╔═══.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.═══╗ CHAPTER NINE The Banishment ╚═══.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.═══╝
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
>☆<
"Now, I noticed you noticing me, so I just want to put you on notice that I noticed you too." -Will Smith.
*
That afternoon, every last Glader gathered around the West Door about thirty minutes before it closed to witness the Banishment. Though Elisabeth didn't know exactly what it meant, it didn't sound like anything good.
She leaned against the wall separating the Glade from the Maze. Savage dust particles that had gathered into the ivy littered concrete, clung to her skin. After hammering nails and putting together pieces of wood all day, she was exhausted and there wasn't anything she wanted more than to crawl into her bed in the Homestead and sleep for all eternity.
A faint buzzing sound came as a tickle to her ears and she looked over her shoulder to see a beetle-blade scurrying up the concrete wall. She quickly reached up to catch it but it was too fast.
"Bugger."
"You can't catch a beetle-blade like that, El."
Elisabeth smiled and looked over to see Leo walk over to her, hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans and lips pulled up to his usual smirk. He leaned into the wall beside her.
"We tried catching one once, most of the Gladers were after it. It was malfunctioning and moving slowly so we managed to catch it. Minho trapped it inside a glass jar and named it Bathsheba."
They both laughed loudly earning weird looks from the other Gladers. Laughter? That was a rare sound to hear in the Glade.
"The Gladers than said some nice things to Bathsheba."
"Where is it now?" She asked curiously.
"After some time, it stopped working," He told her. "The Creators turned it off, I suppose. How was your day? Gally annoyed you too much?"
Elisabeth held up her hands that were covered in paper cuts and a few red spots from where she had pulled out splinters.
"I didn't even know I had these. But then I was washing my hands before lunch, and it burned like hell."
"Shuck," he muttered. "Oh wait. . . Hold out your hand."
She did as he said and watched as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a long piece of cloth.
"If you tie it around your hand, like this before working," Leo said taking her hand into his and rolling the cloth around her palm. "You can work with ease."
