Author's Note: I know it's been awhile since I have updated. I lost a friend and the motivation to write just wasn't there. He had been sick for a long time but it's still really, really hard. I'm going to try to get back into the rhythm of writing and updating again. Thanks for those who have sent reviews, please review if you enjoy the chapters it really is a big factor in if I'm able to get myself writing quickly or not. Thanks for reading.
Ada had never felt so small, not that she could remember anyway, as she knelt on the grass, clutching that slip of paper in her shaking fingers and looking up at Alby. His expression was suspicious and cold.
She glanced around quickly searching for a friendly face but all she saw was a blur of squinted eyes and furrowed brows. Even Newt's normally carefully neutral look was bordering on distrustful.
Ada swung her eyes back to meet Alby's.
"I don't...I don't know what this means," She dropped the paper then as if it had grown hot. It fluttered to the ground delicately, its harmless appearance doing no justice to the impact it had already had on her life in the Glade.
"We all know what it means, Greenie," Alby said, nudging the note with his foot. "Whoever put us here wants you nice and safe in the Glade. What I want you to tell me is why."
"But I don't know!" Ada exclaimed, desperation leaking into her tone.
"What about this?" Alby reached down and snatched up the bag that had been sent up, examining the stitching that spelled her name. "This is old, ragged around the edge. Was this yours, before?"
"I don't remember!" Ada insisted. "Newt..."
She looked to the boy beside her for help, though she still didn't find the comfort in his face that she had come to expect. He still looked unsettled but her direct appeal seemed to have snapped him out of his distraction enough to intervene, at least somewhat.
"Alby," He took a step closer to speak directly to his friend. "This isn't the place for this."
Alby hesitated before nodding grudgingly. He dropped the bag back her feet and she snatched it up, clutching it to her chest. She wasn't sure why she did so and she realized belatedly that it probably only made her look more suspicious to the other Gladers.
"Keepers, we're having a gathering, now," Alby called out. "The rest of you get back to work."
Ripples of protest spread out around them but a sharp look from Alby quieted the majority of them. Bunches of boys slowly dispersed back to their jobs while the keepers headed for the meeting place, a few stealing glances at her as they went ranging from worried to downright scared. There were even a few that might be better described as angry.
Ada tried to swallow around the lump in her throat with limited success.
"You realize she's going to have to come with us," Newt reminded Alby, taking a step closer to his friend.
Despite the fact that her body was very nearly pulsating with anxiety she managed to take a moment to appreciate just how different the two leaders were. They were roughly the same height but Alby was broad where Newt was slim. Alby was dark where Newt was pale. Alby was loud where Newt was quiet. Alby had the other boys' respect, Newt had their loyalty. Their friendship sometimes baffled her. Already in the short time she had been here all she could see was how different they were. But their ability to lead this place together? That was another story. She saw why it worked and why it worked well.
Only now she had a feeling that friendship, that teamwork could make it easier for them to both turn against her.
"Like hell she is," Alby replied and Ada felt herself somehow tense even more.
"We're not torturing her," Newt protested.
So maybe he hadn't been totally convinced of her treachery quite yet.
"I'll have to stay behind." He finished, seemingly resigned to the idea of being excluded, however uneasily.
"No," Alby shook his head. "Come on, both of you."
He reached down and gripped Ada by the arm, yanking her to her feet semi-gently. She still clutched the bag and it's contents in her hands though the slip of paper she left where it lay. In the end it was Newt who frowned, bent down, scooped it up and shoved it in a pocket. Ada was just glad to have it out of her sight after all of the trouble that it caused despite the fact that Alby's hand squeezing her arm kept her from relaxing too much.
Alby set off for the gathering, tugging Ada along with Newt following along close behind.
"Alby..." Newt started, but when it became clear his friend had no intention of slowing down or answering he let the search for an explanation remain unsaid.
They reached the gathering hut and Alby finally released her arm.
He swung open the door and stuck his head in.
"Gally!"
When the called for builder emerged, Alby gave Newt a little shove towards the door.
"Newt is going to sit right on the other side of this wall, you are going to stay right here," Alby pointed first toward Ada and then towards a spot near the wall. "Gally is going to stay with you. Got it?"
"Great, babysitting duty," Gally said, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms. Ada expected him to kick up a fight and flat out refuse but his snappy remark seemed to be the worst of his protest.
She also half expected Newt to refuse, to insist she stay with him or he stay with her. At the very least she expected him to request that some other than Gally, anyone other than Gally, watch her.
In the end he merely shot her an indecipherable look then nodded and followed Alby into the hut.
Immediately Ada felt the blasted buzzing return though it wasn't anywhere near unbearable at this distance. Once she took a seat on the grass against the wall she knew Newt must be very close on the other side because it faded to an almost unnoticeable background irritant.
Ada sighed in relief. Well, if they were going to vote to lock her in the slammer or worse at least they wouldn't be doing it while she writhed in agony right outside the door.
She didn't know what she would have said in her defense if she had been allowed inside anyway.
She didn't know who she was or what her relationship was to the people who put them here. She didn't know why they were sending her notes or why she had to stay close to Newt or why they decided to send up a girl after not doing so for so long.
An unsatisfying truth would serve her no better than a lie.
"So it's true then?"
She hadn't noticed Gally sinking down beside her until he spoke.
"What?" She asked, nerves once again flooding through her. She and Gally hadn't interacted directly since the bonfire and she hoped the incident with the bag hadn't fanned the flames of his distrust.
"You have some creepy mind meld with that slinthead? You have to stay close to Newt?"
His tone wasn't necessarily hostile and it was surprisingly nice to feel as though one of her toughest critics at least believed one thing about her.
"Yeah, I have to stay close to him," Ada agreed ignoring the first part of his question. "I'm trying to figure it out but that's all I know so far. Really."
Gally just nodded and Ada was happy enough to let things lapse back into silence. Part of her was tempted to strain to hear what was being said in the gathering behind her but she could only make out vague murmurings. She suspected Alby had ordered everyone to keep the volume down and really thee was nothing to accomplished by listening in. If she heard things going badly what could she do? Even if she could somehow give Gally the slip it's not like she could flee. She wouldn't get a hundred yards before the buzzing would bring her to her knees.
"Relax, Greenie," Gally's voice broke her out of her thoughts. "You think lover boy in there is going to let you get banished over a backpack? Not likely."
"He's not...I mean...we're not..." Ada felt a rush of heat to her face.
Gally actually laughed at the expression on her face, pulling a chunk of grass from the ground and grinding it between his fingers absentmindedly.
Ada recovered enough from her embarrassment to respond more coherently to his comments.
"No offense, but don't you want me to be banished?"
Gally tossed aside the grass he held and looked pointedly away from her questioning gaze.
"I wanted you tossed in the slammer until we knew what you being here meant, Greenie," He shook his head. "I didn't want you shoved out in the maze to die."
"Oh," Ada tried to absorb the difference. "But what about the note?"
"The note," Gally finally turned to look at her and his expression was more neutral than she had expected. "The note said for you to stay out of the maze. Do you want to go in the maze?"
Ada flashed back to the trip she and Newt had taken to see the griever and her horrified, sinking suspicion that she would someday have to go into the maze herself if she wanted to find answers. Despite that inkling it wasn't something she wanted to do. Nor was it something she suspected she would be brave enough to do in the first place.
"No," She answered Gally honestly, her fear of such an event obviously seeping into her tone.
"You don't want to go in the maze, and I don't want you to go messing around in the maze," Gally continued. "So the way I see it who cares why they don't want you to go into the maze? When they start sending you notes to murder us I'll take notice."
"Unless you were the one I murdered first," Ada joked, Gally's unexpected, well it couldn't exactly be called support, but lack of abuse, leaving her awash in relief.
"I'd like to see you try, Greenbean," Gally chuckled, going back to tugging at the blades of grass around them and more or less ignoring her.
She allowed herself a small smile before settling more comfortably against the wall. The two of them lapsed into a very nearly companionable silence.
As time stretched on and the fear and uncertainty continued to swirl within her, Ada came to a startling realization.
She was glad Gally was there even if he was essentially guarding her.
She was glad for the company.
She was glad she wasn't alone.
Newt leaned against the wall, arms folded, struggling not to roll his eyes at the scene before him.
When Alby had practically shoved him into the gathering hut his first order of business had been to position himself as close to the wall as possible. He'd taken a rough guess of where Ada would be sitting on the other side and tried to line himself up as best he could. It had given him something to focus on for a brief moment that wasn't the already growing roar of the keepers===
debating among themselves over what the latest delivery from the box meant.
Unfortunately, his ability to ignore it didn't last long.
"What the shuck is going on, Alby?"
"Something's not right."
"What did the note say?"
"Come on, she doesn't remember anything she's not going to do anything."
"You want to take the chance, slinthead?"
"Slim it!" Alby hissed, the roar of discussion fading to waves of murmuring that even their leader's fiercest look couldn't completely quiet. "Everyone is going to have their say but we're going to do it quietly, you shanks got that?"
When Alby was confident he had everyone's attention he continued.
"So here's what we know. A girl showed up when none have come before. Something's wrong with her, or she says it is. She can't get too far away from Newt without keeling over. The box comes up today. No alarm, 3 weeks early and there's nothing inside but a bag with her name on it. Inside is a note telling her to stay out of the maze."
Alby paused and Newt felt a sick weight settle in his stomach. His leg was also starting to ache steadily.
Everything Alby had said was true but there was something about his tone that made Newt want to contradict him already. It wasn't that he was completely unconcerned with today's turn of events. Even before the incident with the bag and the note he'd had more reason than most to wonder what Ada's arrival meant for the Glade. And he had to admit the arrival of the proof that the creators were in fact singling Ada out and even sending her direct messages gave him more than a little pause. These were the same people who dropped them all in this place, boxed them in with a maze with no answer and populated it with horrific monsters to murder them.
What were they supposed to think when those people started treating Ada like a special case?
What was he supposed to think?
And yet he felt a sense of loyalty and even protectiveness toward Ada that couldn't really be explained by the limited amount of time they had known each other. It was true that all the gladers tended to bond quickly and her forced proximity could only help that effort. Maybe there was even something to the fact that Ada was the first girl he could ever remember knowing, maybe it was all some big stereotype and the arrival of a girl had set off caveman tendencies he didn't even remember having.
Maybe he just liked her. He liked her curiosity, he liked her constant planning and experimenting, he liked her sense of humor that somehow always managed to take him by surprise and he liked that she was something different in their shrunken world of same, same, same.
But maybe different was dangerous after all.
Newt realized he had tuned out the group's discussion while lost in his own thoughts. When he was able to key back into the larger conversation things weren't going particularly well.
"We can't trust her," Newt thought it was the keeper of the baggers though he couldn't see his face from his position. "We can't let her just wandering around waiting for messages from the creators. She can't be allowed anywhere near the runner's room, gatherings, the maze..."
"They told her to stay away from the maze anyway," Frypan interrupted. "And it's not like she's going to be unsupervised, she has to stay right next to Newt, doesn't she?"
"Do we know that's for real?" Zart asked, his expression nervous. "What if one day when our guard is down she drops the act?"
"It's not an act," Newt finally found his voice, and tried to keep it calm though he knew at least Alby would detect the slight tremor in it. "When she's had one of these fits she's been in so much pain she ended up unconscious for hours. And we've all seen her in pain, it's not an act."
"Still..." Zart trailed off, looking around for support.
Instead Minho's voice rang out from his spot near the wall opposite Newt.
"So what do you shanks want us to do exactly? Lock her up? She hasn't done anything and there's no evidence that she will."
"That's why we have do something now while we still can!" A voice called out from somewhere out of Newt's line of sight.
"So we should preemptively lock her up, away from Newt basically torturing her maybe to death ?"
"Come on, Minho, you're not hearing me."
"All I'm hearing is a bunch of shanks who are so afraid of their own shadows that they want to lock up a shucking girl for no good reason. This isn't going anywhere. I say we keep our eyes open, do nothing until we have a reason to and get back to work. Let's vote."
Alby's face didn't give it away but Newt could tell he wasn't happy with Minho's demand. There wasn't a lot he could do about it though. Minho may not have been an official leader but when he spoke the other boys listened. It was hard to disregard the opinion of someone who risked their life for them every day.
"Alright," Alby said. "All those in favor of Minho's proposal?"
Newt held his breath for the brief moment between Alby's question and the response from the rest of the boys.
He felt it leave him in a relieved rush as the clear majority of the keepers raised their hands. There were a few who didn't and their expressions clearly showed their displeasure, but for now they seemed prepared to accept the majority's decision.
"Ok," Alby gestured towards the door. "Back to work, and don't be standing around gossiping either. The glade's got to keep running."
The boys filed out, their murmurings starting up again despite Alby's warning.
Newt caught Alby's eye over the other boy's head and a nod from his friend let him know he was expected to stay behind. Once they were alone Newt made his way over, reluctance slowing his progress as much as the pain in his leg.
"I want you to keep an eye on her," Alby whispered, despite the fact that they were the only ones left in the hut. "You have to tell me if she does anything suspicious, anything. And don't say anything important about the glade in front of her either."
Newt didn't know what he had been expecting but it definitely hadn't been tha
"What exactly are you afraid of Alby?" He asked, truly curious. He had his own concerns but Alby seemed to be nervous in a way Newt had never seen from the usually hard to shake leader. He felt his own fear building in the face of his friend's reaction. "Do you really think she could hurt us?"
"I don't think she's here to hurt us," Alby answered, glancing over at the closed door and the girl they both knew was on the other side. "I think she's here to spy on us."