Disclaimer: I don't own The Maze Runner.

Chapter 4

"You're from where?"

Athena looked up at the stocky, muscular boy who was frowning down at her like she was the biggest headache ever. Which, you know, she guessed she was at this point. Alby was in charge around here, and she was going to create more than a few waves by showing up. Judging by the attention they were already attracting, the news that a girl had shown up was started to spread around the clearing. The Glade. Geez, these boys and their weird vocabulary.

Minho and a couple other guys were keeping the small crowd from coming too close, probably so Alby could grill her without interference. She was just glad that Newt was there, and that he seemed to believe her. Mostly.

"The Courtyard and the Rust," she said, "I already told you, it's another maze, but I don't know where it is or exactly how I got here."

"She just appeared out of a wall," Newt said again, for the third or fourth time. Alby seemed to find that to be the hardest part to believe.

Newt and Athena had been talking to Alby for probably close to an hour now, going over and over Athena's story. She had told him about how she had been put into her maze about two years ago, and about her role as a medic there. She had told him about the Rust and the monsters and the other girls who lived in the Courtyard, about the traps and the Mappers, at least as much as she was willing to at the moment.

Being questioned by a stranger didn't particularly sit well with her. In return, she had started asking questions of her own, but he had dodged a bunch of these, saying that wasn't 'how things worked around here.' Apparently they kept their newbies in the dark about a lot of things. Or maybe it was just her?

"This doesn't make sense," Alby said. He crossed his arms over his wide chest. "How are we supposed to believe you about being from another maze?"

"I don't know," Athena said, annoyed, "I can't force you to believe me. I don't have any proof."

"You have your bag," Newt said, gesturing toward her medic's pouch, "And your staff."

"Yeah, but if we're being very paranoid, you could assume that the makers gave these to me to make it look like I came from a maze," she said. She looked back at Alby, her hands tightening around her staff. "I can't prove where I'm from, but I hope you'll believe me." She needed him to believe her.

Alby glanced from her to Newt and gestured for him to follow. Newt walked past her, and he and Alby moved a few yards away, talking in voices that were too quiet for her to overhear. Anxiety buzzed through Athena's skin and tightened up her shoulders. If they didn't trust her, what would they do to her? Put her out in the maze? That would be one sure way to kill her, if their mazes were anything alike.

She shouldn't have gone through that gate, or whatever it was, that had led her to this maze. Her potential escape hadn't exactly gotten her out of trouble, but instead landed her in an entirely new maze where she didn't know the rules and had no friends. Even though she was resolved to go back into the maze tomorrow, she doubted that the gate would let her through. She had a terrible feeling that she was stuck here.

No matter what, she couldn't just stand around and let them decide her fate for her.

"Hey." She marched up to Alby and Newt and put her hands on her hips. "I don't want any trouble, okay, so I'm not going to make problems for you."

"You being here is a problem," Alby said. He rubbed a hand over his face, as if to silently say that he did not need the stress that she brought with her.

"I know, but I can't help that," she argued, "I'm going to try to fix it tomorrow, but I doubt it's going to work."

"She's probably some kind of test," Newt said. He looked down at her, his head tilted slightly to the side. "But the makers aren't exactly going to tell us what the test is." He turned his attention back to Alby. "Let's just treat her like any other greenie, okay?"

"But she's not." Alby waved a hand at her. "She's a girl. And she didn't come up the regular way. And she says she came from some other maze, so she's nothing like a greenie."

"Plus I'm not new to a maze." Athena had been in her maze for almost two years. There was no way she was going to let them think she was going to regress into a newbie just because of a change of scenery and company.

"Fine, then we just act like you're a normal Glader," Newt said with a shrug. "Get her a job, somewhere to sleep. We'll do things a little different for, well, reasons, but she follows the same rules as everyone else."

"I'd be fine with that," Athena said, "I can pull my own weight, and like I said, I'm not here to cause issues."

Alby looked up at the darkening sky. The gates to the maze had closed a while ago, and she guessed it was close to dinner time around here. "I don't like this." He pointed a finger in Athena's face, and she had to stop herself from batting it away. "You do something untrustworthy, and you go straight to the Slammer."

"And that would be?"

"Jail," Newt put in, "Glader jail."

"Wonderful." Apparently the boys had thought of everything. "I'll stick to your rules, as long as you don't try to stop me from going—" She almost said 'home,' but the Courtyard and the Rust were anything but home-y. Her maze was just more familiar… "Getting back to where I came from."

"We can talk about that later," Newt said, sliding away from the issue like it was oil and he was water, "Come on, I'm starving. And we need to get you somewhere to stay."

"That's another thing, she can't stay with the rest of us," Alby said.

"I can stay wherever you need me to," Athena said, not letting them talk about her as if she wasn't there.

"She can stay in the upstairs of the Homestead!" Newt said, beginning to sound exasperated, "Look, you're both making this more difficult than it should be." He shot a glare at Athena. "You're currently a Glader." He turned the same glare on Alby. "She's a Glader. We have an extra Glader. That's it, that's all for right now."

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Good."

Athena knew that wasn't going to be the end of the discussion, but she was glad that the argument was over for the moment. It didn't seem like they were going to try to toss her out into the maze or automatically shove her into their makeshift jail, so she guessed that she was momentarily accepted. Or on probation.

Alby glanced over at the crowd of boys that were pestering Minho. "Hope you're ready to meet everyone at once, greenie."

"It's Athena," she said. She was anything but a greenie.

"Well, Thena, off you go. Food's served in the mess hall." Alby headed off, moving toward the ramshackle building that stood out as the Glade's main structure. "Newt. Meeting, now."

"Think you'll be okay?" Newt asked.

"Let him know that it's Ah-thena, not Thena..." she said and then nodded. "Yeah. They're just a bunch of boys, I can handle it." She just wouldn't bring up the fact that her maze was all girls and she couldn't remember ever interacting with a specific boy before today. "Go on, before he chews your head off."

"Eh, it's a hard head, he'd have a difficult time of it." He grinned and followed after Alby, catching up and nudging the other boy in the side.

All right. She could do this. Just face down about twenty boys without flinching. Hell yeah, she could do that.