Newt: A Broken Boy ↠ The Maze Runner

16

"Chuck," I said. "I'm Newt, and I have a friend outside called Minho."

The boy - Chuck - made no move to put the pole down, the look of terror on his face only increasing at the mention of our names.

"You're from the wicked place, aren't you," he mumbled, not looking straight at me.

"The wicked place?" I asked, not quite catching what he meant. "Oh, you mean WICKED."

Chuck gave a small nod, still not meeting my eyes.

"How did you know?" I asked gently, crouching down so that I was at his level.

He bit his lip. "I think it was your name."

I gave a small laugh. "It's not very common, is it?" The corners of his mouth twitched upwards. It was small, but it was something.

"Well in answer to your question, we ran away from WICKED." I stared past Chuck, looking at the flames behind him. I still didn't understand why the house would be burning with artificial flames, but at that moment, it didn't matter.

I head foot steps behind me, pushing down on the weak floorboards. I looked over my shoulder and saw Minho, his face unreadable.

"I know what the fire is," he said, his voice deadly serious.

"Well then, what is it?" I asked, impatient.

"I'll explain later." He looked over his shoulder, as if expecting people to come bursting in. "But for now, we need to get out of here."

"What about Chuck?"

Minho stared at the boy, as if seeing him for the first time. "I don't know, take him with us, I guess. Whatever. Now come on, we have to go, now."

I helped the smaller boy to his feet, and followed Minho out of the building. He barely stopped, just checked to see that we were behind him, and then ran. Pushing Chuck ahead, so that he was in between us, I began to run as well, dust coming up from under my feet.

The roaring of the artificial flames slowly faded out of earshot, until all I could hear was the sound of my heavy breathing and the landing of my feet on the dirt track.

Minho slowly drew to a stop, his hands pressed to his knees, panting heavily. Chuck lowered himself onto a dry, broken tree stump, and promptly fell asleep, snoring softly. We had been running just under top speed for almost five hours, I estimated, and I was surprised we hadn't all collapsed by now.

I set down my pack, relieving a lot of weight from my shoulders. "So the fire," I said. "What was it, and what was it for?"

Minho out a hand to his forehead, pulling at his dark hair. "It was - it is - a trading device, the moment you go through it, it emits a signal to whoever is hooked up to it. In this case, that someone is WICKED. They were probably on their way, the moment they received the signal. We are wanted you know." He gave a small laugh, as if the idea amused him. "Very new, high tech stuff, you realise, I only know about it because I overheard them talking about it at WICKED."

"But how did they know we'd be in that area? I mean, of course they know we would go in once we saw it, but they couldn't have planted a false fire in every town in North America, right," I pressed, wanting to get to the bottom of it. If I understood how it happened, I could ensure we wouldn't come that close to being captured again.

Minho looked over at Chuck. "Him."

I bit my lip. "You don't think he's betraying us to them, do you?"

Minho shook his head. "No, I mean that they probably set the fire meaning to find him, but then we came along and the situation became a whole lot more urgent."

I sighed. So we were wanted. That meant that everyone would be on the lookout for us, seeing us as a source of money in these desperate times. Cranks too. Especially cranks, who had it a whole lot harder than everyone else. So far we had been lucky, and not run into any, but we couldn't avoid the inevitable. As far as I knew, I had no trace of the Flare on me, but it would come sooner or later. And I was pretty sure it would be the former, not the latter.

My eyes rested on Chuck as he slept. He looked so innocent, so free while in sleep. I figured that he'd been raised in a WICKED compound, and escaped. And then we found him. And although he wasn't the best fighter, and he might slow us down a little, I felt that he belonged with us. I felt the need to protect him. He was just a boy in need of a family.

I leaned back, letting my eyes shut. I needed sleep; tomorrow was going to be another long day. The continuation of a journey I had spent five years anticipating. The continuation of a journey to escape WICKED.

~

A/N: Hey people. Sorry it's shorter than usual, I just felt the need to end it there. As for the lateness, I got obsessed with a certain authors Ed Sheeran fanfics (*cough* GingerNineIncher *cough*) because they are completely amazing and everyone should read them. Anywho, votes make me happy, and I love reading comments. Baii.