This Conspiracy

Chapter 9

Author stuff: I had a week this past week. Well, specifically the last two days. Completely, clotheslined by work. Far too many people are travelling around right now. And too few of them are wearing masks, which they are required to wear by my company. There's legitimately signs all around the hotel. How they keep missing them, I have no idea.

I completely forgot that I wrote this chapter. It was such a... I don't want to say it was fun to edit, because editing is never fun, but it was... a reminder to myself that I can write something like this.

TRIGGER WARNING for this chapter. There's blood mentioned and a bit of gore. I didn't go into too many specifics, but it still might trigger some people. One of the things mentioned even gets me when I see it or experience it, so I know what it's like.

Again, if something triggers you, please let me know.

Chapter 9

In Which Gally Does Something Stupid

She was glad for the lock on the door – a feature Gally had added her first day in the Glade, for her own protection, he had said. She was beginning to trust many of her fellow Gladers, it was just... She was afraid of the ones she didn't quite know yet who might do something.

That was part of the reason Gally had her work with him on the trellises, that and he knew she was going for Track-hoe. He had told her what he had heard some of the others saying the past few days. He felt that she would feel more comfortable working with him rather than the others, who would spend the day ogling her and getting too close.

"You're not mad, are you?" she said as he demonstrated for the third time how to safely hammer the pieces of wood together.

"What?" He said. "That you want to be a Track-hoe? Not really. You'd be better there, I think. There or in the kitchens."

"Because I'm a girl?"

"Because, Princess, you'd be away from them." He jutted his head in the direction of his Builders. "They're not bad shanks, they've just... They haven't been around a girl in a long time. None of them remember how to act around you – around any girl."

"I don't want them to act any differently than they would around any of you," she said, holding a strip of wood down so that he could hammer it.

"They would treat you differently anyway. We all have to. Not because we want to, but because..." He stopped, as if he were about to say something that would reveal all of his secrets and then some. He cleared his throat. "It... it doesn't really matter. Come on, I'll show you how to trim the wood so it's all even."

Gally had been kind. He had been kind to her after she had tried some of his brew and impressed him by not sputtering like most of the boys did when they drank it. Sure, he'd tease her, but his words were never offensive or downright mean. And he respected her personal space, so that was nice. He also never forced her to anything she was uncomfortable with.

The question was: why?

He certainly had to have a reason. And, whatever it was, she would find it out.

After they had finished up for the day, he waited outside the showers so she could have some privacy while she bathed. It had been luxurious – the bathing, not him standing guard. Though she wasn't complaining. The other Gladers respected (and kind of feared) him.

And he always made sure she had something to eat, despite all his teasing. A few days back when she and the boys tried out being a Slicer, he'd managed to swipe a sandwich and saved it for her for when she felt like she could eat again. Not to mention he was always willing to take her chicken, though he'd complain about getting tired of it.