Gally's insane glare shifts to me. He yells, his voice tearing out of his throat, "I know you hate me, that you've always hated me. You should be Banished for your embarrassing inability to lead this group. You're shameful, and any one of you who stays here is no better. Things are going to change. This, I promise."
A red haze fills my vision. How dare he. How can he stand there and say those things to me after what he did? If I weren't the acting leader, if I weren't restraining Minho, I could kill the bloody shuck-face. A vision of my fist slamming into Gally's face tempts me. Because he was the one who had finally broken me, those months ago when I wanted to die.
He leaves. I release Minho, and slump back into my chair. There's a very good reason why I hate Gally so much. It's easy to hate someone when they're responsible for the death of the person you'd cared about most in the bloody screwed up world.
After a little over a year of being in the Maze, back when I was still Keeper of the Runners, we needed a replacement for one of our guys who'd been killed. Poor shank had gotten stuck out in the Maze overnight. The Runner who'd found his body looked haunted for days.
I had been looking at most of the newer Gladers, and there were about six I wanted to test. We examined them on every skill I could think of that they might need: speed and stamina in a series of races, intelligence by seeing how well they could notice patterns, and a few problem solving scenarios we had brainstormed earlier. It sounds pointless, but I was worried. I wanted only the best. I was terrified of sending someone out who wasn't ready, who was gonna get themselves killed.
One of them stood out, a kid with sandy hair and dark brown eyes. He wasn't the fastest, but he was bloody brilliant. He deciphered a pattern in less than ten minutes that had taken half an hour to put together. By the time we got to the problem-solving stage, only he and two others had passed everything well enough to move on. We gave them the problem "How much dirt is in a hole 6 and a half feet wide, 8 feet deep, and 5 feet long?" and a two-minute time limit. Within ten seconds, the kid sat back smiling. The other two looked at him, bewildered, and went back to feverishly scribbling calculations on their papers. Finally, all of them have circled answers on their papers.
"So?" I ask. "What are your answers?" Two of the kids reveal completely different numbers. The third one just shakes his head, trying not to laugh. "It's a hole. There's no dirt in a hole. That was a shuck-faced thing to do, by the way."
I can't help but laugh at that. It's not anywhere near threatening when he's a head and a half shorter than me. "I like you, shank." And I really do like this kid. He's got heart. "What's your name?"
"Stephen."
"How long have you been here?"
"2 months." Not long, but what could I do? I said I wanted the best, and that's what I got.
"Ok. Stephen is our new Runner. You other two, great job. Maybe next time," I say. God forbid there be a next time.
"When do we start?" he asks.
Like I said, the kid was a genius. I honestly thought he would be the one to get us out. And I genuinely cared for him, tried my best to keep him safe. Someone, maybe Alby, started calling him my younger brother, and it stuck. If it weren't for the fact that I was the only one with an accent, it could've been true. I took charge of his training the day after testing. I kept him running with me as long as I could until I finally had to let him take over his own section. Everything seemed to be going well; we went weeks with no injuries and we were testing new patterns every few days. None of them worked, but everyone was confident we were getting close. And then, naturally, everything went horribly shucking wrong.
One day, I was late getting out of the Maze, making it back only five minutes before the walls shut. I rush into the map room and count off the other Runners, then freeze. I count one more time. A familiar sandy head is missing. I race out of the Map Room, pushing Minho aside as he tries to grab my arm. I am not losing another Runner to the bloody shucking Maze and I sure as hell am not losing Stephen. He's the closest thing to family I have in this place. I shove through the Gladers. I have to reach the West door in time. My heart is beating a million miles an hour, and I must look insane to anyone who sees me.
I catch the slightest flicker of movement down the passageway. Thank God, I think. I start to run out into the Maze. As we get closer, I see that it's actually two figures, an unconscious Gally being dragged by Stephen. My breath catches in my throat. They're covered in blood. I can't tell which one of them the crimson is spreading from, but it's everywhere.
"Stephen!" I yell. "What happened?"
His breathing is labored, and his words sound strained when he answers. "Gally...Grievers stung him...I'm not stung, but..."
And then he turns just a little, and I can see the hideous wounds on his back, and one awful scrape on the side of his head. No, I think, no, this wasn't shucking supposed to happen. I yell back down the passage, back into the Glade. I'm dragging them both now; Stephen can barely stay on his feet. We won't make it before the bloody doors close. Minho must have followed me out of the Map Room, because he comes charging into the Maze.
"Grab Gally!" I shout, for once glad he never listens to me. I pick up Stephen, he gets ahold of Gally, and we start to run. Suddenly, the familiar crashing and groaning noise of the closing walls begins. We're sprinting for our lives now, slipping through the doors with only inches to spare.
Someone calls the Med-jacks. We help them maneuver both boys-now both unconscious-into the Homestead. One administers Grief Serum to Gally, and the other starts cleaning Stephen's cuts. It doesn't look good for either one of them. Gally will undergo the Changing, and Stephen had lost so much blood, and the cuts were so deep-no. He would make it.
I don't know how long I stand there before I'm told to leave. They're right, I guess. I need to go back to the other Runners. I'm still the Keeper, I still have a job to do. Even if my almost-brother is dying. Shuck it. I really need to slim it and stop thinking that. He had to make it.
It kills me to leave.