Desire ❃ newt

cнapтer 36

Lights blazed throughout the Homestead. Gladers ran about, everyone talking at once. A couple of boys cried in a corner. Chaos ruled.

I ignored all of it.

I ran into the hallway, then leaped down the stairs three at a time. I pushed my way through a crowd in the foyer, tore out of the Homestead and toward the West Door, sprinting. I pulled up just short of the threshold of the Maze, my instincts forcing me to think twice about entering. Newt called to me from behind, delaying the decision.

"Minho followed it out there!" I yelled when Newt caught up to me, a small towel pressed against the wound on his head. A patchy spot of blood had already seeped through the white material.

"I saw," Newt said, pulling the towel away to look at it; he grimaced and put it back. "Shuck it, that hurts like a mother. Minho must've finally fried his last bit of brain cells—not to mention Gally. Always knew he was crazy."

I could only worry about Minho. "I'm going after him."

"Bloody hell you are." Newt stifled a laugh as he shook his head.

"Why the hell not?" I spat.

"Look, you're not going out into the maze, plus, right now we've got worse problems."

"What?" I knew if I wanted to catch up with Minho I had no time for this.

"Somebody—" Newt began.

"There he is!" I shouted. Minho had just turned a corner up ahead and was coming straight for them. I cupped my hands. "What were you doing, idiot!"

Minho waited until he made it back through the Door, then bent over, hands on his knees, and sucked in a few breaths before answering. "I just... wanted to... make sure."

"Make sure of what?" Newt asked. "Lotta good you'd be, taken with Gally."

Minho straightened and put his hands on his hips, still breathing heavily. "Slim it! I just wanted to see if they went toward the Cliff. Toward the Griever Hole."

"And?" I said.

"Bingo." Minho wiped sweat from his forehead.

"I just can't believe it," Newt said, almost whispering. "What a night."

My thoughts tried to drift toward the Hole and what it all meant, but I couldn't shake the thought of what Newt had been about to say before they saw Minho return. "What were you about to tell me?" he asked. "You said we had worse—"

"Yeah." Newt pointed his thumb over his shoulder. "You can still see the buggin' smoke."

I looked in that direction. The heavy metal door of the Map Room was slightly ajar, a wispy trail of black smoke drifting out and into the gray sky.

"Somebody burned the Map trunks," Newt said. "Every last one of 'em."

For some reason, I didn't care about the Maps that much—they seemed pointless anyway.