Reminder: I do not own The Maze Runner Trilogy, it belongs to the God James Dashner. I only own Florence.


Being hopeful was a concept I found difficult to endure.

How could I be hopeful when I was so clueless? My friends were stuck in a phony safe house looking happier than ever, despite their losses, but really, Janson could be preparing them for something even more dangerous and cynically, which I had no clue about.

Hope dangled on a thin thread in front of my face, flaunting its optimism. My brain was momentarily connected to Thomas', and miraculously I managed to say his name. When I heard the "Hello?" in response, I mentally jumped for joy –seeing as I was busy being electrocuted— but what if it was just a coincidence? What if he thought he imagined my voice? I didn't even want to think of that possibility. I just wanted to be with them.

Closing my eyes, I rolled over on the foam-lined floor.

I was in some sort of prison cell where they kept cranks for monitoring. The room had four walls, all made with two-way mirror's so they could see inside, but I couldn't see outside. There was a small sliding door, a high ceiling, and a giant mattress as a floor, which was actually quite snug. A black hole about an inch wide, was in the middle of the ceiling, peering down at me like a giant eye as it surveillanced my every move via recording device.

Something that I had continued to discover these past few weeks was that I didn't know WICKED as well as I thought I did. After I had been tazered the guards took word from a high power—assumingly Janson— to send me to the basement cell, which I never knew existed.

Rhea gave me a merciful look as the two guards dragged me down the hallway, my two legs towing in the back. Her and the others all shuffled to get off each other and gazed as they watched me near my failure.

She tried to mouth something to me but my eyes were coddled with tears, causing everything I saw to be slightly blurry or warped. After I'm released she would be the first person I spoke to. My biggest concern at the moment was her well-being, as well as the other cranks that had helped me fool the guards. Janson showed no mercy when it came to non-immunes. They needed them for research, though, so maybe he just gave them a stern warning not to associate with me and let them go free. Hopefully.

I blew a raspberry as I rolled over again on the mattress and faced one of the mirrors where the door was. Looking through the glass, knowing there was someone monitoring me on the otherside, I opened my mouth to speak. "Let me speak to Janson," I tried to bargain.

I had been asking for him the past three days. Three whole days I ahd been stuck in here. I was supposed to be in the Scorch by now, with the others, but no. He lied, as per usual. Now I was bored out of freaking mind waiting inside this hell hole that could make the sanest person in the world a psychopath. The only person I saw was the guard that had tazered me, who had brought food for me only twice a day as well as my daily pills.

I was so immensely furious with Janson. I would talk to him, hear him out, and then I would pounce on that shuck-head, despite the consequence.

How could someone be so cruel? How could someone have that little of a conscience? I'm surprised there wasn't steam shooting from my ears right now due to how lividly enraged I felt.

I wrapped my hair around my face, letting it curtain across my check bones and fall onto my chest as I sat up in a cross-legged position. I grabbed a handful of hair and started to pluck the dead ends of my brown mane.

"Let me goooo!" I howled an hour later. I was running out of tasks to do. I didn't want to think. I hated thinking. Thinking led to sad thoughts. "Please… Let me g—"

Like a prayer being answered, a significantly boisterous click of a lock emitted throughout the spacious room.

I jolted to my feet, and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear as the door creaked open.

One foot stepped in, then the other, and the door shut behind the figure.

Janson.

I let out a silent snarl and glared as he moved towards me. I crossed my arms over my chest and cocked a brow as he stepped closer and closer.

"Hello, Florence," He greeted me with a smile, like we were old friends.

"Janson," I dipped my head.

"I heard you've been up to your usuall shenanigans again," He mentioned.

"You could say that," I shrugged my shoulders back.

He smirked, pausing once he was close enough to speak to me, but while also keeping a safe distance away from me. So he should. I was so enraged at his acts that I was ready to do anything to take him down. How was the chancellor okay with all of this?

"They've told me you've requested to speak with me." He gestured towards the two way mirror with both hands.

The hostility in the environment almost made me want to chuckle.

A small snort escaped my mouth when I spoke again. "Have been for three days,"

"So I heard," He nodded back. "I've been busy, as I'm sure you discovered. Moving back and forth between two buildings is difficult."

I blinked at him, waiting for him to continue as I straightened my stance to exhibit my enmity.

"Before we begin, I want to make it clear that I'm not ecstatic that you broke into my office and snooped around." His brows furrowed together.

That's when it clicked. He had no idea that I connected my brain to Thomas'. The guards must have unknowingly disconnected the telepathy network and assumed I was just looking through files for information on my friends. The corners of his lips quirked up in a sadistic matter. "I suppose you want answers?"

I shook my head and my arms dropped to my side as I prepared my speech I had thought over and over in my head for the past three days. "I don't give a shit about answers. I don't give a shit that I've been in here for three days, or that you're a fucked up person who kills cranks just to find a cure that we're no closer to getting, hell I don't even care that you're basically killing me with all these electroshock therapy and drugs, I just want what I've always wanted."

One of his brows lifted, as if to say Which is?

I bit my lip before answering. "To be with my friends."

His parted lips shut instantaneously and his grim smile widened. It widened and widened, showing teeth now, until he eventually started resembling the Cheshire cat. His mouth opened and he let out a boisterously cynical laugh. His head swung back and the chortling laughter never seized. It was a good thirty seconds of him continuing that and me staring at him with wide eyes until he stopped.

He trailed off with an 'ooooo…' and clutched his chest from laughing so hard.

"Care to tell me what the hell is so funny?"

"I just want to get something straight with you." He clapped his hands together and his lips formed a smile, "No matter what, I'm always one step ahead. WICKED always has a plan. For every step further you take in whatever you're trying to achieve, we're two, hell maybe even three steps ahead of that."

My lips parted and I shifted my posture, shrugging off the belittled feeling that started to manifest from his ultimatum. "Why are you telling me that? Is that some kind of threat?"

"It's whatever you make of it," he explained vaguely as the smile disappeared. "So you're aware of my miscommunication to you,"

"Your lies," I interrupted him.

"Whatever," he rolled his eyes. "They're at the safehouse. They're just there so we can study them. There's so many of them, Group A and Group B, and it's going to take a few weeks until we can fully take all the data from the maze from them."

I held up a finger, "First of all: Safe house? It's another HQ. Which I also had no idea about. Secondly, what're you going to do with them after?"

His eyes narrowed as he locked his irises with mine. "Let them go, let them stay, whatever they want."

I made a face, "What about the rest of the trials?"

He licked his lips, his eyes moving to the floor. "I don't know."

"What? What are you talking about? You need them for the cure."

"Yeah…" He shrugged.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean? Why are you being so vague?" I could feel my face heat up.

He shrugged.

"Stop that. Stop doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Lying!" I screamed at him, making him jump. "Stop freaking lying. This is all bogus. You're lying. This is the second trial, they think they're free but they're not. You may be telling the truth about collecting data but I think you have a plan. I don't know what it is but I don't like it. They're already in the trials, they just don't know it yet. Am I right?"

He shrugged, and that's when I tried the hardest not to beat the living crap out of him.

"They're going to find out, and you're going to force them into the scorch."

Again, a shrug, "The Safe House is good for them. Their brain patterns are improving; it actually is a perfect environment to study them in. They're all still pretty distraught over you and Chuck, Thomas and Newt especially. Maybe we'll keep them there for a little while until we 'force them into the Scorch'" He finger quoted the words and mimicked my voice.

I blew out a furious breath through my nostrils and clenched my fists so tightly I thought I was going to draw blood from my palms.

"Please," I tried to plead through my broken voice as I scowled at him, "Just let me go, let me see them."

His eyes rolled upward in a quizzical matter as one of his hands femininely perked out, one arm folded underneath. "No can do." His arms dropped to his side. "Not yet."

Not yet?

As if he had just revealed the big climax of a plot line in a TV show, he stiffened, changing the subject. "Why do you care about them so much anyways?" He began, "What makes them so different? Why would you choose them over us? Hell, you don't even know half of them. They could all be murders."

"I could be a murderer for all I know!" I stabbed my hand in my chest, "I don't know what's real, and what's not anymore. And you know what? I've decided not to freaking care. All that matters is that we've got each other, but you took that away from me. They're so much bloody lying and I can't shucking take it anymore!" I screamed, moving my hands to my hair and tugging it in frustration.

He snorted quietly.

"What?" I loosened my grip on my hair.

"You sound just like him." He folded his arms across his chest again and dipped his head at me.

"Like whom?" Confusion swept over me as he lagged a response.

"Newt."

The words came out of his mouth, and I felt like I was being possessed. A flourished wave of fury washed over me and I couldn't control what happened next. The images of Newt chatting to Janson on the computer screen burned in my mind, the thought of him believing anything that came out of his mouth made me want to punch someone.

I lunged forward, shoving Janson's square body in the center of his chest. He inhaled loudly with a whoosh as I knocked the wind out of him and his body went sailing toward the –sadly— padded floor.

He gasped for another breath as I kneeled down to his height. I raised a shaky fist in the air and it came crashing down on his right eye. Not where I had hoped for, but it'd have to do. I did another one, a little lower than the first, and a deafening smack rang through my ears. When he regained the ability to respire, he shoved me off of him and stood, grabbing my fragile wrists between his brawn hands.

The door swing open, hitting the mirror on the other side, and I saw two guards in the hallway, preparing to take me down, or at the very least bring Janson out safely.

"No." he surprised me. He turned to them, still holding my wrists as he leaned over and shook his head. He wagged his finger back and forth.

Even the guards looked mystified.

He turned back to me and grinned. He looked like something out of a horror movie. I hadn't noticed the leaky faucet of red coming from one of his nostrils until now. It bled into his mouth, staining his teeth red, causing shivers to go down my back when he beamed at me.

Using all the strength I had, I tried to writhe out of his constricting grip.

His grip tightened, and I winced. It tightened even more, no doubt causing immediate bruising, and I shrieked from the excruciating tenderness. He pulled me along, via my wrists, towards the middle of the room and I let out whimpers as he towed me. My hands felt like they were going to dislocate from my wrists.

I grunted when he pulled me towards him, gritting my teeth to hide the cry I wanted to release. I couldn't stand, but we were close enough to each other for him to hit me.

He released me with one hand, and raised it in the air.

From there on, it was slow motion. His fist came floating closer and closer towards the surface of my face, and I tried to shield myself with one hand as best as possible, but it did no justice. His fist hit me in the eye, similar to the spot I hit him and I grunted again, my teeth grinding against each other.

It reminded me a bit like a car crash. The adrenalin, the force of the hits, it's like flying through the air. I felt like I couldn't control myself. I couldn't do anything but sit there and take the beat. Repeated strike after strike and with each wallop followed a twinge of pain. Each nerve in me seemed to blast out electric shocks, my body shaking when his fist connected with my chin, cheek, eye… The blood from the cut on my right eyebrow clouded my vision in one eye, making me see red. Janson looked more like the devil then I had ever depicted him as.

There were so many shrieks, so many cries, and so many sobs, all pending from me. I hadn't realized I was releasing them until he finally stopped and my whimpering form crumpled to the ground.

The guards even had looks of astonishment when he finally released me. He wiped his bloody nose with the sleeve of his white coat and panted, straightening himself.

I touched my swollen face, as if that was any aid to the raw throbbing of my cranium.

He lifted his arm, and at first I thought he was going to hit me again, but instead he pointed one single finger towards the open door, all while still peering down at my crushed form.

My eyes darted from him to the door and back to him as I scooted backwards on my behind. My hands touched a wet spot in the cushioned floor where my blood had painted the foam, saturating the white with my contrastingly crimson blood.

"Go." He mandated, pointing towards the door.

"W-What?" I stuttered, my voice croaking. I let out a small cough and used the strength I had left to stand up.

"Go!" he said louder this time, making me jump.

I wiped the blood from my nose and stood erect completely. I shuffled to move around him, scrutinizing him in case he moved again. I had never been so frightened of someone in my life.

Once I had moved past him, I heard him shuffle to turn towards me. "Go to your room." He told me, like a parent telling off their kid for doing something idiotic. "See Alistair first, and then go to bed."

I nodded, turning away from him.

"I'm letting you go for a reason, Naomi."

I paused when I heard him say my real name. Biting my lip, I shivered, and continued my exit.

I squeezed past the two guards, who gave me looks of concern, pity almost, and shifted into a sprint once I exited the room. There was a long hallway, twists and turns, until I finally reached an elevator and went one floor up.

The elevator music was disgustingly cheerful, making me grimace. I tried to discount the pulsating pain in my face, as well as the swelling of my eye, blocking my vision partially, but it was hard not to when I tumbled out of the elevator and thumped my shoulder on the curve of a divider from lack of vision.

"Alistair?" I dubbed out, bearing towards his sector of the crank ward. I never in a million years thought I'd be calling his name for aid. Janson sent me to him anyways, but I knew Alistair of all people would help clean the wounds hygienically.

"Florence?" I heeded his voice from the end of the hallway, and a shadow formed on the floor, morphing as he took steps closer to the doorframe.

I disregarded the howls and screams from the cranks as I passed by a holding district for those 'past the gone' and shuffled towards his voice. I slowed to a stop when I entered the door, face to face with him, and stared up at him, as preeminent as I possibly could.

"What. The. Hell…" That was his response. His jaw went slack and his eyes went bug-like. "God, and I thought you were ugly before."

I shoved him in the chest and rolled my eyes, moving past him.

"What the hell happened to you?" He asked from behind.

"I went at Janson and this was my punishment," I spun around to face him again and I gesticulated towards my face.

"God…" He exhaled, scratching his head.

"Yeah," I tried to mumble through my swollen bottom lip. It gave me a small lisp. I could taste the rustiness of my own blood as the split on my lip leaked into my mouth.

"Sit down," He ordered. "I'll get this cleaned up before we start," He pointed to his swivel chair.

I sighed, already anticipating what he was going to do. Electroshock Therapy, that's why Janson sent me to him. Maybe if I obeyed he would let me go. Hopefully. That was all I had to cling on to; hope. Optimism was not one of best qualities though.

What seemed like hours later, but in realism was only ten or fifteen minutes, he had finally freshened my scathed face. I had stitches above my brow, close to the spot I had them back in the glade when Jeff gave me them, and he put steri-strip over a cut in my chin. My lip throbbed from the antiseptic fluid he had cleaned it with, and my eye ached. He tossed me a frozen pillow to rest over my eye while we waited to start, and he prescribed me to take eye drops everyday in order for it to heal faster.

He inserted the Bliss into my neck a few minutes later, and that seemed more painful then everything, mostly because I hated the sensation of the spine of a needle stabbing my neck.

"Ready?" he asked me, after graciously allowing me to respite for a while.

I bit my fat, blue lip.

"I'm gonna have to take that as a yes," He shrugged.

I groaned.

I narrowed my eyes, analyzing his motives when he leaned two hands towards me and offered to help me up from the bed. He tipped his head towards his hands again, shaking them in front of my face when I hesitated to grab them.

Alistair was never gracious or helpful towards me, only cruel or sarcastically douche-like.

He exhaled noisily and forcefully grabbed my hands to lift me from the seat. I let out a diminutive squeal when he towed me to a stand, my mind flashing back to the image of Janson beating the living crap out of me. Well, that vision, and the fact that my wrists were ridiculously bruised and aching.

"Sorry," He apologized, lifting his hands in the air when he realized that he had placed his hands on the purple and bluest part of my arms.

I made a wincing face, my eyes scrunching up, and I moved past him, my shoulder bumping his as I exited the room. He pursued after me as I piloted the way to the ECT room.

I paused in the doorway when I saw that the room was dark, no one but my lonesome body occupying it.

"Where's everybody else?" I asked. I was never alone.

Avoiding my piercing gaze, Alistair slid past me and flicked the light switch, letting the fluorescent lights buzz on. Again, I recoiled; the buzzing murmur in my ears from before deciding to make another appearance.

"Janson told me just you for this session." He explained as he waved me over to one of the machines.

I took leisure steps towards him. I dropped the pillow of ice by his feet and gave him one last look before he pressed the button to strap me in.

"Gah!" I shrieked when the five connecting plugs made a small, needle like incision to connect themselves to my head. I sucked in a breath when the machine made a loud murmur, gradually getting louder and louder with each passing second.

Alistair looked pained. You know when someone forced you to do something you didn't want to do? Like play a prank on one of your friends, and then you saw the look on your friends face when they gave you a look of betrayal, and you just stared back, giving them an uncomfortable glance while also trying to avoid their eyes; that was the look Alistair had.

He didn't observe me like he usually did when my body quaked with every pulse of electricity. He only glanced over once during the entire ten minutes of our session, and that was when I let out an audible, ear-piercing screech when it felt un-bearable.

"Okay, okay…" He pressed a button, the machine slowly turning off. "I think you've had enough."

I gritted my teeth, closing my eyes as the machine lowered me down to the ground and releasing my head from the spikes.

An unexpected ripple of fatigue vibrated through me, and suddenly, it seemed near impossible to hold up my own body weight.

My body swayed, and my vision blurred, and I didn't even think about objecting when Alistair hooked his arms underneath me.

I moaned loudly when he lifted me up, wedding-style and instituted to transmit me somewhere other than here.

Why was he helping me all of a sudden?

In this particular moment I didn't have a lot of time to think his questioning motives through thoroughly, so instead I let my eyelids flutter to a close, and I allowed the welcoming presence of fatigue, despite being asleep for so long the past three days.


"DUDE!"

"AH!" I gasped, jolting out of my bed and falling on to the floor. My face landed on the pedicured toenails of one of my closest friend's feet. "What the…" I murmured, "How do you have painted toenails?" My vision had a hard time focusing on the red curls and the full lips as well as the round face as I peered up at her. I remained blinking up at her, while my arms rested in a push-up lift

"What?!" She screamed, her arms gesturing violently at me before windmiling around, "You're seriously asking me that right now?!" In one swift movement, she reached down to my height, lifted me up with the little strength she had, and placed me back on the bed. "What the hell happened to your face?" She folded her arms across her chest, giving me a discerning look like a mom who just saw her firstborn child get into a fight. "And where have you been the past…" she glanced down at her watch, her furious demeanor vanishing for a second, then scowled at me again, "— four days?"

"No one told you?" I narrowed my eyes at her, then scowled off over her shoulder in the distance.

"No! No one told me!" She shrieked, her usually quiet voice breaking, "All I saw was you getting dragged off by the guards, while more came down the hallway and swarmed us."

My bottom lip jutted out as I scrutinized her rage-sealed face, "Well, what did they do to you?"

She sighed, rolling her eyes in defeat. She knew I wanted answers first, and I wouldn't tell her anything until she spoke up. She grumbled and sat down in the white chair and positioned it to face me. "A man and a women came running down the hallway, and they were using some walkie talkie thingy," Her hands made wild gestures as she talked, "Anyways as soon as they approached us they hushed up and basically told us to scram. As soon as I turned to leave the woman grabbed my arm and started asking me all these questions—"

"What kind of questions?" I pushed, leaning my elbows on my knees as I moved closer to her.

She widened her eyes in frustration. "I'm getting there, jeez." She let out a barely audible sigh. "She asked me all the information I knew about WICKED, if you told me anything, if I had heard anything about the trials..."

"Well," I paused, my lips smacking together, "What did you say?"

Her lips pursed together and she shook her head at me, her eyelashes batting, "You have no patience, do you?"

I exhaled perceptibly for her to pick up my frustration. I mean, yeah, she was right, but I wasn't going to admit that.

"I told them that I had no idea what she was talking about, and—"

"And?"

Her eyes bulged wider then I had ever seen, "Do you want me to slap you?" she rased a hand in the air, "Because I swear to god I will—"

"Just keep talking!"

"Agh!" She groaned, "Long story short: She knew I was lying and sent me to my room and locked it. I was pretty confused for a while, and frankly, I was worried about you."

"Aww you do have a heart." I touched my chest right above where my heart would be and pretended to wipe a tear.

"Shut up." She caviled. She flipped her mane over her shoulder before continuing. "I went to sleep, Janson woke me up the next morning. He was just sitting in the chair, facing my bad, and he locked the door, which if you ask me is pretty freakin' creepy…" She drawled out.

My eyes fell into thin slits, while my brows drooped lower into a scowl. She sent me a mimicry glare back before persisting. "He started accusing you of telling me things. I tried to deny it but he made some threats and figured it out. I didn't think it was such a big deal for you to tell me all this stuff about trials, and mazes, and boys and what not."

I bit my lip.

"He told me he didn't want me associating with you, but he said that he couldn't stop me if I really wanted to. He started saying that you were dangerous and cruel, that you lie, and that's why you were all lonely on the first day I arrived, you isolated yourself, or rather, people isolated you."

"I was not lonely!" I countered, ignoring all the other comments.

She shot me a look as if to say really?

"What?!"

"Florence," She sighed deeply, "You were like a little lost puppy. You had the big doe brown eyes, and the sullen posture, and your hair was all lifeless and un-voluminous." She clawed at her scalp.

"Firstly," I held up a single finger, raising my brows, "How does someone have a sullen posture? That doesn't make sense." I held up a second finger, "Secondly, my hair was fine. You gave me some tips on how to brush differently and told me to do scalp massages; that had nothing to do with me being all sad!"

She giggled, and then her voice got more serious. "After that he started opening up more. He told me about the trials, and how they planned to put you in the maze but you didn't know. Then he said that you made a mistake…" Her eyes clicked over to mine from the corner of her eyes, and once our pupils locked, her vision darted to the floor.

"Proceed…" I urged her, waiting for her prolongation.

"Y-You told me that you weren't in love with Thomas, and that's why they were pissed with you." Her hands locked and unlocked, showing her nerves.

"Yeah…" I drawled.

"You failed to mention the part where you fell in love with someone else."

At that moment, we exchanged places. She was no longer the anxious, belittled one. I took her place and she was staring at me like a hawk, with her laser like gaze piercing through me.

I gave a nervous laugh. "Ha-ha… did I?"

"Yeah," I could see her jerk her head up and down in my peripheral, "Yeah you kinda did."

I let out a long sigh, and I leaned forward on my knees. I rubbed the nape of my neck, massaging it as I continued to exhale. There was a long pause filled with awkward tension and a wavy environment before I spoke. "I wasn't in love with him…" I whispered.

She raised her brows, "Is that why you get all weird when we talk about the trials? Or anything even remotely related to something involving him?"

I remained deadpanned. "I hardly even knew him."

"You hardly even know yourself…" she disputed.

She made a quality point.

"Look, whatever his name is—"

"Newt," I cut off.

"Newt." She said to herself, making a face, "Huh. Funny name."

"Yeah…" I exhaled, thinking back to that time I ahd made fun of him for having a name of an amphibious creature. "It's after Isaac Newton. They name everyone after smart people or something, I don't know."

"Hmm." her lips pressed into a tight line, "As I was saying, Newt," She emphasized, "Doesn't really know anything about himself either, I'm sure. Besides the two years in the glade."

Janson must have told her that.

"—So if you two care about each other enough, it'll work out, even if this is some star-crossed lovers crap."

"He thinks I'm dead…" I said.

"Yeah, but something tells me that it won't be like that for long. I'm sure you'll find a way to each other, one way or another, but either way, Janson is using Newt as a weakness for you. I could tell just by the way he was talking about it. You can't let him get in your head about that stuff."

I gestured to my face, making spherical motions with my index finger. "That's exactly what happened."

Her eyes widened.

I sighed, knowing it was my turn for the long story. "They sent me to some sort of prison cell room. There were two-way mirrors for walls and a mattress as a floor. It was weird, and excruciatingly boring. I only received food and pills twice a day, until the third day. I had been asking for Janson often and he finally made an appearance. He started pushing my buttons and I got annoyed and punched him. That's how this happened…" My voice was barely a whisper at the end.

I could still envision the deafening smacks as his fist connected with my face. I scrunched my eyes shut and pinched the bridge of my nose.

"Shit…" Was all she could respond with.

It seemed everyone was astonished at Janson's actions lately.

"He freed me after that, and then said 'I'm letting you go for a reason, Naomi.' And then told me to see Alistair. Hours of fixing my face and then electroshock therapy later, here I am." I smacked my lips together and waved over my body with my right hand.

Her face lit up, and she pointed a finger at me. "You know, during the Sun Flares a group of survivors taught me for four years how to survive in case I was ever alone. They were in the army. Before that, they worked at a school for self defense."

"You're kidding me…" This was my opportunity, "Are they still alive? Are they here with you?"

"What?" She shook her head, "No they ended up splitting apart from us when the group got into a big fight about the safest path to travel."

"Well who am I going to get to teach me that? I need to learn to fight back. Maybe if I wasn't so helpless, I could escape and actually start planning to take action."

"Hello!" She squealed, and waved an arm to herself, "Me! I'm an excellent teacher."

"Eh…" I made a disgusted face.

"Shut up."

I smirked.

"Take it or leave it, girl. There's a gym on this floor that's never in use anyways, I'm sure Janson wouldn't kill us if we used it."

I snorted, "Debatable."

"Right…" She said, avoiding looking at my face again. "Well what do you say?"

I beamed at her, showing my teeth. "Hell yeah,"

She clapped her hands, "Good. Let's get some breakfast and then start training." She held her hand towards me and waged her fingers, "Come on,"

I grabbed her hand with a hopeful smile and we jogged down the hallway.

Maybe this was the first time I had a chance. If I practiced hard enough and worked at it, I could get good and not feel so weak all the time. Maybe I could start planning an escape. Rhea was good at planning. Maybe she could come with me.

One step back, but two steps forward to seeing him again. Seeing Newt.

The hole in my chest didn't ache as much as it used to; but maybe that's because it phased into more of a numbing sensation about whenever I thought of him. I missed him more than words could describe. Seeing his face on the monitor in Janson's office was more of a setback then a boost. I just wanted to hear his voice. I wanted to see his face. I wanted him to at least know that I was alive.

Nothing good came out of WICKED, besides him, and all my other friends; which was why I had to work so tremendously hard in building a plan to escape and strengthening my weaknesses. If I had the resources, the skill, and the potency to, then maybe it was feasible. In the wise words of Thomas before we endured in the task of surviving a swarm of grievers, 'Get out, or die trying.'

Making an appearance for the better, hope returned, and I couldn't help but feel the least bit of contentment.


A/N: I apologize for the delay of this chapter! I stayed up and worked hard on this, so sorry if it's unedited and crappy. Thanks for the reviews from ImABird27, guest, Rachelqueen, Athio, Antisocialashyy, Bad Dancer, knarl, and InvisibleSoul4. You guys are seriously SOOO awesome. I wouldn't write this fic if I didn't get awesome reviews from people like you!

I promise more Newt in the next chapter, and I'll give you a little teaser: They will be partially reunited soon-ish; so bear with me. Let me know if there's anything you wanna see or if you wish something would happen, maybe I'll consider it!

Thanks again guys :)