Desire ❃ newt

cнapтer 38

Minho switched on the light, making me squint for a second until my eyes got used to it. Menacing shadows clung to the boxes of weapons scattered across the table and floor, blades and sticks and other nasty-looking devices seeming to wait there, ready to take on a life of their own and kill the first person stupid enough to come close. The dank, musty smell only added to the creepy feel of the room.

"There's a hidden storage closet back here," Minho explained, walking past some shelves into a dark corner. "Only a couple of us know about it."

I heard the creak of an old wooden door, and then Minho was dragging a cardboard box across the floor; the scrape of it sounded like a knife on bone. "I put each trunk's worth in its own box, eight boxes total. They're all in there."

"Which one is this?" I asked; I knelt down next to it, eager to get started.

"Just open it and see—each page is marked."

I pulled on the crisscrossed lid flaps until they popped open. The Maps for Section Two laid in a messy heap. I reached in and pulled out a stack.

"Okay," I said. "The Runners have always compared these day to day, looking to see if there was a pattern that would somehow help figure out a way to an exit. You even said you didn't really know what you were looking for, but you kept studying them anyway. Right?"

Minho nodded, arms folded. He looked as if someone were about to reveal the secret of immortal life.

"Well," I continued, "what if all the wall movements had nothing to do with a map or a maze or anything like that? What if instead the pattern spelled words? Some kind of clue that'll help us escape."

Minho pointed at the Maps in my hand, letting out a frustrated sigh. "Dude, you have any idea how much we've studied these things? Don't you think we would've noticed if it were spelling out freaking words?"

"Maybe it's too hard to see with the naked eye, just comparing one day to the next. And maybe you weren't supposed to compare one day to the next, but look at it one day at a time?"

Newt laughed. "Greenbean, I might really like you, but sounds like you're talkin' straight out your butt to me."

While he'd been talking, my mind had been spinning even faster. The answer was within my grasp—I knew I was almost there. It was just so hard to put into words.

"Okay, okay," I said, starting over. "You've always had one Runner assigned to one section, right?"

"Right," Minho replied. He seemed genuinely interested and ready to understand.

"And that Runner makes a Map every day, and then compares it to Maps from previous days, for that section. What if, instead, you were supposed to compare the eight sections to each other, every day? Each day being a separate clue or code? Did you ever compare sections to other sections?"

Minho rubbed his chin, nodding. "Yeah, kind of. We tried to see if they made something when put together—of course we did that. We've tried everything."

I pulled my legs up underneath me, studying the Maps in my lap. I could just barely see the lines of the Maze written on the second page through the page resting on top. In that instant, I knew what they had to do. I looked up at the others.

"Wax paper."

"Huh?" Minho asked. "What the—"

"Just trust me. We need wax paper and scissors. And every black marker and pencil you can find."

Frypan wasn't too happy having a whole box of his wax paper rolls taken away from him, especially with their supplies being cut off. He argued that it was one of the things he always requested, that he used it for baking. We finally had to tell him what they needed it for to convince him to give it up.

After ten minutes of hunting down pencils and markers—most had been in the Map Room and were destroyed in the fire—I sat around the worktable in the weapons basement with Newt, Minho, Thomas and Teresa. We hadn't found any scissors, so I had grabbed the sharpest knife I could find.

"This better be good," Minho said. Warning laced his voice, but his eyes showed some interest.

Newt leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table, as if waiting for a magic trick. "Get on with it, Greenbean."

"Okay." I was eager to do so, but was also scared to death it might end up being nothing. I handed the knife to Minho, then pointed at the wax paper. "Start cutting rectangles, about the size of the Maps. Newt, Thomas, and Teresa, you can help me grab the first ten or so Maps from each section box."

"What is this, kiddie craft time?" Minho held up the knife and looked at it with disgust. "Why don't you just tell us what the klunk we're doing this for?"

"I'm done explaining," I said, knowing they just had to see what he was picturing in my mind. I stood to go rummage through the storage closet. "It'll be easier to show you. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and we can go back to running around the Maze like mice."

Minho sighed, clearly irritated, then muttered something under his breath.

"Newt," I said aloud. "can you help me a second?" I nodded toward the closet.

The two of us went into the dusty little room and opened up all the boxes, grabbing a small stack of Maps from each one. Returning to the table, I found that Minho had cut twenty sheets already, making a messy pile to his right as he threw each new piece on top.

I sat down and grabbed a few. I held one of the papers up to the light, saw how it shone through with a milky glow. It was exactly what I needed.

I grabbed a marker. "All right, everybody trace the last ten or so days onto a piece of this stuff. Make sure you write the info on top so we can keep track of what's what. When we're done, I think we might see something."

"What—" Minho began.

"Just bloody keep cutting," Newt ordered. "I think I know where she's going with this." I was relieved someone was finally getting it.

We got to work, tracing from original Maps to wax paper, one by one, trying to keep it clean and correct while hurrying as fast as possible. I used the side of a stray slab of wood as a makeshift ruler, keeping my lines straight. Soon I'd completed five maps, then five more. The others kept the same pace, working feverishly.

As I drew, I started to feel a tickle of panic, a sick feeling that what we were doing was a complete waste of time. But Newt, sitting next to me, was a study in concentration. He seemed way more confident that we were definitely on to something.

Box by box, section by section, we continued on.

"I've had enough," Newt finally announced, breaking the quiet. "My fingers are bloody burning like a mother. See if it's working."

I put my marker down, then flexed my fingers, hoping I had been right about all this. "Okay, give me the last few days of each section—make piles along the table, in order from Section One to Section Eight. One here"—I pointed at an end—"to Eight here." I pointed at the other end.

Silently, they did as I asked, sorting through what they'd traced until eight low stacks of wax paper lined the table.

Jittery and nervous, I picked up one page from each pile, making sure they were all from the same day, keeping them in order. I then laid them one on top of the other so that each drawing of the Maze matched the same day above it and below it, until I was looking at eight different sections of the Maze at once. What I saw amazed me. Almost magically, like a picture coming into focus, an image developed. Teresa let out a small gasp.

Lines crossed each other, up and down, so much so that what I held in my hands looked like a checkered grid. But certain lines in the middle—lines that happened to appear more often than any other —made a slightly darker image than the rest. It was subtle, but it was, without a doubt, there.

Sitting in the exact center of the page was the letter F.