Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own little OC plus a few others.
Amelia heard Thomas before she saw him, all attempts to keep quiet had clearly gone out the window as he practically threw himself out of the vent, Aris hot on his tail.
"We gotta go, we gotta go right now!" He panicked, grabbing the mattress from Winston bed and putting it against the door before shoving a cupboard in front as well.
"What's going on? What do you mean we gotta go?" Newt asked clearly concerned.
"They're coming for us. We gotta go right now!" Thomas was throwing more and more things at the door. "They're coming for us!" He started muttering things beneath his breath, Amelia heard the words 'Dr Paige' and 'alive' and something in her memory clicked, the blonde haired woman from the video. Her eye's went wide in realisation.
"Aris what happened?" Minho questioned the other boy but he just shook his head in response unable to speak.
"Thomas can you just calm down and talk to us!?" Newt pleaded with the agitated boy.
"She's still alive."
"Who's she!?"
"Who's alive? Teresa?"
"Ava, Ava, AVA!" Thomas yelled at the confused Gladers.
"Thomas will you just turn around and talk to us!" Newt shouted above the racket.
"ITS WCKD!" Thomas screamed, realisation dawned on everyone's faces. "It's still WCKD, its always been WCKD."
"Thomas!" Newt got close up to Thomas now as the boy turned to him. "What did you see?"
"The kids they've taken, to the supposed 'sanctuary', they've never left the building, they're all still right here being used in some experiment. I heard Janson talking to that woman we saw on the video when we got out of the maze, he was talking about taking us." He looked round at them all desperately. "Please guys, you need to listen to me, we need to get out of here, or they're going to do whatever they're doing to those kids to us too."
"We're with you Thomas, what's the plan?" Amelia spoke up and Thomas breathed a sigh of relief, if Amelia was coming then Newt and the rest would follow.
"Follow me!" Aris suddenly found his voice and dove into the vent. The others looked around at each other before Amelia shrugged and followed the new kid into the vent. It was tight but they all hurried along as best they could as they crawled.
"Jesus Frypan, I really didn't need to be this close to your arse." Winston shouted out.
"I dunno mate, my views not so bad OUCH." Minho winced from his position behind Amelia, she had kicked him in the shoulder at the time time that Newt, who was behind him, had slapped his leg.
"Not really the time Minho!" Amelia snapped.
"Nearly there." Aris's voice came from up ahead where he was nearing a duct. He reached it and started kicking it. After a few blows it swung open with a loud clang. They all piled out of the vent and Thomas looked around nervously to check if the coast was clear.
"Come on. Come on lets go." He beckoned them in one direction.
"You guys go ahead I'll catch up." Aris said and they all looked at him like he'd grown a second head. "Trust me, its important. You guys wanna get out of here right?" He insisted.
"I'll go with him." Winston looked baffled but followed Aris back into the vent. Thomas nodded and gestured the rest of them to follow him.
"Are you sure we can trust this kid?" Minho asked.
"You don't wanna know where we'd be without him!" Thomas replied.
"What about Teresa?" Amelia suddenly remembered the only other female glader.
"Trust me we're not leaving without her." Thomas said firmly. They rounded a corner and collided head first with the woman who had treated Teresa separately when they had arrived. She clutched her chest in fright before her face turned to suspicion.
"What are you kids doing out?" Thomas and Newt looked at each, nodded and then pounced on the Doctor, grabbing an arm each.
"Take us to Teresa." Thomas told her.
"You'll never get out of here." She struggled against them.
"Did you think that was a question?" Newt said slightly menacingly. "Let us worry about how to get out of here, you just take us to our friend." The woman seemed to relent and nodded in the direction they were going. They ran dragging her along with them as she shouted directions. Rounding a corner a Frypan narrowly missed a shot as it was fired at him, they all ran back towards the way they came as the guard who had fired yelled into his walkie-talkie. Minho came to a sudden stop.
"Minho what the hell are you doing!" Amelia cried. But it was too late, Minho charged at the wall in front of them and Amelia thought for one mad second that he was going to run straight into it but he jumped and kicked out at the exact second the guard rounded the wall and knocked him out. The others ran towards him and looked at the unconscious guard at his feet.
"Shit Minho." Newt said clapping him on the shoulder as Thomas picked up the guards gun. They took off running down the corridor again until they reached what the Doctor told them was the right door. Thomas pushed her forward and she unlocked the door, pushing her so she couldn't lock them straight back out, they charged into the room. Thomas pointed the gun at the Doctor and the two others who were in the room.
"Where is she!" Thomas shouted. One of the Doctors eyes flicked towards the drawn curtain to his left. Thomas yanked the curtain back and there was Teresa, lying on the bed a tubes coming out of her nose. Thomas woke her and she instantly looked alarmed. "Come on we've got to go."
"What? Thomas what's going on?"
"I'll explain later but we gotta go." Teresa nodded and Thomas helped her to her feet.
"GUYS!" Frypan shouted as he looked out of the door. "They're coming what do we do?"
"Frypan move!" Newt shouted as he pushed a table over and jammed it against the door. They backed away from it and looked round for an exit. There was a window to another room on one end of the room and Thomas grabbed a stool and hit it hard but to no avail.
"NEWT HELP ME!" Newt ran to him and grabbed another chair and they each hit the glass at the same time. It shattered and Teresa lay her blanket from the bed over the frame so they didn't get cut. Newt lifted Amelia over and they ran to the door. A guard was on the other side but Thomas, thinking quickly, fired a shot at him. The guard started convulsing on the floor, instead of bullets the gun seemed to be loaded with some kind of electric shock. Thomas looked at the gun stunned for a second before shaking his head and beckoning them to keep running. Amelia couldn't remember ever running as fast as they did as they ran down another corridor towards a large door. Thomas reached it first and swiped the card. It didn't work.
"Come on, come on don't do this to me!" Thomas muttered angrily as he swiped the card over and over again. Amelia closed her eyes in anguish. They must have disabled the key card system.
"Thomas!" Janson yelled as he stopped about twenty metres behind them with around ten more guards. Thomas cocked the gun and advanced towards him.
"Open the door Janson!"
"You really don't want me to." Janson taunted.
"OPEN THE DAMN DOOR."
"Listen to me! I'm trying to save your life. The maze is one thing but you kids wouldn't last one day out there in the scorch. If the elements don't kill you, the cranks will. Thomas, you have to believe me. I only want what's best for you." Amelia hazarded that he was trying to sound kind, but it wasn't working on any of them, least of all Thomas.
"Yeah? Let me guess? WCKD is good?"
Janson dropped the kind pretence and resumed his taunting. "You're not getting through that door Thomas." As if luck was suddenly on the Gladers side a beep sounded behind them and the door started to move upwards. Janson's face fell and he started advancing on Thomas. The others ran quickly through the door and saw a smiling Aris and Winston on the other side. Thomas however was still in the corridor firing shots at Janson.
"Thomas come on lets go!" Newt shouted. Thomas's gun ran out of shots and he threw it angrily at the guards and turned running full pelt towards the doors.
"Shut the main vault door!" Janson screeched into his walkie-talkie. The door started closing quickly and the Gladers all called for Thomas to run faster. He made it just in time skidding on his back through the small gap that closed behind him. Aris grabbed a bit of pipe and smashed the key card entry point on their side of the door locking Janson and the guards in the corridor. Thomas gave a small grin to the man as he stood at the window looking furious and raised his middle finger at him. "You little shit." Janson responded in a muffled but angry voice.
"Lets go!" Aris called and they followed him towards the giant main doors they had entered the facility through when they'd first arrived. Outside it was windy, well windy was a bit of an understatement, it was blowing a gale. Sand was flying everywhere as they climbed over a fence and up onto a large sand dune. They could hear shouts from behind them and peered over the top of the dune when they summited to see torches flashing around the compound and quad bike engines whirring into action.
"This way! Stay low." Thomas's voice was barely audible over the wind as he pushed Teresa ahead of him in a random direction. Amelia held her arm up to her face in an effort to shield her eyes from the sand as she ran to catch up with the girl.
"Teresa wait don't go too far!" But either Teresa wasn't listening or she couldn't hear because she carried off towards what appeared to be a building half buried in the sand.
"In here!" She shouted back to the others and suddenly disappeared into the building through a small gap.
"TERESA!" Amelia and Thomas yelled together.
"Amelia don't!" Newt cried as Amelia threw herself through the gap as well and ran down the sand hill that had formed until she found herself stood next to Teresa in what appeared to be an abandoned shopping centre. The others ran down to them and Newt grabbed hold of Amelia and pulled her to his side kissing her head as he did so.
"Don't just disappear like that, anything could be down here." He muttered in her ear.
"Sorry." She replied giving him a small smile. Minho opened a backpack he had somehow managed to pick up during their escape and pulled out a torch shining it round at the derelict building.
"Where the hell are we?" He asked to no one in particular.
"Come on we gotta keep moving." Thomas started forward.
"No Thomas, stop!" Teresa shouted and Thomas ground to a halt. "Tell me what's going on."
"Its WCKD. They lied to us, we never escaped. Me and Aris, we found bodies. Too many to count." It was the look of horror in his eyes that made Amelia believe every word.
"What do you mean? Dead bodies?" Minho asked him.
"No, but they weren't alive either. They had them stung up with tubes coming out of them, they were being drained." Amelia's legs went numb as she clung onto Newts arm, what the hell did these people want with them that required them being used like guinea pigs. As if hearing her thoughts Thomas continued. "Theres something inside us that WCKD wants. Something in our blood. So we have to get as far away from them as possible." He sounded so determined that Amelia knew they made the right decision following him out.
"Okay." Newt said as he collected his thoughts. "So what's the plan?" They all looked at Thomas expectantly and Amelia rolled her eyes and she saw his rather telling expression. He didn't have a plan, Newt seemed to realise it too and sounded alarmed. "You do have a plan don't you? Thomas we followed you out here! And now you're telling us that you have no idea where we're going or what we're doing!?"
"Wait, Janson said something about people, hiding in the mountains. Some kind of resistance, or army." Aris spoke up.
"The Right Arm." Thomas said nodding as a plan formed in his head. "If they're really against WCKD then maybe they can help us."
Newt looked down at Amelia with his forehead furrowed, and then back up at Thomas. "People. In the mountains. Mountain people. That's your plan?" He sounded utterly incredulous. Amelia couldn't blame him really, it did seem far fetched but she didn't see what other option they had.
"It's the only chance we have." Thomas pleaded with Newt and the Brit rolled his eyes before nodding slightly in agreement.
"Hey guys, check this out." Winston had wandered a little way off and was pointing a torch at the ground. "Someone's been down here."
AN
I realised as I started this chapter that I've been spelling Teresa's name with a h in it, which I think (but don't quote me on it) is the British way so I've corrected it in the chapter. If I remember I'll go back and change the others but if not and you're seeing this then this is why it's suddenly changed. My bad.