~|Charge|~ Thomas

Chapter 30: Find Some Answers

The six started out for the maze, running off into where Linnea, Minho, and Thomas had all been trapped in the night before with Alby. It was frightening to think that they would be going back there, after being out for only a matter of a few hours, but even so, so much had happened in those few hours they had been out, that it was pretty necessary to go back and see this Griever. He was dead after all. Maybe he had a clue. A clue to get them out. No matter what, though, it was what had to be done. They needed to go and see what was in the maze. Out in the maze. They went out there. Again.

Thomas couldn't help but stare at Linnea as they ran back into the corridors of the maze. He barely noticed the shock and amazed looks that were expressed upon Fry, Zart, and Winston's faces. He was too focused on her. Linnea was amazing. His awe-struck eyes couldn't take themselves off of her. It was like when he first met her. But now, it was different. Something in her had changed. It may be the fact that she had been stuck in the maze, again, or the fact that she was mad at Thomas for forcing her into it, or even the mysterious girl that was sent up in the box, but something changed. It was attractive though.

Linnea, who was ahead of all the others, couldn't even force herself to look back at him. She knew that if she looked at him again, she wouldn't be able to stop. He had changed too, but what Linnea thought the reason was had been completely wrong. She just wanted him to want her and only her. It was selfish, but the thought of the other girl, who might have been with him was petrifying. Thomas had lived a life without her for three years while Linnea was in the maze, after all. He could've moved on. To the girl. 

The brown-haired Runner put her arm out to stop them as she approached the hall-like area where the Griever lay, dead on the ground, and she touched Thomas's strong chest as she did so, not realizing what she was doing at the moment, but when she felt the fabric of his shirt, the toned, well-sculpted chest, she almost had to look back, but at Frypan's gasp, she stopped herself.

The sight was terrorizing. The Griever's sharp legs or arms or whatever they were, were pointed out of the wall that was enclosed on its massive body, guts and other parts flooding out of it, the smell was putrid and reeked of death mixed with Newt's morning breath, which both stunk terribly. Its mechanical parts where terrifying, thinking of how the creature was both animal and mechanical, and how that could even be possible. 

The thought of the night before loitered in Linnea's brain, as well as both Thomas and Minho's. In Linnea's mind, she thought of when Thomas sprinted out to her, as she screamed his name, not wanting to let go of the person she had just finally found, the reason she was still alive, the person helping her cope in that place of the seemingly unknown. The thought of losing him after she had just found him was paralyzing. She couldn't take it.

In Thomas's mind, his only thought, as were most of his others, was of Linnea. Of losing her. That was why he did all of the things he did that night. All of the sacrifices he made. Watching her jump across the top of the walls was terrifying enough, but having to push her away from him, offering himself up in the safety of her, it was scary to him, but the thought of her dying, of anything happening to her was ten times worse. He looked at her, a blood stain still on her cheek; was it her own, or was it someone else's?

"That's disgusting," Zart exclaimed, gripping onto the staff he brought, making a repelling expression.

"No shit, Zart," Linnea exclaimed, looking further into the creature, but she still kept quite a distance between her and the Griever. "Hey, look." The brunette pointed to something that was lodged in the Griever. "There's something in there."

"You mean besides a Griever pancake?" Fry exclaimed, the larger boy moving up forward to get a better look at it as well.

Linnea looked over at the boys, then started walking forward to try to get the thing out of the Griever. Thomas held out his arm to stop her, but before Linnea could even reach it, Minho had pulled on her arm and pulled her back before stepping forward to get it out himself.

"What are you doing?" Zart asked.

Minho didn't say anything, he just put his arm into the space where the Griever had been caught in between the walls. The other five leaned in, trying to get a better look at what was there.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, some kind of reaction came out of the dead Griever and it spurred up and started moving a bit. All five of them backed up, and Minho practically jumped like six feet back, almost knocking over Linnea, but Frypan held her up.

"I thought you said it was dead!" Fry said as he pushed Linnea back up, his fearful eyes looking at the Griever, which was moving a few seconds ago, but now was un-moving.

"Was it reflex?" Zart asked.

"You hope!" Winston retorted back.

Who cares? Linnea thought. They had a Griever, it probably was dead, meaning that Zart was right when he said it was reflexes and now they had a Griever. She moved forward, grabbing onto the leg/arm contraption thing and started pulling on it, saying, "Come on. Let's try and pull it out."

The other five nodded and went to grab one of the mechanical parts as well. She counted up to three and when they hit three, all six of them pulled with all of their strength, and damn that Griever was heavy, but they got that leg out. A blood-like liquid spilled out from where they had pulled the leg from. If someone randomly didn't find that disgusting before, it sure was disgusting now.

Linnea helped up Frypan who was on the ground up, as Thomas started forward to the creature, along with Minho. The Asian boy bent down and picked up some sort of internal body part feature of the Grievers body, but inside it, was some sort of metal thing that had a large, red light on it. Looking at it, Minho pulled the metal thing out and goo, the same that was spilled all over Linnea the night before, was pulled out of it as well, wrapping itself all over Minho's arms.

"What the hell is that?" Thomas asked, as Minho carefully studied the device.

Minho didn't say anything, until something specific caught his eye. "Interesting," he pointed out to no one in particular.

"Whatever it is," Frypan said as Linnea went over to look at what Minho had in hand. "Can we take this stuff back to the glade? 'Cause I don't wanna meet this guy's friends."

"What the hell?" Linnea said when she saw what was on the device. A seven. The maze was cut into sections. Eight of them. All had changing parts. Maybe seven was the section that this Griever came from. It was open the night before. This was almost too crazy. It could change things.

"He's right," Minho said, looking at Linnea with a knowing look. Knowing that they'd have to keep this between themselves for the moment. "It's getting late. Come on."

And with that, they started their run back to the glade. Linnea took another glance at Minho, but he didn't say anything. She wanted to look to her other side at Thomas, but knew that it wouldn't be good if she did. She could feel his gaze on her, though. She knew he was staring at her, and that he wanted to talk to her, but it was too hard at that moment.

Not right then. Not till they find some more answers.

Author's Note:

I hope you FREAKING like this. I am on FREAKING vacation so like I said before, the updates are going to be pretty FREAKING slow. I kind of FREAKING like this and I kind of FREAKING don't. Mixed FREAKING feelings towards it. Some pretty FREAKING crazy things are coming up, though. I honestly don't  FREAKING know what else to say, though. WOW! This has never FREAKING happened before. I started reading the Hunger Games on the plane ride to where I am, so if anyone wants to talk about those books I gladly will. I am on chapter thirteen of the first book, so yeah. It's actually really good. Not as good as Maze Runner but hey, that's just my FREAKING opinion. Hopefully I will update soon, but until then. . . 

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