly. “They released the disease across a bunch of cities. It went wrong, though; it spread and infected the rest of the world faster than they could control it. Snuck up on everyone and mutated into something way worse. Humanity fell apart, basically.” She adjusted the pack on her shoulders. “Years later, kids started disappearing. Camps opened up, infection checkpoints were everywhere. That’s the world I grew up in.”

The silence stretched again.

“Who was making those screaming noises?” Lesley asked finally, unable to bear the quiet any longer. It meant her mind wandering, clouding with scenarios of what had happened to the others; images of them being shot, crushed by rubble, captured -

“Do people live down here?” Thomas added.

Brenda barely looked at them. “The Solar Storms forced people underground,” she told them, her scratchy voice low. “Jorge says there’s settlements all over these tunnels. The people turned into Cranks and stayed down here.”

“Cranks?” Lesley asked.

“People infected by the Flare.”

Lesley shuddered, thinking of the monsters - no, the people - who had been chained up in the warehouse, who had pursued them in the mall. She reached for Thomas’s hand; he gripped back just as tightly. Brenda’s eyes flicked to the movement.

Another period of silence.

“So, what about Jorge?” Thomas pressed. “Is he your father?”

Lesley expected Brenda to roll her eyes at them for prying, but she merely nodded. “Close enough,” she answered. “Truth is, I don’t really know what he is.”

“How did you meet him?” Lesley asked curiously, unable to help herself. Perhaps they were like the Gladers, a found family amidst the madness of the world.

Brenda shrugged. “Came across him in the Scorch. I had nothing to trade, so I threatened him instead and he agreed to keep me alive for one night.”

Thomas raised his eyebrows, and Lesley let out a snort of laughter. “You threatened him?” she asked. “He doesn’t look scared of anything.”

Brenda smirked, her eyes glinting. “Oh, he was scared when I told him I’d start screaming and draw any Crank within a ten mile radius in my direction. After that, he just let me stick around; he’s always been there.” Her fond expression twisted into something darker. “And I’ve always done what he’s asked me to do, no matter how stupid.”

Thomas frowned at the sharpness of her voice. “So, you don’t think the Right Arm is real?” he asked quietly.

There was a distant screech from behind them. Lesley whirled around, her flashlight beam frantically scanning the tunnel. It was mercifully empty, but she felt no relief whatsoever, her heart thrumming with anxiety. She adjusted her grip on her flashlight.

Brenda swallowed audibly. “I think ... hope is a dangerous thing,” she whispered, starting forward again. Her voice became stronger. “Hope has killed more of my friends than the Flare and the Scorch combined.” Her eyes glistened traitorously. “Just thought Jorge was smarter than that.”

The passageway came to an end. The three of them found themselves at a junction in the tunnel system, multiple corridors branching off from where they stood.

“Damn,” Brenda muttered.

Lesley swung her flashlight around, cautiously shifting forward.

A quiet splash. She looked down and grimaced at the puddle of water she had unwittingly stepped into. “Gross,” she complained, turning her light back to the tunnel.

Thomas stepped past her, the two of them peering cautiously down the near identical passages branching away from them. Each was as dark and eerie as the next, the walls black with mould, the bright hues of spray paint barely visible beneath.

They wandered down another corridor, careful not to stray far from the crossroads. Lesley blinked. “You see that?” she whispered.

There was a faint light at the end of the passage, a shimmer of ambience.

“Hey, I think it might be this way,” Thomas called, turning around. He paused. “Brenda?”

Lesley turned on her heel. She swore; the passage was empty. “Where did she go?” she hissed, starting back down the corridor.

Thomas fell into step beside her. “Brenda?” he called again.

“I’m over here,” came her soft, scratchy voice from around the corner. “Look at this.”

“What? What is it?” Thomas pressed.

He ran into Lesley as she came to an abrupt halt, staring at the sight ahead.

It was like a wall of ivy along the tunnel, thin veins stretching across the concrete wall and branching away into the darkness. As Lesley shifted her torchlight, she saw how the vines grew in thickness as they stretched farther down the tunnel, choking the walls and ceiling.

“What the hell is this?” Thomas whispered.

Brenda shook her head slowly. “I don’t know.”

Strangely curious, Lesley reached out towards it.

“Lesley, don’t -” Thomas started.

But she had already touched it. Her eyes widened; she could feel it pulsing, thrumming beneath her fingertips. A ripple of energy flitted along the veins from where her hand was connected, like it was ... alive.

Lesley lurched backwards as a horrific sense of realisation hit her. She clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle the bile surging up her throat.

It wasn’t a plant.

It was flesh. Human flesh.

“What the shuck?” she whispered in horror, her blood running cold. Beside her, Thomas was just as pale.

There was the soft patter of steps; a piercing shriek.

Thomas whirled his flashlight around; the beam came to rest on a large circular pipe jutting out of the wall beside them, several feet tall. Enough to hold a person.

Lesley shrank back, her heart in her mouth as the sounds crept closer, closer. Brenda went rigid beside her; there was suddenly no oxygen in the tunnel, the tension in the air suffocating, and still the sounds grew louder, a shadow flickering in the torch light -

It was a rat.

Lesley gasped in relief, clutching at her chest as the rodent launched itself out of the pipe, nose and whiskers wriggling.

But the longer she stared, the more unnatural it started to look. Something was wrong with the way it moved; it was twitching, jerking awkwardly as it lumbered across the tunnel on four paws, squeaking piercingly.

A hand shot out of the wall and seized it.

Chapter Text

Screaming, Lesley staggered into Thomas. He grabbed her arms painfully tight. “Oh, shit!” he swore.

Shrieking and wailing filled the tunnel, reverberating around them. Lesley slammed her hands over her ears, nausea rocketing through her as figures began to emerge out of the walls, peeling themselves out of the vines of flesh, rasping and retching as they spilled onto the concrete.

“What the hell are those?!” Thomas yelled.

Brenda finally found her voice. “It’s the final stage of the Flare,” she choked out. “Those Cranks are worse than dead past the Gone!”

Lesley couldn’t breathe, her head spinning, her lungs caving, her eyes darting as fast as the flashlight; two, three, four figures -

Adrenaline surged, her mind cleared, and suddenly she was running, stumbling, shoving past Thomas and Brenda, her brain screaming at her to get out, get out, get out!

It was several seconds before she realised she had grabbed Thomas’s hand again.

“Go, go, go!” Brenda screamed as a thunderous, angry roar echoed down the tunnel.

Lesley had no idea where she was going, but she didn’t care. Jarringly, Thomas shoved her sideways into another passage; she saw the faint shimmer of daylight at the end and understood.

“We’re almost there, come on!” Thomas roared. “Keep moving!”

They bolted down the corridor, flashlight beams ricocheting haphazardly off the concrete, flashing in Lesley’s eyes every few seconds as they hurtled towards the blinding square of light, boots slamming against the stone.

The sun hit Lesley’s skin in a burst of heat, her vision flaring white for an eternal, nearly fatal second.

The ground had disappeared.

Screaming, she skidded to a halt, throwing her arms wide and smacking both Thomas and Brenda in the chest. Thomas’s fist collided painfully with Lesley’s ribs as all three of them scrambled to grab onto one another, fighting for balance with wide, horrified eyes.

Below them, the path dropped away into nothing, the ground frightfully far below amidst crumbling concrete ruins, a valley of destruction carved out before their eyes. Directly above them were two rusting, crumbling skyscrapers, one of them half collapsed into the other and creating a hellish archway where the two buildings connected.

There was no other way out.

A piercing shriek sounded behind them. Lesley’s blood turned to ice as she caught sight of the monsters charging towards them, their faces even more grotesque in the glimmer of sunlight.

“Come on, this way!” Brenda screamed, clambering up the rubble at the base of the first building.

Thomas shoved Lesley forward. She scrambled after Brenda, the blood pounding deafeningly in her ears; she could barely hear the scrape of Thomas’s boots on the stone behind her. The path was a minefield, Lesley’s thoughts hurtling faster than her eyes as she tried frantically to avoid the jutting pipes, the concrete blocks threatening to crumble beneath her weight.

Another harrowing screech shot her nerves to pieces; she whirled around, her mouth gaping in horror as the Cranks surged out into the daylight.

Lesley saw for the first time just how rotten their bodies were, the muscles peeling away from their bones, their faces hollow and carved out in nauseating chunks until there was almost nothing left.

One of the Cranks went hurtling over the edge, shrieking as it tumbled down, down, towards the ground. The other three turned their crazed, barely intact eyes on Thomas, Lesley and Brenda, and within seconds began to clamber up the rubble after them.

“Oh, shit!” Lesley screamed, climbing faster, faster, hands scrabbling at the jagged rocks as she staggered over the broken remains of office furniture amongst the ruins. Slits of blood began to cover her hands, barely stinging.

“Thomas, come on!” Brenda roared as he chanced a glance over his shoulder.

One after the other, they slipped through a crevice into the first towering building. Lesley choked out a gasp of horror, despair flooding her; the interior was a crumbling mess of steel beams and rubble as high as they could see.

Brenda nodded determinedly. “Okay. We’ve got this.”

There was another shriek. Lesley gulped. “Lead the way!” she shouted.

They took off, scrambling upwards again. There was a guttural groan; Lesley whirled around as a gnarled hand lunged out towards them from the rubble below, reaching through the crevice.

“Go, go, keep going!” Thomas yelled.

Sweat poured down Lesley’s face in torrents, her torso already slick with perspiration. Her lungs clawed for oxygen, her head spinning; the Cranks were snapping at their heels now.

Lesley gasped as she caught sight of a filing cabinet wedged amongst the piles of stone. She clambered above it and shoved at it with all her might, ramming her shoulder against it. It finally came clear of the rubble with a heinous screech. “Heads!” she screamed.

It toppled down, barely missing Thomas on its way past before slamming into two of the Cranks, sending them crashing through a grimy window and down into the canyon below.

“Nice, Lesley!” Brenda hollered.

“Move your ass, Thomas!” Lesley screamed.

Thomas frantically started to ascend again. They climbed higher and higher, the drop already dizzying as the remaining Crank scrabbled up the rubble after them. They clambered through another crevice; Lesley held her breath as she scraped through the opening, emerging out into a stairwell.

Or, what was left of it.

“Come on, follow me!” Brenda shrieked, starting up the twisted pieces of metal, hauling herself up the frighteningly slanted stairs. “We gotta reach the next scraper! Hurry!”

Lesley bolted after her, the rust biting into her palms as she gripped the railing fiercely, pulling herself up, up, Thomas on her heels as she vaulted over blocks of concrete, leaping from one step to the next as the gaps yawned beneath her.

There was a piercing shriek.

“Don’t look, don’t look!” Brenda yelled.

The Crank began to launch itself up the shaft in the middle of the stairs, hurling itself between one level and the next, scrambling up towards them, teeth bared, screaming murder at them.

“Oh shit, oh shit!” Lesley swore, tripping over her boots but forcing herself forward even as the concrete scorched her knees. Her chest heaved, her hair falling in her eyes as she finally caught up to Brenda -

“Woah, woah, woah!” Thomas yelped.

Lesley screamed as the Crank launched itself at the railing beside them.

Brenda kicked her leg out with as much force as possible, her foot slamming into the Crank’s head and sending it hurtling back down the shaft. All three of them watched it tumble down into the depths of the building.

“Nice one,” Lesley gasped.

“Okay, go, go!” Thomas roared.

They clambered up the destroyed stairwell, scrabbling for grip on the tilting concrete as they reached for the broken handrails. Lesley gasped for breath.

“Come on!” Brenda yelled, seizing the next section of banister.

It broke off in her hand, sending her tumbling backwards with the momentum.

Lesley was right behind her. “Shit!” she swore a split second before Brenda crashed into her.

Hurtling down the stairs, the two of them slammed against the other side of the stairwell into the rust-encrusted fire exit; the lock broke upon impact and the door lurched open. Lesley screamed as she and Brenda fell straight through the entranceway, tumbling head over heels down the slanted floor before smashing into a flat, solid surface.

The world was muffled. Lesley groaned, agony creeping through her limbs.

“Lesley! Brenda!” Thomas roared, his voice cracking with panic. Lesley could barely hear him over the ringing in her ears. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Brenda replied dazedly from beside her.

Lesley finally opened her eyes. A sickening weight dropped in her stomach, her expression twisting with terror. “Brenda,” she whimpered, lifting her head to look at the girl lying across from her, feeling the trickle of blood down the side of her face. There was an awful metallic taste in her mouth.

Still gasping for breath, Brenda’s lids fluttered open ... and what she saw made her cry out in horror, her eyes wide and frightened as she stared at Lesley, their faces a mirror image of one another.

They were lying on a grimy window spanning the entire outer wall, hanging precariously over the crumbling ruins of the city with a dizzying sheer drop below them.

There were already deep cracks in the surface where they had hit the glass.

Lesley felt nauseous as panic began to slash at her insides; she had to fight to keep breathing, the glass fogging with every gasp of air.

“Hang on, I’m gonna find a way down!” Thomas called to them. “Stay still!”

Exhaling shakily, Brenda tentatively pressed her hand to the glass. Another crack splintered across the surface, the sound like a gunshot in the quiet.

“Shucking hell!” Lesley choked out.

“No, Brenda, don’t move, don’t move!” Thomas yelled, his voice strained.

Lesley glanced up and saw him hanging from the open door by his fingertips, his legs dangling. She gulped. “Brenda, maybe - maybe we should stand up,” she stuttered hoarsely, her throat suddenly parched. “To - to get to Thomas.”

Brenda nodded jerkily in agreement. “Okay.” She took a deep breath, her dark, shockingly wide eyes meeting Lesley’s own. “Together?”

Lesley abruptly found an arm stuck out in front of her face. She didn’t hesitate, firmly grabbing hold of Brenda’s extended hand and squeezing tight. “Together,” she confirmed, swallowing thickly.

Brenda nodded again, looking just as terrified. “Okay. Easy, easy ...”

As Thomas carefully lowered himself onto the pieces of rubble above them - an odd mix of piping, concrete slabs and desks - Lesley and Brenda rose to their feet at an agonisingly slow pace, fingers twisted together in a death grip. Tears of dismay burned Lesley’s eyes as she finally managed to get one foot out from under her and then the other, the glass groaning ominously beneath her boots.

“Careful,” Brenda whispered, her eyes glassy as the two of them straightened up inch by  harrowing inch.

“Spread your weight, spread your weight,” Lesley gasped, seeing Brenda’s flushed face and feeling as if she were on the verge of a panic attack herself. She was no longer thinking about her friends, the Right Arm, WCKD, or the Maze; her entire world had shrunk down to the girl beside her, and this tiny room with a window that was gradually yet surely disintegrating beneath their feet. Her heart thrashed wildly in her chest, as if aware that its beats were numbered, that oh so very soon she would find herself plummeting to her death; all it would take was one misstep.

Brenda nodded. “Okay,” she wheezed. “Okay.”

Still hunched over with her arms splayed for balance, Lesley carefully turned her head to look up at Thomas, focusing desperately on not placing too much weight on one foot or the other. Thomas was now hanging a stone’s throw above them, gripping a metal post that was wedged between the floor and the ceiling.

Lesley choked out a gasp of relief. “Thomas. Thomas, get us outta here,” she cried desperately. They couldn’t reach, they needed his help -

“Yeah, yeah, I’m here,” he soothed. “I gotcha, just gimme a second.” He carefully reached out a hand towards Brenda, who was closest. “Come on,” he urged.

“I can’t,” Brenda whimpered, glancing down.

“Come on, Brenda, grab my hand,” Thomas encouraged, stretching further, his arm muscles visibly taut beneath his jacket. “You gotta move before Lesley can.”

Lesley shifted her foot and froze, her body going taut as a bowstring when she heard an audible splinter beneath her. “Oh, shit,” she rasped.

A harsh snarling noise caught their attention. Their gazes snapped upwards to see the Crank hanging in the doorway above their heads, half its face gruesomely smashed in from the impact with Brenda’s boot.

Thomas’s eyes bulged. “No, no!” he shouted.

It was if a switch flicked inside Lesley, her terror hardening like molten lava. “Brenda, grab onto Thomas!” she suddenly yelled.

Brenda jerked her head. “The glass -!”

“If you don’t let him grab you, we’re both going to die!” Lesley screamed.

With a grating screech, the Crank lunged towards Brenda and Lesley, skidding down the tilting floor directly towards them. It crashed onto the glass between them; horror surged through Lesley as another crack split the surface.

“Thomas!” Brenda cried.

Without thinking, Lesley swung her leg and kicked it away with as much force as possible, her heel sinking into its decaying ribs for the briefest second, blood spurting.

“You’ve got to get to me!” Thomas roared. “Brenda! Les!”

Lesley scrambled backwards across the glass, all thoughts of the surface breaking gone as self preservation kicked in. “Brenda, move it!” she howled, whirling around.

Grunting, Brenda stretched her arm towards Thomas as far as she could, her fingers straining. She gasped. “I can’t reach!”

A force akin to a ton of bricks smashed into Lesley, the air punched from her lungs as she was slammed to the glass by a shrieking, snarling figure. She screamed raggedly, frantically clamping her hands over her head, her throat raw as gnarled fingers clawed at her jacket. “GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF ME!”

“LESLEY!” Thomas yelled.

“Hold still!” A hand came slamming out of nowhere, Brenda’s fist smashing into the Crank and sending it tumbling off Lesley. Snarling, it launched itself at Brenda instead, latching onto her ankle with gnashing teeth. A scream of pain tore from her throat.

Horror surged through Lesley. “Brenda!”

A hand wrenched her backwards onto the sill, Thomas dropping onto the glass beside her with a metal rod clenched tightly in his hands. “Come on!” he yelled at the Crank.

“What are you doing?!” Lesley shrieked.

Thomas tossed the rod to her. “Help me out, and grab onto something!”

Staring at the rusting pipe, Lesley suddenly understood.

Surging forward, Thomas seized Brenda under the arms, hauling her away from the Crank at the same time Lesley slammed the jagged end of the rod into the window.

The glass shattered.

Lesley’s stomach churned as the floor dropped away beneath her, overbalancing her and sending her plummeting with a shriek, Brenda beside her -

Brenda jerked to a stop; Lesley seized her foot just in time, the Crank hurtling past them to the ground far below.

“Got you!” Thomas gasped, his body shuddering with the strain, his feet planted against the edge of the window frame. He peered around Brenda. “You good there, Les?”

Lesley nodded, her eyes fluttering shut so she couldn’t see the terrifying drop beneath her. She couldn’t breathe, her heart racing and head reeling so severely she thought she might pass out. Please don’t, she begged her body. “As long as Brenda’s leg doesn’t fall off,” she answered hoarsely.

Brenda choked out a hysterical laugh. His chest heaving, Thomas cracked a smile, his hands still clamped around her forearms. “Alright, let’s get you girls up.”

Chapter Text

With nowhere else to go, they cautiously continued upwards.

The two buildings connected several floors above their original position. They descended through the rubble in the second scraper without finding any more Cranks, something Lesley was eternally grateful for. Every single one of her nerves had been torn to shreds; she jumped at the slightest sound of shifting rubble, her eyes darting frantically.

“We need - we need to find a window, or something,” she stuttered finally. Get a grip, she scowled to herself. “Figure out where the hell we are.”

There were grunts of agreement before the silence stretched again. All of them were on edge, too tense to do more than follow one another through the rubble.

Thomas stopped. “Guys, through here!” he called suddenly, slipping through a crevice and vanishing.

Gritting her teeth, Lesley followed him, Brenda tight on her heels. Moments later they emerged onto a wide balcony. Lesley crept across the tiles to where Thomas stood at the mangled railing, wary of the structure crumbling around them.

Peering downwards, she gasped in relief; where one side of the building had dropped away into a crumbling valley of destruction, the other revealed a fairly structured town with intact roads, buildings, and trails of smoke indicating the presence of humans. The abrupt scenery change just about gave her whiplash.

Brenda peered over the edge with them. “It doesn’t look too bad,” she mused. “At least, it’s better than I hoped.”

Thomas nodded. “We can get down here,” he panted. “Come on.”

Taking the lead, Lesley swung one leg over the railing and dropped down, swinging nimbly towards the balcony below and trying desperately not to look at the terrifying drop awaiting her should she slip. She slowly lowered herself onto the patio; when the terrace didn’t immediately crumble beneath her boots, she nodded in satisfaction. “One down, thirteen to go,” she called up.

Moving quickly but carefully, they made their way down the building, Brenda wincing every time she put pressure on her injured leg. She firmly batted away any offers of help, but anxiety gnawed at Lesley; the Crank had mauled Brenda far worse than either herself or Thomas. They descended with bated breath, none of them speaking except for Thomas’s few words of encouragement every now and then.

It was a relief when they finally reached solid ground. Lesley just about kissed the concrete right then and there.

Far below the towering skyscrapers, they hurried through the neglected alleyway they had found themselves in. There were abandoned bags and articles of clothing everywhere they looked, the walls graffitied beyond recognition as rats scurried amongst the rusting metal barrels strewn about.

The faint hum of indistinct chatter began to reach their ears, making Lesley tense.

“Hey, you hear that?” Thomas whispered. Lesley nodded.

Instead of answering, Brenda flopped down on the curb, carelessly throwing off her pack. Breathing heavily, she grabbed the bottom of her left trouser leg, wincing as she dragged the denim up over her skin.

There, on her calf, was an ugly, bloody imprint of a set of teeth.

Lesley gasped in horror. “Oh, shuck,” she choked out, kneeling beside Brenda with her arms outstretched, wanting to help but unsure how.

“Shit,” Brenda bit out by way of agreement.

Thomas swallowed thickly. “Brenda ...” he whispered.

Lesley’s mind was reeling. Brenda wasn’t immune. She was staring Winston in the face again, seeing the pale skin, the creeping veins, the crazed eyes -

Brenda’s eyes were glassy as she stared up at them, fighting back tears. “Yeah,” she muttered, her voice shaking. “Yeah, I know.”

Lesley swallowed thickly. No words could be enough, could encompass what Brenda was feeling, knowing the dreaded fate awaiting her.

Sniffling, Brenda hurriedly reached for her pack again, tossing one of the straps over her shoulder. “We need to go -”

Lesley shook herself from her thoughts. “Wait,” she called firmly. Before the other girl could respond, she grabbed Minho’s scarf from around her wrist and reached for Brenda’s leg, starting to wrap the material around her limb, covering the wound and stemming the trickle of blood coming from the bite marks.

“Lesley, don’t -” Brenda started.

“Shut up,” Lesley growled.

However, when she tied the last knot and finally lifted her head to look at Brenda, she saw the dark-haired girl staring at her with a curious expression, longing mixed with something else, something tender yet tinged with sadness.

Brenda threw her a small smile and began to stand up. “Come on,” she said determinedly, still sniffling as she set off down the alley. “Let’s just go find Marcus.”

o-o-o-o-o

Stepping over a mangled, barbed wire fencing, they found themselves on the verge of a road that looked as rundown as the alley, but what could have been the high street back in its day. Sheets and tarpaulins were strung up over cars, crates and steel piping in an effort to create some form of shelter. A few people milled around, huddled around open fire pits and swathed in worn coats; the temperature had plummeted this close to the mountains, and Lesley was thankful for her own warm clothing as she tugged her jacket closer against her body.

“Okay,” Brenda said, her voice wavering with the faint trace of nerves. “Try to fit in.”

As they carefully wound their way through the streets, they came across people of all ages. A mother hurried past with her child, gripping his hand tightly; one grisly man was chopping wood with a visibly blunt axe, while another with a thick grey beard cooked meat over an open fire; a little girl, sitting on the sidewalk and clutching a threadbare teddy bear, her clothing covered in soot. Their eyes were lifeless, their faces expressionless and weathered beyond their years.

Brenda tugged gently at Lesley’s wrist. “Keep your head down,” she murmured. “Try not to stare. You too, Thomas.”

Swallowing thickly, Lesley nodded, but not before sharing an unnerved glance with Thomas.

They turned another corner and a grand, decaying white building came into view, the structure matching none of the surrounding architecture. Colourful drapes and banners hung from the multitude of balconies towering above them across four stories.

“Well, that’s a palace if I ever saw one,” Lesley muttered.

“A Crank palace,” Brenda added, her nose wrinkling, “Just great.”

Thomas froze. “Cranks?”

Brenda took in his and Lesley’s fearful expression. “Don’t worry. They’ll have barely started turning.” She smiled grimly. “Not like our friends back in that tower.”

The three of them cautiously approached the entranceway, clambering onto the concrete wraparound porch. There were people everywhere; Thomas grabbed Lesley’s arm to make sure she stayed close, both of them looking around nervously at the assortment of guests crowding the archways.

“Hey, are you sure this is the right place?” Thomas asked Brenda as she walked several steps ahead of them.

“You here for the party?”

All three of them turned at the unfamiliar voice and came face to face with a young woman. Long blonde hair cascaded over her shoulders, complimenting her orange dress and the tangles of multicoloured beads hanging around her neck.

“No,” Lesley blurted out, glancing at Brenda nervously.

Brenda, however, ploughed on ahead. “We’re looking for Marcus,” she explained. She spoke with a confidence that could have made anyone believe she knew him personally. “This is his place, isn’t it?”

“This is my place.”

They spun around again at another unexpected voice, this one much deeper. At the end of the passage was a middle-aged blond man in a dark red suit, sculling a glass of brown liquid. The finery on his person suggested wealth; a solid metal ring on his finger, multiple silver chains at his neck, and gold fillings in his teeth as he smiled grimly at them.

They carefully approached, assuming his words were an invitation. “Are you Marcus?” Thomas asked.

Something flickered in the man’s expression. “Marcus ... doesn’t live here anymore,” he told them regretfully.

“Do you know where we can find him?” Brenda pressed.

After a moment, the man gave a small nod. “Sure, sure. He’s over in Zone B.”

Lesley frowned, irritated by the lack of elaboration. “What’s Zone B?”

“It’s where they burn the bodies,” the blonde woman whispered, her fingers seductively ghosting over Thomas’s shoulder as she went past. Lesley shuddered, both in disgust and at what her words implied.

Thomas tried again. “Okay, look, has anyone else been by here looking for him? Group of kids around our age?”

When the stranger paused, Lesley jumped in. “Asian boy; guy with blond hair. They had a girl with them,” she added desperately.

Thomas nodded. “Dark hair.”

The man looked thoughtful for a long moment. “You know, uh ...” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think they might be inside. Here.” He reached inside his jacket and retrieved a crystal bottle brimming with a green liquid. It sloshed around as he unscrewed the cap and held the flask up to them. “Drink this.”

Thomas peered at it hesitantly. “What is it?”

The man stared back levelly. “The price of admission.”

A weight dropped in Lesley’s stomach; something isn’t right, something isn’t right. She jerked her head. “No. No, there’s no way in hell I’m drinking that,” she growled, her hands curling into fists; they were getting backed into a corner.

The man pouted mockingly. “Aw. Shame. Everyone passes through here ...”

Her jaw clenching, Lesley looked between Brenda and Thomas. “Come on, let’s go check somewhere else -”

Thomas’s expression became pinched, almost pleading. “Les, he says he might have seen our friends,” he argued quietly. “What’s the harm in looking?”

Silence. Lesley was torn between common sense and desperation to find the others. Above all, they had to stay together, whether they took the drink or not. All in or all out.

“Drink it!” the man barked.

Without another word, Brenda snatched the bottle out of his hand and chugged down a few mouthfuls of the green liquid. She gagged, coughing and gasping.

So much for a group decision, Lesley thought, biting the inside of her cheek.

The man simply chuckled at Brenda’s reaction. He turned to Thomas. “Your turn.”

His movements hesitant, Thomas grabbed the bottle and took a swig. Smirking, the blonde lady reached out and pressed the crystal flask to his lips, forcing him to drink a substantial amount more than Brenda had.

“Hey, that’s enough,” Lesley growled, anxiety clawing at her throat.

Thomas finally jerked the bottle away from his mouth, glaring at the lady. The man in the suit turned to Lesley, smirking at her in a way that made her insides crawl. “Unless you want to stay out here with me?” he leered.

Lesley snatched the bottle from Thomas. “We go in, we look for our friends, and then we get the shuck out,” she said through gritted teeth. “Is that clear?”

The moment Thomas nodded in agreement, Lesley closed her eyes and swallowed a few mouthfuls of the green concoction.

She immediately regretted it. It was like fire in her throat, choking her, her eyes watering severely. It was bitter like seawater and mixed with a harsh minty flavour that burned her airways like vinegar, not unlike Gally’s moonshine but far more unpleasant.

When she pulled the flask away a few seconds later, gasping and wiping her mouth on her sleeve, the mysterious man sauntered forward, clapping them on the shoulders and beaming. “Alright!” he exclaimed cheerily, finally appearing satisfied. “You three enjoy the party.”

With that, he shoved Lesley, Brenda and Thomas through a set of thick purple drapes on the wall and into the building.

The pounding of music was the first thing to hit their ears, the bass rattling through their bodies. It was dark inside, the only light coming from faint fluorescent lamps that gave the same effect as moonlight, a faint silver shine across the dimly lit space. The room was crammed with people in varying states of disarray, all of them swaying to the beat and pressed up against one another. The smell of sweat permeated the air, melded with the sharp smell of something rotting ... of disintegrating flesh. Lesley gagged.

“Maybe we should split up,” Brenda shouted over the noise. “See if we can find the others.” She gripped both Thomas and Lesley’s shoulders. “Don’t drink anything else,” she told them.

With that, she slipped away.

“Stay close,” Thomas mumbled to Lesley, his voice sounding off-balance as he began to lead her through the mass of people, grabbing ahold of her wrist tightly.

The room began to shift ever so slightly, gold shimmering and silver moonlight dancing. Lesley blinked heavily, shaking her head. It felt like cotton wool was slowly being stuffed into her brain.

A snarl caught her attention, followed by shrieking laughter. She jerked her gaze to the far side of the room; there was a Crank tied up with chains, struggling and growling over the surrounding giggles and guffaws, the sounds off-kilter and jarring.

A shadow; a man stepped in front of the Crank, something clutched in his hand. A second later, there was the sound of a gunshot.

Hysterical wheezes of laughter had them both turning to see the man in the red suit leaning against a marble column, grinning nastily as he shifted his gaze from the dead Crank to Thomas and Lesley. “That was fun!” he howled.

He melted away into crowd, making Lesley wonder if he had ever been there at all.

Like a ghost, Brenda shimmered into existence before them, her bag no longer slung across her shoulders. Her jacket was missing as well, revealing the tight long-sleeved shirt they had first seen her in, the deep rounded neckline highlighting her collarbones. She stared at them as she neared, her expression eerily blank; Lesley fought back a shudder.

“Brenda?” Thomas whispered.

“They’re not here,” Brenda murmured dazedly, her eyes unfocused.

Thomas swallowed audibly, sweat beading on his brow. “Okay, well ... we should keep looking.” He sounded breathless.

Lesley nodded after a long moment, slowly comprehending their words. “They have to be here somewhere,” she gasped. Why was the air suddenly so heavy, so suffocating?

Brenda smiled, but there was something unsettling about it. “Why? We couldn’t find the Right Arm anyway. Not without Marcus.” She stared at Thomas, and Lesley got the distinct feeling she was interrupting something; but, somehow, she couldn’t pull away. “Your friends are gone,” Brenda continued softly. “It’s over. It’s just us now.” She reached up and wrapped her arms around Thomas’s neck.

At Thomas’s hesitation, Brenda smirked. “You need to relax,” she said breathily. Her low, husky voice verged on hypnotic. “Here, Lesley will show you how it’s done.”

And then she was leaning closer to Lesley and suddenly they were kissing.

Lesley was in a daze. It was intoxicating; the air was too warm and so was she, a hot, heavy fog settling across her brain. She lifted her hand and brushed her fingers across the other girl’s cheek, the skin so, so soft. Lesley found herself pressing closer as if drawn in by a magnet, unable to resist. She could feel her worries slipping away, her mind drifting amongst the stars ...

Maybe this party isn’t so bad after all ...

And then the pressure against Lesley’s mouth was gone, leaving her gasping, her lips unexpectedly cold with the loss of contact as her eyelids fluttered open.

“Your turn,” Brenda smiled sweetly at Thomas. “Just let go.”

Thomas shook his head, torment flickering in his eyes. “How?” he whispered, his voice soft, almost pleading. It was as if he hadn’t even been aware of his two friends making out next to him.

Brenda gazed at him intently. “Like this,” she breathed, pulling him closer and kissing him deeply, her fingers curling up into his dark hair.

As she watched them dazedly, something tugged at the edges of Lesley’s mind. A face. Dark hair. Bronze skin. Deep, knowing eyes. Why wasn’t she kissing him?

Minho. That was his name. How could she have forgotten?

She squeezed her eyes shut, swaying to the background music as if in a trance, letting her body do the work as her mind lazily chugged along, simply unable to think. She stayed standing there, for seconds or minutes she did not know; time blurred, fleeting and eternal all at once.

“You’re not her,” Thomas uttered hoarsely, his words barely audible.

Lesley’s lids finally shot open to realise that her friends were no longer standing in front of her. She whirled around, staggering groggily; she thought she saw Thomas vanishing into the hazy crowd, but wasn’t that Brenda disappearing in the opposite direction in a flash of red? No. That didn’t make sense. They had agreed to stick together. Or had they said to split up?

“Shit,” she muttered woozily. The room spun, colours and sounds overlapping in a chaotic blur. Thomas? Brenda? Why couldn’t they hear her?

A hand wrapped around her arm, jerking her around, and her eyes widened to see Minho standing there. So, their friends were here; the man in the suit had been right. “Min!” she gasped, her words slurring, a heavy, warm sense of relief flooding her. Or was that the drink?

He grinned at her, the same smile she had always known ... but then a strange black liquid began to pour from his bottom lip, spilling gruesomely past his teeth.

“Min?” Lesley repeated weakly. Holy hell, she was dizzy -

His eyes darkening, Minho’s face began to twist, black veins crawling across his face, the sickening poison pulsing beneath his skin. The Flare.

His mouth opened in a snarl, and Lesley’s heart shuddered in horror as she lurched away, backing away through the crowds of people. Laughter, shrieking all around her; shapes looming with no definitive features; the pounding of music.

Another face appeared out of the gloom. Newt lunged towards her, skin decaying, rotting, black veins consuming his features. His eyes were a gaping black abyss, his usual crooked smile curling into something horrifying as he bared his teeth at her in an awful, bloodthirsty grin.

Lesley screamed, clutching her head as she stumbled away from him as fast as she could, her vision darkening around the edges, the world spinning, faces blurring together in an unrecognisable mess. She couldn’t hear; she couldn’t shucking breathe; she had to get out. The bass thudding out from hidden speakers felt like an itch, the thundering vibrations making her want to claw her skin off.

Lesley skidded to a halt. There was Winston. Winston was standing there, simply staring at her with an eerily empty expression, drooling that awful black liquid, his skin pale and bursting with poison.

No. You’re dead -

A gaping, mangled hole suddenly ripped apart Winston’s temple, dark red blood pouring from the wound. He continued to stare at her.

She tripped and crashed heavily to the ground, curling into a ball on her side and sobbing as another scream tore from her lips, a faint shriek in the cacophony around her. Lesley clamped her hands over her ears. “Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop!” she begged as the room lurched violently once more. Leaning over, she threw up, a sickening black and yellow mixture spilling onto the floor beside her as her body spasmed, her chest heaving.

Lesley had barely collapsed to the floor again when the pounding of footsteps rattled the tiles beneath her head; the distant roar of a gunshot; people screaming, running.

There was a warm pressure against her right shoulder and she was flipped onto her back. The sudden jarring movement was enough to send her spiraling away into the welcome darkness of unconsciousness.

But not before she saw a head of blond hair.

Chapter Text

“Welcome back, you ugly shank.”

Lesley groaned at the sound of Minho’s voice, cracking her eyes open. Her head spun, a drum banging inside her skull. “You talking about me, slinthead?”

His face loomed over her, a relieved smile on his features. “Les, you’re awake too!” he shouted. At her raised eyebrows, he laughed. “Nah, was talking to Tomboy over there. Both of you just returned to the land of the living.”

Newt suddenly appeared next to Minho. “Looks like you’ve been having fun,” he drawled, a smirk on his features despite the dark shadows beneath his eyes, his face pale.

Lesley lurched upright, memories hitting her with such force it was like a punch to the gut. She couldn’t recall much, but that single horrific image had been seared into her brain. Her heart stuttered, the world tilting jarringly around her. Oh, shuck, she was gonna pass out again -

“Woah, easy, Les!” Newt told her, clamping a hand down on her shoulder to steady her.

She lurched backwards away from his touch, her back crashing into the wall. Black eyes. Black veins. Snarling. Reaching. Drooling black.

“Les?” Newt called in confusion, frowning at her terrified expression.

“I need you guys to slap me,” Lesley garbled. “I - I need you to slap me, or pinch me -”

Minho raised his eyebrows. “If you think we’re gonna do that without any kind of reason you’ve got another thing coming, shank -”

Something snapped inside Lesley, panic surging. “IS THIS REAL?” she shouted, throwing her hand up between them, stopping them moving any closing.

There was a ringing silence, broken only by her own laboured breathing. Slowly, Minho reached out and carefully slid his fingers between hers, their palms touching. “You bet your shank ass it is,” he told her quietly.

Lesley couldn’t help it. She burst into tears, launching herself at Minho and throwing her arms around him. Newt was bewildered. “Bloody hell, Les, what the shuck was in those drinks you had?” he joked weakly, but his eyes were wide with alarm.

As he wrapped his arms around Lesley, Minho threw Newt a dumbfounded expression that clearly said, I officially don’t understand girls any more.

Lesley pressed her face into his shoulder, exhaling a shuddering breath. She wasn’t going to admit she found his scent comforting. Nope. Absolutely not. “The Flare,” she choked out. “I saw you. Both of you. Infected and screaming and covered in black veins - and - and then Winston was there -”

Newt stiffened. Against her, Minho shuddered, swallowing thickly. “We’re alright, shank,” he said quietly. “We’re alright. Come on, slim yourself down -”

“YOU SON OF A BITCH!” a voice roared from the other end of the room, followed by a sharp slapping sound.

Lesley jumped away from Minho. “What the hell?” she spluttered weakly.

Newt jerked a thumb over his shoulder, chuckling darkly. “Jorge’s doing a bit of an interrogation on our friend over there.”

Lesley peeked around them and saw the bloodied man strapped to a chair against the far wall, Jorge’s menacing form towering over him. “Okay. Help me up,” she muttered, quickly wiping her eyes dry. “Let’s see what shit I missed.”

As she stumbled to her feet, Newt pulled her into a fierce embrace, just like they used to do before she ran into the Maze for the day. “You good, Les?” he asked quietly.

Lesley nodded, and the three of them headed over to where Frypan and Brenda were already sitting, watching Jorge. Slowly, Thomas came and sat beside them, Teresa at his side; he didn’t look much better, his face still pale.

Lesley poked Thomas’s arm. “Hey,” she said quietly.

He jolted, turning to her. “Hey,” he greeted, throwing her a tight smile. “You good?”

“Got one hell of a hangover,” Lesley replied. Thomas huffed with quiet laughter.

Brenda’s eyes suddenly flicked to Lesley, and she felt her cheeks flush a dark red as she stared back. Finally, Brenda threw her a knowing smile and turned her attention back to their prisoner.

Lesley suddenly remembered. The kiss. The goddamn shucking kiss. A searing warmth, their mouths colliding -

She glanced at Minho and her face turned an even darker shade of pink.

“Damn it!” the tied up man yelled as Jorge struck his face again, the voice dragging Lesley back to the present. “I’m sorry, you’re going to have to leave my house.”

“Listen,” Jorge started, speaking with a forced calm as he squared his shoulders. “I don’t enjoy hurting you, okay?”

“Hmm.”

“Where’s the Right Arm, Marcus?” Jorge demanded.

Lesley started at the name. “You!” she exploded. Looking past the bloodied and bruised features, she could see it was the same rich man in the red suit who had invited them to his party ... whenever that had been. A few hours before? Yesterday?

Thomas had the same stunned look on his face. “Wait, this is Marcus?”

Marcus laughed, the sound gurgled with blood. “The kids catch on quick. Are you two the brains of the operation?” he jeered.

Lesley was seething. “You spiked our drinks, slinthead!” she growled, starting forward with clenched fists before Minho tugged her back.

Jorge raised his eyebrows. “Where did you muchachos get these insults?” he muttered, shaking his head.

Marcus shrugged his shoulders as best he could against the rope. “I was merely showing you a good time. Admit it, you enjoyed yourselves.”

“Yeah, seeing my friends turn into Cranks was the highlight of my night,” Lesley spat, her voice cracking as she spoke. Newt’s hand settled on her shoulder, gripping tightly, keeping her grounded.

Grimacing, Jorge grabbed the man’s hair and jerked his head back. “I know you know where they’re hiding,” he hissed. “So, you tell me, and I’ll make you a deal.” He took a step back. “You can come with us.”

Marcus cackled, the sound borderline hysterical. “I burned that bridge a long time ago.” He licked his bloodied lips, his smile turning sinister. “Besides, I made my own deal. You’re the one who taught me, never miss an opportunity.”

Lesley’s jaw tightened; the man sure had a lot of gall for the one being interrogated and strapped to a chair.

Newt frowned. “What’s he talking about?” he asked.

Marcus spoke before Jorge had the chance to. “I’m talking about supply and demand,” he explained condescendingly. “WCKD wants all the immunes they can get. I help provide that for them.”

Lesley froze, feeling Minho and Newt do the same. Her stomach roiled.

“So, I lure kids in,” Marcus continued, his voice dangerously soft. “They get drunk, they have a good time. And then, later, WCKD comes in ... and they separate the wheat from the chaff.”

He began to giggle again, and Lesley’s face turned pale, her features twisting with horror. They had been so close to being captured by WCKD again; so unbelievably close.

“Shuck,” Minho breathed.

Jorge shook his head. “I’ve changed my mind, hermano,” he said finally, his jaw clenching as he stared Marcus down. “I do enjoy hurting you.”

With that, he lifted his foot and slammed the man square in the chest with everything he had, sending the chair toppling backwards onto the floor with a loud thud.

The Gladers watched with thinly-veiled contempt as Marcus continued to laugh. “I think I’m gonna be sick,” Lesley muttered.

Jorge clambered over Marcus, kneeling on his chest as he withdrew his gun from his belt and pointed it at Marcus’s throat, sliding a bullet into the chamber with an audible click. “I know you didn’t give a shit about saving Brenda or any of those other kids back then,” he growled, “but I’ll be damned if I let you keep handing them over.”

Lesley glanced at Thomas and saw him staring back; just what the hell had Brenda and Jorge been through together?

Marcus grinned. “Gotta take care of numero uno, isn’t that what you used to say? This is about survival. These kids have made you go soft -”

Jorge suddenly grabbed Marcus’s hair and violently smashed his head back against the floor. “Talk!” he yelled. “TALK!”

Gasping, Marcus began to gurgle blood in the back of his throat. “Okay, okay! Jesus!” he choked out. “But I’m not making any promises. These guys like to move around.”

With a satisfied nod from Jorge, Frypan stepped forward, the two of them wrenching Marcus’s chair upright. Lesley couldn’t help but admire the camaraderie that had formed during her and Thomas’s absence.

Marcus exhaled deeply, his one good eye fluttering shut as the other one swelled nastily. “They have an outpost in the mountains,” he told them, starting to leer again. “But it’s a long way away. You got half of WCKD on your ass. You’re never gonna make it.”

This time, it was Jorge who began to smile, his eyes twinkling. “Not on foot,” he corrected. He clapped his hands down on Marcus’s shoulders, his mouth stretching into a boyish grin. “Where’s Bertha?”

For the first time since the interrogation had begun, Marcus’s nonchalance faltered. “Not - not Bertha,” he whimpered, his bottom lip trembling.

Lesley raised her arm, frowning at the display of cowardice. “Question. Who the shuck is Bertha?” A friend? A daughter? A wife?

“Not who,” Jorge chuckled, turning to look at her with a victorious grin. “What.”

o-o-o-o-o

The truck thundered down the abandoned highway, the old 1985 Chevrolet Suburban gunning it through the Scorch. She was a thing of beauty, a rusting blue colour with a set of massive bull horns attached to the front of the vehicle.

Sitting behind the wheel, Jorge turned his head to check on the Gladers, looking rather pleased with himself. Lesley was squeezed between Minho and Thomas in the back seat; behind them in the enclosed space at the rear of the truck were Teresa, Aris, Brenda and Frypan. Everyone was wearing relieved, tired yet hopeful smiles; for the first time, as the miles of sand flew by, they felt they had a real chance of escaping WCKD.

Perched in the passenger seat, Newt grinned widely, deliberately stretching his long legs out. “You lot nice and cosy back there?” he called cheekily over his shoulder.

You little shit. Lesley rolled her eyes, settling back against Minho. “Careful, or I might just come and sit on you,” she warned.

“What, and make all the other shanks jealous?” Newt winked. “I quite enjoy being alive, thank you very much.”

“Are you kidding me, Newt?” Lesley groaned. “Jealousy’s out the window. I’m surrounded by guys, but where’s all my action been at so far?”

“Yooo!” Frypan hollered, playfully smacking Lesley’s head from behind.

Party shenanigans aside. Lesley glanced guiltily at Thomas, but if he recalled anything he was keeping quiet about it, something she was eternally grateful for.

What happens at a Crank party stays at one, apparently.

Minho raised his eyebrows at Lesley. “You just have to ask, you shank.”

Newt’s grin turned positively shit-eating. “There you go, Les. Give Min-Min the lap dance he always dreamed about.”

As Frypan howled with laughter in the back of the truck, Minho swore at Newt. Lesley flipped him off with a murderous expression, trying desperately to bite back a smile.

Unbidden, her thoughts drifted back to the party.

“Where the hell did you lot go anyway?” Lesley demanded. “What happened after the zip line?”

Newt stiffened; it had been a frighteningly long night for all of them.

The chopper hovered over the warehouse, its blinding spotlight relentlessly sweeping the area. In the adjacent building, the Gladers looked on with bated breath, the air thick with tension.

Newt leaned against the wall, his fingers tapping an anxious beat against the decaying bricks. “What’s keeping them?” he muttered, his gaze fixated on the end of the zip line.

“Those shanks are taking too long,” Minho bit out worriedly. “They should be -”

They went rigid at the sharp burst of gunfire from the other building. It was immediately followed by shattering glass, shouts of alarm, and a girlish scream piercing the night.

“Aw, hell,” Frypan muttered. Even Aris looked stricken.

Horror washed through Newt. “Bloody hell, that’s it,” he decided. “We need to go back over there -”

Jorge shook his head firmly. “No can do, not unless you want WCKD getting their hands on you -”

“To hell with WCKD!” Minho roared, his heart stuttering with terror. “We can’t just -!”

The world exploded.

With an earsplitting bang, a gargantuan orange fireball erupted from the middle of the warehouse and utterly devoured it, the building crumbling in a burst of orange and yellow as the roof caved in, smoke and debris pouring into the air amidst screams and the thunder of collapsing steel.

His hands clamped over his ears, Minho stared at the building in mounting horror. “No,” he choked out. His mind’s eye saw Lesley trapped beneath the rubble, suffocating or crushed or worse. And then Thomas -

Newt whirled around to glare at Jorge. “You didn’t tell us the whole bloody building was gonna go!” he shouted angrily. “I’m guessing that was your buggin’ idea?”

Jorge shrugged. “Precaution,” was all he replied. He adjusted his pack, grimacing as he tugged at the shoulder straps. “We have to go.”

“Not without Thomas and Lesley,” Newt argued, his voice harsh.

Frypan nodded firmly. “We’re Gladers, man; we ain’t leaving anybody behind.”

“Don’t you worry, muchachos,” Jorge told them. “Brenda’s smart; she would’ve gotten your friends out of there.” He paused, looking out into the night. “She knows the plan; chances are we’ll run into each other.”

“Chances,” Minho snorted.

Jorge didn’t answer for a long moment. “It’s up to you,” he said, his voice hard. “But you want to get to the Right Arm, and you won’t last a day in Crankland without me, especially with WCKD on your tail.” He turned and stalked off into the darkness. “Come on!”

“We took the long way through the city,” Aris told them. “WCKD was crawling around the warehouse - well, what was left of it.”

“We stuck to the shadows the whole night,” Frypan interjected from the back of the truck.

Newt nodded. “Jorge interrogated some buggers we came across and we tracked Marcus down. He wasn’t exactly lying low anyway.”

“That’s when we crashed your party,” Minho butted in.

Jorge burst through the doorway. “Nobody move!” he roared.

Chaos erupted.

The room broke out screaming, the crowd stampeding in all directions. Jorge fired a bullet at the ceiling as he stormed into the mansion, clearing a haphazard path for himself and the Gladers.

“Stay close, look angry, and do not hesitate for one second,” he had told them, “because make no mistake they will eat you alive.”

There were people everywhere. Minho looked around in horror, wondering just where the hell they had all ended up. He scrubbed at his eyes, checking he wasn’t hallucinating as he stumbled after Jorge.

“What the!” Frypan choked out.

Newt’s eyes frantically scanned his surroundings. He saw a Crank chained to the wall, the body crumpled against the tiles with blood pooling from their head. Nausea rocketed through him.

His heart stuttered at the sight of another figure on the floor, clothing caked with dirt and dust but the identity unmistakeable.

Bolting forward, Newt crashed down beside her, wincing at the scrape against his knees. He grabbed her shoulder and pitched her onto her back. “Shit. Lesley!” he shouted.

She stared at him dazedly for a few seconds, her face blanching of colour before her eyes rolled back in her head as she fell unconscious.

“Minho!” Newt yelled over his shoulder. “I’ve got Les!”

Minho was at his side within moments, his face pale as he reached up to check the temperature of Lesley’s visibly clammy forehead. “Shuck, what the hell did they give her?” he exclaimed.

Newt shook his head. “Dunno, but it looks like she bloody chucked half it up,” he observed, grimacing at the pile of sick on the floor; the colour of it alone was enough to make him nervous. “Les, you idiot,” he muttered worriedly. “Why didn’t you shanks stick together?”

“Hey, she was drugged,” Minho told him, an unexpectedly sharp edge to his voice. “Maybe the shank didn’t have much of a choice.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I doubt our Tomboy had much of a say in the matter either.”

Newt gasped, looking around wildly, searching. “You found him?”

“Yeah. He’s conked out over by the stupid water feature, drooling like a baby.”

“Hey, I got Brenda!” Frypan hollered distantly.

“C’mon,” Minho said, abruptly changing the subject. “Jorge found that Marcus guy. We’re dragging the slinthead back to his own place; fewer questions.”

Newt nodded. “Alright.” He glanced at Lesley. “Can you ...?”

“Carry her?” Minho finished, barely needing the prompt. “Wasn’t gonna ask anyone else.”

His face turning a shade paler, Minho hurriedly shook himself from his thoughts. “Not that you shanks were having a good time in the first place.”

Lesley shuddered. “No. Definitely not.”

Her gaze drifted out the window, watching the dunes roll by as she tried desperately to shove memories of the previous night from her mind.

She felt a nudge against her shoulder. “Glad you’re okay, shank,” Minho muttered, just loud enough for only her to hear.

Lesley nudged him back, a faint smile tugging at her mouth. “You, too.”

Chapter Text

The sand slowly petered out into a rocky, barren landscape dotted with pale green shrubs and weeds, tumbles of grass rolling around as Jorge carefully navigated the truck along forgotten dirt roads. The mountains loomed, and soon they were driving up into the hills, winding their way through rocky canyons as the air steadily grew thinner and colder. Rust coloured cliffs towered above the road to their left, while on the right the rock face plunged downwards into a ravine.

Surrounded by the steady thrum of the truck’s engine and the chatter of the others, Lesley eventually dozed off, still exhausted from being drugged. Thomas followed suit, his head bouncing uncomfortably off the window; Newt sniggered fondly as he reached into the back seat and gently grabbed Thomas’s jacket to tug him upright. Smiling softly, Minho adjusted his sitting position so that Lesley’s head was resting on his shoulder.

Lesley jolted awake when the vehicle jerked to a stop an indeterminable amount of time later. “Whuzgoinon?” she mumbled, yawning.

Minho pointed, deciding not to comment on the damp patch on his shoulder. “Take a look.”

What Lesley saw out the front window banished the last of her sleepiness as they all clambered out of the truck. They had stopped in the middle of the pass, and the road ahead - twisting through a rocky archway and around a corner - was completely blocked by abandoned vehicles, all with their trunks and doors torn open.

“Well,” Jorge started, “I guess we’re on foot.”

As they started forward in silence, he glanced at Brenda, and Lesley suddenly noticed how pale she was; dark shadows under her eyes were highlighted by her visibly clammy skin. Her heart clenched painfully.

They wove their way through the barricade of broken cars, pausing every so often to look at their surroundings. Jorge stopped to sift through an open trunk, but the suitcase inside held nothing but musty blankets; Newt peered in through the open window of a car, but the front seats were empty and coated with dirt; Teresa looked down at the trickle of water flowing through the canyon below. All around them was the distant cawing of crows, followed by the unnerving rumble of shifting stones; there were rigid lines in everyone’s shoulders.

“Hey, guys,” Lesley called out nervously. “Look at this.”

She pointed at the holes dotting the cars, deep notches in the mainframes. Thomas ran his hand over a circular dent in one of the windshields. “Bullet holes,” he murmured.

There was the roar of a gunshot followed by the sharp pinging of ricocheting bullets, all of the Gladers frantically ducking as metal capsules whizzed through the air, one just barely missing Thomas.

“Get down!” Jorge roared.

“Take cover!” Newt yelled.

They scrambled for shelter, ducking low next to the vehicles with their arms thrown over their heads. Lesley crashed to the ground beside a rusting ute with Minho and Newt; crouched behind an adjacent vehicle were Aris, Frypan, Brenda and Teresa. Lesley didn’t know where Thomas and Jorge had gone, and could only hope they had found a safe hiding spot. The only problem was, they didn’t know where the gunfire had come from.

Another gunshot echoed through the canyon like rolling thunder, a solid punch to their eardrums. “Whoa,” Minho gasped.

Lesley fought to keep her breathing under control. “We’re sitting ducks.”

“Hey, is everyone okay out there?” Thomas shouted from somewhere nearby. Lesley felt a sharp bolt of relief through her chest.

“We’re fine!” Teresa called out.

Newt’s gaze flicked wildly around the canyon. “Anyone know where those bloody shots came from?!” he yelled.

As the echo of his voice faded, there was only the soft sound of the wind whistling; even the crows had fallen silent. At a flash of movement, Lesley’s gaze darted to see Thomas cautiously peeking his head over the top of a vehicle, two cars away from where she was crouched. There was another crack of a gunshot, creating a sizable dent in the metal hood barely feet from Thomas.

“Tommy!” Newt cried.

“Get your shuck ass back down!” Lesley roared.

Thomas vanished from view, and the canyon fell quiet again.

Minho sucked in a sharp breath. “Can’t fight our way out of this one,” he muttered, turning his head to look around the gorge, squinting at the cliff tops, searching.

There was a sudden high-pitched buzzing noise that made Lesley freeze. “What’s that?” she whispered.

“Everybody!” Jorge yelled. “Get set to sprint back to the truck, and hold your ears!”

Lesley balked. She stared at Minho and Newt, their eyes just as wide, realisation dawning on them all. “He’s got a shucking explosive?!” she hissed.

There was the audible clunk of a gun cocking, the metallic clatter of a casing hitting the ground. “Drop it,” ordered an unfamiliar voice. “I said drop it!”

Lesley turned her head. Two girls stood there with fully loaded shotguns; one of them had dark skin and dreadlocks, the other was fair-skinned with long blonde hair tied off to the side in a loose braid. Both of them were rugged up in thick woollen coats, their scarves tied across the lower half of their faces to conceal everything but their eyes and foreheads. They stared at the group coldly.

“On your feet. Let’s go!” the girl with dreadlocks shouted.

Thomas and Jorge slowly stood up, their hands raised in surrender.

“Let’s go!” the same girl barked, shoving the barrel of her gun towards them. “Move! Back up!”

“Easy,” Jorge snapped as he and Thomas were herded backwards towards the rest of the group.

The girl’s gaze darted to where Lesley, Newt and Minho were crouched. She waved her gun at them in a threatening manner. “You three! Over here, now!” she ordered.

Lesley cautiously stood up, tentatively raising her hands in the air as Minho and Newt did the same. She took a step towards Jorge and Thomas, her blood cold with icy fear. Her stomach churned with anxiety. They didn’t look like WCKD, but -

“Come on, let’s go!” the blonde girl snapped. “Slowly!”

“Don’t be stupid, move!” the other girl called.

The other Gladers were carefully ducking out of hiding, shuffling forward until all nine of them were stood in a large huddle. Frypan threw Thomas a desperate glance, and he shook his head minutely. Lesley grimaced; this wasn’t good.

The dark girl’s expression suddenly twisted, staring at them with a dumbfounded look on her face. “Aris?” she choked out, her gun lowering.

Everyone turned to stare at the boy in question, who looked confused and nervous in equal measures, his body posture hunched and tight.

And then the girl hurriedly tugged down her scarf.

“Oh, my God, Harriet?” Aris exclaimed in disbelief, stepping past Teresa and Brenda with wide eyes. He laughed weakly. “You’ve done something with your hair. Looks nice.”

Harriet surged forward, her hardened mask instantly crumbling. “My God!” she gasped, hauling him into a tight embrace. “What the hell are you doing here?”

When she pulled back a few moments later, both she and Aris were smiling widely, their eyes shining with relief as the latter turned his head to look at the blonde girl standing beside Harriet. “Sonya!” Aris cried happily. “Should’ve known you’d be with Harri.”

The girl reached out, pulling Aris into her arms and hugging him just as tightly as Harriet. “Aris, you’re lucky we didn’t shoot your dumb ass!” she laughed, a pleasant lilt to her voice now that she wasn’t yelling. “You alright, man?”

Newt threw an unnerved glance at Minho and Lesley. Jorge raised an eyebrow at Thomas.

Unaware of the silent conversations going on behind him, Aris shook his head, beaming at the two girls. “How ...?”

Minho cleared his throat, loudly and pointedly. “Uh, what’s happening?” he asked.

Lesley’s gaze darted between Aris, Harriet and Sonya, her thoughts reeling. None of them could remember anything before WCKD. Aris knew these girls. Aris had been the only boy stuck in a gargantuan labyrinth with a group composed entirely of the opposite gender.

Her eyes widened, the pieces falling into place. “You were in the Maze with them?!” she shrieked in astonishment.

Aris turned around to look at her. He nodded proudly. “We were in the Maze together,” he confirmed with a grin.

“Oh, bloody hell,” Newt muttered. Beside him, Thomas exhaled deeply.

Sonya blinked in evident surprise, her brow creasing as she stared at Lesley. “You sticks know about the Maze?”

Sticks? she wondered, fighting back a laugh. Must be their version of shank.

“Was stuck in one with this lot,” Lesley confirmed, jerking her thumbs at the boys around her. They all nodded in affirmation.

Sonya tilted her head. “Only girl?” she pressed, her eyes flicking to Aris.

Lesley nodded. “Was the only one until Teresa here turned up unconscious two months later with a note to announce that she was the last -”

“One ever,” Harriet finished, staring at her.

Lesley blinked. “Uh, yeah.”

Teresa shifted uncomfortably under the sudden scrutiny as Sonya’s expression turned curious, her eyes shifting between the two girl Gladers. “Interesting. Aris arrived with the same note.”

Just like that, an air of understanding settled over them, both sides eyeing each other with mutual respect; they had all been pawns of WCKD, forced to participate in their game, even when they had tried to play it by their own rules. They didn’t know anything about one another, but they were already bound together by circumstances beyond their control, connected by the labyrinths they had been trapped in.

“Wait.” Thomas swallowed hard, comprehension dawning on his features. “What was the written outside your Maze compound? What letter?”

Lesley gasped. “Oh no,” she uttered.

Aris caught their expressions, shifting on his feet. “We were Site B.”

Thomas. To be killed by Group B.

Minho chuckled weakly. “Seems like that was the brush with death you were waiting for, Tomboy.”

The tension in the air abruptly dissipated, the Gladers exhaling heavily in relief; Newt gripped Thomas’s shoulder, nodding to himself. Sonya threw Aris a confused look, but he shook his head; he would explain later.

Harriet raised her fingers to her lips and blew a loud, piercing whistle that made Lesley wince. “We’re clear, guys!” she yelled, looking towards the sky. “Come on out!”

“Copy that!” a voice yelled distantly. “We’re clear! Stand down!”

The Gladers slowly turned around to look. Lesley’s eyes widened, her mouth dropping open in amazement. There were armed people lining the canyon edge above them on either side of the gully as far as they could see.

“Sitting ducks,” Newt repeated quietly. Lesley exhaled deeply; thanking her lucky stars they hadn’t made a run for it in the end. They would have been dead before they’d gotten halfway to Bertha.

Not hearing, Sonya simply beamed and hauled Aris into another crushing embrace, her brown eyes shining with adoration. “My God, you’re alive,” she breathed.

Aris grinned at her, and Harriet shook her head, reaching over and ruffling his hair fondly. “Alright, come on!” she called, starting forward and pushing her way through the group of dumbfounded Gladers. “We’re wasting daylight, let’s go!”

o-o-o-o-o

“Back it up, Joe!” Sonya yelled, waving her arm as they traipsed through another rocky tunnel.

“Back it up!” a male voice replied.

Lesley squinted against the daylight; up ahead, the man named Joe was reversing a dirty old lorry, opening up the entranceway for them, which had previously - and deliberately - been blocked by the massive vehicle.

The group emerged out onto a wide stretch of the road. On one side was a faded sign announcing a photo spot for visitors, the lookout giving a panoramic view over the vast canyon. The outpost was crowded with trucks and burly men, all of them rugged up warmly and holding rifles. Sandbags littered the area.

The two girls barely stopped to let the Gladers look. “We’re taking them to base,” Harriet informed one of the middle-aged men standing nearby as he adjusted the beanie on his head. He nodded, gripping his gun tighter.

Aris hurried to catch up with her, jogging past Newt and Lesley and falling in step beside Thomas. “Wait, so how did you guys get here?”

“The Right Arm got us out,” Harriet told him.

Lesley nearly missed a step. “The what now?” she yelped. So Marcus hadn’t been wrong after all; he hadn’t just led them into an ambush.

“Wait, wait,” Thomas interrupted, his brow creasing. “The Right Arm? Do you know where they are?” he asked desperately.

Harriet came to a stop by one of the jeeps, opening the door and smirking slightly at the rapt attention she was suddenly faced with from all the Gladers. “Hop in.”

Everyone did as asked, the group spreading across the two trucks. Harriet climbed into the front of the first vehicle with Aris and Thomas, and was quickly followed by Teresa, Jorge and Brenda. Sonya motioned for the rest of them to get in the second jeep, Frypan and Minho settling into the worn seats first. Pausing, Newt’s eyes flicked to Sonya, his brow creasing as he clambered into the truck after Lesley.

Setting off, the two trucks wound their way down through the remainder of the canyon, finally emerging onto another abandoned dirt road and ploughing out into the desert. There weren’t any other people or wildlife to be seen for miles, no other sign of civilisation.

“So, the Right Arm got you out of your Maze?” Lesley began conversationally, looking at the blonde girl perched in the passenger seat.

Sonya hummed. “Not right away, no pun intended,” she said, turning around to look at her. “When we escaped ours, an armed group of rebels swarmed the place, saying they were going to rescue us, take us to a safe place away from WCKD.”

Lesley shared a glance with Minho. “Like what happened to us.”

“Not very original, are they?” Sonya chuckled. “From there, Harriet and I were moved to a different facility; a few days later, the Right Arm stormed the building and got us out. That’s how we got separated from Aris.” She gave a smile and settled back in her seat. “Thanks for looking after that stick for us.”

Lesley shrugged. “He helped us escape; we owed him one. Besides, the shank kinda grew on us,” she added, unable to resist throwing a piece of Glader slang in there.

Sonya laughed airily. “He does, eh?” she said fondly. A moment later, she turned back to the front and began to talk quietly to their driver, discussing their fuel supply.

“Sticks,” Newt huffed in an undertone.

Lesley glanced at him. “Newt?” she called quietly, eyeing the deep frown on his face.

Minho turned his head. “Hey, man, you okay?”

Newt’s eyes flicked to the front of the truck. “Why am I so concerned about a girl I’ve never seen in my bloody life before until now?” he growled under his breath.

Lesley smiled sadly at him. “In the life you remember,” she murmured pointedly, trying to keep her voice gentle. Newt’s expression darkened dangerously.

No one said much for a long while. A nervous anticipation began to build amongst the Gladers; Lesley kept her eyes firmly fixed on the rocky landscape outside the window as she felt the first uncomfortable waves of carsickness start to hit her from the constant lurching of the vehicle.

“Tell me about your Maze,” Sonya said suddenly. Her expression flickered with unexpected sadness. “There’s so many of you,” she added softly. “Only a couple of us Icers made it out alive in the end.”

Lesley swallowed against the lump in her throat. They had lost a lot of people along the way, but clearly not as many as these girls and Aris had. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I wish we didn’t, but we understand.”

Quiet fell for a few sombre moments before Minho broke the tension in the air. “Icers?” he repeated.

“Yeah.” Sonya shrugged. “Made sense, we had an ice Maze. Didn’t you?”

Lesley shook her head. “We had a stone one covered in ivy.”

“And they stuck us in a big ol’ field in the middle of it,” Frypan piped up eagerly. “We called it the Glade -”

“So we became Gladers,” Minho interjected.

“Gladers? Nice.” Sonya’s smiled turned to a frown. “Did you have the Shades?” At the blank stares, she gestured wildly with her hands. “You know? Giant winged monsters?”

Lesley froze. Minho carefully gripped her wrist, running soothing circles across her skin. His own face looked just as pale as he cleared his throat. “We had Grievers,” he told her quietly. “Massive metal-flesh spider hybrids.”

Sonya shuddered. “Sounds worse than ours,” she admitted.

The rest of the drive was quiet.

Chapter Text

The rolling sands of the desert slowly began to transform into the same rocky scrubland they had encountered before, the land dotted with pale green shrubbery. Hurtling over the uneven ground, the truck jolting with every outcrop, they crested another hill - and Lesley gasped, sitting up in her seat.

Nestled in the basin below them, spread out below towering rock walls, was a camp.

The truck jerked to a stop in a cloud of dust, the second vehicle coming to rest beside theirs. Lesley scrambled out as fast as she could, the others pressing around her as the Gladers stared with wide eyes.

“Bloody hell,” Newt murmured.

Frypan scrubbed at his eyes disbelievingly. “I think we just hit the jackpot.”

There must have been a hundred people milling about the site. People. Trucks. Tents. Firepits. There was chatter, laughter in the air, a low happy hum of noise. It was a home that harked back to Lesley’s days in the Glade; she felt an unexpected surge of emotion.

After all they had been through, they had finally found the Right Arm.

She glanced at the others, a weight lifting off her chest at the awed expressions on their faces; the notion that they were finally safe.

Sonya evidently saw it too. “Come on,” she smiled, tilting her head.

As Harriet and Sonya led them down the worn paths through the scrub into the camp, Lesley felt her curiosity bursting at the seams. The Right Arm actually exists, her heart sang. “How did all this happen?” she asked.

“They’ve been planning this for over a year now,” Harriet explained. “This is all for us. For every single one of us put in a Maze.”

Teresa looked strangely conflicted. Lesley wondered if she was still thinking about what Thomas had remembered back in the Glade; what the two of them had done. She nudged Teresa’s shoulder, throwing her a reassuring smile. She hesitantly returned it.

Sonya glanced over her shoulder, her braid flicking about. “You guys are lucky you found us when you did,” she told them matter-of-factly. “We’re moving out at first light. Where’s Vince?” she shouted to one of the people walking past.

“Somewhere over there, I think,” the man replied, waving his arm vaguely.

“Who’s Vince?” Thomas pressed as they lumbered off in the pointed direction.

Harriet glanced at him. “He’s the one who decides if you get to stay.”

It might have sounded threatening, but the bright smile on her face as she glanced at Aris told them otherwise.

Lesley couldn’t tear her eyes away from her surroundings. She clutched at Minho’s arm. “Look, look, look,” she chanted breathlessly, beaming as she stared at the people around them, her eyes alight with excitement. Everywhere she looked, there was something new, something different to see.

His dark eyes were sparkling. “I’m looking, shank.”

The aroma of smoked meat wafted through the air. “Aw man, that’s good,” Frypan groaned, grinning as he rubbed his belly. Newt chuckled, elbowing him and oinking.

Thomas continued to frown. “I thought the Right Arm was supposed to be an army.”

“Yeah, we were.”

Lesley turned her head at the new voice, the other Gladers stumbling to a halt around her.

A grizzled man stepped into view from amongst the crowd of people. He gestured his arms widely, calling attention to the belt of ammo slung across his torso. He had a wild look about him, rugged and dangerous. “This is all that’s left of us.”

Lesley glanced at the camp in renewed awe. “There used to be more?” she whispered. So, so many people fighting just as hard against WCKD as they were.

Vince moved closer, prowling like a predator. “A lot of good people died getting us this far,” he confirmed, his hands on his hips as his gaze swept over the bedraggled group. He glanced at Harriet and Sonya, his eyes narrowing. “Who’re they?”

“Caught ‘em coming up the mountain,” Harriet explained. “They’re immunes.”

Lesley could hardly breathe. She fought not to look at Brenda.

“Did you check ‘em?” Vince pressed.

Shrugging, Harriet pointed at Aris, the flicker of a smile still on her face. “I know this guy, Aris. He was in our Maze; I trust him.”

A crease appeared in Vince’s brow. “Well, I don’t. Check ‘em.”

The words had barely left his mouth when Brenda gasped raggedly and collapsed, stumbling into Thomas as she fell heavily to the ground.

“Shit!” Lesley swore, clamping a hand over her mouth. Her chest tightened with panic; she suddenly didn’t know what to do.

“Brenda!” Jorge rushed to Brenda’s side, picking her up and cradling her in his arms. “It’s okay. Brenda, talk to me, come on.”

Brenda’s eyes were clamped shut, her features alarmingly pale. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she wheezed.

Lesley looked at Thomas wretchedly as the other Gladers exchanged worried glances. They couldn’t abandon Brenda, not after they’d come this far; not after all she’d risked to save their lives as much as her own.

Vince knelt down beside Jorge. “What’s going on with her?” he asked, the harshness in his voice abruptly vanishing to be replaced with something softer, almost fatherly.

Jorge shook his head desperately, his eyes frantic. “I don’t know, I don’t know. Brenda, are you alright?”

Vince’s eyes drifted over Brenda’s shuddering form - and came to a stop on the strip of material wrapped around her ankle.

Her heart in her mouth, Lesley shoved past Minho. “Hey, wait -!”

It was too late. Vince rocketed backwards in shock barely seconds after he tugged at the bandage, revealing the bloody bite mark on her skin for all to see.

“Oh, shit!” he gasped, yanking the gun from his holster. “Crank! We got a Crank!”

“No!” Jorge roared as two burly men grabbed him under the arms and dragged him away from Brenda.

Thomas lunged forward, shoving Vince back. “Wait, wait!”

“Step back!” Vince roared, his face pale.

“Listen, this just happened, okay?” Thomas garbled. “She’s not dangerous yet!”

“You shouldn’t have brought her here!” Vince yelled.

“I know, I -”

Vince cut him off. “We let Cranks in here now, the Safe Haven doesn’t last a week! Step back!”

Lesley felt the air being ripped from her lungs. The Safe Haven -

“I understand, okay?” Thomas raised his hands in a placating gesture. “I - I understand, alright? Just listen. Please. Please, okay? I told her that you could help. There’s got to be something you can do.”

Lesley heart wrenched, her eyes torn to where Brenda lay in the dirt, gasping for air as if her lungs were caving in on themselves. The others around her were rigid where they stood, their gazes darting between Jorge, Brenda, Vince and Thomas.

Finally, Vince swallowed thickly. “Yeah, there is.” He cocked the gun. “I can put her out of her misery.”

“No! NO!” Jorge roared, fighting against the two men holding him back.

Unable to bear it any longer, Lesley threw herself forward.

“Les, no!” Minho roared, snatching at her shirt.

He missed. Lesley dove in front of Brenda, staring down the gun barrel, her chest heaving. “You wanna kill her, you have to go through me first,” she growled. Vince didn’t know Brenda; shuck, none of the other Gladers except Thomas did.

“Get out of the way, girl,” Vince snapped.

Newt lunged, grabbing her; Lesley shoved him off. “An old friend told us that we only have each other,” she told Vince fiercely.

Newt’s breath hitched audibly; Minho and Frypan both stiffened.

Lesley jerked her head sharply. “We’ve all gone through too much and seen too much death. Thomas is right; there must be something.”

“Vince, that’s enough!” a female voice cried.

Heads turned. A woman charged through the camp towards them, her long dark hair flying about her face. “Let him go, let him go!” she ordered.

Glancing nervously at one another, the men holding Jorge dropped him. He immediately scrambled forward.

“She’s infected, Doc!” Vince told her, his gun still pointed at Brenda - and, by extension, Lesley and Jorge. “There’s nothing we can do for her.”

A look of triumph overcame the woman’s expression as she took in the sight of the ragged group before her. “No, but he can.” She smiled. “Hello, Thomas.”

The world staggered to a halt, the camp falling eerily silent around them. The tension in the air was suffocating.

Lesley gulped. “This is becoming a habit,” she muttered.

Still half crouched above her, Newt glanced at Minho, while Frypan openly gaped at them. Everyone else looked just as confused, including those from the Right Arm.

“What?” Vince asked, his brow creasing. “Mary?”

Thomas exhaled shakily. “You know me?” he asked weakly. His leg bounced anxiously against the ground, and Newt reached out and put a hand on his shoulder to steady him.

Mary nodded, her brow creasing. “Interesting. It makes sense they’d put you in the Maze,” she said thoughtfully, crouching down beside Brenda. “Though, I must admit, I was worried they’d kill you after what you did.”

“What - what I did?” Thomas repeated.

Lesley frowned, trying to remember what Thomas had told them after going through the Changing. He hadn’t mentioned much beyond the orders WCKD had given him, his eyes burning with a searing guilt that had clouded his eyes as he sat in the Slammer.

Mary paused. “The first time we spoke, you said you couldn’t take it anymore,” she told him softly, “watching your friends die, one by one.”

Slowly, the gazes of the Gladers lifted to stare at Thomas, confusion turning to awe and pride. Lesley almost smiled; this was the Thomas they had always known, the one too selfless for his own good.

“The last time we spoke,” Mary continued, “you gave me the coordinates of every WCKD compound, trial and lab.”

Thomas looked staggered by the announcement.

Lesley felt a surge of satisfaction; Thomas had visibly been struggling to come to terms with the actions of his past self, trying to understand why he had ever thought entrapping his friends in a giant labyrinth was the right thing to do. His change of heart hadn’t been a fluke of the Swipe after all. The trauma he had witnessed under WCKD’s command had pushed him to breaking point; had convinced him to drag the corporation down as best he could before becoming victim to his own creation.

Vince’s expression turned gobsmacked. “He was our source,” he uttered in realisation, his tone verging on reverence.

Mary nodded in confirmation, smiling slightly. “We couldn’t have pulled all this off without him.” She glanced down at Brenda. “Take her to the tent, and get these guys some warm clothes,” she instructed the people standing around them. At the hesitation, she looked at them pointedly. “Hey, it’s the least we can do.”

Lesley felt the knot of anxiety ease in her chest a little.

Two of the men reached for Brenda, but Jorge firmly shoved them away. “I’ve got her,” he said firmly, stooping down and carefully lifting Brenda up. “Just show me where to go.”

They traipsed off across the camp. Mary turned to Thomas then, eyeing the way he shifted uncertainly on his feet. “Thomas, come on,” she said kindly, putting a hand on his shoulder and leading him after Jorge. “I need to get some blood from you.”

Grimacing, Lesley started to follow. Vince, who had been standing there looking stunned by the turn of events, grabbed her arm. “Hold up there, kid,” he said gruffly, but there wasn’t much fight in his words.

“I’m not leaving Brenda,” Lesley told him firmly. “She helped save us from WCKD, and I ain’t gonna watch her suffer in return.”

“It’s okay, Vince,” Mary called, looking over her shoulder at them. “Let Lesley come.”

With one last look at Minho and Newt to reassure them, Lesley went after Thomas. It was then that she realised she hadn’t even given Mary her name.

Chapter Text

“In the beginning, we were lost,” Mary told them as she moved across the tent that vaguely resembled the Med-jacks’ shack, albeit more sophisticated and with far better equipment. They were the first words she had spoken in almost half an hour. “All we knew for sure was that the younger you were, the stronger your chances.”

Perched on a cot, Thomas looked over at her, his thumb brushing the bandaid covering the puncture wound on his arm. “You worked for WCKD?” he prompted.

After a moment, Mary nodded resignedly. “Long time ago.”

“What makes you any different, then?” Lesley bit out. “The whole WCKD is good bullshit?”

Mary pursed her lips as she stood at the makeshift lab table, pouring the vial of Thomas’s blood into another glass beaker. “You know, at first, we had the best intentions. Find a cure, save the world. It was clear you kids were the key, because you were immune. But why?”

Lesley winced. Not all of them had been immune, she thought, looking across at Brenda as she lay unconscious on an adjacent cot, panting raggedly as Jorge sat beside her, holding her hand. Her mind drifted to Winston, dying alone with his infection in the middle of a godforsaken desert; her heart clenched uncomfortably.

“Eventually, we found an answer,” Mary continued. “An enzyme produced in the brains of the immune.” She poured another clear solution into a glass tube, the mixture turning a light turquoise colour. “Once separated from the bloodstream, it can serve as a powerful agent to slow the spread of the virus.”

Thomas shifted in his seat, glancing at Lesley; she met his gaze levelly, but couldn’t help noticing the hope dancing in his eyes, thinly veiled. “So, you found a cure?” he asked, his voice strained. Behind them, Jorge sat silently, listening.

Mary shook her head. “Not exactly. The enzyme can’t be manufactured, only harvested from the immune. The young.”

“What makes this enzyme so special?” Lesley wondered.

“That was my department, when I worked for ... them,” Mary told her. “I studied the brain images of several people, all different ages. In the end, it was a scan from a thirteen year old boy who died of pneumonia that gave me the answer. He had an active, aggressive immunity, caused by a gene unseen in all the other adults. I found that the gene created an enzyme that was controlled by the brain, and it turned the area of infection into a concentrated point of healing. A killzone that targeted the Flare.”

Lesley’s eyes widened. WCKD; World Catastrophe Killzone Department. Killzone.

“And the Mazes?” Thomas asked quietly.

Mary continued to work even as she spoke. “WCKD’s strategy was to activate that killzone at maximum efficiency, to produce as much of the enzyme as possible,” she explained to them. “The problem was, that killzone was activated by a multitude of neural pathways. Pathways for danger sense, emotional connection, puzzle-solving, physical activity.”

Realisation struck Lesley like lightning. “All the things we did in the Glade,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.

Mary nodded resignedly, picking up another syringe. “There had never been a program like the Maze Trials in the history of mankind. Designed to simulate all those pathways simultaneously.”

Lesley frowned. “So, why did you leave?” she asked. “Forgive me for being blunt, but it sounds like you were pretty invested in the whole project.” And had a big hand in landing us in the Maze in the first place, I bet.

Mary suddenly looked exhausted, the lines in her face deepening. “You have every right to be wary; I know I would be the same if I’d had all my memories taken from me. To put it simply, I had a ... disagreement with Doctor Paige.”

That stopped both Lesley and Thomas in their tracks. “Ava Paige?” Thomas repeated numbly.

“Doctor Ava Paige,” Mary confirmed. “The Maze Trials were working; we’d never seen the enzyme effectivity rate so high. Hyperactivity in the frontal lobe of the brain is achieved by puzzle-solving,” she explained, “and danger increases adrenaline.” She shook her head. “But I was outraged when I found out what kind of monsters they were growing in the labs, which they then inserted into the Maze.”

Lesley’s face turned pale. “Grievers,” she whispered. Thomas gripped her wrist.

Curiosity flashed across Mary’s face, so fast it was almost nonexistent. “Doctor Paige had gone to ... great lengths with my research,” she finally decided on. “She figured that every time one of those creatures killed, as she had planned they would, the production of the killzone enzyme in your brains would be unprecedented.”

Lesley felt sick; she moved her hand to grip Thomas’s tightly, nauseating images flashing through her mind. Ben, screaming as the poison from the Sting tortured him; screaming as he was Banished. The Griever charging after them during their night in the Maze, the ground quaking beneath their feet. Monsters surging into the Glade, surrounding her, hunting her down; the Grievers murdering Alby, Zart, Clint, Jeff.

The comprehension that even their terror at the hands of those monsters had been part of the whole experiment.

“She saw it as pushing you to your limits; I saw it as torturing innocent children. They were betting children’s lives - your lives - on a miracle.” Mary turned back to her lab table. “Of course, that didn’t stop WCKD,” she said bitterly. “That’s why I left; if they had their way, they’d sacrifice an entire generation. All for this.”

She raised a syringe up for them to see, full of only millilitres of a clear, blue serum. Lesley stared; even after the multiple tubes of blood Thomas had just donated, the end result was tiny in comparison.

“A gift of biology, of evolution,” Mary whispered reverently. She glanced at Thomas and Lesley. “But one not meant for all of us.”

She stepped around to the side of the cot, kneeling down next to Jorge as the man held Brenda’s head steady, the girl now wheezing in her delirious, unconscious state. Mary pulled up Brenda’s sleeve and carefully inserted the needle into her arm, injecting the substance directly into her veins.

Lesley’s eyes widened; the effect was instantaneous. Her eyes still closed, Brenda gasped as if drawing air for the first time; her breathing finally settled into a rhythmic pace and her eyes stopped flicking maniacally beneath her lids.

Thomas’s posture relaxed, but only the smallest amount. “How long will that give her?” he asked quietly.

Mary shook her head, carefully removing the syringe. “It’s different for everyone. A few months, maybe.” She met their gazes, her eyes sad. “But that’s the catch, isn’t it? She’ll always need more.”

Jorge’s expression crumpled. Lesley placed a warm hand on Thomas’s arm, noticing that he looked just as devastated as she felt; but that was their Thomas, always trying to save everyone, to right the wrongs of a past self he couldn’t even remember.

Sighing, Mary stood up, placing a gentle hand on Jorge’s shoulder. “Okay. Let’s, um, let’s go outside. Let them rest,” she said. When the other man paused and opened his mouth to say something to Thomas, Mary added, “She’ll be fine.”

Lesley stood up as well. “I’ll give you a minute,” she told Thomas quietly, squeezing his hand briefly.

Thomas shook his head. “No,” he mumbled, snagging her wrist. “Please stay, Les.”

Lesley was taken aback by the vulnerability in Thomas’s eyes. Her expression softened. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

She had just settled herself back down on the cot when Mary spoke up from the tent flap, pulling off the disposable gloves. “Thomas ... you know she can’t come with us, right?”

Thomas bowed his head in resignation; Lesley gripped his hand tighter.

o-o-o-o-o

They sat there for a while. Neither of them said much, simply enjoying the company of one another, the quiet welcome after the frantic few days they had endured. Brenda slept on beside them, looking completely at ease, her face no longer shining with sweat as a touch of colour finally began to tint her cheeks.

Eventually, Thomas pulled on his jacket. “We should let Jorge in,” he said, slowly getting to his feet.

Nodding in agreement, Lesley started to stand when she saw the glint of metal wedged next to Brenda’s body. She frowned. “What’s that?”

Bending down, Thomas carefully grabbed it, holding it up for both of them to see. It was a dull silver case about the size and shape of a ring box; the same object Brenda had rushed to save the night they had escaped Jorge’s hideout. With shaking fingers, he tugged gently at the clasp and pulled the little box open.

It was empty except for a dulled mirror and an old photo of a young boy, smiling happily at the camera. He had dark hair ... and looked very much like Brenda.

“He was my brother.”

Lesley started at the sudden voice, glancing down to see Brenda staring up at them with that knowing look in her dark eyes.

“Hey, sorry,” Thomas murmured, carefully passing the case back to her as he and Lesley sat down on the cot next to Brenda’s one. “Are you okay?”

“How are you feeling?” Lesley asked concernedly.

Brenda didn’t answer, instead gazing longingly at the photo and running her fingers over it. “You remind me of him,” she said softly, glancing at Thomas. “He always saw the best in people.”

“Where is he now?” Thomas asked.

Brenda carefully rolled onto her side to face them, shaking her head. “I don’t know.” She sighed. “When we were kids, we were taken in by one of WCKD’s camps. They gave us a bunch of tests.”

Lesley stiffened. “Checking for immunity,” she whispered.

The devastation in Brenda’s expression confirmed it. “They didn’t want me,” she told them, her eyes glistening. “They wanted him, though. They didn’t even let me say goodbye.”

Brenda sniffled, and Lesley reached out and squeezed her hand, tears pricking her own eyes; WCKD had torn families apart for the sake of finding a cure.

“What was his name?” Thomas asked curiously.

A fond smile pulled at Brenda’s lips. “George,” she whispered.

A choked gasp escaped Lesley’s mouth before she could stop herself. Her head whipped around; Thomas had the same look of dawning realisation on his own features.

“George was one of our first boys here,” Newt told her quietly. “Arrived a month or so after Alby ... he went crazy, from what I heard. Went out into the Maze one day and turned psycho overnight. I guess he got Stung by the buggers.”

“What is it?” Brenda asked, her brow creasing.

Lesley swallowed audibly. “There was a ... um ... back in the Maze,” she started, her voice barely audible as she remembered what Alby told her, “back in the Glade, there used to be a boy named George.”

Used to be. Brenda’s eyes fluttered close for a moment at the implication. “What happened to him?” she asked finally.

Lesley shook her head. “He was gone long before we arrived,” she said sadly. “They buried him in the forest. Sounds like he was attacked by one of the monsters WCKD stuck in the Maze with us.”

Brenda nodded, resignation seeping across her features. They sat in silence for a long moment, all of them thinking, all of them remembering.

It suddenly hit Lesley. “That’s why you gave us the food, wasn’t it?” she said softly.

Brenda curled in on herself protectively. “I’ve always been used to looking after someone,” she admitted. “Guess I’ve always cared too much.”

Cared too much. Thomas reached into his pocket, blindly searching for a moment before pulling out a small wooden carving; Lesley’s heart stuttered in her chest. Brenda stared at the ornament curiously as Thomas passed it to her, carefully examining it.

“That was Chuck,” Thomas told her quietly.

Lesley smiled softly, remembering the ball of sunshine their Chuckie had been, a little bit of light in a dark place; the affectionate, endearing, naive Slopper who had somehow wormed his way into everyone’s hearts within two weeks of his arrival.

“How did he die?” Brenda whispered.

Thomas smiled sadly. “Saving my life.”

Lesley gripped Thomas’s shoulder in a gesture of comfort as he took the carving back, gazing at the ornament with a fond smile on his face. It was if a burden they hadn’t even realised existed had abruptly been lifted from their shoulders; all three of them sat there, chuckling at old memories for a few precious moments.

Eventually, the laughter faded into an air of deep comfort; Lesley could no longer feel the weight of Chuck’s death, and she could tell Thomas felt the same. It was burying Ben’s shirt all over again; a chance to say goodbye to what had been.

Thomas gave Brenda a warm smile and said, “Get some rest.”

“Wait,” Brenda called softly as they began to stand. “Lesley?”

Lesley paused. “Yeah?”

Thomas squeezed her shoulder. “I’ll meet you outside, okay?”

Lesley nodded. As soon as he was gone, Brenda smiled sheepishly, a light blush staining her pale cheeks. “Hey, I never really apologised for what happened at the Crank party -”

Lesley shook her head firmly. “It’s okay,” she assured. “You, uh ...” She laughed nervously, rubbing the back of her neck. “You weren’t the only one. It was a ... uh, a dual effort.”

Brenda bit down on her lip, watching Lesley’s expression carefully through narrowed eyes as if searching for any sign of deception. Seemingly satisfied, she finally nodded after a few moments. “We’re good?”

“We’re good,” Lesley confirmed. A second later, she grinned despite herself. “Thanks for a good first kiss.”

Brenda’s eyes grew impossibly wide. “Oh, shit -”

Lesley laughed, shaking her head. “Don’t worry about it. I said we’re good.”

A hiss of air escaping her teeth, Brenda fidgeted with her fingers, rolling herself onto her back even as she continued to look at Lesley. “You know, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it,” she said, her scratchy voice soft.

Lesley swallowed thickly. “Neither have I.” A pause. “I - I thought you liked Thomas. The Crank party -”

Brenda looked away. “I do, but ... you’re not so bad looking yourself, Les. Boys are pretty constipated when it comes to telling you that sort of thing, and if what that Newt guy was saying in Bertha was true, you’ve been stuck with a lot of ‘em for a long time.”

Lesley shrugged, her face warm. “It hasn’t been all bad, and I wouldn’t have changed it for anything in the world.” She smiled sadly. “It’s all I’ve ever known, really.”

The silence stretched again.

“We all lost our minds a little at the party,” Brenda began again. She looked away. “I ... I think there was a part of me that wanted to see your reaction. I wasn’t sure if you - I -”

Lesley blinked when Brenda flushed. Oh. She felt heat rise to her own face. “I, um. Yeah. I’m pretty sure I swing both ways.”

She felt awkward saying it aloud, but it felt right despite not having a conversation with herself about it, not having the time to dwell on it. It was hard for her to know after being stuck with a group of boys for so long, when most of them felt like her brothers more than anything, but her thoughts on the girls she had encountered since the Maze - most notably Brenda herself - had been more than a slow wake up call.

She just wasn’t entirely certain about this. Her thoughts ... always ended up wandering to another.

Brenda’s eyes gleamed. “I swing too.” She swallowed thickly, a sudden nervous air around her that Lesley had never associated Brenda. She always seemed so confident. “So ...?”

Lesley cleared her throat, the sound loud in the quiet space. “I just ... don’t know how I feel about ... us,” she started awkwardly. “There’s ... I think I ....”

She could feel herself getting flustered; this was too much to think about, after everything they had all been through. She felt a warm pressure against her hand, and glanced up to see Brenda staring at her with a searing kindness in her eyes.

“It’s okay,” Brenda promised her. She smiled tentatively. “Still friends, though?”

She had barely finished the sentence when Lesley lunged forward, hugging her tight. “Of course, Brenda,” she gasped, smiling as she felt Brenda’s arms wrap around her. “Of course.”

o-o-o-o-o

Lesley had barely emerged from the tent when Jorge hauled her into a bone-crushing embrace, knocking the air out of her. “Hermana,” he murmured. “Thank you.”

Tears pricked at Lesley’s eyes as she hugged him back just as tightly. “It was all Thomas,” she told him. “I didn’t do shit.”

Jorge gave a choked snort of laughter. He exhaled shakily, taking a step back, the deep lines of weariness on his face more evident than ever; he looked more ragged and worn than she had ever seen him. “Thank you,” he repeated hoarsely. “If anything were to happen to her, I ...”

Thomas clapped him warmly on the shoulder, nodding in understanding. “I know, I know,” he said softly. He jerked his head at the tent. “You should get in there. Go talk to her.”

Lesley smiled kindly. “I think she’s waiting for you.”

Nodding, Jorge moved towards the tent. He stopped, weathered fingers barely brushing the canvas, turning to look at Thomas and Lesley with a small smile. “Guess I owe you, now,” he chuckled, his gaze darting to Thomas’s arm where the blood had been drawn.

Thomas shook his head adamantly. “Call it even,” he resolved.

“Lives aren’t meant to be bargaining chips,” Lesley added softly.

Jorge paused at those words. “I met Brenda right after she lost her brother to WCKD,” he said suddenly. “I took her to a Right Arm outpost, hoping they’d at least give her something to live for, but WCKD found the camp barely a day after we got there.” He shook his head, his frown deepening. “Marcus told me to get in his truck so we could get the hell out, that WCKD was after the kids, not us ... but I just couldn’t leave her.” He looked away. “It wasn’t about the profit anymore.”

Lesley stared, gobsmacked, as the piece of the puzzle fell into place. But before she could say anything, Jorge lifted the tent flap and was gone.

Chapter Text

As the sky began to darken, Lesley found herself sitting up on the ridge above the camp, the small cliff giving her the perfect vantage point as she sat with Frypan, Minho, Newt and Thomas. The air temperature was dropping significantly with the setting of the sun, but all of them were comfortable in the warm, frayed clothes they had been gifted by the people of the Right Arm, woolen coats that wrapped around them snuggly and kept out the biting cold.

They looked down at the camp, watching everyone milling around, chattering and finishing up chores for the day like they had once done in the Glade. Smoke from the firepits drifted skywards, the mouthwatering aroma of smoked meat in the air.

“I wish Alby could’ve seen all this,” Newt said softly, a look of amazement mixed with a content sort of pride on his features; it was an expression that had always appeared when he looked around the Glade.

“And Winston,” Frypan added.

Lesley swallowed thickly. “And Ben,” she whispered. Minho squeezed her shoulder tightly, nodding in agreement.

Thomas turned the wooden carving over in his hands, carefully running his thumb across the smooth surface. “And Chuck.”

Newt watched him carefully. “He’d be proud of you, you know, Tommy,” he told him softly, his eyes warm and earnest as he met Thomas’s gaze.

Thomas nodded slowly and looked away, his face flushing at the intensity of Newt’s stare. “I hope so,” he mumbled.

“Don’t be so modest,” Lesley said softly, stretching her leg out to nudge his foot, grabbing his attention. “We couldn’t have done this without you.”

“Don’t boost his ego,” Minho joked. “His head’s big enough as it is.”

“Y’all be forgetting we had to rope in another brain cell to get us outta that mess earlier,” Frypan grinned, glancing down at the camp. “Hey, Aris!”

Aris was sitting near the main firepit, perched on a stack of wooden crates and chatting to Sonya and Harriet. He raised his hand in greeting. “Hey, guys!” he shouted, grinning.

Frypan chuckled. “I kinda like that kid,” he told the others.

“Yeeaaah,” Minho said, fighting back a grin as he teased, “I still don’t trust him, though.”

Seconds later, all of them broke out laughing, glancing at each other with warm, relaxed smiles. Lesley finally felt like she could breathe again. This place, these people, felt real in a way the WCKD facility never had.

“Hey, where’s Teresa?” Thomas asked suddenly.

“Hmm?” Newt jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “She went up there.”

Lesley turned to look. Teresa’s silhouette could be seen atop another of the cliffs at the rear of the camp. She stood tall, her hair billowing as she stared out at the horizon.

Thomas pursed his lips, getting to his feet. “I guess I’ll go see if she’s alright,” he said.

Newt nodded. “Later, Thomas.”

They relaxed back onto the warm rocks again. Lesley gazed up at the sky, watching the colours change with the setting of the sun; several bright pinpricks of light could now be seen, stars and planets emerging for the night. A comfortable silence stretched between the Gladers.

“Well, I can’t take sitting here any longer,” Minho announced abruptly, standing. “I’m going for a walk. Wanna come, Les?”

“Aw, is little Minho lonely?” Lesley teased.

“Little,” Frypan sniggered.

“Shut it,” Minho told him, his eyes glinting. He nudged Lesley’s shin with his boot. “You coming, slowpoke?”

Lesley rolled her eyes, shaking her head fondly. “Yeah, yeah.”

Ignoring the wicked smirk Newt aimed her way, she clambered to her feet and the two of them set off across the rocky terrain, their shoes scuffing the surface as they followed the dips and curves of the landscape.

“It’s hard to sit still now, isn’t it?” Lesley mused.

Minho chuckled, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. “Tell me about it. I mean, you and I have been Runners for almost as long as we can remember. Literally.”

“Always running,” Lesley said softly. She glanced at him and smiled. “I kinda miss it, to be honest. Seeing the sunrise; mapping the Maze; exploring beyond the Glade.” Her expression turned wicked. “Or it might have just been the dancing rituals.”

Smirking like he was going to fire a cheeky retort at her, there was a glint in Minho’s eyes, but then his expression unexpectedly softened into something more earnest. “Yeah,” he exhaled, smiling fondly. “I miss it, too.”

The two of them slowly came to a stop, Minho moving around so he was facing Lesley. “How you been holding up, shank?” he asked. “You okay?”

Surprised by his seriousness, Lesley frowned. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’ve got shadows under your eyes,” Minho pointed out, his brow creasing.

Lesley shrugged her shoulders in response. “Can’t be worse than yours are, Min.”

“I got hit by lightning, what’s your excuse?”

A sudden bark of laughter burst from Lesley’s mouth. “That was days ago.”

Minho raised his eyebrows, his eyes twinkling. “Well, pardon me for pulling the pity card, shank. Now answer my shucking question.”

Lesley pursed her lips, scuffing the ground with her boot. “I’m having trouble sleeping, I guess,” she admitted. “I’m just tired.”

“Just tired?” Minho repeated, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

Lesley shook her head. “I’m tired of this kind of running, Min. I don’t want to just survive; I want to live.”

Live like they had in the Glade, where her heartbeat had thundered in time with the drums on bonfire night, her spirits rising with the cheers and hollers of her brothers.

Minho hesitantly touched her arm. “Les, I know it’s hard to believe it after every shucking thing we’ve been through,” he told her, “but I think we’re finally safe. Sounds like everyone here is fighting against those guys at WCKD.” He pulled his hand away, rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously. “I know we’ve only been here a day, but ... I guess I kinda feel like these people could eventually be family. Like the Gladers.”

Lesley blinked. Minho was rarely so earnest with his words, always shifting between bluntness and sarcasm; she could count only a few times he had let himself become so vulnerable around her. It was a strange but not unwelcome change. “I really hope so, too,” she smiled softly.

A comfortable silence settled between them. Minho tilted his head, his mouth twitching as he peered at her. Lesley laughed nervously. “What?” she asked.

Minho rocked back on his heels, biting the inside of his cheek. “I know Tomboy didn’t say it outright, back in the Glade,” he began, “but it looks like we did know each other before all this.” There was a strangely raw emotion in his eyes. “Whatever happened, shank, I’m glad it did. Even if I don’t remember it.”

Lesley stared at him in surprise. The question that had burst from her mouth after first encountering a Griever had slipped past her guard and haunted her ever since. That had been months ago, and yet he’d kept it safe for her.

“Minho, do you think we knew each other before all this?”

Her heart turned over in his chest. Smiling, she reached out and squeezed his fingers. “Me too, Min. Me too.”

Minho’s expression twitched, his mouth tugging at the corners. “Shank ... your hands are shucking freezing.”

“Oh yeah?” A sudden grin splitting her face, Lesley jammed her hands down his shirt collar, burrowing beneath his scarf.

Minho yelped in alarm, wrestling with her for several moments before finally twisting out from under her. “You’re gonna pay for that, slinthead!” he howled, clamping his hands on either side of her face.

Lesley shrieked with laughter. “You’re shucking freezing!” she yelled, swatting at him.

Minho threw his head back and laughed, the sound loud and infectious, his eyes crinkling at the corners, the sunset highlighting his jawline, his apple bobbing with the movement of his throat.

She couldn't stop staring.

His fingers began to burn on her cheeks as he looked back at her, his expression oozing adoration. Lesley realised she had never seen Minho’s face this close, in so much detail before. His dark eyes, deep and full of emotion, boring into her own with an intensity she’d never seen before.

They were barely inches apart.

Minho’s breath hitched audibly, an unreadable expression on his face, and she knew he was thinking the same.

Lesley’s throat felt dry. She licked her lips nervously, his gaze flicking down to track the movement ... and lingering on her mouth. “Min?” she whispered, voice cracking.

Her heart was racing, pounding like a drum in her chest. She was suddenly terrified. What if she leaned forward and closed the gap between them?

She was alarmed by how badly she wanted to kiss him.

The Crank party had forced her to confront something she had desperately been trying to ignore, evidence that had been clamouring for her attention for - for - well, weeks now. All the little touches, the looks, the teases; the late night talks beneath the stars that helped her sleep; the smiles, the jokes; the nicknames that made a fire smoulder in her heart; the quiet moments of intimacy, holding hands and falling asleep against one another; an overwhelming feeling of safety when she was with him.

Shucking hell. She really did like him. Shuck.

She had barely finished talking to Brenda; it felt like the universe was giving her more than just a gentle nudge - more like sending her careening down a new path, her thoughts racing a mile a minute.

Newt’s voice drifted through her mind. “So now you’re saying I do have a nice face? Or does someone else? Maybe ... hmm, I don’t know ... perhaps a certain Minho?”

Had everyone else figured it out already? Had it really been so obvious?

She suddenly realised. The thrill of running the ivy corridors beyond the Glade, her heart in her mouth, laughing; maybe it wasn’t just the Maze. Maybe a part of it had been Minho all along.

Images, words, flashed through her head, frighteningly fast. “You just have to ask, you shank ... Aw, shank, miss me already? ... You tryna distract me, Les? ... With a hint of tomboy thrown in,” he winked.

Had he ... had Minho been flirting with her? Shucking hell, she was dumber than a Greenie on First Day. But what if she had been completely misinterpreting gestures of friendliness, with a more brotherly intent? And, more importantly, had she been flirting back without even realising it?

Lesley was so confused, and she was still staring. Shuck, he was still staring; Minho was gazing at her with something akin to awe or shock or something, his pupils blown wide. He licked his lips, his eyes darting across her face. He shifted his fingers; Lesley froze, lips parting as lightning danced across her skin where Minho’s thumb brushed against her cheek, soft and hesitant.

Lesley’s heart roared, her blood pounding in her ears, the noise so deafening she could barely think over the mechanical thud of the -

Wait. She was dragged back to reality, Minho also blinking as if coming out of a trance.

Their noses brushing, they turned their heads, mouths dropping open at the sight of the bright lights in the sky heading their way, two choppers moving at full speed.

“They’re not ours,” Minho whispered in horror.

Lesley grabbed his hand, her chest tightening. “Come on!” she cried.

Chapter Text

Her heart in her throat, Lesley ran back towards Newt and Frypan as fast as her feet could carry her, Minho at her side. The two boys were standing where they had left them, staring at the approaching aircraft with wide eyes. They spun around at the sound of footsteps.

“It’s WCKD!” Lesley shouted, panic flooding her. “They’ve found us!”

“Get to the camp!” Minho yelled.

The four of them scrambled down the jagged hillside. Others were starting to look up at the rapidly darkening sky, frowning at the steadily increasing humming noise filling the air, pointing at the lights. Shouts of alarm began to sound, people scrambling for cover.

“Shit,” Newt swore, his heart pounding.

“How did they find us?” Frypan shrieked, skidding on the ground. “Oh hell, oh hell -”

“Vince!” Lesley screamed as they reached the main encampment. “VINCE!”

“EVERYONE GET DOWN!” Minho roared.

With a harrowing shriek, the first missile hit. The ground heaved as the weapon slammed into the camp, the world quaking; people were thrown into the air screaming as a massive fireball erupted. And then another, and another. Screams pierced the night, barely heard over the sharp rat-a-tat of gunfire.

Amidst swirling dust clouds, the choppers landed and WCKD soldiers poured onto the ground, surging through the camp like a crushing tsunami.

“Where’s Thomas?!” Frypan shouted as they dove behind a stack of metal barrels on the edge of the camp.

“Don’t know!” Lesley yelled back unhelpfully, squished between Newt and Minho. “Where’s Teresa?!”

“Harriet!” they heard Vince roar. “AMMO! Hurry!”

Lesley chanced a glance over the top of the canisters. “There!” she pointed, wincing as another explosion nearby sent dirt and rubble hailing down on their heads.

Vince stood on the back of a pickup truck, a shotgun in his hand as he ducked behind a massive machine gun. Harriet was knelt beside the wheels of the vehicle, passing him cartridges.

“We gotta get to them!” Newt yelled over the cacophony.

Her teeth gritted, Lesley nodded. “Whatever happens, stay together!” she shouted.

Another fireball erupted, consuming a tent across from them. “Go! Go, now!” Minho shouted, bolting forward. “Vince! Harriet!”

Charging through the chaos, Lesley held her breath, wincing at every blast and every shattering round of gunfire. They plowed through the smoke, through the debris, past the soldiers. Her heart thundered in her chest, wild and anxious.

Vince saw them approaching. “Come on!” he hollered.

“Over here!” Harriet waved frantically.

The four Gladers scrambled for cover behind the rear of the vehicle. “How can we help?” Frypan yelped.

“You need to cover us!” Harriet told them.

“Ammo!” Vince yelled, and Harriet tossed him another stack of bullets. “Hey!” he suddenly cried, crouching down and shoving the shotgun he had been firing into Minho’s hands. “Do you know how to use this thing?”

Minho nodded, gritting his teeth as he cocked the rifle. “Jorge!” he explained to Lesley.

“Cover me!” Vince ordered as Harriet passed guns to Lesley, Newt and Frypan. “This fifty’s our only chance!” he told them, clambering up behind the machine gun on the back of the truck.

Newt and Frypan ducked around to one side of the truck while Minho and Lesley prepared to hold the other. As Lesley took one of the guns in her hands, a sickening weight dropped in her stomach, a sharp memory of WCKD and Janson surging to the surface. The corridor; fish in a barrel; electricity exploding.

She shoved the image from her mind and tried to remember the feel of the weapon in her hands. “What do I do?!” she shouted, staring at the gun.

Minho ducked his head, lips brushing her ear so she could hear him over the noise. “Just watch me, okay?!”

The soldiers swarmed.

One sweep of Minho’s movements was all Lesley needed; her teeth clenched, she sent bullet after bullet into the mounting chaos, her shoulder jerking backwards with every shot, the rebound far more intense than WCKD’s lab-crafted weapons.

“Vince, hurry up!” Newt shouted. “There’s too many of them!”

Frypan pulled his trigger; there was an audible click but no shot. “I’m out!”

A WCKD guard charged out of the haze, throwing something in their direction. Lesley’s eyes widened at the pulsing blue light soaring towards them; the device landed in the back of the truck, right at Vince’s feet.

Oh, shit -! “Grenade!” Lesley screamed.

“Look out!” Newt roared.

They had barely begun to move; in a blinding flash of light, the device exploded with electricity, blue bolts incapacitating all six of them. Agony rocketing up her spine, Lesley screamed, the sound muffled as her jaw locked, her teeth slamming together; a second later, her knees buckled and she collapsed. Groaning quietly, Minho landed half on top of her, convulsing for a moment before becoming motionless.

Lesley’s vision flickered, spots dancing. She heard the stomping of heavy boots, heard the cocking of guns, the sounds muffled and distant. Her head spun; she was being moved, dragged across the sand; she waited for unconsciousness, for death, but it never came.

A sharp pulse to her neck sent her jolting upright with a groan, spasms and aches rocking her muscles as her head reeled; Lesley felt like she was going to be sick. Vaguely, she saw blond hair beside her; Newt.

“Get up!” a voice commanded harshly. “I said get up, now!”

Barely able to move, they were dragged to their feet and forced towards the centre of the encampment where all the other prisoners were being gathered. Lesley was shoved to her knees between Minho and Newt. Harriet, Frypan and Aris were pushed down beside them.

“Line them up right here!” one of the soldiers yelled. “On their knees!”

“Put some eyes up on that ridge!” someone else ordered.

As Sonya was forced to the ground beside Aris, a guard jerked her head sideways to scan the back of her neck with the device in his hand. There was a sharp beeping noise. “B-4!” he announced.

Another man stood off to the side, writing down the identification numbers on a clipboard as the guard continued down the line of prisoners.

“How many did we get?” Janson asked the man, appearing out of one of the choppers. Lesley’s gut clenched at the sight of him.

“All of them. Give or take.”

Janson eyed the prisoners, searching. “Give or take what?”

“Well, they lost a few,” came the almost nervous reply.

“A-5,” the guard called as he scanned Newt’s neck. He suddenly grabbed Lesley’s hair and yanked her head sideways, making her cry out in pain as the device was jammed against her skin. Another beep. “A-4.”

Minho subtly reached between them and grabbed her hand as the device scanned his own neck. “A-7!” the guard shouted.

His expression souring, Janson suddenly whirled around to face the other WCKD soldiers. “Where’s Thomas?” he demanded.

“Right here.”

Lesley closed her eyes in resignation. “Shit,” she breathed.

“Freeze!” a guard yelled, aiming a gun at Thomas as he emerged from the shadows, arms raised in surrender. Lesley chanced a glance at Janson, and her blood ran cold. He had a victorious leer on his face, his eyes smug.

The same guard shoved Thomas towards Janson, who smiled sadistically. “Thomas,” he greeted, clapping him firmly on the shoulder as if they were old friends.

He barely left time for a response, ramming his fist into Thomas’s stomach with as much force as he could. A choked gasp bursting from his mouth, Thomas doubled over, wheezing and grunting.

“Hey!” Lesley shouted, and Minho’s hand gripped her own even tighter, a silent message. Don’t. Not now. Don’t risk it.

Anger roared through her veins, desperate to break free, but she obeyed.

“Get him in line,” Janson ordered.

Thomas winced as he was shoved painfully onto his knees beside Minho, his breath still coming out in sharp, uneven stutters, his eyes watering. Leaning forward to get a better view, Newt watched him carefully, worry clouding his features.

“A-2!” the guard called out, scanning Thomas’s neck.

“Okay,” Janson started, looking around with a smug expression on his rat-like face. He glanced at the man with the clipboard. “Bring her in,” he commanded.

Minho inhaled sharply. “Why didn’t you run?” he asked Thomas quietly.

Thomas shook his head. He was silent for a long moment. “I’m tired of running.”

The distant roar of an engine drew their attentions to the sky. Lesley swallowed hard, her hair whipping about her face. “That’s a berg,” she whispered.

Sure enough, the great craft began to descend from the smoke polluting the night air, lights blazing and propellors whirring. As dust clouds began to billow around the prisoners, they all raised their arms to shield their faces, everyone gasping and murmuring in fear as the berg dropped down and settled onto the sand.

With the clanking of metal, the berg door folded open to reveal a group of people standing waiting to exit the craft. And there she was, all dressed in white like an angel of death.

Frypan, Newt and Minho all stared in abject shock, their mouths dropping open; Ava Paige was truly, definitely, unmistakably alive.

Flanked by six WCKD soldiers, Paige strode confidently towards the group of prisoners, coming to a stop beside Janson. “Is this all of them?” she asked, her voice hard.

“Most of them,” Janson told her. “It’ll be enough.”

Paige nodded, apparently satisfied. “Start loading them in,” she ordered.

“Yes, ma’am.” Janson turned to the soldiers. “Okay, you heard!” he shouted. “Let’s go! Get ‘em on!”

Lesley’s head whipped about. All around her, people were being hauled upright and shoved in the direction of the berg, guns pressed to their backs. Dread surged through her, a sickening sense of defeat churning in her gut. They had never been able to outrun WCKD after all.

A guard suddenly grabbed Thomas by the shoulders and dragged him to his feet, shoving him forward until he stood level with Paige. She smiled. “Hello, Thomas.”

At that moment, another soldier moved forward with Teresa. Lesley frowned at the blatant lack of manhandling their fellow Glader was receiving from the soldiers compared to the rest of them.

And then Paige’s words changed everything.

“I’m so glad you’re safe,” she told Teresa warmly, reaching out an arm towards her and bringing her closer.

“What the hell?” Frypan uttered as he, Minho, Newt and Lesley slowly stood up, staring at the scene with shocked, confused expressions. “Teresa?”

“Wait, what’s going on?” Newt asked, his brow furrowed as he looked between Thomas and Teresa.

Thomas swallowed hard. “She’s with them.”

Everyone turned to stare at him. “Since when?” Minho breathed, dumbfounded.

Janson stepped forward, smirking. “Oh, Teresa’s always had an evolved appreciation of the greater good,” he told them matter-of-factly. “Once we restored her memories, it was only a matter of time.”

“She got her memories back?” Newt repeated weakly.

Lesley’s mind whirred, her thoughts a million miles away. They hadn’t been close to WCKD in days, weeks; there was no possible way Teresa could have been in contact with them since the beginning, when they first escaped the facility. Surely, the Gladers would have noticed something -

Her thoughts screeched to a halt. The man back at Jorge’s hideout; Barkley. He had used a walkie talkie to relay his progress to Janson. She must have taken it. “You bitch,” Lesley snarled, trembling with rage. “You absolute traitor.”

Teresa finally met their gazes. “I’m sorry,” she said shakily, her eyes glistening. “I had no choice -”

Lesley’s jaw clenched. “Bullshit. There’s always a choice,” she ground out.

Teresa shook her head. “You don’t know - you didn’t - I saw us,” she finally gasped. “I saw us growing up in a world with the Flare and I realised - Thomas, we realised - we could help stop it.” She swallowed audibly. “This is the only way. We have to find a cure.”

“She’s right,” Paige told them, bright red lips stretched in a thin line. “This is all just a means to an end. You used to understand that, Thomas.”

Thomas flinched.

“No matter what you think of me,” Paige continued, “I am not a monster. I’m a doctor. I swore an oath to find a cure! No matter the cost.” She exhaled deeply, suddenly looking desperate. “I just need more time.”

“More blood!”

All of them turned at the unexpected shout. Mary stood defiantly on the hillside beside Vince, the deep lines of anger on her features unmistakeable in the firelight.

Paige’s expression turned regretful. “Hello, Mary,” she greeted resignedly. “I hoped we’d meet again. I’m sorry it had to be under these circumstances.”

Mary raised her head proudly. “I’m sorry about a lot of things, too,” she admitted. “But not this. At least my conscience is clear.”

Paige’s stare turned cold. “So is mine.”

The vicious crack of a gunshot split the air. People screamed, ducking their heads as they searched frantically around them. Mary stared down at the blood suddenly seeping across her torso, her face paling as she clutched her stomach.

“Mary?” Vince cried, his voice tight with horror. “Mary? Mary!”

He shoved the guards away and caught her as she collapsed to the ground. “Mary!” he screamed in anguish. “NO! Mary -!”

Her chest heaving, Lesley whirled around to see Janson standing there with his handgun outstretched.

As Vince’s helpless wails pierced the night, Paige visibly steeled herself. “Come on, Janson,” she said, her voice hard. “Load them up. Let’s go.” She turned towards the berg, leading Teresa by the arm. “All these people. Get rid of them. Let’s go. Let’s go!”

Vince was dragged away from Mary’s body, fighting and struggling; other soldiers began grabbing as many people as possible, forcing them to their feet and hauling them in the direction of the craft. Several armed men moved in around the Gladers. One of them pointed a gun at Thomas’s back and shoved him towards the berg, herding him away from the others.

“Thomas!” Lesley cried; Newt growled, his eyes wild and frightened.

Grimacing, Thomas reached into his jacket pocket and swung his other arm up, ramming his elbow into the face of the guard behind him and sending him sprawling. Other soldiers surged forward -

“Get back!” Thomas roared, gripping a small metal box in one hand and a clicker in the other. “Everyone stand back! STAND BACK!”

Lesley froze as the shoving hands dropped away from her shoulders; it was an explosive.

Newt’s jaw fell open in shock, awe flitting across his features.

Janson ran forward. “Hold your fire!” he yelled, pushing past the other guards until he was mere feet away from Thomas. “Hold your fire!”

“Stand back!” Thomas shouted, pointing towards the berg. “Let ‘em go!”

Janson threw his hands up in a desperate, placating gesture. “Thomas, put it down,” he implored as if he were talking to a small child.

“LET ‘EM ALL GO!” Thomas screamed.

“You know I can’t do that!” Paige shouted, rushing forward to stand beside Janson.

“Thomas, please stop!” Teresa begged, tears spilling from her eyes. “I made a deal with them. They promised - they promised we’d be safe. All of us.”

Minho inhaled sharply, and Lesley’s stomach clenched. Safe? With WCKD?

“And I’m supposed to trust you now?” Thomas bit out in disbelief, his jaw clenched.

“It’s true!” Paige cried. “It was her only condition!”

Thomas jerked his head. “Shut up!” he yelled.

Paige held her ground. “Everything can go back to the way it was,” she told him. Her gaze drifted to the other prisoners, to Lesley, Minho, Newt, Frypan. “Thomas ... do you really want all of them to die?”

Thomas’s bottom lip trembled as he fought back tears.

“Listen to her, Thomas,” Janson said quietly. “Think about what you’re doing.”

Thomas stood there, breathing heavily, conflicted, the undeniable shadow of fear in his eyes as his face contorted with pain.

And then he felt someone move to join him.

Lesley stepped forward next to Minho, the three of them standing side by side; the three remaining Runners with no paths left to map and only one viable course ahead, any other option unthinkable; time and history taunting them.

Trapped in on all sides by WCKD again, Lesley mused. Stay in the Glade, or face the Maze; certain death no matter their strategy, no matter their choice.

A second later, Newt was there, and so was Frypan. “We’re with you, Thomas,” Newt whispered, his voice shaking with conviction.

“No,” Teresa choked out.

Paige’s expression crumpled. “Don’t,” she begged.

Minho nodded. “Do it, Thomas.”

“We’re ready,” Frypan murmured.

Lesley grabbed Newt’s fingers with one hand, and with the other she grasped Minho’s hand tightly in her own, suddenly terrified to die alone, physically unconnected to her Glader family.

They both squeezed her fingers back just as hard.

Exhaling shakily, Lesley focused on the warmth of their bodies, pressed against her own. “See you shanks on the other side,” she whispered as Frypan grasped her shoulder.

They were possibly about to condemn the world with their actions, but her entire world was right here in this circle of people. Everything else had faded from her mind, nothing more important than the boys standing around her.

There was a wretched look of longing on Minho’s face as he glanced at her. Newt exhaled a shuddering breath, shifting on his feet as he gripped her hand even tighter, his palms clammy.

Thomas swallowed thickly, his thumb hovering over the detonator. “We’re not going back there,” he told Paige firmly, his voice deathly quiet.

Paige stared at him, visibly shocked and distraught as her gaze flicked between the kids who would rather die than help WCKD. “Thomas?”

Thomas shook his head, exhaling shakily. “It’s the only way.”

A sob choked in Lesley’s throat. Frypan’s warmth behind her, she gripped Newt and Minho’s hands tighter, tears sliding down her cheeks as she squeezed her eyes shut, waiting -

The thunderous snarl of an engine cut through the air.

Her eyes flying open, Lesley jerked her head around, her mouth gaping.

“What the -?” Frypan started.

“HEY!” Jorge roared, gunning it towards them.

Chapter Text

The truck charged through mayhem, ramming through piles of flaming debris as it jolted and rolled across the rocks; people threw themselves out of the way, screams piercing the night. Undeterred by the bullets ricocheting off the frame, Jorge slammed the vehicle into one of the helicopters even as the pilots fought desperately to take off; the aircraft went sideways, rolling and crashing against the ground, disappearing in a ball of fire as the engine exploded.

The chopper blades snapped off and went careening across the camp. Screaming, Lesley threw herself to the ground, Newt collapsing heavily beside her as Thomas looked about wildly. All around them, people were on the ground, arms shielding their heads as the blades cleared the air where they had been standing split seconds earlier. There was the sickening sound of a slice here, an impact there; a scream, a guttural groan.

“Move! This way!” Vince suddenly bellowed.

And then utter chaos erupted.

People went in all directions. Staggering to her feet, Lesley gasped as she saw two, three kids beating the living shuck out of some WCKD guards - and winning.

“Get her out of here!” Janson yelled, shielding Teresa with his arms as he ushered Paige towards the berg.

Thomas grabbed Newt’s hand. “You good?” he shouted, helping him to his feet; Newt nodded sharply.

“Freeze!” a voice howled, jolting Lesley back to her senses as there was the sound of weaponry firing up.

“Shuck,” Minho swore, his gaze darting.

They were surrounded.

“Drop it, kid! Drop it!” the soldier yelled again, jabbing his gun at Thomas.

He went rigid. Lesley glanced down; Thomas still had the detonator in his hand. Suddenly, she was filled with a fire roaring through her veins; determined to survive, to live. But all it would take was one misstep, one push of his finger, and it would all be over; they were standing so close to him there wouldn’t be anything left to recover.

Thomas threw the explosive at the soldiers.

Lesley’s body was moving before her mind had caught up, staggering backwards, tripping over Minho’s feet. “Shit!” she screamed.

“Run!” Thomas roared. “GET DOWN!”

Frypan threw his weight at them, punching the air from Lesley’s lungs as she, Minho and Newt all toppled to the ground together.

The world exploded.

The ground heaved beneath her body, a wave of thunder through the dirt, a frightening roar in her ears. Lesley grit her teeth against the scream threatening to tear from her throat, clamped her eyes shut against the flash of red and orange and gold that seared against her lids.

And then she was getting hauled to her feet again.

“Come on, shank,” Minho gasped.

Lesley coughed raggedly, the smoke so thick she could barely see, her eyes stinging viciously. “Thomas!” she croaked, seeing him still struggling to stand upright.

A shadow lunged through the fire-lit smoke and a fist slammed into Thomas’s face, sending him crashing to the dirt again with a grunt of pain.

“Tommy!” Newt roared, darting forward only to come crashing to a halt at the sharp cocking sound of a weapon; Lesley choked for breath.

Janson was aiming his gun directly at Thomas’s head. “What a waste!” he snarled.

A gunshot split the air, a violent, whiplike crack, and Janson collapsed to the ground, his hand clamped over his shoulder. Gaping, Lesley whirled around, eyes frantically scanning the camp.

Brenda stood up on the ridge, cocking her weapon again.

Lesley laughed. “You sly minx,” she grinned.

There was a change in the air, the tide visibly turning against WCKD.

Harriet snatched a gun from one of the fallen soldiers and began firing it. “Vince, go!” she yelled.

Nodding tightly, Vince charged across the field and scrambled up onto the truck, grabbing the handles of the machine gun and hammering the trigger. Bullets exploded across the camp amidst blinding flashes of light.

“Come on, come on!” Frypan shrieked.

Adrenaline roaring through her, Lesley grabbed Minho’s hand, shoving Newt ahead of her. The sheer cacophony was overwhelming as they sprinted across the camp, the noise assaulting her already battered hearing as explosions continued to erupt around them. Frantically wondering how they hadn’t been hit yet, she glanced up through the haze to see Brenda tracking them, keeping them safe; a figure lunged towards Thomas, but was shot dead before he could even raise his weapon.

“Sonya!” Harriet screamed distantly.

“I’ve got her!” Aris yelled.

Crashing to a stop, Lesley whirled around. An unconscious Sonya was being dragged towards the berg; a second later, she saw a guard knock Aris to the ground with the butt of a rifle. Horror surged through her; the harder she peered through the billowing orange smoke, the more teenagers she could see being herded towards the berg. WCKD had regained their advantage; the Right Arm was losing.

“Come on, shank!” Minho bellowed, grabbing her hand again and dragging her up the hillside.

“They’ve got Aris!” Lesley shrieked, the roar of her heartbeat deafening in her ears. “We’ve got to save him!”

Minho snarled. “Shank, if we don’t get out of this alive, there’s gonna be no one left to help them!”

They reached the outskirts of the camp. Wrenching his hand free, Minho seized a gun off the ground. “Get outta here! Go, go!”

“Careful, Minho!” Newt cried, grabbing Frypan and hauling him along with him.

Lesley stood her ground. “I’m not leaving you, Min!” she shouted above the noise.

“Not this again,” Minho growled, firing once, twice.

Lesley swore. For the love of all shuck, it was the Maze all over again; when was he going to understand that she wasn’t going to leave him? That she couldn’t bear to lose him.

Thomas finally caught up to them. “Come on, Thomas!” Minho shouted, firing a shot at a soldier on his tail. “Get outta here!”

“Minho, let’s go!” Thomas yelled, sprinting past. “Les!”

“Lesley!” Frypan screeched as Newt yanked Thomas behind the stack of crates they were sheltering behind.

Lesley looked around wildly for another weapon, but there were none in sight, any other dead guards too far away. Her thoughts began to spiral, her chest suffocatingly tight.

The gun fell silent.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Minho chanted, sweat pouring down his face as shaking fingers struggled to reload the weapon. “Come on, come on!”

“Just leave it!” Lesley shrieked, grabbing his arm, pulling at him.

Minho gritted his teeth, shoving her off. “I’ve got this. Just get out of here!”

There were soldiers surging towards them; closer, closer; one of them raised their weapon, aiming it directly at Minho.

Lesley moved on instinct. “NO!” she screamed, throwing herself in front of him.

She saw the flash of light a split second before the air was punched from her body. Agony devoured her, fire burning through her veins as invisible chains locked her muscles. A scream of pain died in her throat, her limbs spasming, pain blooming across her torso as she crumpled to the ground.

“LESLEY!” Minho roared.

Lesley wrenched her eyes open in time to see Minho hovering over her, another flash of light ... there was no time to warn him.

Minho crashed to the ground beside her with a guttural groan, lines of icy blue electricity from a far more powerful shot crackling across his chest.

“Minho!” Thomas roared, a distant echo in Lesley’s ears.

“No!” Newt yelled, broken, distraught.

Her chest heaving, Lesley stared at Minho, her eyes wide as the last of the spasms faded from her body. He stared right back, his dark eyes looking into hers, and then his lids closed, his body sagging against the dirt.

The whole exchange took barely two seconds, and then WCKD soldiers were swarming in. Hands grabbed her arms, wrenching her upwards.

“Leave her!” one of the soldiers yelled. “She’s not one of the kids Doctor Paige wants!”

Wait, what?

Lesley gasped as she was thrown to the ground again, stars catapulting across her vision, her mind teetering on the verge of unconsciousness.

“Minho!” Thomas bellowed; there was the thunder of footsteps hurtling past her.

“Tommy!” Newt roared.

“Come back!” Frypan screeched.

Jorge threw himself at Thomas, holding him back. “No! Thomas, no!”

Hands grabbed Lesley’s shoulders. “Come on, Les!” Newt howled, shaking her. “Lesley! Snap out of it!”

But the second blast of electricity through her body had obliterated the last shredded remains of sense from her mind, her grip on reality horrifically frail as she lay there in shock, in agony.

Another shadow. “I got her, I got her!” Jorge shouted, and suddenly she was hoisted into the air, cradled against his chest. She was being jolted; they were running. “Come on, Thomas. We can’t save him!”

Clarity struck Lesley like lightning. Minho, being dragged away between two armed men; Minho, being hauled towards the berg. Minho, Minho, Minho.

Choking on her own breath, she twisted her head. The sneer on Janson’s face was discernible even from a distance as he ushered the two soldiers onto the craft, Minho’s boots dragging across the threshold. Behind them stood Teresa.

Nausea surged through her; bolting upright, she rammed her elbow into Jorge’s ribs and hurled herself to the ground, a ragged gasp tearing from her throat as she hit the dirt, clawing her way forward, desperation tearing at her.

Lunging towards her, Newt seized her by the arms, hauling her backwards. “Minho!” she screamed, thrashing about. “MINHO!”

“We can’t do anything - slim down, alright -”

“MINHO!”

“Lesley, please.”

At the soft, begging edge to his tone, Lesley finally fell silent. She collapsed to the ground, tears streaming down her face. “Min,” she sobbed.

The ramp door of the berg slammed shut and the aircraft took off, sending clouds of dust billowing around them as it disappeared into the blackness of the night. Lesley clutched her head in her hands, her heart twisting in sheer agony as she screamed into the darkness.

Minho was gone.

Chapter Text

The sun bore down on them, fierce and unrelenting. Piles of smoke rose into the air from the ruins of what had been the Right Arm camp; daylight revealed the stark horrors of what they had witnessed and been subjected to the previous night, the evidence strewn around them.

Lesley sighed regretfully as she and Vince pulled a blanket over another body. One of their own; a boy she hadn’t even known the name of, his skin blackened and torn apart by shrapnel from one of the explosions.

Her fellow Gladers drifted around her, slipping amongst the survivors of the Right Arm. Newt picked a WCKD helmet off the ground, his hands shaking; nearby, Frypan looked on, his expression pinched and his eyes distant. Everyone looked simply stunned, the same shellshocked expressions on their faces, covered in dirt and grit, their clothing stained with soot and dust.

Lesley’s gaze shifted, eyeing the grooves etched into the sand amidst a cluster of footprints. The grooves Minho’s feet had dug as he had been dragged away from them.

She had passed out at some point after the berg had taken flight, but the nightmare had not ended upon awakening.

No matter what she tried, she couldn’t shake the memories of the previous night. Of a precious moment beneath a setting sun, Minho’s dark eyes soft and beautiful, so close to her own, his hand warm where his skin touched hers.

Her insides suddenly turned to ice, the sense of complete and utter betrayal gutting her, swallowing her up and leaving her doubled over, gasping.

Teresa.

Where had they gone wrong? She thought of the conversations she had shared with Teresa, the laughs, the smiles; the knowledge that she had another girl to share with, to watch her back. How - why - had that never been enough? What could WCKD have possibly shown her to convince her to cut her ties with the Gladers? What the hell had they lived through before their memories had been wiped?

She clenched her fists, nausea rocketing through her.

“Take five,” Vince murmured softly to her as Harriet stepped over to join them, her shotgun in hand. “It’s okay, we’ve got this.”

His gaze wasn’t fixed on her. He was staring at the rough patch of sand, beneath which Mary’s body lay.

Nodding, Lesley slowly stood up, dazedly moving through the wreckage, shakily stepping over smoldering mounds of rubble. She eventually found herself sitting next to Frypan; he shifted to accommodate her presence, throwing an arm around her shoulders.

Silence filled the air.

“What do we do now?” Frypan eventually uttered, his voice quiet as if afraid to shatter the stillness of the air.

Thomas finally looked up from where he had been sorting through his recovered pack, Brenda and Jorge sitting nearby.

Vince sighed. “Well, we pick up what’s left of us,” he said wearily. “We stick to the plan. We get you kids to the Safe Haven.” He slowly rose to his feet and looked around at the destroyed camp, his expression crumpling. “Then ... we start over, I guess.”

Thomas suddenly stood up, shouldering his pack, his face tightening. “I’m not going with you,” he said resolutely.

Everyone stared.

“What?” Vince asked, his frown deepening.

Thomas shook his head. “I made a promise to Minho. I wouldn’t leave him behind.”

Lesley stared down at her hands, her fists clenching as her eyes burned. A hand squeezed her shoulder, but the ache in her chest was too deep to take comfort from the warm touch. “None of us would,” she choked out, a bite to her tone. Hell, she would have been on that berg in a second if she hadn’t been held back.

Pain flashed across Thomas’s face. “I know,” he said softly. “But I have to go after him.”

“Hey, kid, look around you,” Vince spluttered incredulously. “Alright? WCKD just kicked our ass. You think about where you’re headed.”

“I’m not asking anyone to come with me,” Thomas told him.

Newt took a cautious step closer, his expression pleading. “Thomas, listen to me,” he said, his voice quiet yet firm. “I’ve known Minho for ... well, for as long as I can remember. So if there was any way that we could help him, trust me, I would be up there standing next to you.” His voice shook. “This, what you’re talking about ... is impossible.”

Jorge stepped up. “More like suicide,” he pointed out.

Thomas glanced at him. “Maybe,” he acknowledged.

Lesley exhaled shakily, getting to her feet. “It would be worth it for Minho,” she said quietly. Anything would be.

Newt balked. “Les ...” he began softly. “Minho wouldn’t want you to throw your life away for his sake.” He glanced at Thomas. “Either of you.”

Lesley shook her head, her expression pained. “I made my choice when I threw myself in front of that gun to protect him,” she whispered. “I can’t come back from that.”

Thomas pursed his lips, his eyes flicking to Lesley. “Newt, I agree, but I know what I’m supposed to do now.” He turned his gaze to the rest of the disheveled survivors. “It’s not just about Minho. It’s about all of us. It’s about everyone WCKD’s ever taken, everyone they will take.”

Lesley thought back to when they had stumbled upon the computer lab after escaping the Maze; the moment they found out they had all been used. A blazing anger surged through her.

“They’ll never stop,” Thomas told them, “so I’m gonna stop them. I’m gonna finish what I started when I decided I didn’t want to work for WCKD anymore.” He paused, his jaw tightening. “I’m gonna kill Ava Paige.”

WCKD had sunk their roots across the land, reaching into the deepest, darkest crevices of the world they knew. Their grip was too strong, their suffocating embrace leaving no place untouched; the monster would continue to grow, to evolve, unless ...

“We cut off the head,” Lesley whispered.

Thomas’s eyes gleamed triumphantly. “Exactly.”

Lesley felt something spark in her chest, an ember beginning to smoulder; a deep desire to rebel against everything WCKD had ever done to them. Her raw, blistering heart was momentarily soothed, a dangerous concoction of hope and a burning desire for vengeance alleviating the emotional wounds that had been mercilessly torn open by Teresa’s betrayal and Minho’s capture.

“I have to admit,” Harriet said suddenly, shrugging as she shouldered her shotgun, “I’d like some revenge. For Sonya; for Aris.”

Frypan smiled. “Well, I’m in.”

“So am I,” Lesley announced firmly, setting her shoulders back.

Newt nodded, a look of pride spreading across his features. “We’re with you, Thomas,” he said softly; the same words he had uttered the night before, when they had been ready to blow themselves to oblivion.

“Us, too,” Brenda said, cracking a smile.

Exhaling deeply, Lesley gripped Newt and Frypan’s hands, the pair standing unwaveringly on either side of her. As long as they stuck together, they would get through this; come hell or high water, they would find Minho and bring him home.

“Well, that’s a good speech, kid,” Vince drawled, looking back at Thomas with a glint in his eyes. “So, what’s your plan?”