Sadie's feet pounded against the hard ground and her lungs burned as the trio ran through the maze their eyes scanning the ivy covered walls for any signs or clues of an escape. The walls hadn't moved at all, like the doors, they were stuck in the position from the night before which made running the route almost easy. They traveled in silence, the thumping of their footsteps only being broken up when Thomas completely tripped over his own feet and ended up taking Sadie down with him. Minho had to yell at Sadie several times before she would stop cursing at Thomas. She knew it wasn't necessarily his fault, they all had a lot on their minds, but she was already high strung and felt as confused as ever. Float and Catch? What the hell do they mean? Sadie could almost here the joints in her legs groan in protest as she sprinted around corner after corner. But the pain only made her run harder. Pretty soon she was keeping pace with Minho. The renewed vitality of their job as Runners was stocking her up with enough adrenaline to run a marathon. Sadie felt like a machine. But one of the biggest reasons she was pushing herself so hard was because she was too caught up in her own thoughts to even notice her increasing pace.
I almost told him! What was I thinking? If there was ever a time where you should not tell someone that you love them then that was certainly it! Stupid shank. Sadie grimaced inwardly at the awkward memory and ran faster until she had surpassed Minho altogether. Stupid, stupid stupid. Her thoughts chimed, spending time with Newt had begun to become increasingly more… frustrating to Sadie. Every time she was him she couldn't help but think, Is this it? Is this the last time I'll see you? It was taking every once of self-control to stop herself from full on tackling him the Glader. The idea brought a smile onto Sadie's face for a millisecond and she snickered at the thought. Sadie shook the thoughts away and glanced over her shoulder at the two boys behind her.
"Hurry up boys! I want to be home by sun-up and I ain't slowing down for you."
When they had finally finished their section Sadie screeched to a halt and collapsed on the ground her chest rising and falling rapidly with her tired and exhilarated breaths.
"For shucks sake Sadie are you crazy?" Minho asked his breathing heavy as him and Thomas plopped down next to her and pulled out their food. Sadie rolled her eyes and opened her own backpack pulling out yet again, another freaking apple. Are you shucking kidding me? Sadie bit into the apple with distaste and replied.
"Maybe I am. We could use a little more crazy if you ask me. Besides isn't that what you're here for?"
"Har har har. Point taken." Minho leaned his head back against the thick ivy coating the wall and sighed in frustration his eyes glaring out into the maze before him. "Not one single thing. We ran the whole damn section and would you believe it? No shucking exit again!" Sadie felt the rush she had felt before fade into disappointment and sink down into her stomach like a weight. He was right, they'd climbed the walls in random places, checked every turn, every corner, inspected every crevice, but they had still found nothing. Minho stared down at his hands angrily and clenched his fist as if he were getting ready to punch a wall. The action seemed so familiar to Sadie that she felt a throb of anger herself, and her mind quickly jumped into another memory.
"You can't honestly tell me you were expecting to find an exit right away Sadie." Amy sighed as she inspected the maps that Sadie and the other Navigators had drawn up of the Maze. Sadie sat next to Harriet and Sonya leaning back in her chair with a sulky expression splayed across her face. She'd been in the Meadow for well over a year now but it still felt like a lifetime, they'd lost another girl last night to the Grievers.
Sonya was drawing up a picture of her as they spoke her eyebrows pulled together in concentration as her pen danced across the page. They had started drawing up portraits of each girl that died when they discovered that Sonya had amazing artistic skills, it wasn't much but it helped the girls remember everyone they had lost.
"I don't honestly know what I was expecting Amy, something! I was expecting to find something! And we haven't found a damn thing." Sadie replied in exasperation. Harriet stood up quickly and dropped a pile of maps onto Sadie's lap her eyes squinted down at her with a disapproving gleam.
"You are so full of it. Why don't you take a long hard look at all we've done you sorry Stick. We've found patterns, we found out the Maze changes, we haven't done nothing girl!" It was true. They had slowly uncovered the changing routes and patterns of the Maze but it still wasn't enough for Sadie. The new loss had added another weight onto her shoulders, a lot of the other girls in the Meadow were beginning to question her leadership, tension was building and Sadie felt like she was holding up the sky itself.
"It's not enough!" Sadie yelled, tossing the papers around her in a wild frenzy. "We need to find a way out Harriet! Clues and patterns won't do us any good if we can't find a way out you stick!" Sadie glared down at her hands and squeezed them into fists. It had never been said out loud but Sadie knew that there was an unspoken agreement that Sadie was supposed to find the way out. It was her job, it was her trademark, and ever since she first ventured out into the Maze everyone had decided that the responsibility would lie on her. It was enough to make Sadie want to punch a wall.
"We should get going, just because the doors aren't closing doesn't mean the Grievers won't come out and play." Thomas muttered breaking Sadie out of her thoughts and pulling her back into reality like a lifeline. The three quickly finished their small meals and packed up, all of them eager to avoid any run-ins with a Griever. The thought sent shudders down Sadie's spine and she pulled out two long, curved blades from the sheaths at her sides. The two boys followed suit and they all took off, weapons at the ready in each hand.
Turns out that the knives weren't even needed, every Griever they spotted just plowed on right past them. It was enough to give Sadie a heart attack each time she saw one but they seemed uninterested in the Gladers. This fact only seemed to further Minho's disappointment and frustration.
"Not one damn thing. The Creators are just messing with us now, aren't they? And I bet a Griever is headed straight for the Glade to take some other poor shuck just like Gally said. This is all so useless." Sadie felt her shoulders sag and couldn't help but agree with the boy. "Let's just go home."
They made it back a little before what would be the usual wake up time in the Glade. Which was way too early by Sadie's standards. Newt was the first to greet them and the small flicker of hope for good news in his eyes was enough to make Sadie's heart crumble.
"Please tell me you have some bloody good news." Newt said. The three quickly explained that they had in fact found nothing new and nothing good. It was enough to wipe the hopeful smile off of Newt's face.
"Did the Grievers come again last night?" Thomas asked quietly, the question only made Newt's expression darken.
"Yeah, they took Adam."
"Oh no not Adam." Sadie muttered under her breath. "Wait… who's Adam?"
"Shut your shucking mouth Sadie. I'm so shucking done!" Minho yelled his voice quivering in anger. Sadie knew she had crossed the line; she shouldn't have taken someone else's disappearance as a joke. But she couldn't help it, it was almost like a defense mechanism, if she could at least put a funny spin on things then they didn't seem so impossible or so dreary. But still, her comment and Minho's reaction made her want to kick herself in the shin.
"Minho, I didn't mean-"
"I said shut up!" The Keeper threw his bag onto the ground and stalked off his head hanging low and his face bright red. If Minho's giving up… then we're all screwed now.
An hour later Sadie and Thomas made their way over to the map room. Newt waved them in and clasped onto Sadie's elbow at the last second. She'd wandered off shortly after Minho and nobody not even Newt had been able to find her in the Glade.
"Hey Sadie, you know that Minho's just freaked out over all this right? You shouldn't worry about it, he's always been a bloody hothead." She nodded slightly and gave Newt a small smile that made his heart flutter. He had hoped that the three of them would return with good news, now that another Glader had been taken and another warehouse had been torn into splinters he was just happy to see them all in one piece. Newt wanted to ask Sadie about what she had tried to say before leaving, he could've sworn she was going to say love but he swallowed the question. She seemed tense enough already.
"We have all of the code figured out." Teresa said as the two filed into the Map room. She explained the repeating words they had found in each map and told them that they had all stopped when it became apparent that the six words were it.
Float
Catch
Bleed
Death
Stiff
Push
That's all the maps had uncovered, and none of it made bloody sense in Newt's mind. Thomas and Sadie poured over the words and tried several times to rearrange them and make sense of them, but no matter what nothing added up. Newt finally ordered the two to get some rest when they began bickering over the maps and when Sadie threatened to tie Thomas to a Maze wall by his ankles. Thomas wandered off muttering about taking a nap while Sadie curled up into a ball in a corner of the map room and instantly dozed off. Newt sighed and took off his jacket, draping it over Sadie like a blanket before leaning down to kiss her forehead.
"You really care about her don't you?" Teresa mumbled from behind as she watched the small intimate scene before her.
Sadie woke up to Teresa shaking her shoulders. "Ugh what now?" Sadie whined, and tried to curl herself into a tighter ball and ignore the wake up call. "It's too early for this Teresa."
"Sadie it's seven o'clock at night."
"Oh."
"They're gathering everyone up and organizing everyone into different rooms for the night." Teresa explained as she hauled Sadie to her feet and led her to Homestead. The Builders were adding some finishing touches to the repairs they were making to the walls the Grievers had destroyed. Well this doesn't look encouraging. Sadie thought as she inspected the hastily patched up walls.
"Sadie, and er… Teresa, you two will be in the main living room with Thomas and Newt." Alby said clapping a hand down on Sadie's shoulder as he gave Teresa a look of distaste. Sadie was glad to see the Glader on his feet and bossing people around again. She nodded and walked inside spotting Newt sitting with his back against the wall in the farthest corner of the room. Sadie walked over and sat down next to him as everyone else found their own spots.
Unlike her first quiet night in the Glade when she had been locked in the Slammer with Teresa, who for some reason was able to sleep, the silence was being broken up by the hum of whispered and frightened conversations. It became pretty clear that no one planned on falling asleep, except for Teresa who was inexplicably asleep in an opposite corner near Thomas.
As the night began to move at a snails pace the sounds of Grievers began to echo outside. Newt's body tensed next to Sadie and the fear in the room began to roll off of everyone in waves, filling the air with an uneasy static.
"You okay Newt?" Sadie whispered tugging on Newt's sleeve to try and draw his attention away from the boarded up window.
"Oh yes I'm fantastic, now that you mention it." Sadie rolled her eyes and shifted until she was sitting in front of Newt, her knees bumping against his.
"Newt, look at me." His gaze tore away from the window and focused on her, his eyes seemed to almost glow in the dim lighting and Sadie felt herself shudder. She had clench her fist, her fingernails biting into her palm in order to stop herself from leaning forward and kissing his jaw.
Newt looked about as terrified as Sadie felt, her eyes flicked down to his injured leg and back. Did a Griever do that to you? Sadie asked him silently.
"Here," Sadie mumbled tapping on his knee and moving so that she was sitting in-between his legs with her back pressed against his chest. "I'm right here, they aren't going to get us." Newt let out a humorless bark of laughter and wound his arms around Sadie's waist, pulling her tightly against him. Sadie leaned back against his chest and felt it rise and fall rapidly with his breaths; she could practically hear his heart thumping against his ribcage. "Just try and distract yourself." Sadie whispered.
Newt shifted behind her and leaned forward resting chin on her shoulder so that his cheek was brushing hers. One of his arms slipped down from her waist and to her thigh, he began to trace the lines in her jeans, his arms still shaking around her as the mechanical groans of grievers sounded outside. Sadie stiffened and felt her stomach do a back flip as she watched his index finger draw patterns on her leg.
"Well great, now I'm distracted." Newt chuckled his nose bumping against her jaw.
"I know what you were going to say Sadie." He teased causing Sadie's face to break out in a nervous blush.
"I have no idea what you're talking about Newt." She lied.
"I know what you trying to say before you left yesterday," Sadie could practically hear him smirking mischievously. "And you know you-" But before he could finish his sentence a crash sounded upstairs followed by screams and the pounding of footsteps as more then a dozen Gladers ran down the stairs.
"They got Dave!" Someone shouted, as more boys fled into the room all of them yelling and some even crying as two more Grievers tore through the entire house and exited out the front. As the last Griever rolled out of Homestead Thomas leapt to his feet and dashed after it.
"Thomas!" Sadie and Newt yelled as they both jumped to their feet and sprinted after him, Teresa and Chuck hot on their heals as they watched Thomas dive into a group of Grievers and throw himself against their needles and blades.
"Tom!" Teresa screamed her voice tearing through the night like a dagger as the Grievers rolled away, leaving Thomas behind in a heap on the ground. Sadie ran forward and grabbed one of Thomas's arms, Newt taking hold of the other one.
"Grab his legs, and get him inside!" Teresa and Chuck complied and they hurried past the demolished entrance of Homestead and plopped him down on the nearest couch. ""Get me some Grief Serum now!" Newt ordered as Sadie and Teresa tore off Thomas's shirt and tried to stop the flow of blood. "You bloody idiot Tommy! What where you thinking?" Thomas tried to speak but he was fading fast, the Med Jacks ran in and injected him with the serum. Sadie grabbed hold of another blanket and held it against his side. Her hands were already stained with his blood and it was quickly soaking through the blanket. You idiot! You shank!
"Of all the stupidest things you've ever done that has got to be the epitome of stupid!" Sadie yelled angrily. Thomas shook his head weakly and whispered.
"I meant to. I had to try and-" And then he blacked out cold.
Hey guys, well would you look at me all updating my story on time and stuff! Hahahaha thank you again for all of the lovely comments and feedback I really appreciate it all.
And I forgot to mention to some of you who have been following the story for awhile that while i went through that hella long gap between updating i was secretly ninja editing my older chapters. There are no MAJOR CHANGES but i just fixed up some mistakes (bleh) and added some more detail into the earlier ones, I'd recommend maybe checking out CH 10 again, just cuz i like it waaaayyy more now. But besides that feel free to choose what to reread or not to rearead.
Anyways special thanks to jjweyand15 it wouldnt allow me to respond to your comment but gosh girl you made my week! Thank you sooooo much it really meant alot to me and I promise I'll continue the story with the other books, and about that question you asked, well the answer is I promise to NOT let that happen but how I wont let it happen, well you'll have to wait and see :)
But again thank you guys, I love you all and thanks for sticking with Sadie.