Into the Maze

Chapter 16

(Hi, readers! Hope you like my first banner! Woot woot!! Really moving up in this world called Wattpad😜 (just kidding, I'm still completely clueless!)
P.S. yes, that is almost exactly how I picture Ellie)
It was night when Ellie woke again, and she knew she was alone. But when she sat up, she saw, out the open door, a bonfire so huge it almost reached the sky.
It took her about five minutes of slinking along in the shadows for her to reach the outer rim of the campfire circle. She knelt down and sifted some dirt between her fingers as she kept a keen eye out for Jackie or Ben.
"Where's the Greenie?" She heard someone about ten yards away from her ask.
A familiar voice replied, "she's asleep."
Jackie! Ellie slipped along, behind the loud, raucous boys, until she was right behind the slim silhouette that was Jackie.
"Psst!" She whispered, crouching low in the grass. "Jackie!"
The older girl whirled around, eyes searching the darkness until they came to rest on the light brown hair and hazel eyes of the Greenie.
"There you are!" She whispered loudly as she slunk back and knelt down next to Ellie.
"Shhh!"
"Why are we 'shhh'ing?" Jackie glanced back toward the other boys.
"Because they're going to hurt me if they see me."
Jackie sighed. "Nobody's going to hurt you."
Still, however, Ellie would not enter the circle of firelight and would only lie down to sleep that night if Jackie was laying right beside her.
Despite having a long nap that afternoon, Ellie was asleep quickly, leaving Jackie with her thoughts. Again, she fought sleep, but her dream of Ava Paige seemed like a very distant thing now. Besides, what messages might stop now that the second test subject had arrived. Anyways... but Jackie was asleep before she could think of another thing.
Her mind drifted between clouds of dreams, clouds which constructed blurry shapes she could not make out. She wandered aimlessly between the shapes, trying to make out a person, even a form which she could recognize.
Hello Jackie. It's Ava Paige. Her blood froze. The voice came, loud and clear, from nowhere. You are doing well with the New Test. Keep up the good work and neither of you will get hurt. But be careful. You don't know that you can trust these boys, especially-
"Jackie."
She jerked awake, gasping. Minho was standing over her, looking concerned. "You were talking in your sleep, Shank."
"Was I?" Fear had been lit in her heart. She jumped to her feet to see that the other runners were awake and packing up for that day's run. The sun was almost completely up, sparkling on the dew.
"Ready to go?" Minho was watching her closely, she could see it out of the corner of her eye. She remembered Ellie and cast a wary eye on the sleeping girl.
"It's okay, Ben said he'll watch her when she wakes up."
This only slightly comforted her, but she allowed herself to be led to the map room and, eventually, the maze.
As she jogged along something in the back of her mind came forward. "Minho, Ben doesn't have a job yet, does he?"
"Nope, but it looks like he'll be playing baby-sitter for awhile."
"Doesn't he like any jobs?"
"Oh, he loved the builders, but he almost killed Charlie on his first day there."
"Can he be a Runner?"
Minho sighed, but she couldn't tell if it was from the running or exasperation. "First you wanted to try out running yourself, now you want other people trying it too? Nobody wants to be a runner, Shank! Why don't you get that?"
"Ben really wants to get out of here."
"And I really don't think he would survive a day in the maze."
"That's what you said about me."
Minho groaned. "What makes you think he really wants to get out. More than anyone else, I mean."
"Because he actually believes he's going to get out. He's optimistic, Minho, and what with you and me, I think the Runners could use an optimist. Plus he's strong, and determined, and he doesn't fit in, just like I didn't."
"That has nothing to do with it."
"When was the last time you actually thought about getting out of the maze, Minho?"
"Shut up!" She had touched a nerve, and she was too reckless to stop.
"Well, when was it?"
"I think about it every day, shank! That's why I run, isn't it!?"
"But you don't believe we'll actually get out!?"
"I don't know!" Minho stopped running and doubled over , putting his hands on his knees. "Shank, you're still a Greenie, I wouldn't expect you to understand."
"I am not a Greenie! And if you would explain it to me I could understand!"
"Fine." Minho's voice had gone quiet, as it did when he was angry, and Jackie almost regretted her burst of temper. "When you're in the maze long enough, you give up. You keep fighting, because it's all you know how to do, but there's no hope. If you hope, you just end up disappointed. You end up broken."
Jackie stared at a Beetle-blade crawling in and out of the ivy weaving patterns on the wall. There was silence for a few seconds, then Jackie ventured, "I still have hope. So does Ben."
"Come on, then, Shank, the doors are closing soon," Minho said, as if the previous conversation had never taken place.
"Jackie!" As soon as she trotted out of the maze, she was attacked by a small, flying ball of shaggy brown hair and oversized clothes. "You Slinthead!"
Jackie was taken aback as this Glader-slang burst from the small Greenie, and wondered if she had been hanging out too much with Winston in her first day here. "How dare you!" Ellie beat her fists on Jackie's shoulder, causing sharp jabs of pain. "How dare you go off without me!?"
"Hey, cool it Greenie!" Jackie seized her wrists and held her still, but when Ellie began to kick her shins, she gave up and let the small girl kick herself out until she was too tired to do anything but stand there, panting, glaring at the older girl.
"I wanted to come!" She gasped.
"Has Alby shown you the ropes yet?" Jackie sighed.
"No, I hid from him, he couldn't find me."
"Well, I'll have to fix that." Jackie tried to make her voice firm, but she realized that being a runner and a sort of big sister would be harder that it looked. "You will go find him right now."
"No I will not!"
"You will so!" Jackie realized a second too late that she too sounded like a ten-year-old.
Ellie seemed to notice this as well, and shot a disparaging look at her.
"Go. Now." Jackie put on her strictest face and glowered down at the Greenie.
A war raged in Ellie's mind, then she shrugged and turned around, shoulders slumped, walking toward the hustle and bustle of the Glade to do the older girl's bidding.
Minho had disappeared from her side, so she wandered around looking for a Glader that she knew to strike up a conversation with.
She found James sitting on the doorstep to the Slicers' shack, plucking a chicken. He was covered in feathers and the look of concentration on his freckled face made Jackie laugh in spite of herself.
He looked up, and his face twisted into a mock grimace. "You try Slopper Duty! You wouldn't last one day!"
"I did Slopper duty, and I didn't last one day," she laughed, dropping down on the hard-packed ground.
James went back to his work, and they sat in comfortable silence until Jackie voiced something that had been on her mind since her conversation with Ben. "James, when we get out of the Maze-"
"If we get out of the Maze, Jackie."
She paused for a second, then continued, "when we get out of the maze, what do you want to do?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, when this whole maze thing is over, what do you want to do with the rest of your life?"
James listened patiently, contemplated for a moment, then said, in a surprisingly strong voice, "first of all, Jackie, the 'Maze thing' will never be over. A part of us will always be trapped in here with all the boys that died. If we get out of here, we will never be like how we were before."
"That's good, I can't even remember what I was like before."
A smile quirked James's lips. "You know what I mean. Anyways, Jackie, what do you expect me to be able to do in the real world? I'm a Slopper, for shuck's sake! It's the only thing I can do."
"Just because you're a Slopper doesn't mean you can't do anything!" She realized she was almost shouting, but didn't care.
James's voice matched her's in volume. "But everyone knows I can't do anything-"
"Jackie." Minho, who must have heard the argument, was standing just behind her, glaring at James. Standing beside him was Ben, looking rather uncomfortable. When she stood up, Minho stepped in front of her protectively.
"Anything else, Slopper?" The disgust in his voice was obvious.
"No." James stood up and entered the Slicer's shack, head hanging low.
Minho cleared his threat, putting the tense moment behind him, and said to Jackie. "Hey Jackie, I want you to meet someone."
She glanced at Ben, puzzled. "But- I- I already know-"
"I'd like you to meet Ben." Minho cut her off. "He's going to be running with us from now on, if he does well tomorrow."