Fire Starter [NewtxOC]

Ten: Trapped

"Are you sure about that," Grayson asked for the tenth time since we had snuck down to Mary's workspace. Mary was a doctor who also tattooed the patients with their information before they went into the maze.

"I'm sure," I reassured him as I took my top off. "With this on my back, we should be able to survive." Mary had just finished transferring my drawing to a piece of transfer paper.

"You ready?" I nodded and laid down on her work bench.

"You know that if you take your hoodie off, you may be killed outright?" Grayson said pointedly.

"That's a chance I have to take." I said, as Mary undid my bra and placed the large sheet on my back. My design was of a tree. It looked completely innocent from far away – and to any of Wicked's cameras. But intertwined in the branches of the trees were names that Grayson had stolen. The names of who were supposed to live, despite if they died in later stages. The trunk of the tree was made of phrases and images and clues to escape, to kill, or to break through any of Wicked's games that were planned. I drew in a long breath as the tattoo gun was set to my skin. It burned worse than when Mary had inked my label into me previous; D-13: the one.

"Why is 'the cliff is not a cliff' the biggest?" Mary asked while she worked.

"Without that, the rest isn't worth anything." I answered through gritted teeth.

I watched from my hammock as Alby and Minho ran though the west door into the maze, Newt waving them a good luck. They must be off to investigate the dead Griever out near the cliff. A thousand worried thoughts raced through my mind. What if the Griever was not really dead? What if it pushed them off of the cliff, or one of them got stung? I shook my head, pushing those thoughts from my head. I skipped breakfast in favor of helping the Track-Hoes work at removing a large stump from the area they were wanting to expand. Zart had been talking all morning about how he wanted to add another crop field now that they had been sent a new type of seed.

"Can't believe that the runners found a dead one," Zart snorted, leaning on his shovel while I worked at tilling the already upturned dirt. "You ever found one?" He had his Track-Hoes off working on keeping everything else running while we finished this job off. Zart was one of the few in the Glade that knew the full story of how I came into their Glade from the maze, as one of the keepers that is.

I shook my head as I kept working. "Only seen the living kind unfortunately." Zart frowned before he continued to work.

"So, a maze full of girls – must have been a party every night," he said, raising his eyebrows suggestively. I plunged my hoe into the ground, holding my side from laughing so hard.

"What image do you boys have in your mind," I asked, wiping away a tear of laughter, "girl on girl action all the time?" I shook my head, trying to stop my laughing. "Not even close Zart. It was all hard work and estrogen." He opened his mouth to speak again. "Estrogen as in crying, emotional wrecks every time another one got sent up." He frowned before going back to work. We worked like that until Frypan called for lunch and we had just finished tilling the field, with his little quips.

Newt padded over to me while I was in line for my lunch, "you see Minho and Alby yet?" His demeanor was off.

"Haven't seen them come back yet." I frowned.

Newt ran a hand through his hair, "they should have been back by now." I started to reach out to comfort him, but stopped and returned my hands to my hips.

"Probably got side tracked – you know Minho – nice shiny dead Griever, lets go play with it." I offered with a shrug.

He ran his hand over the left half of his face, "I know Minho's a slinthead, but he's not that bad."