The Safe Haven (A Newt Fanfiction)

Chapter 20

He stumbled and fell face first through the other end of the Flat Trans. He lay there on the ground, afraid to look up, afraid to hope they were safe. He felt Alex laying next to him shaking from either tears or laughter.

Turns out it was a mix of both. She looked up at him and her hand found his. They lay there together hand in hand, eyes locked, neither wanting to move or break the beautiful silence. Eventually, Newt knew they had to move.

He pushed himself up to a sitting position with a great effort. Waves of pain rippled across his back. He must have been burned at the last moment when her stumbled across the Flat Trans. No, when Alex pulled him through.

"How did you know?" he asked her when she had sat up too.

"Know what?

"Come back. Save me. How did you know to come back?"

She shrugged. "A hunch I guess."

"Thank you. I'd be dead right now if it weren't for you."

She smiled, but he could still see the sadness in her brown eyes. "I'm sure you'll return the favor sometime."

He smiled back. "Count on it." Her eyes broke away from his as she looked around. They were in a small shack of some kind. The wall behind them must have contained the Flat Trans, but it was long gone by now. There wasn't anything else there. Outside he could see a treeline about fifteen yards away. He guessed that they were in a large clearing. "We have to burn it." he said.

"Burn what? This place? What for?"

"Dunno. She just told me to burn it and she hasn't been wrong yet."

"Who hasn't been wrong? The person who told you how to get out?"

"Yeah. Chancellor Ava Paige. She told me everything. I'll explain on the way."

"The way to where?"

"Safety. But right now we need to go."

---

It wasn't hard to get a fire going. The wood was so dry and brittle that all he had to to was light a match and drop it in the shack. They found Gwen looking around in the woods but wisely staying within view of the shack. They stood back watching their last connection with WICKED literally burn away.

Gwen spoke up after a while. "I'm guessing we head north?"

Newt was surprised. "Yeah how did you know?"

She pointed to the horizon where a thin trail of smoke could be seen rising from above the treeline.

Alex looked surprised. "Good eye, Gwen. I never would have seen that."

"I'm just glad to see something other than white." she said.

Alex cracked a smile. "C'mon let's go." Newt led the way as they walked away from the burning shack, towards the north, hopefully, Newt thought, to my friends.

--
As they walked, Newt explained his escape plan as he promised he would. He started with when she showed up in his room after he watched their battle in the Glade. "She just showed up and started bloody rambling about how I should trust her. She said she felt bad about what she had done to us and she wanted to help. I didn't believe her but I had no other option. It was at least an attempt to escape so I needed to try. She said the place was a replica of the maze. When I was there I was a runner before my...accident." He said looking down at his bad leg. Alex looked at him skeptically. He wondered if she remembered their conversation on the berg about his limp. He pushed the thought aside and continued. "She told me you two were recovering and they would take me to you if I demanded. Where you were being held was really where the Cliff was. I knew my way from there. She told me the password to make the whole bloody place self destruct and how to get the Flat Trans up. Apparently she was the only bloody shank there who knew exactly where this place was. I blew the place sky high just as Alex pulled me through the Flat Trans." He turned to her. "Why did you come back for me? I warned you not to. You could have died too."