Escaping This Ivy Nightmare

Chapter 20

"What am I looking for?" Thomas asked Minho as the asian boy came to look at his finished Map drawing. 

"Patterns. But looking at two day's worth isn't gonna tell you jack. You really need to study several weeks, look for patterns, anything. I know there's something there, something that'll help us. Just can't find it yet. Like I said, it sucks." Minho informed the boy, before letting him get back to work as he moved to check on Thao. 

"We can always come back and study our butts off after dinner, after we talk to Newt and Alby." Thao suggested, and both boys quickly moved to pack up the papers in the trunk.

"Okay, let's go." Thomas said as Thao opened the door, only to have Newt and Alby standing right on the other side. 

"Hey" MInho said. "We were just---" 

"Get on with it." Alby interrupted. "Ain't got time to waste. Find anything? Anything?" 

"Nice to see you, too." Minho shot back, looking slightly confused. "Yeah we did find something actually." 

Alby looked disappointed. "Cuz this whole shuck place is fallin' to pieces." He shot Thomas a nasty glare as if it were all his fault.

"What do you mean?" Thao asked, glancing at Minho with a worried expression. "What else happened?" 

"The bloody box. It finally went down and came back up, but there was no supplies. It was just empty. Two years that things been coming up every week, same time, same day." 

"Oh, we're shucked for good now." Minho whispered.

"No sun for the plants, no supplies from the bloody box and we're already running low on what we have left. Yeah, I'd say we're shucked all right."

"Yeah, anyway," Minho continued, pulling the attention back to the trio's discovery. "We found something weird." 

"What?" Newt asked, eyebrows raised. Minho took a full three minutes to explain, starting with the Griever they followed and ending with the results of their rock throwing experiment. 

"Must lead to where the...ya know... Grievers live." He said when he finally finished. 

"They Griever hole." Thomas added, before earning himself four slightly annoyed looks.

"Gotta bloody see that for myself." Newt said. Then muttered, "Hard to believe." Minho watched Newt carefully. There was no shucking way that boy would ever want to go back into the maze. The last two times he'd been in there, either himself, or Minho, lay bleeding out on the floor.

Newt seemed to register Minho's confusion at his words, sending Minho a slight shrug before turning back to Thao. "So, what do we do about it?"

"Build something?" Minho suggested, drawing the attention back to himself.

"Not buggin' likely, those bloody things can climb the freaking walls." Newt reminded him with his signature eye-roll-arms-crossed look that he saved for Minho's dumbest moments. Minho was just about to send a sassy retort back at his best friend, when the door swung open, and Chuck came stumbling in.

"What?" Newt asked the kid, seeming deeply offended that this kid would walk in on their secret meeting.

"The girl's awake!" He yelled, basically bouncing where he stood. Minho glanced around at the group excitedly. Newt and Thao looked worried. Alby showed no emotion, as per usual, as he stared at the young boy. Thomas looked confused and scared, and was clutching at his skull. Shank.

A few minutes later, Newt, Minho, Thao and Alby all burst into the Med-Jack tent and looked around for the coma girl. "Audrey? Jeff? Clint?" Newt called, limping his way to the girl's room to find it empty.