Scorched | Newt

Chapter Four: Chaos

"So, how long have you been here?"

I shrugged. "About a week, I think. I'm not sure though, I haven't paid too much attention to it,"

The boy- whose name I had learned was apparently Frypan- nodded awkwardly. "Cool, cool. I ah, I heard that your maze was only girls? What was that like?"

I shrugged again. "You only had guys, right? It was like that, with a whole lot less testosterone."

Minho snickered from his spot on one of the bunks above me. "Sounds like fun,"

"I don't know about that, but I'm sure it was a hell of a lot more dramatic."

This time Newt was the one to laugh. He was sitting on the bunk below Minhos, which meant he was next to me. God, I could listen to that laugh all day too. What the hell is wrong with me?

I wasn't sure how long I sat on that bed in silence, watching Newt pace back and forth. But our blanket of calm was broken as the vent cover went flying across the floor, narrowly missing Minho's feet. Thomas came crawling out the vent first, leading me to stand up and look for Aris behind him.

"Thomas!" I heard Minho shout.

"We gotta go. We gotta go right now," he said as he rushed towards the door.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"What do you mean, 'we gotta go?'"

I realized that Thomas' communication skills were subpar at best as I pulled Aris out of the vent. "They're coming. Come on, we gotta go," he was saying as he ran around the room. "Come on, they're coming for us!"

Throughout all of this, Aris still hadn't moved, a blank look on his face. "Aris," I said quietly, moving to stand in front of him. "What happened?"

He spoke so quietly I could barely hear the single word he whispered, but once I did it felt like he was shouting it at me.

Rachel.

"What- What do you mean, Rachel? Aris, what did you see? You need to talk to me, because I clearly won't get anywhere with Thomas."

Aris finally looked up at me, and all I could see was fear in his eyes. "She was there, Lex. They hooked them up to these machines and they were draining their blood and there was this clear stuff and so many wires there were so many wires and-"

"It's WICKED!" Thomas shouted, interrupting Aris' flood of words. "It's still WICKED. It's always been WICKED."

Oh my god.

"Okay, Aris, you stay here with them, I'm going to go get Lizzie and meet you in L4, you remember where that is, right? Right?" I waited for him to nod before diving into the vents. "Where the hell is she going?" were the last words I heard as I scrambled back to my bunk room to wake Lizzie.

When I got there I kicked the vent cover in and ran to Lizzie, knowing that the loud noise wouldn't be enough to wake her. "Liz you gotta wake up, we have to go," I said as I pulled the sheets off of her bed and grabbed her ankle before shaking her as hard as I could. It was the only way I had found to wake her up that actually worked.

"What?" She asked, voice still heavy with sleep.

"We have to go, now." I said as I rushed around, grabbing anything I thought we could use once we escaped. If we escaped. These things were limited to, unfortunately, a sheet that I tore into strips and tied around my waist, and a metal rod that used to hold towels that I planned to use as a weapon if I needed to.

Once I had done that, Lizzie was up and ready to go, thank god. "Okay, into the vent, let's go. I'll explain everything, I promise- just not now."

"Um, okay. Yeah, let's go."

So the two of us scrambled back through the vents, Lizzie taking my directions when I gave them, until we finally fell out into the hallway I had told Aris to meet us in.

It was empty.

"Oh, no." I ran a hand through my hair as I spun in a circle, hoping for a sign of where they might have gone.

What if we were too late? What if WICKED had already taken them back? What if they were already like Rachel? What if-

"Lex!" Lizzie grabbed me by the arm and spun me around to look at the vent across from the one we had come out of. The cover shook for a moment before Thomas came running out, followed by the rest of the group.

"Oh thank god," I went to hug Aris but he stopped me.

"You guys go ahead, there's something I gotta do."

"What are you talking about?" Thomas asked.

"Trust me, it's important." he turned to me. "I'll need Lizzies help. You guys wanna get out of here, right? Just go."

I nodded after a moment. "Okay, Lizzie, you go with Aris, I'll stay with the Sticks. Do what he says, okay?" I was met with a nod as Lizzie climbed back into the vent.

"I'll go with them," said a boy whose name I didn't know.

"Okay, Winston, go! Go! Come on," Thomas said, motioning for the rest of us to follow him.

"You sure we can trust this kid?" Minho asked as we began to run.

I scoffed. "Okay, ouch."

Thomas ignored me. "You don't wanna know where we'd be without him."

Minho and Thomas turned a corner just ahead of me, but stopped abruptly. One of them let out a little yell, I didn't know who. "Why are we-" I stopped mid sentence when I saw a woman in a lab coat in front of us. "Shit." I grabbed Newt's arm and pulled him in front of me ever so slightly, then decided to explain my actions before he asked about them to save time. "Two groups together is a hell of a lot more suspicious than one," I muttered.

Newt just nodded without looking back at me, thankfully not drawing the doctor's attention.

"What are you kids doing out?" she asked.

We stayed silent.

Then alarms started blaring as lights flashed from every direction. That probably gave her the answer she needed.

"Double shit."

Word Count: 1038

That last line is my favorite way I've ever ended a chapter :)