Belle's POV:
Dawn broke over the mountain top, forcing us all awake as I rubbed my eyes slowly. Thomas slept not far from us, even a little drool was coming out of the corner of his mouth. Looking around, I saw Sonya already awake her eyes fixed on the ground.
"Hey," I called over, stumbling to my feet, walking until I sat beside her. My eyes flickered between her and the sunset. She just picked up her knife, twisting it around her fingers. "You feeling ok?"
"Yeah… Pretty sunset, huh?" She murmured, staring out over the peak. She pointed to a clump of moving dots dots by the summit, all of them struggling against the sand. "They won't be happy to see us, especially-."
"Me? Yeah. The Forgotten makes a ton more sense now, with everything. It's like I was so scared about his reaction would be, would he have run over and held me in his arms, would he cry, scream and never in a million years did I think that he would have forgotten me. He's been fine and dandy living life with Cameron."
Sonya sighed, scooping up a rock from the Earth. "Hell of a lot more to life than boys Bella-Bob, better get used to it."
Snorting I looked up at her, nudging her shoulder gently. "Bella-Bob?"
"Spur of the moment thing, ya know? Seriously, so what if he doesn't remember you, sisters…" She reached out grabbing my hand. "Before misters."
Smiling, I rested my head against hers.
"Who knows maybe my one true love is a woman…" I murmured, before we both started giggling at that dumb comment.
Thomas groaned loudly, before slowly waking up. He let out a yawn, his dark brown eyes yet to adjust to anything. They continued to jump around, as Harriet sat down on the other side of me, lightly nudging me with her shoulder as she did.
"Your knuckles looking pretty good considering you punched a girl yesterday," She whispered, I smiled nodding. "Oh did she- what do you say shucking?-." I nodded. "She shucking deserved it, she was all over him."
Shaking my head, I ran a hand down my face, before muttering: "Not that he seemed to mind."
"Good evening," Thomas announced, his voice carrying the edge of sarcasm, a large bruise had formed over on the side of his head. All of us stared at him, as his eyes flickered between us. "Can I help you Ladies?"
Harriet leaned forward, her eyes flickering between me and Thomas. "We want to know what you know," She said, her midnight eyes fixed on his, forcing him into eye contact that he clearly wanted to break.
He tilted his head to the side, shaking it.
"Why should I help you?"
"I don't think you have much of a choice, but you share whatever you've learned or figured out, maybe we can help you."
Thomas finally broke the eye contact, no doubt looking for his would be killer.
"She's not here," I interrupted his inevitable question.
"She said she wanted to scout the area to see if any of your friends followed us," Sonya finished, her eyes flickering down the speckle of dots at the bottom of the mountain. "Been gone about an hour."
His eyes fell downcast, a part of me longed to reach forward and ask if he was ok, but I couldn't. One, because as much as I tried not to be, a part of me was still angry at him and two, some of the girls were so scared of Teresa I don't doubt they might actually tell her any signs of kindness shown. Jayne was still lounging around, her hair sticking up in all directions.
Sonya didn't seem to care for the soft approach though.
"Forget how to talk?"
His head snapped up, once again giving us the same old puppy dog eyed look he gave us all on the first day he woke up in the maze. "No, um… Does that mean you guys are having second thoughts about killing me?"
Harriet's mouth twisted into a smirk. "Don't go jumping to conclusions and don't think we've gone all righteous. Let's just say we have our doubts and want to talk- but the odds are slim."
"The smartest thing to do," Sonya continued, her blonde hair flying out of her braid by the wind. "Right now seems to be to do what you're told. There are a lot more of us than you. I mean, come on. If it was your decision, what would you do?"
"Pretty sure I'd choose the option of not killing myself."
Groaning, I ran a hand down my face. "Thomas," I groaned, speaking for the first time in a while. "For goodness sake, you better help us or I swear to God-."
"What happened to my free will and choice?"
"You lost it when you decided to separate me and Newt. I've tried so hard not to be pissed at you Thomas, but you are getting on our last nerve so spill!" He let out a long hard sigh.
"Alright, alright."
"Damn, you should have opened your mouth in the first place you Stick," Harriet muttered, before getting to her feet. "Sticks gather around, story time."
Jayne stormed over; her blonde hair seemed crazier than usual. "No, WICKED told us-."
"Who gives one what they said, we want the answers that they never gave us. Shut up Jayne or listen or I will throw you off this cliff myself, got it?"
Jayne didn't interrupt after that. Instead we all gathered around and listened. I knew some parts, I didn't know others. He even used the tactic of asking how us killing him would prove our strength and as much as I hated to admit it. He was right.
It was at the moment, when the lesson was over that Teresa marched back into the camp. Spear strapped to her back, her eyes instantly went to the gathered crowd, who were gathered around Thomas, as our eyes shifted between the two of them.
"We need to talk," Harriet muttered, standing with the rest of the group.
Teresa nodded, her dark blue eyes flittered around the group, as we walked over there.
"What's the problem?" She said, crossing her arms over her chest, eyeing each one of us up and down.
"We don't want to kill him!" A girl, I think her name was Sarah said. She had curly blonde hair and freckles.
"Oh really?" Teresa jeered, puffing her chest out, looking around at all of us. "You want to let that monster go."
"He's not the one we think is the monster Teresa," I muttered, causing her eyes to lock on me.
She let out a barking laugh. "Your siding with him? You?" She shook her head, biting down on her bottom lip. "Wow Belle, wow! You whined and whined about Newt, he is the reason you're separated, if you weren't dragged out the maze then he never would forget you."
"Like you didn't have a part of that?"
"I didn't. I was one of the few who never agreed with it, do yeah, I had nothing to do with it. Now he's kissing Cameron behind rocks."
"Your lying."
She took a step closer to me, her eyes looking deep into mine. "Am I?"
Fighting back the tears, and the look of everyone else in the group, I stood up straighter, taking a step closer to her too.
"There's more to life than boys Teresa. There's more to mine than loving Newt and more to yours than hating him. This is all part of the trial, you know this!"
Her eyes flickered between us all, before tightening her grip on her spear as she marched away, her ebony hair bouncing with every step she took.
We ate, before we carried on walking. This time Thomas was a free man and was talking to Harriet, as she explained everything that was going on. Sonya walked beside me, her eyes flittered between my expression and the surrounding sand dunes. Each step we took was covered in sand, even being kicked up and going up into our mouths and eyes.
It took days, two to be precise, to finally make our way down the summit. Not a sign of Teresa anyway. Sonya and I had played multiple games of eye spy over the course of the journey, but it always ended as we realised there wasn't much to look at out here. Other than sand and oh wow more sand!
Then as we passed through a patch of dead trees that we lost Thomas. No one knows quite how or when it happened, but one second, he was walking at the back, his feet sliding along the sand. Not a word spoken much unless we were handing around water.
"Oi!" A voice screamed, familiar. Minho. Turning we saw the boys were close, running along the sand. Newt shouldn't be running with his leg. Oh klunk, don't think of Newt. Don't think of Newt.
"Should we wait up?" Emilie called out, leaning over so her hands were above her kneecaps
"Would you be ok with that?" Sonya whispered, I nodded. My eyes still fixed on the group. "I vote we wait, see what they have to say. Their unarmed, it's not like they could take us anyway."
So we waited, we sat down on the sand. All the while I told myself I was avoiding looking, meanwhile I was actually constantly looking at them out of the corner of my eye; ignorance is bliss, I guess.
Soon, I made out the individual figures. Minho, Fry… Newt and Cameron. They were holding hands. A deep ache appeared, spreading from my chest all the way up to the back of my throat.
"Where is he?" Minho called out, his eyes flickering around the camp. He focused on each little group of people, searching. "If I don't see that ugly Shank in the next few minutes I will-."
"Slim yourself!" I said, getting to my feet. Using my hands, I brushed myself off. "He's not dead, but he's not here."
"Where is he then Belle?" He threw as much bitterness as he could into my name.
"We don't know. He was with us one second, gone the next."
"Oh really?" He scoffed. "How the hell do you expect me to believe you after what you did?"
"You probably shouldn't, but if you were to believe me about anything. Let it be this."
He held my gaze, before sighing and shaking his head.
"Damn it… Rest up boys, get some rest then we're moving."
Nodding, I slammed myself back onto the ground.
"Slim yourself?" Sonya asked, shaking her head.
"Honestly, it was just a guess if I used it right," I laughed, causing her to smile before looking behind me, her eyebrows raised. "What?"
"Hey…" A familiar voice said from behind me, I whipped my head around to see him the second the first syllable left his mouth. "Can we talk?"
Wow…. It's been a while huh? I really never thought I'd ever come back to this. It was just a story I thought I was done with, I really did. So update on what's going on with this story and everything. I'm currently actually editing the first book on Wattpad right now, and as soon as I finish each chapter I will publish the edited version in the original fanfic. So I will be writing this at the same time as I will be editing and rewriting the first. Since holy cow I was a bad writer, how was this so popular on here my lord! Anyway, I've improved and I want to salvage especially the first book and honestly the train wreck that is this book. Honestly, I didn't even use full stops! I mean wow just… Wow….