Subject of the Flame | Maze Runner [2]

TWO

[ ELECTRA ]

❧

Electra reluctantly sat on a dusty metal chair as the heavy door closed and locked behind her. A gentle clicking sound filled the room, and she looked up to see a clock ticking just above a metallic mirror.

While the numbers in the clock were smudged away, she could tell by looking at the hands that it was around three in the afternoon. So much for seeing the boys at breakfast, Electra thought, remembering the promise Claudia had given her.

Electra focused on the clock, literally watching time pass. By three-thirty the door finally opened and a man shuffled into the room. He sent Electra a small smile before getting comfortable in the chair in front of her. The man scrunched his face like a rat, and Electra was surprised he didn't have whiskers. He placed a folder on the metal table before clearing his throat and scrunching his nose once more.

"So, uh-" the man paused and opened the manila folder in front of him, gently pressing a finger onto a line on the crisp white sheet of paper within the folder. "Electra, is it?"

Electra stared at him for a few moments, her arms crossed in front of her. The man patiently waited, holding her gaze. She narrowed her eyes and merely nodded curtly.

"Thank you for meeting with me," the man went on, slowly closing the folder. "We really appreciate your cooperation."

As if I had a choice to be here, Electra thought. She'd been tested on and whisked away into this room before she could even raise a finger to protest.

Due to Teresa's warning, she also had a feeling in the pit of her stomach that if she'd rebelled, it wouldn't have gone well for her. Although the possibility of rebelling against these people who'd saved her from the Maze was tempting, and with this ugly, rat-looking man in front of her the temptation was growing by the second.

When Electra still didn't say a word, the man kept talking, "We just have one simple question for you, okay?" Another silent pause. The man fumbled around with the papers in front of him. "Okay. So, what do you think made you different?"

Electra's eyes opened a little, "What?"

"You were separated from all the Gladers, put into a Maze full of boys but unable to live with them. Why would WICKED do this to you?" he said casually as if her biggest remembered life trauma was nothing.

"How do you know this?" Electra asked, confidently leaning forward and placing her arms on the metal table between them. His question rattled her, and the way he spoke of her traumas completely tore at her soul, but she wouldn't let him know.

"I just interviewed a couple of your friends and they told me everything," he quickly said, a hint of a smile creeping on his face. "And technically, no you were not a Runner even though you told Dr. Crawford that you were. Now, if you could answer the question that would be great. We're just trying to understand what's going on here. You, along with a couple of other wildcards, are proving to be very confusing."

Wildcards? Thomas and Teresa. Electra immediately thought of them. The man was talking about the two who worked with WICKED. An icky feeling began to itch her skin, and she felt as though bugs were crawling just beneath the surface. She was being compared to them, to WICKED. The thought made her skin crawl.