DISCLAIMER: THE AUTHOR OF THIS FANFICTION DOES NOT OWN THE MAZE RUNNER SERIES OR ANY CHARACTERS IN THE FANDOM. IF YOU DON'T RECOGNIZE IT, IT'S PROBABLY THE PRODUCT OF MY BRAIN. THE MAZE RUNNER IS OWNED BY JAMES DASHNER.


Newt hated the Maze.

He hated it more than anything else in the world, and he couldn't even remember most of the world. He'd spent almost a year running through the maddening corridors, hating them every step of the way. Almost a year, and still no way out.

He pulled himself up on the vines coating the walls, hand over hand. Beetle blades were scampering around to his right and his left, but he didn't care. Not anymore.

This was the way out.

Newt stopped climbing, hanging on to the vines and looking back over his shoulder down at the ground. He decided he was about half-way up the walls. He stared at the rocky floor of the Maze. Was he high enough?

A wave of rage swept over him, so powerful that he wanted to scream. At the Maze, at the Grievers, and the beetle blades, at Nick, and the Gladers. He let go with one hand and let his body swing so he could see the bottom more easily. He pulled his legs up against the rock and grabbed the vines with both hands again.

The uncertainty that had weighed at him since he'd started climbing suddenly vanished. Newt let his hatred fill him up. It was better this way.

He screamed, letting out all the anger and fear that the Maze had made him feel. And then he jumped.

"Nick, let me go out there. Something's happened to Newt, I can tell."

"No. You know the rules. No one goes into the Maze except Runners."

"No, I know, I just—just let me go check, I'll make it back before the doors close—if I'm right, something's gone wrong, if I'm not, I'll come back and spend however long you want me to spend in the Slammer. Please."

"No."

"Nick, listen to me! He's hurt, he's in danger, you have to let me go find him. Please, if I don't, he'll die."

In the W.I.C.K.E.D. base below, a girl burst into the observation room.

"Send me up. Now." Her hands were balled into fists, her eyes red from tears that were still coming.

"No." No one even looked at her, except for Thomas and Teresa.

"Send me up!" she screamed at the back of a man. "It's what I'm supposed to do anyway, it's my whole purpose."

"We said we'd send you up at the year mark, and we're not there yet." He still didn't turn to look at her.

"You said you were sending me up because they needed hope!" the girl yelled. "He. Jumped. They need hope now."

"Sir, she's right," Thomas said. Teresa looked sharply at him, but he shrugged the look off. "We never expected him to jump. They might need her sooner than we anticipated."

Janson was silent. The girl stalked up to him furiously and grabbed his shoulder, forcing him to turn around and look her in the eye, not caring how much of a mess she was.

"He bloody jumped," she said, her voice still raised and tense. Her heart was hurting for Newt. "He jumped, and you. Could've. Saved him!" She straightened up, still crying, still hurting. "Send. Me. UP."

The Keeper of the Med-jacks had done the best he could for Newt's leg. He'd splinted it the best he could, it being a bloody mess. He'd somehow kept his head through the whole traumatic process and done as he knew was recommended for broken legs. He'd stayed with Newt all day, beating himself up that he couldn't do more. He knew he was getting no sleep that night.

No one would.

Newt was still unconscious.

When all of the beetle blades in the Glade snuck into his room in the Homestead, no one saw. One stayed upside down on the ceiling, its red light staring down at Newt. The W.I.C.K.E.D. scientist behind its screen changed its settings to x-ray and looked at the battered bones in the boy's body. Bruised bones everywhere, one fully broken in his leg, and a fractured rib. His ankle and foot had been practically shattered. The kid was lucky he'd landed like he had, or he could've died.

The other beetle blades scrambled down onto the bed the boy was lying on, until it was covered with little silver bodies, all sitting perfectly still. One by the boy's neck inserted one of its needle-like legs into his neck. Sedative. To make sure he stayed under.

The beetle blades went to work, crawling over the areas of the kid which had been injured, sticking him with needles to inject healing agents. Two silver agents curled around his head and injected him with something that could help his concussion. The largest amount of the little silver robots were pushing at his leg under the direction of the one on the ceiling, who could see it most clearly. The bones were coming back together slowly. A few beetle blades around his feet prodded with precision, nudging the bones back into place. If Newt had been awake, he would've been in agony.

The beetle blades' precision was amazing. The bones were in place very quickly, and the beetle blades froze perfectly still, their red lights searching for anything else the boy needed.

There wasn't anything else.

The beetle blades slowly crawled away and down the stairs, out the door of the Homestead, across the Glade, the only thing to give them away, their little red lights. The sea of beetle blades dispersed.

W.I.C.K.E.D. didn't want Newt to die.