The Inventor

Chapter Forty Seven; "One more risk"

     Alby stood, his chair tipping over backwards from the speed. His eyes grew bugged and bloodshot, the heavy pack of white bandages wrapping around his head making his appearance worse.

     He took two steps forward to Thomas, threateningly and you stood, slowly walking around to stand beside Thomas's chair. Alby stopped when you placed a hand on Thomas's shoulder.

     "That's just shucking idiotic!" He said, glaring daggers at Thomas, "You could be a traitor! How can we trust anything you say when you helped make this torture expiriment! We can barely handle one griever, let alone a whole horde of them! What are you really trying to pull?! Huh?!"

     "I'm not trying to pull anything! How could I make any of this up? Why would I?" Thomas defended.

     Alby's stance only became more aggressive, "You could have been sent here to kill us all! Why should we trust you?! Saving me in the maze? That could have just been to gain our trust! Since you work with the creators you might not have had to worry about being killed by grievers?! It was all an act wasn't it?!"

     Thomas's shoulder relaxed slightly, his eyebrows furrowing to look at Alby with- with pity? Pity?

     "Alby, that's one of the dumbest stories I've heard," Minho cut in, "Thomas nearly got killed by grievers three days ago. Was that just all one big act?"

     "Could be," Alby breathed, nodding curtly.

     You could hear Thomas forcing his frustration to leak from his next words, "I did it to get my memories back. So I could help get us all out of here. Do I need to show you the cuts and bruises I got from it?"

     Alby was quivering with rage, fists clenched as he yelled, "We can't leave! I've seen what it was like! We can't go back! Gally warned us about him Y/n! Remember?! You trusted Gally!"

     Your hand gripped Thomas's shoulder tightly, feeling your jaw clench with anger, "You think you can bring that up when you were one of the people that just tossed what he said aside? You're just saying it because it's helpful to you now. You're a hypocrite."

     "Benny said it too!" He tried again, "Ben said we shouldn't escape! We can't escape! We can't!"

     "You banished him!" You yelled, taking a few steps closer to him, "You banished him to the maze and you don't have any right to bring up what he said here! I've been through the changing too you brainless moron and I've held onto my wits through what Thomas was saying! You can too if you sit your butt down and let it sink in instead of screaming about it!"

     "You're going to get us killed! You're going to get Chuck killed!" His lip quivered at his words.

     "Sit down," You seethed, "Just because I care for Chuck doesn't mean you can use him against me!"

     In a fit of rage, Alby held up a fist as if to strike you. Three people stood up from their seats, Minho, Newt and Thomas, saying Alby's name in warning. But Alby didn't go any further and you knew he wouldn't.

     What you didn't expect is for him to walk backwards slowly and sink back into his chair, hide his face in his hands, and break down completely.

     Not once had you ever seen Alby cry, not at Nick's death or through the horrendous things he was forced to do for survival. Even through the pain of the changing, he didn't shed a tear. And it stunned everyone in the room.

     You swallowed thickly and sat down on the floor in front of him, only a foot away. Newt was crouching beside him in an instant, one of his hands placed on Alby's shoulder.