"So when did you- you know- fall in love with her?" Thomas smirked, knowing he had him right where I wanted him, with his head in Fionaland.
"Woah," Newt defeated with his hands up, "What?"
"I may be slow to getting to know things around here, but...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I hadn't taken two steps out of the maze before Gally had me thrown over his shoulder. I shouted for him to let me down but he ignored every bit of it. When Thomas tried to help me, Gally quite literally growled at him. He marched all of us right down to the maproom and placed me in a chair.
Gally knocked on my head, listening for any brains in there, "Are you outside of your mind?"
"Wait, wait, before you yell at me." I looked between both Newt and Gally, I couldn't really tell who was angrier. And this certainly wasn't going to help, "All in favor of reinstating my ability to go into the maze for survival purposes."
I looked around the room, specifically looking at the boys, as each of them raised their hands with me. Gally turned to me with his mouth hanging open.
Newt chuckled, "That's only five. And I'm sure as hell not voting."
All eyes turned to Gally now, as I spoke up, "Gally. You lost now pay up."
He sighed, his ego getting in the way of his honor, "Rematch?"
"Gally!"
"Fine!" Gally groaned, throwing his hand up, claiming the last vote.
Newt looked at him without even a glint of humor, "You're supposed to be the one that doesn't fall for her charms."
"You really wanna talk about who fell for that?" Gally challenges with a laugh, making Newt's ears turn pink.
Before I even had a full thought I took my boot off to throw at Gally. He laughed and dodged it, happily grabbing it to throw it back at me.
"Cut it out, children." Minho rolled his eyes walking past us to hand the device. "We found this. It was inside a Griever."
Newt rolled it over inspecting it, "These are the same letters we get in our supplies."
I had recognized the letters all too well, the same WCKD label that seemed to pop up everywhere. It was on the box, printed into our clothes tags, and on the resources crates. Whatever we had, WCKD had it first.
Thomas stepped forward, his boldness coming in waves. "Whoever put us here obviously made the Grievers. This is the first real clue, the first anything, you've found in over 3 years."
"Hey, come on," I fight, hearing him diss my life's work.
"No offense." Thomas turns to me before he goes back to the blondie in charge. "Newt, we gotta go back out there. Who knows where this might lead us."
"Slow your roll, Casanova," I have to stop him before he jumps back into the maze. He already has a shady track record with the gate doors. "Sorry, Tommy. But this is one piece of a very big puzzle. And not to mention, we don't even know what this thing is. Yes, it's proof that WCKD is controlling the maze but we kinda already suspected that. Look around, everything has those damn four letters on it. I wouldn't be surprised if it was tattooed on us."
Newt passes me the device, "Can you handle this?"
We made eye contact, which I have willingly been avoiding all day. I nodded, having no idea how to talk to him anymore until Gally finally broke our stare. "You see what he's trying to do, right? First, he breaks our rules... and then he tries to convince us to abandon them totally. The rules are the only thing that has ever held us together. Why now are we questioning that? If Alby was here, you know he'd agree with me. This shank needs to be punished."
Newt cleared his throat, "You're right. Thomas broke the rules. One night in the pit, and no food."
Gally looked like Newt just spit in his face, "Come on, Newt! One night in the pit? Do you think that's gonna stop him from going into the maze?
"No. And we can't just have non-runners running into the maze whenever they feel like it." Newt glared at me. "So let's just make this official. Starting tomorrow, you're a runner. And Fi and Minho can go with you. But you stay together. From here on out, no more solo runs for anyone."
"What the hell, Newt." Gally raged on.
"What? Alby would have wanted us to make the decision to have our best runners out there, no matter our personal feelings. I trust them." He concluded, unapologetic for his choices.
"Wow."
"Gally..." I started, reaching for him before he could bolt away.
He swiped my hand off him, "No, Blue."
I sighed, throwing my head back slightly. Gally was complicated, even for me. I knew I had to chase after him but I couldn't walk out quite yet. I glanced over my shoulder, finding Newt with both his hands on the table and his head down, "Newt..." He glanced up quickly, "Thank you."
