Into the Maze (English Version)

10

Eventually the remaining Keepers had also left the hut. When Minho and Thomas came outside together, they quickly spotted J and waved her over. Gally, who she had been sitting next to until then, had only acknowledged this with a disgruntled sound.

"I don't understand why you always let him get away with everything," Minho muttered when J arrived at the two of them, giving Gally a hostile look.

"I don't let him get away with anything." But Minho's mind was made up. The dark-haired boy nodded as if he wanted to agree with himself. "Of course you do. He talks so much stupid stuff and acts like a piece of Klunk. And you still talk to him, you're way too soft J."

"Tss," J said and looked at Minho meaningfully. "Be glad that I'm so soft. Otherwise I would be just as tired of you, as much as you think I should be tired of Gally."

"Excuse me, unlike this Idiot, I'm an angel," Minho countered, smiling as innocently as nobody would have expected him to. But then he changed the subject to explain why he was in the company of Thomas. "He's one of us now."

"What?", it took J a moment to understand. "Oh, a runner. Well, congratulations."

She smiled at Thomas and he grinned back. But the joy barely lasted a second before Minho had already pushed himself between them. "Mhm, wonderful. But this is not a job where you can be lazy. So we'll show our dear Thomas the cards now, and then he'll have to memorize the labyrinth by tomorrow."

Of course, Minho had only made a joke, but Thomas still looked unsettled for a moment. However, his thoughts quickly went elsewhere when Minho explained the cards to him. Thomas looked just as perplexed as J had, when she had heard what the runners knew about the maze. It wasn't pleasant. Because they divided the labyrinth into eight sections. Four of those formed the inner ring and four the outer ring. And the walls in those rings, that formed the paths, moved. All sections changed in an order. The only problem was, that it was always the same. There was never any change, it was always the same pattern. And the gladers had already known that when J had arrived. That had been about a year, after the first >Alby< had been sent to the glade. Since then, the runners hadn't found anything new. And yet they ran around out there every day.

Thomas looked from Minho to J in disbelief. But they just shrugged their shoulders. "What else should we do? There is no exit in the glade. We know that for sure. So it must be the labyrinth. And what we have now found in the Griever could be the first real clue."

J nodded, she really hoped Minho was right about that. The Keeper then moved on to a more pleasant topic. He handed Thomas a pair of running shoes. "The good ones, only Runners and Keepers get them."

"And then those," J pulled a pair of pants, made out of sturdy fabric, from a pile, where they had organized the runners' equipment. Minho looked at the thing with almost pain in his eyes. "They're really are everything but good looking, but we can't run around out there in tights."

Thomas nodded, then looked at the cards and the wooden model of the labyrinth, that was set up in the middle of the hut, again. "Why hasn't anyone ever stayed in the maze at night and watched what happens when the walls move?"

"That's not possible, that would be tantamount to suicide. The fact that you've ended a Griever was an absolute exception. Most of the boys wouldn't even have been able to move in that situation, because of fear," Minho explained, and of course Thomas understood that.

Then Thomas went out of the hut again, it was almost time for dinner. But J pulled Minho aside for a moment. Somehow Gally's words were still in her ear.

"Why do you trust him?", J sat down on one of the tables, on which they always drew their cards, and dangled her legs.

"Why not? He's brave," Minho said naturally.

"But that doesn't prove anything,", J remarked. It wasn't as if she didn't trust Thomas. Because that's what she did. In fact, she really liked the boy. She just wanted to hear that it was pointless to doubt him, that there was no reason not to trust Thomas.

Minho looked at her with his head tilted, then a light seemed to dawn on him. With an annoyed groan, he rolled his eyes in all directions. "Why does it even matter to you what Gally says?"

"I mean... his doubts are justified," J said honestly.

Minho now came closer and pushed himself in between her legs. He rested his arms on either side of her. Because he was closer now, he spoke more quietly. "Don't worry. If he hurts you, I'll kill him myself."

She grinned and pressed her forehead lightly against his. "I'm not worried then."

They remained in that position for a moment. They both leaned forward slightly, their heads still leaning against each other. Minho was so close to her that J felt his breath on her lips. A pleasantly warm breeze... As if stung by a tarantula, she pushed him away and hopped off the table.

"Hey!", Minho exclaimed, surprised. But J ignored him. Without responding to him, she stormed to the door of the hut. She prayed that her face hadn't turned red. Because she had felt the warm feeling, when Minho had been standing so close in front of her, exactly. "Come on, Pan is probably already done with cooking."

But as they left the hut to make their way to dinner, they already heard the screaming from far away.

"What the hell?" J tried to understand what she was seeing as they came out of the forest. The gladers all stood under the observation tower, from which one could see the entire glade. They carried boards and pieces of metal over their heads to protect themselves from the stuff that was thrown down on them.

"The girl woke up," Chuck then explained as J and Minho reached the glades. Newt hid under a wide wooden board with a stressed face, next to him Gally. "I don't think she likes us much."

"How did you notice that?" J laughed at her brother sarcastically. She found it amusing how the glades let the new girl finish them off.

But suddenly Thomas spoke up. "Hey! Stop, please. It's me. Thomas."

And in fact no more fruits and stones followed from the platform. J briefly saw the girl stretching her pale face over the parapet, then she was gone again.

"Okay," Thomas seemed relieved. Then he called upwards again. "Okay, I'm coming up now."

The other glades watched with mixed emotions as Thomas now climbed up the wooden ladder to the top. Some grinned meaningfully, others looked sullen and suspicious.

"Are all girls like that?", Pan breathed heavily and wiped off the sweat from his forehead.

"Excuse you," J put her hands on her hips indignantly.

"You don't count," Zart interjected. There was a split of tomato stuck in his blonde hair.

"Oh really? How flattering," J replied, then pressed her lips together, unenthusiastically.

"But only because you belong to Minho, he's the only one that... it's just, the two of you", Pan tried to explain somehow.

"Are you crazy?", J now said loudly. Minho wasn't thinking about helping her, he just grinned stupidly to himself. But before the whole thing could get out of hand, everyone was heading towards dinner.

"Stop that! Stop smiling!", J punched Minho's shoulder because he was still grinning.

"Hey! I'm on your side. I'm just laughing because they really think I have any power over you," Minho put his hands up in defense. J laughed too, before firmly pressing her lips together again. "You didn't make any effort to correct them, though."

"Do you think I'm happy to admit that?", Minho looked at her seriously before they both started laughing loudly.

Dinner was pretty uneventful. But then the mood became icy again. Today was Thomas' night in the Slammer, punishment for running into the labyrinth. And Gally exploited it as much as he could. Armed with a torch, he picked Thomas up from the dining room table >where he had been sitting alone with Teresa< and led him to the wooden cage like a prison guard.