Bound | Newt Love Story

18 | Way Down We Go

"We found this." Thomas says, handing Newt the thing Minho found inside the Griever. Newt, Gally, Thomas, Frypan, Minho, Zart, Winston, and I all stand in the meeting room. "It was inside the Griever."

Newt takes the thing and turns it over in his hands, running over it and looking it over. "These letters are the same ones that come up on the supplies."

"Which means whoever sent us here made the Grievers." Thomas concludes. "And this is the first real clue...the first anything you've found in over three years, right Minho?"

"Right." Minho nods.

"Newt," Thomas continues. Newt's eyes lift up, staring darts into Thomas as he speaks. "We gotta go back out there. Who knows where this might lead us."

Gally watches Newt with uncertainty, "You see what he's trying to do, right?" Gally starts to get upset. "First, he breaks our rules and then he tries to convince us to abandon them totally. What...the rules are the only thing that have ever held us together! Why now are we questioning that?" Newt furrows his eyebrows. "If Alby was here you know he'd agree with me. This shank needs to be punished."

Newt swallows hard and hands Minho back the Griever thing. "You're right." Newt says. I furrow my eyebrows and stare back at Newt, my arms folded across my chest. "Thomas broke the rules. One night in the pit and no food."

Gally's head pops up, "Oh, come on! One night in the pit?! You think that's gonna stop him from going into the Maze?" Gally yells. 

"No." Newt shrugs. "And we can't just have non-Runners running into the Maze whenever they feel like it." Newt pauses. "So let's just make this official. Starting from tomorrow you're a Runner." 

"Wow." Gally shakes his head, walking out of the room and slamming the door. 

"Thanks, Newt." Thomas nods. 

Newt seems to want to answer, but he just looks down at the ground and turns his back on Thomas. 

***

"Minho, where are we going?" I ask, stepping over a large fallen tree. 

Minho grabbed Thomas and I right after Newt made Thomas a Runner and told us he needed to show us something. We followed him all the way to the back section of the Deadheads where we are now. 

"You'll see." Minho answers, continuing to lead us. 

We follow him for a little longer before we come upon a small hut made out of sticks and logs. Minho ducks his head and walks in, us following him. At the center of the hut is a large table, covered by a white sheet. All around the walls are plies of wood, covered in drawings of different sections of the Maze and different number variations. Minho reaches down and pulls the sheet off the table, uncovering a very large mapping of the Maze. Each crevasse, each turn, each corner, each wall...all in place exactly. 

"It's the Maze." Minho mumbles, leaning over it. "All of it."

"What do you mean all of it? I thought you were still mapping it." Thomas asks. 

Minho looks between Thomas and I. "There's nothing left to map. I've run every inch of it myself. Every cycle. Every pattern. If there was a way out we would have found it by now."

"Minho, why haven't you told anyone this?" I ask, a little angry that he didn't tell me even though I've been a Runner for weeks now.

"It was Alby's call." Minho sighs. "People needed to believe we had a chance at getting out. But maybe now..." Minho takes out the thing we found in the Griever. "we have a real chance." Minho hands me the thing. "Take a look at this. About a year ago, we started exploring these outer sections." Minho points to the parts of the map that are furthest away from the middle. "We found these numbers." I look and see a rock on each section with a different number carved in each. "Sections one through eight. See, the way it works, is every night when the Maze changes...it opens up a new section. So today, section 6 was open. Tomorrow, it'll be 4, then 8, then 3. The pattern always stay the same."

I look down at the thing Minho handed me. A glowing red number 7 is on the front. "What's so special about 7?"

"I don't know." Minho answers, truthfully. "Last night, when Thomas killed that Griever, section 7 was open. I think it must be where it comes from. Tomorrow, we're gonna take a closer look."

Loud footsteps approach the hut as Jeff and some other Glader run into the hut. 

"Hey!" Minho yells. "What're you guys doing? You're not aloud in here." 

"Sorry," Jeff answers. "It's um.."

"It's the girl." The other one breathes out.

"Is she awake?" I ask.

"You could say that." Jeff smirks.