Into the Maze

Chapter 5

(We're going back to the Glade. I took a break but now we're back where we left off Chapter 3. I'm starting this chapter with another Point of View so I hope you like it. Also, I will be sneaking some subtle romance into this chapter, so see if you can catch me)
Newt's POV
I wake up screaming, drenched in sweat and tears, which are falling still. Not Lizzy, please, not Lizzy! That was the only thought in my head. I don't even know who Lizzy is. All I know was that I couldn't save her. And she trusted me. I stuff my pillow in my mouth and scream, but only once. There isn't enough energy left in me to scream again. Still with my pillow in my mouth, I let out gut-wrenching sobs which are dry because there are no liquids left in me.
It is still dark and Jackie is still asleep next to me. She's the new Greenie and I can't help but feel a little angry at her. These nightmares... they didn't happen until she showed up. Something about her reminded me of Lizzy. Maybe it was her teasing dark eyes or the sprinkling of freckles on her nose, but somehow, she felt like this Lizzy who I had never met except in my dreams. And so I knew I must protect her. I must never lose this Lizzy again.
I lay still until the light breaks over the top of the maze, that's a signal that it's time for the Runners to get up. I sit up and stretch, trying to convey that I too had a good nights sleep. Alby comes over to me part way through my breakfast and tells me that he needs me to stay behind from the Runners and supervise Zart, the keeper of the gardens, for the morning.
I do so, and it almost helps the dead feeling in my stomach, but every time I look up I see Jackie, who had also been called to the garden to work. Her dark hair is tied back from her face in a ponytail, and it looks exactly like Lizzy's. Somehow.
After lunch, Alby tells me I can get some running in before the doors close, and although I nod and walk briskly toward the maze, it's not long before I avert my footsteps. Instead, I walk through the woods to the burial ground. It's a strange place for my feet to take me, but I don't question it. I crouch down and take a handful of dirt from the ground, sifting it through my fingers. I look out at the graves. My eyes are automatically drawn to one in particular. The headstone reads: George.
George. I still remember his intense but happy personality, and his smile, but even more etched in my mind is his death. George, writhing on the ground and screaming. George, who was so brave...
And I realize: this is my fault. If I would've been there for Lizzy, nothing would have happened to her. If I would have seen the Griever before George did... and I know that if I am still here, still "watching out" for Jackie, my new Lizzy, something will go wrong with her too, and I will not allow that to happen.
I know what I must do. I stand up and brush off my legs, my jaw set. I turn and jog back through the woods, eyes set ahead but not seeing.
I run into the Glade and look around one last time. I see Jackie, my new Lizzy, one last time. Then I run into the maze, and I don't look back.
3rd person POV
It didn't take long for Jackie to realize something was wrong. A few minutes after the Runners had arrived back in the Glade Minho had strode out to the gardens and said in a tight voice, "Keepers' meeting right now, Zart."
Zart dropped his rake and hurried after the Runner, unquestioningly. She continued to pick at the row of cabbages she had been harvesting for a few minutes, then, glancing up to make sure nobody else was around, she took off at a quick place towards the Gathering.
It took her only a few minutes for Jackie to find the perfect hiding spot. If she crouched low behind a bush and pressed her eye against a chink in the wooden wall, she could see The keepers standing in a semicircle, Alby facing them away from her, and she could hear his voice clearly.
"Obviously, I am asking if any of you have seen him since this afternoon." His back slumped slightly when the boys all chorused their regrets. "Nobody?"
Silence hung like a sheet in the air, heavy with sadness.
Minho stood up, chin raised defiantly. "Well then Alby, if he's in the maze, then I'm going after him."
Several of the boys stood up as well, but Alby silenced them with a look. "Nobody goes into the maze after him, Minho," he stated, sighing sadly.
"Says who?!"
"Says me." Alby squared his shoulders. "And so would Newt if he was here."
A realization sank into Jackie, numbing her to the bone. Newt was in the maze. Newt was in the maze and the doors were going to close. And he would still be in there. And nobody survives a night in the maze.
"You would die too, you know that!" Alby's voice was rising angrily.
"So!? Without Newt, I would be dead now! And you expect me to just sit around and watch while he..." Minho's voice faded away.
"No, Minho. Swear to me."
"I-"
"Swear. To. Me." Alby's voice cracked. "I've lost one of my best friends. I'm not risking losing the other. Swear to me, Minho, please."
Minho strode out of the shack and sat down with his back against the wall, taking deep breaths and clenching and unclenching his fists.
"It's all right." she heard Gally's voice and it sparked hatred. "He's just sitting outside, the stupid shank."
She was still for just a few seconds, listening to Minho's agonized groans, then, all at once, she knew what she had to do.  She jumped out from behind her bush and walked briskly over to where Minho was slumped, head in his hands.
"Minho."
He groaned in annoyance. "You were listening weren't you, you shuck-faced shank?"
"Yes." She planted her feet far apart and put her hands on her hips. "And I'm going after Newt right now. And you're coming with me."
"I... what!?" He jerked his head up and stared at her. "What the-"
"I like it less than you do, Shank. But you know the maze inside and out, so you're coming with me."
Minho stared at her. She was starting to think that he was going to report her to Alby, when he leaped to his feet and sighed in relief, "I don't know whether to hate you or love you, Greenie."
"Neither." She tried to sound cold and aloof but she knew that she was blushing. "We're allies, that's all."
Jackie's muscles relaxed for some reason the second she ran through the opening which had beckoned her tauntingly since her first day in the Glade. She wanted to pause for a moment when her boot hit the stone floor, but she was smart enough to know that time was of the essence.
Minho led her, and at the first crossroads he turned his gaze to the left, in an almost monotony which signified that he had run this path many times. Jackie, however, pulled up short. "Don't we go the other way?"
Minho stopped running and turned to give her a condescending look. "Greenie, I've run this maze a few times more than you have."
"I know but..." she stammered over the words which made no sense even in her brain. "Something tells me we need to go right."
Minho looked her up and down, judging, for a few seconds, then he shrugged, "nothin' to lose, Greenie."
They took the right-hand path.
At the next crossroads, she waited for him to make a move, but he stopped short and glanced at her. "Your call, Shank."
It was then that they heard a scream. It rang through the stone corridors, bouncing menacingly off the walls and reverberating through the maze. Minho and Jackie locked eyes, both reading horror and despair on the other's face. "He's close," Minho said.
It was then that Jackie realized, though she had thought she was running her fastest before, just how fast she could run.
Turning a corner, Minho once again threw out an arm to stop Jackie, hitting her square in the chest. It knocked her backwards and she toppled to the ground, more of surprise than weakness.
There was a lumpy shape on the stone floor of the maze. As Jackie lifted her head to watch, it moved. And then it groaned. And then she knew.
"It's Newt!" She screamed, and then she was crawling, scrambling to her feet and stumbling as fast as she could to the broken, twisted body on the ground.
"Newt!" She screamed again as she reached him, snatching his cold hand from the ground and shaking it in an attempt to wake him from the darkness which had engulfed him.
And then Minho was leaning over Newt, pushing her back more gently than she would have expected from a Runner. "Newt!" His command and sharp voice was back. "Get up, Shank, or we'll all be late for supper!"
Newt groaned and cracked an eye open. "Minho. My leg. I... I can't..." Newt's eyes, full of pain, locked with Jackie's dark ones, and suddenly all the sanity which he had composed before was gone. His head fell back, his body racked with sobs.
Jackie was stunned, but Minho only sighed. "Okay, so he's not moving by himself. Greenie, quit staring like a slinthead and make yourself useful. You get his other arm and we can lift him together."
"Can we make it?"
"We'll have to."
She slung one of Newt's shaking arms over her shoulder and, with Minho's help, managed to get Newt onto one foot. Then Minho gasped. "Greenie, we're lost! Jackie, I don't know the way out!"
She stared at him, nonplussed. "One right, one left, two rights and a left."
"What?"
"That's the way out."
It was his turn to stare. "How do you know that?"
"I don't know, I just... remember."
"Huh." Minho stared in bewilderment at her for so long that she cleared her throat and said, "Can we go then?"
One right... one left... that was all that was in her mind as she dragged Newt through the maze as darkness fell.
She and Minho were just rounding the last corner when what she had been afraid of all that long afternoon happened. There was a grinding noise, a gust of wind, and the doors began to close.
"Go! Go, go, go!" Minho' voice was hysterical. Jackie tried to command her weary legs, to make them move, but they seemed to have lost all power.
And then Minho was half-pushing, half-dragging both her and Newt to the opening, pushing her into the crack which was getting smaller all the time, screaming at her to go!
And she dropped to her knees on the soft grass of the Glade at the entrance to the maze, Newt's limp body falling next to her, and, finally, Minho, squeezed so tight he could barely get through, falling onto the grass beside her.
And there were the Gladers, shouting, running to them. The most welcoming sight Jackie had ever heard.
Just before they were enveloped in the crowd of pushing, shoving boys, Minho locked eyes with her. A weary, triumphant grin spread across his face and he asked, "Whaddaya say, Shank? Wanna be a runner?"