Like Ashes We Fall

Chapter Nine

Minho sat in the back corner of the cell staring at his hands.

She'd come back for him. And they'd taken her.

He had to get out of here. To find his friends, make it to Ari, and escape. He had no idea what had happened after the Right Arm had attacked. Clearly, it wasn't enough to make be moved to the city. Not yet. Still, Minho wondered why they hadn't packed up this base and gone-

The ground shifted beneath his feet. His train of thought came to a screeching halt.

Scratch that.

The ground shifted again and swayed. He had the distinct feeling of rising up, into the air. Minho ran through everything in his head that he knew about this base. Everything important- equipment, personnel, labs- all on the third level. The smallest level.

The easiest to move. Because it was a massive Berg.

He slumped against the wall. It didn't matter if he broke out of his cell now. Where the hell would he go? The open-air?

"Fuck," he muttered. He couldn't believe it and yet somehow he wasn't surprised WCKD had managed to build a base where the top floor was transportable. At this point, he should have expected it.

Time passed slowly. They never came to get him for another torture stimulation session. And though he felt a trickle of relief, he also knew why. They had Ari. They didn't need him or any of the other Immunes anymore when she could provide a cure. His stomach clenched at the thought of what they were doing to her. The only saving grace was that they were kept together.

Minho must have fallen into a restless sleep because he was awoken by the sound of the door being shoved open. Light splintered the dark and then retreated again. Ari slumped to the floor, barely conscious. He recognized the look and knew the sedative she'd been given for the stimulation. He knew how it messed with your mind, twisted reality until you didn't know what was real anymore.

He reached for her hesitantly. "Ari?"

She didn't answer, which he didn't know if that meant she was still too sedated to comprehend what was happening or... if it had been so awful she wasn't going to talk. He gripped her arm cautiously. She allowed him to help her against the back wall so she had something to lean against.

She didn't stay awake for long, her head lolling to the side. Minho stretched his legs out in front of him, easing her upper body onto his lap. Her eyes fluttered closed, breaths deep and steady. He gripped her hand in his, plotting every way he could to make Ava Paige and Janson and Teresa pay for this.

Ari twitched in her sleep. Minho gazed at her still face, wondering for the hundredth time about his friends also trapped here. Were they okay? Alive? They had to be. He couldn't bear the thought of them being dead because of him. All of them coming back to rescue his sorry ass.

For the briefest of moments, he flashed back to the Glade and the Maze. How simple life had been there. They thought nothing could be worse than being trapped in that place. How wrong they had been. He didn't want to admit it but he missed the simplicity of it. The routine. Everyone knowing what to do and when. The days spent sweating his ass off in the Maze. The nights in Ari's shack, them sharing the rickety bed that somehow had never fallen apart.

Dinner with the Runners, Frypan's stew. Bonfires with Alby and Newt. Endlessly teasing whatever new Greenie had been unfortunate enough to come up in the box. He missed the Glade, the green grass, and the shade of the trees. Watching the sunrise in the morning.

Ari jerked awake in his lap, startling him from his thoughts. She sat up so suddenly, nearly knocking his head. Her gaze jerked around and then, seeming to recognize where she was and him, she slumped back down. "Minho?"

"I'm here." He said, the silence broken in the small room.

She seemed satisfied and reassured by his answer. She lifted her arm- they hadn't bothered to re-cuff her. From her sleeve, she pulled out the hairpin. "Didn't get a chance to use it."

"Save it." He said. The room swayed again. "We've got a big problem. And we're gonna need that."

She fell silent again. Minho guessed what she was thinking about.

"Mine was always Grievers," he said. "I guess because I was a Runner, that's what I was most afraid of. Every stimulation they put me in, I was running from those shucking things." He repressed a shudder. "They caught me every time. And then it just starts over."

Her eyes slid to him. "It was worse than Grievers," she said finally.

He creased his brow but waited for her to continue.

"At first that's what it was. Black nothingness and a Griever that caught me. But then it was just... an empty abyss. Nothing and no one. I kept running and running until I felt like my heart was going to explode. And then at the end... the Gladers. Thomas, Newt, Chuck, Frypan. You. Begging me to find you. To save you. But I couldn't. And then I'd hear you die. All of you. And it would start over again. And again, and again." Her eyes slipped shut with the last words but her grip on his hand tightened. And didn't let go.

Minho didn't know what to say so he didn't say anything at all. He leaned his head back against the wall and squeezed her hand.

He was going to kill every last one of them.