Newt: A Broken Boy ↠ The Maze Runner

21

A/N: There's a PoV switch in the middle of this chapter, just saying. I won't do many of these, but I feel like this one's needed.

~

The new chancellor wasn't there to greet us. In fact, I didn't even know who the new chancellor was, if they had managed to appoint one in the two weeks that we'd been gone.

I recognised the man that Teresa took us to as A.D. Janson. Thomas had trained him for two years, and had said that he'd never seen a man 'more dedicated to finding a cure'. He had grey hair, and icy blue eyes. He had rat like features, sharp and pointed.

"You've given us a lot of trouble these last two weeks, you two." He looked from me to Minho, his gaze finally landing on Chuck. "And you, too, we were wondering where you'd disappeared to."

There was silence.

"Well then. We'd better get going then, should we not?" Janson led us out the room, past two pairs of guards. One man shot me an odd look, one of interest and yet disgust. He had shiny black hair, and a profound square jaw. It was Jackson, cleaner than how I had last seen him, but Jackson all the same. I wondered what had happened to his brother Matt. Dead, hopefully.

To my own disgust, Jackson and his partner started shadowing us the moment we left the room. Janson led us through a maze of corridors and hallways, taking us to a room that resembled our old one. The two guards took their places on either side of the door. As Janson literally threw us in, he whispered, "If it were up to me, you two wouldn't be in the same room. But it's not up to me, so there you are." He then led Chuck away, seemingly to stay somewhere else.

Minho sat down on one of the beds, his feet swinging underneath. He stared at me. There was a pregnant pause.

"What now." It was a statement, not a question. I answered it anyway.

"I guess we do what WICKED wants." Minho opened his mouth, but I cut him off. "We're here now. We might as well save humankind."

"How long do you think until the Trials start?"

I shrugged. "Before, I would've said five years before they could even start, but now, looking at the speed that they've made in two weeks, I would say that those Trials are going to be up and running by the time I'm fourteen."

Minho didn't say anything, just lay down with his hands behind his head.

"What do you think they're gonna do to us, anyway?"

"What's with all the questions?"

"I don't know." Minho shrugged. "You seem to have all the answers."

"Not to that last one, sorry. I haven't got a clue when it comes to what these Trials will be like."

I considered asking about the cut on his cheek, but decided that it wasn't the right time. And so, that was the last conversation we had for that night.

Louis' PoV

Deedee, or Teresa as she was now called, acted like she had never met me before. The only indication that she gave that I was her brother was that she agreed to test me for immunity, instead of just handing me my money and throwing me back on the streets.

Deedee - the dog Deedee - was asleep in my arms. She was small enough to fit in the crook of my elbow easily, so I held her there while slowly rubbing her soft ears. I was glad that the Flare didn't affect dogs. Deedee was the only family I had left.

Teresa first led me through a machine which 'makes sure you're not a crank.' The way she had phrased it made it feel misleading - as if in the situation where I was a crank, it would be able to take that away from me.

I came off negative on that test, thank goodness. If I had come off as a crank, I would've not only felt terrible for myself, but for Newt, too. He wasn't immune, as I myself had observed, and if I were a crank, then he surely would've caught it off me. He'd been very lucky so far.

Teresa sat me down on a spindly metal chair with so much force and authority you would never have though that she was younger than me by twelve years.

"Arm," Teresa ordered, slightly irritably. I held my arm out. She grabbed it, then plunged a needle in. By reflex, I wanted to scream, but I clenched my teeth and stayed silent. I didn't want my sister thinking I couldn't handle myself.

I watched the syringe fill up with some of my blood, transfixed. It wasn't that I hadn't seen blood before, I'd seen enough blood to last a lifetime, but I'd never seen my own blood, a deep red, colouring the clear syringe. It was hypnotising.

Teresa pulled out the syringe from my arm, then emptied its contents into another machine.

"Five minutes."

I nodded.

The next five minutes were some of the longest I had ever endured. When Teresa finally brought out the verdict, it was an understatement to say I was nervous.

"You're immune."

I felt like the weight of the world was taken off my shoulders, like a tight knot in my stomach had been loosened.

Teresa stared at me. "You can go now."

I looked down at the dog in my arms, not sure whether to speak or not.

"Teresa..."

Her eyes softened by a fraction. She wrote something on the notepad next to her, then ripped it off, and ha fed it to me.

I looked down at it. World In Catastrophe, Killzone Experimental Department, compound no. 7.

"It's the address you have to send stuff to if you want to send us something here in WICKED. Like, if you want to write to Newt or something. Just give to one of the officials in some city, like Denver. They'll know what you mean."

Slightly shocked, I bit my lip. "Teresa... I'm touched. Honestly."

She looked away, shaking her head. "But only use it if you want to send us stuff, okay?"

I grinned, then stood up, putting a now awake Deedee on the floor. She bounded along beside me as I walked out the facility, happier than I had been in a long time.

It was only when I had been driving for almost a full day before it crossed my mind that Newt, Minho and Chuck might not have been too happy with their new fate.

~

A/N: Yeah, I didn't update last week. The 5sos fam caught up with me. Anyways, hope you enjoyed.