Into the Darkness

Chapter 20

Kara's POV
Gwen wakes up fully after we walk a little ways. She does have a lot of questions. Like who are they and where are we going and stuff like that. Kara answers the best she can. She also has quite if questions that Kara never even thought of.

"Where did you get explosives? I can't imagine the voice giving them to you."

Conner who is to busy clearing away some rubble from another thing they exploded to get to us leaves the answers to the girls.
Quinn answers first, "It's all Stephinie. She's a genius even though she claims she isn't. She found various things that I'm sure the Voice didn't even know could be used as explosives."

"And she's the one who told us your approximate location." Nika adds, "She is also the one who is going to get us out of that stupid town."

"What town?" Kara asks, "You never really explained."

"It's a town in the middle of a forest." Quinn says, "It has everything there. A sheriffs station, a park, a store, a hotel where we all sleep. It's actually not all bad really comfortable or at least more so then the maze or that other place."

"Yeah but I still would have preferred not to have spent the last 4 years of my life there."

"Four years!" Elle marvels. "How long have you guys been here?"

Quinn answers, "Counting the maze and the room me and Conner have been her for about 8 years."

Suddenly escape seems so much more hopeless. Eight years. Kara had only been here for less then a year but to think that these people survived 8!

Quinn continued, "Nika and her little sister Alexandria have both been here for 6 years. Same for Stephinie and Ian for five."

"Did you guys know each other before the maze?" Kara asks.

"We went through it together." She squeezes Conner's hand, "a lot of the people from our original group went in pairs. It kind of had to be. Alex was only 9 when she went through the maze if it weren't for Anika she wouldn't have made it. What about you guys?"

"I went with my twin... Dale, he went in the tunnels with the others. But I'm the only one and it wasn't even on purpose." Elle told them how she ended up with her brother in the maze.
They all thought it was interesting. Then they told us we would have to tell all of these things to Stephinie who had a knack for pulling info out of nothing. There could be some detail we missed but she would understand the importance right away.

"She's going to get us out of here." Nika says grinning.

"How can you speak so freely about that?" Vincent demands. He is still suspicious of them, "He's listening."

At that they all grin and and look at each other knowingly. Connor speaks first, "Thing is he's not. We don't know why because that would be the smart thing to do maybe its because he has a life or something."

"But how do you know?" Vincent insists.

"Have you noticed that you will ask or say something and the voice won't respond right away." Kara thought about it and found that it was true. "And some of his responses will be creative and complex while others are way to simple."

"Because he isn't always watching." Gwen gasps at the realization.

"But it's still a gamble. He might be." Kara adds. Not to reign on their parade or anything but she was with Vincent on this one. This was risky.

"It's always a gamble," Quinn says rolling her eyes, "He records us so he can watch every single one of our conversations over and over again. But that doesn't mean I will ever stop trying to escape."

Kara can understand that. The threat of him watching shouldn't prevent them from trying to escape.

"And besides," Connor adds, "The only way the voice could stop out plan is if he climbed out of his little hole and stopped us himself. It doesn't matter what he does."
He is angry as he says it. Something must have happened because of their attempts.
"Did something happen?" Gwen asks softly.

Conner shakes his head and storms off and Quinn is close behind. He blamed himself that was clear. Kara wondered why. It was the Voice's fault that much should have been clear.

Nika leans over to us and whispers, "Ian's sister Dakota. We tried to escape last year and the voice... well you know. I thought Connor was going to stop trying but ever since then his efforts have only increased. I am still not sure what happened to her but Ian and Connor haven't been the same."
They all nodded even though Nika gave them very little actual information. It was going to be hard for Kara, for all of them to adjust to this new group dynamic but she was confident they could. Kara decided that she trusted them. Vincent would have to get over his doubts soon but that wasn't really her problem. She smiled. Things were finally looking up.