Hey guys! So if you don't know this is the sequel to another story I wrote called The Bridge that you can find on my profile. And you know if you don't want to be confused and all I suggest you check that out first :). Anyways enjoy this new installment where Sadie and Newt face phase two and the new horrors that lie ahead.
I don't own The Maze Runner series, but man I wish I did.
Sadie wasn't quite sure what woke her up. It could have been the quiet shuffle of feet, or the creak of the door swinging open, or maybe it was the dull glint of a needle in the darkness, whatever it was it gained her a few precious seconds that gave her just enough time to grab onto the bedside lamp.
She dove out of bed, her head smacking into the edge of the table while she fumbled to disconnect the lamp's plug from the wall. Sadie could hear Teresa yelling and struggling in the darkness, gruff and angry whispers sounding from around the room as her friend struggled. Sadie jumped to her feet and was immediately nocked back down by a set of arms, she hit blindly, the lamp connecting with a crack as the person howled and released her. Something clattered to the floor. Sadie felt the ground with her fingers brushing against, what could have only been the needle she had faintly seen before.
"Teresa!" Sadie yelled stumbling away from the eerie tool as she tried to shake the sleep from her limbs. She thrashed and hit anything that moved, her arms swinging wildly as hands grabbed at her arms and clothes from the darkness. She prayed Teresa was excluded from her blind attacks as her lamp struck yet another person with a painful thud. "Teresa what's going o- Shuck!" A fist connected with Sadie's temple sending her toppling to the ground as stars danced in her vision. She could hear the grunt as the person swung their leg and connected their foot with Sadie's side causing her to shout as pain tore through her. Through the darkness she saw the outline of another figure tackle the person over her. Teresa.
Emergency lights began to blare startling Sadie as she took in what surrounded them. Featureless people, their faces covered by creepy gas masks were circling around the room their hands gloved and their plastic suits whispering as they tried to haul Teresa off of one of their own. How did they get in? Sadie thought wildly her mind quickly registering the still locked door and the embroidered letters on each of their suits as she backpedaled, her head smacking the wall behind her. WICKED.
A shriek above her, the sound, like a pig being dragged to the butcher's block, made Sadie's heart stop and her blood run cold. A hand, it's skin torn and sore covered grappled with her shoulder, dirty nails sinking into her skin. She screamed, tearing herself away from the window as she peered into the ravaged and torn face of a woman screaming for blood. All of the windows in the dormitory had been shattered, faces pressed against the bars and hands grabbed at the air from every direction. Everything was absolute chaos.
"Go Sadie!" Teresa yelled as a man stuck her with one of the needles they all held. Sadie, of course, did the opposite and rushed forward. Hands grabbed and she saw the flash of a needle. She kicked outward her elbow flying backwards as she fought her way out of the wave of hands that tried to grab her. They were everywhere. So many hands, so many. Nothing seemed human, everything evil and sinister tried to hold onto her, arms slithering around her throat and picking at her legs and tearing at her clothes. Sadie let out a blood-curdling scream her arms flailing as she tried to smack away the hands. "Sadie I said go!"
"Teresa!"
"Go!" She listened this time. Her feet flying towards the door as she tugged on the locked door handle desperately. The hands were grabbing her, yanking her, she was being torn apart.
Lamp still in hand Sadie raised it over head, her mind registering how ridiculous she probably looked armed with only a desk lamp, and crashed it down on the door handle with a splintering sound. Her foot connected with the door, springing it open and kicking it closed behind her as she sprinted through the dark common room. I need to get help, need to get the boys. Gotta save Teresa.
Sadie thudded into something; it swung, a rope whining from above her as she backed into another, and then another. What are these things? She thought pushing her way through the swinging obstacles as shouts echoed around her, she could still feel the hands, reaching, grabbing. She tripped over something, the coffee table or couch and swore loudly as she sprawled on the ground. The darkness seemed thicker in this room, like a blanket had been drawn over her eyes, she staggered to her feet her heart thumping, ghostly arms still clinging to her body as a door was sprung open in front of her.
Sadie yelped, holding her lamp aloft threateningly as she took in the startled and confused glances of the Gladers before her.
"What the bloody hell are you doing with a lamp love?" Newt asked his head tilting as he glimpsed her half crazed expression and shaking limbs.
"They're here! They're taking Teresa, we need to save her we need to go!" She shouted the lamp dropping from her grasp with a thud as she grabbed onto Newt and Minho's shirt collars, dragging them past the swinging mysteries as she bumped her way recklessly towards the opposite door.
But when she swung it open everything was ghostly quiet, and Teresa was gone.
"What? No. No no no no no." Sadie sprinted into the room, ignoring the shouts of the zombie-like people that were clawing through the windows. "She was here! They were here!" She yelled her voice croaking. "Teresa!"
"Sadie we need to-"
"Teresa!"
"Sadie!" Newt called, his hands gripping her forearms. Unlike the ghostly and horrifying hands that had grabbed her before, Newt's were warm and familiar and helped to ease some of the chills that raced up her spine. He tugged her out of the room, slamming the door closed behind them as the Gladers searched for a light switch in the dense darkness.
"Jesus, what- careful there're things, hanging." Minho called out from a corner of the room as Sadie and Newt began to stumble forward through the inky black. Sadie heard Newt grunt and table legs squeal against the floor, the sound making her jump and bump into another one of the hanging… things.
"Ow! Mother- table." Newt announced to the group swearing colorfully. "Watch out for bloody tables." The rest of the Gladers watched from the boys' room, Frypan stuck his head out his eyes searching for them in the darkness.
"Do you shanks even know where the light switch is?" He called.
"That's what I'm bloody looking for. I coulda sworn I saw the damn thing over here somewhere…. Found it!" Newt called flicking the switch on and bathing the room in fluorescent light. The sudden change made Sadie stumble, her hands catching onto one of the hanging obstacles as she righted herself, her fingers brushed cloth, and her eyes squinted as she looked at the…
"Shit!" Sadie yelped backpedalling and screaming when she bumped into another body. They were hanging all over the room. Nooses tight around purple necks, their bodies stiff as they swung in place, eyes clouded and lips pale white. Newt rushed over, yanking her out of the middle of the room as Sadie turned and retched her shoulders shaking as her eyes, mesmerized by the shear horror of it all looked from face to face of each dead body.
"Those are the people that saved us." A boy whispered from the dormitory, his voice quiet. The other boys yelled in shock some gagging and others swearing almost as loudly as Minho.
"Alright love?" Newt whispered his voice somewhat shaky as his eyes swept the room, his arms tightening around Sadie.
"Teresa." Thomas muttered doubling over from either the shock or pain, Sadie wasn't sure. "You said they were back, said they took her. What does that mean?" Sadie quickly explained all that had happened. The people in suits, the needles, the crazy window grabbing people, or Cranks, as Minho called them.
"You took out people in hazz-mat suits with a lamp?" Frypan asked with a low whistle. Sadie shook her head and strode towards the bright yellow door where her and Teresa had spent the night. Maybe a clue had been left behind, or maybe she had dreamed the whole thing. Whatever the case, she was going to look again. But before she entered she noticed something that hadn't been there before.
"Sadie, open the door." Thomas said rushing over his face ashen. " Is it locked? Someone get the fire extinguisher!"
"You're making fun of me for using a lamp when you busted a door with a fire extinguisher? God help us if there's a fire." Sadie muttered her hand reaching up to trace a plaque on the door.
"What are you-" But Thomas's words fell silent as he took in the small plaque, the black letters neatly typed and aligned.
Teresa Agnes. Group A, Subject A1
The Betrayer
Sadie read what it said out loud, and then again her mind swirling in confusion as she tried to soak in the words. Group A? Subject A1…. The Betrayer?
"What's this mean?" Newt asked, handing the fire extinguisher over to Thomas as the rest of the boys joined them, trying their best to ignore the hanging bodies and the terrible smell they were giving off. Agnes? Sadie thought, her mind spinning as she began to wonder about names. What was her real name? And who had the assholes from WICKED named her after? Sadie had no clue about either of those questions. Memories were still returning to her, some brief and some so difficult to handle they practically knocked the wind out of her. Flickers of faces, her mom, dad, an old cat and overly excited dog. They all circled around her head like a windmill. The girls from her old group were there too, and Sadie was deeply saddened to discover that she recognized the girls from the opposite Maze more than her own parents.
A loud, splintering thud snapped her mind back to reality. Thomas swung the door open, him and Sadie stepping in quietly, carefully, as the rest of the boys followed close behind.
"This isn't our room." Sadie said her eyes darting around the similar, but smaller room than the one her and Teresa had shared last night. It was smaller, and instead of two, only one bunk was left unmade, the sheets and pillow hanging limply over the bottom edge.
"What do you mean?" Thomas asked his voice sounding both relieved and excited as the sound of a toilet flushing echoed from the bathroom. "Teresa." Thomas said, her name coming out as a sigh of relief as he began to walk towards the bathroom. Sadie and Newt grabbed his arms before he could reach the door handle.
"One, I'm not so sure that's Teresa." Sadie muttered a sinking suspicion filling her gut as she peered at the bathroom door.
"And two," Newt added in. " I don't think any girl would appreciate you waltzing into the bloody ladies room when their trying to take a piss."
"Eloquently said Newt." Sadie replied a smile tugging at her lips as she felt a rush of warmth for his sarcastic and haughty demeanor.
"Well, might as well hold a Gathering in here, no dead bodies, no windows, it's a good a place as we'll find in here." Minho interrupted, turning around to wave the rest of the Gladers into the room as Sadie took a seat on the floor her head resting against Newt's shoulder as he sat down next to her. Windows. Sadie knew there had been windows in her room, she was sure of it. Who's ever room this was, it was definitely not her and Teresa's. But she swallowed the thought after taking one look at Thomas's hopeful and relieved face, she would wait and see who came out of the bathroom, better to have that break the news than her.
She breathed deeply through her nose, her forehead nuzzling into Newt's shoulder as she tried to erase the images of the nightmare she had just lived through with the comforting and musky smell of him, the scent she had come to familiarize with safety, and home.
A soft click sounded in the room, Thomas jumped to his feet and Sadie prepared herself to spring tackle Teresa, if it was in fact her, but to her dismay she had been right. The person who walked through wasn't Teresa but was in fact a, boy.
"Who are you?" Thomas demanded, his voice harsh and his hands twitching as if ready to ring the poor shanks neck. The boy blinked with innocent shock, he was light skinned with short, dark hair and a slender frame.
"Who are you?" The boy retaliated, his voice still shocked but more resilient now that he had gotten his bearings. Sadie was immediately on her feet and approaching the two, Newt following her lead.
"Don't try that crap with us." Newt snapped his voice as harsh as Thomas's. "There are a lot of us, and we aren't in the best of moods right now. So just tell us who you bloody are."
"Fine. The name's Aris, anything else you Sticks' want to know?" He answered his voice dripping with an arrogant attitude.
Sadie punched him before she could even register what had happened. Her fist connected with his jaw with a satisfying thud as he reeled backwards. The boy groaned and stumbled into the bathroom doorway, his hand clutching his jaw.
"Holy Jesus! What was that for?" He yelped his attention on Newt and Thomas as they tugged Sadie away from him. As if they would know why she punched him, Sadie didn't even know why she had done it.
"Cut to the chase man and tell us where she is." Thomas deadpanned, his tone angry and seething.
"She?"
"Yes she, the girl that was in here! Teresa, her names on the freaking door for shucks sake." The boy must have finally registered the seriousness of the situation, because he raised his hands and spoke slowly, all traces of sarcasm gone.
"Look, all I know is that they put me in this room, I slept on that bunk, and that I woke up a few minutes ago to take a pee. I have no idea who this Teresa girl is."
"Who told you to stay in here?" Minho asked from Sadie's right, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. The boy shrugged and his eyes saddened, as if reliving a terrible, haunting memory.
"I don't know some random people, with guns that came and rescued us from the… the-"
"The what?" Sadie asked pushing her way around Newt and Minho's broad shoulders so she could face the guy, or Aris as he had so graciously declared himself.
"The Maze." He mumbled peering up through his eyelashes at Sadie, before letting out a shocked yelp, his eyes going wide.
"It's- it's you!" He said his finger pointing at her and his face slack with what she could have sworn was awe.
"What do you mean 'it's me'?" She snapped, backing up ever so slightly as the boy scanned her face again.
"Your name it's- Santana? No, Sarah? No that's not it." Aris looked at her again, his expression one of ultimate confusion. Looks like the kid's seen a ghost. "No- your name's-"
"Sadie." Newt interjected, his voice as cold as a glacier. "Her name is Sadie. And why in the bloody hell do you recognize her?"
"They had pictures of you in the Maze. They had pictures of everyone who.. well.. died. But they talked about you the most. Especially Sonya."
"Who's they?"
"The, girls, the girls that I lived with in the Maze. I know this is gonna sound crazy, I'll try and explain it as best as I can, but they have a picture of you... They think you're dead."