Chapter 24

~In Minho's PoV~

I can't believe it. I drop to my knees next to her body. Blood pours out of her chest where they shot her.

Thomas kneels down next to me and I look at him, tears streaming down both of our faces.

I grab y/n's body and cradle it in my arms, letting her blood soak into my shirt. Everyone around us has gone completely silent.

"Why would she do that?" I whisper to Thomas. She didn't even seem like herself.

Thomas' lip quivers, unable to respond to my question without breaking down more than any of us already have.

I look up at Newt for an answer, and I realize he isn't crying. He stands there almost emotionless, except for a slight glint in his eyes, like the tears are there but he won't let them come. He appears to be the calmest of us here, like he understands exactly what y/n did.

He looks down at me and whispers, "Get up."

I, like Thomas, am unable to respond through my tears.

"Get up." Newt whispers harsher this time. I look at him unsympathetically. He has a coldness in his eyes that I've never seen in the British boy before. "Get up, or they'll shoot you and all of us too."

I let y/n out of my hands and I set her back down on the ground. I stand up next to Newt, and Thomas does the same. When I look at Ava Paige, she has already lowered the gun, not at all phased by the life she has just taken.

"Now," she says, "Have we learned our lesson?" No one responds, and she continues, "Good. We don't need any more immunes getting hurt."

I stand there, wanting to say something. Wanting to yell at her, tear her hair out of her head, I want to scream so loud her eardrums burst. But I'm immobile, unable to take in the tragedy before me. The woman I love, shot and killed. And I have to act like I don't care.

"What are you shanks doing with us?" Thomas steps forward out of the crowd and asks.

"Now?" Paige says, "Now it's time for phase two: The Scorch Trials." She explains what happened before we were in the maze. And why we were there. She tells us about the Solar Flares that struck the earth, and how a plague had taken over humanity. Most of this group, she says, are immune.

After, they take us to a room full of bunks and tell us to get some rest.

"We need to get y/n," I say, sitting on one of the lower bunks.

"She's dead, Minho," Newt says from the bunk above.

"Minho is right," Thomas says from the bunk across, "What if this is just another test?"

"I'm no medjack," says Newt, "but I'm pretty sure a bullet to the heart kills."

"Well, I'm going to go find her. You slintheads can stay here if you'd rather." 

"I'm coming with," Thomas tells me. "There has to be more to it than this."

Newt rolls his eyes, "Fine. I'll come with you bloody idiots. But how do you plan on getting out of here?"

I stand up from my bunk and walk over to the door. I try to pull on it, but it's clearly locked. 

"Minho, over here!" Thomas calls from the opposite side of the room. 

I run over to where Thomas is, and I can see that he's gotten the cover off of the air vent. It was big enough that we could crawl through, and it probably connects all of the rooms in the building. 

I crawl into the tunnel and Thomas and Newt crawl in after me. We crawl straight for a while until I hear Newt whisper to us, "Guys stop". I turn around and see him hold a finger up to his lips signaling for us to be quiet. I stop and can start to hear voices from below us. It sounds to be a man and a woman.

"So this is the girl then?" the man asks. Newt shuffles backward and tries to peer through the holes in a vent. 

"It's y/n. We're taking her to the recovery ward now," says the woman. "We expect her to recover within the next couple of days." 

Thomas turns to me and mouths Recover? What does that mean? 

I shrug and whisper to Newt, "Newt, what do you see?"

"It's a woman, she looks like some kind of nurse," Newt says. "That's all I can see until they move."

"How did the boys react?" the nurse asks.

"Exactly as we had hoped," the man replies. Then something starts to beep.

"I need to get her to the ward," the nurse says. 

"Very well," the man nods. 

The nurse begins walking and moves just into Newt's view. "Oh, and Janson," she looks back at the man, "Good work on the self-healing bullets. They seem to have worked just the way you planned." She continues walking and Newt can now see that she's pushing a hospital bed, with y/n laying on top of it.

Newt looks up at me and Thomas, wide-eyed. "She's alive."  

Author's Note:

hi friends! I'm FINALLY here with the much anticipated, and very VERY long overdue next chapter. I hope you all enjoyed the twist! 

Don't forget to vote on this chapter to let me know that you liked it, and comment what your thoughts are about what happened, and what you'd like to see next! Comments and votes are the best way to let me know that you like my writing and want more!

Thanks, everyone! Happy pride month! 

x. Marie