Steel and Stone [The Maze Runner (Scorch Trials) Fanfiction]

Chandelier

Dead. All of them. All of the people who 'rescued' us are hanging from the ceiling, their bloated purple bodies dangling like some morbid chandelier. The smell of the corpses is horrendous, permeating the air and burning my nose. I feel the bile surge in my throat. I turn to run, barely making it to the bathroom before throwing up.

"Sky are you alright?" Minho asks appearing in the doorway behind me, I didn't have time to shut the door. I hold out my hand to wave him off, I don't want him to see this. Unfortunately for me, he doesn't leave, instead he walks over and pulls back my hair, holding it while my stomach continues to empty itself. He must really love me, I decide. I'm not even sure I would watch myself puke.

"You ok?" He asks when I finally sit back resting my head between my knees. "Sky?" He asks sounding more concerned.

"Ya, I'm fine." I whisper breathlessly, my body still shaking from the convulsions. "That was just awful, sorry."

"You sure you're alright?" He says offering me his hand to help me up. I nod and take it, wobbling for a few seconds before regaining my balance. I walk over to the sink, and wash my mouth out repeatedly, trying desperately to get the taste of bile out of my mouth. The image of the corpses pops into my head and I have to steady myself against the sink.

I turn to face Minho, trying to erase the image from my mind, and shudder. "Sorry you had to see that." I say wrinkling my nose in disgust.

He shrugs and shakes his head, "it's not your fault."

We stand in the bathroom for a few minutes, me trying to steady myself and Minho making sure I don't collapse. "come on, we should go." He says softly after a while. I'm not exactly eager to go back in there, but he's right, we have to find the other gladers and Teresa.

I nod, pinching the bridge of my nose and leaning my head back, trying to fight the waves of nausea threatening to overtake me. Minho grabs my elbow and leads me out of the bathroom. When we reach the common room I avoid looking up, looking around at the other gladers instead. Apparently I wasn't the only one who got sick, I was the only one, however, to make it to the bathroom.

I hold my nose to block out the smell as Minho leads me around the 'obstacles', which I refuse to look at, toward the group of gladers who are gathered around Teresa's  door.

"We knocked and she didn't answer." Newt informs me when we approach.

"I'll open it." I say nodding as I take out my knife and begin picking the lock. after a couple tries I finally get it open.

"Nice work." Minho mumbles beside me, making me smile. Apparently we are taking to long for Thomas as he pushes me out of the way and flings open the door.

To my surprise, we don't find Teresa at all, instead we find something totally unexpected.

Sitting on Teresa's bed is a boy, two more laying on beds next to him. My jaw drops in shock, Teresa is gone. At first I feel a pang of guilt, I should have forced her to come with us. However, guilt is soon replaced by indifference, this is her fault, and something tells me she knew what she was doing, which is even worse.

"Who are you and what have you done with Teresa?!" Thomas yells grabbing one of the boys' shirt collar.

"Who are you?" The boy responds. Wrong answer. I may be suspicious of Teresa, but I don't trust these shanks for a second and they will not treat us like that.

"Why don't you answer first." I demand my knife pressing against one of the other boys throats. Soon, Minho has the third boy pressed against the wall, his hands around the boy's neck.

"I'd say one of you shanks better start talking." Minho says tightening his grip on the kids throat. The kid I'm guarding's eyes go wide with fear. good.  He should be afraid.

"Ok,ok  I'm Aris, this is Tyler, and that's James." The kid Thomas is holding spouts quickly, his voice squeaking with fear. 

"Where's Teresa?"  Thomas demands.

"We don't know anyone named Teresa, honest, we went to bed in this room last night, and woke up today with you in here, that's all we know I promise." The kid I'm guarding, James, says, holding up his hands in surrender. I believe him, I can see in his eyes he's not lying. I was suspicious that something was up before, now I'm sure of it. This is still WICKED, the rescue, the safety, all of it was fake. The realization that we were never safe to begin with makes me angry and want to cry all at the same time. I'm about to announce my thoughts to everyone when Thomas starts yelling again.

"No, listen hear you shuck-face, last night a girl name Teresa slept in here, now where is she?" He growls.

"Newt! We need you!" A boy named Alex yells bursting through the doors and spewing off a unintelligible jumble of information.

"Wait slow down shank what are you talking about?" Newt asks.

"Winston is like passed out I think." Alex says, pointing to the common room. "And a bunch of other stuff happened."

"I'll check it out, you guys stay here." Newt says, "Sky you're in charge until I get back."

"Why does she get to be in charge?" Minho whines, reminding me of a kindergartner who didn't get his way.

"Because Minho, we all know you can't think straight when you're angry, and she's the only level headed one here." Newt answers, waving him off before leaving the room.  I hear Minho mumble something under his breath but can't tell what it is, So I choose to ignore it.

"Ok, Thomas let go, you too Minho." I command taking control of the situation. Thomas complains, but both of them comply, Minho surprisingly willingly.  "You boys don't try anything or I'll kill you." I state pointing to the three strangers standing in front of me. They nod, two of them rubbing their throats. That elicits a grin out of Minho, and I have to force my own smile to stay hidden.

"Ok, Thomas sorry, but they didn't take Teresa, they're not lying about that." I sigh. "I think it's story time, everyone sit on the floor." I say pointing to the ground. "You three tell us your story, then I'll tell you ours." The boys nod as everyone takes a seat, sitting in a circle around me.

"I'm going to look for Teresa." Thomas says, stubbornly stomping out of the room. Minho starts after him, but I pull him back to the floor.

"Let him look, he's never going to believe us if he doesn't look for himself." I say, running my hand down my face, and trying to stay sane. Minho nods and sits beside me.

The boys finally start on their explanation.

A half an hour and some serious discussion later we are horrified at the conclusion. The boys came from a maze, identical to ours, the only difference being they had mostly girls, with a few boys, while we had mostly boys with a few girls. The one boy, Aris, had a partner, just like Thomas-who had rejoined us- had Teresa, except Aris' partner got killed. Whereas for us, Chuck took the knife for Thomas.

"Why are you two staring like you just fell in love?" Minho asks, his question directed at Thomas and Aris.

"He can do it too." Thomas says shrugging.

"Can do what too?"

"We can talk in each others minds." Thomas answers throwing up his hands. We all sit in silence for a moment, trying to absorb this new information, a second maze filled with girls? I sigh, about to start on our side of the story when Minho interrupts.

"Sky, what's on your neck?" Minho asks, frowning in question.