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

For Keeps

"What the shuck Teresa?" Minho calls out, when Thomas, Teresa, and Aris, come walking over to our group.

"It's a long story Minho." Thomas answers, looking rather annoyed.

"Oh so I'm just supposed to believe everything's fine now?" Minho says, rolling his eyes at Thomas' answer. Tensions are only rising as it nears the deadline, only about twenty minutes remain. I understand Minho's apprehension about letting Teresa back in, she has been a bit different from the start, but I am far less concerned with Teresa than I am about what's going to happen in the next few minutes. I frown as I watch Teresa and Minho's bickering continue. Something will happen, that much I know. What will happen? That's a terrifying question I'm not sure I want answered. I can see another storm approaching quickly over the horizon. After the what happened with last one, I'm not to happy to see it coming, especially considering we have almost no cover.

"Are you alright love?" Newt asks, coming to stand beside me when he notices my worried expression.

"I'm fin– scared, I'm scared." I admit, my voice trembling as I struggle to keep control of my emotions. "Actually I'm pretty terrified."

Newt sighs, "I wish I could promise you nothing would happen, but you know I can't do that."

"I know." I whisper sadly, hanging my head. I know all to well how empty a promise that would be.

"It's alright to be scared you know." Newt says, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me to him. I bury my head in his shoulder, desperately clinging to him.

"But... but no one else is." I stammer, biting my lip in a futile attempt to keep in the tears.

"How do you bloody know that?" Newt says with a laugh, "cause I think you're wrong."

"I don't know, everyone else just seems so brave." I say timidly, thinking about the way my friends fearlessly lead our group through everything WICKED has thrown at us. Minho, Newt, Kate, Sky, all of them. "I mean look at you, Minho, Sky, and Thomas, you're never afraid of anything." I pout, my hands balling into frustrated fists around Newt's shirt. Why couldn't I be like that.

To my surprise Newt just laughs, "if you think we're never afraid, you're definitely wrong, I'm pretty much scared of losing you all the time, I know Minho was, er.. Is afraid of losing Sky, Thomas was terrified when he was in the maze, and you should've seen his face when he saw Ben during the changing. Skylar was terrified of small spaces, she hated them, not to mention how scared she was of failing."

"Really?" I ask, shocked to hear that my friends were ever afraid of anything.

"We're all afraid of something. as Alby said, 'if you ain't scared, you ain't human.'" Newt says with a sad laugh, and I hear the pain in his voice when he mentions Alby.

"Thanks Newt." I whisper, hugging myself even tighter to him, in a desperate attempt to hide from whatever WICKED has planned.

"Anything." He replies, his pursed lips coming to rest against the top of my head. I feel safer in his arms, though I know we will never be truly safe until we are free from WICKED.

"Do you think they will really give Skylar back?" I ask quietly, not sure I really want an answer to my question.

"I don't know love, I hope so, I bloody hope so." He says, turning his head to look in Minho's direction. I notice that Teresa is gone, and that Thomas now stands talking with Minho and the rest of the group. I wonder where that traitor went this time. I have also noticed that I haven't seen Ashley since I punched her in the face last night. Good. Shucking Idiot.

"Fifteen minutes." Newt whispers, looking down at his watch.

As if on cue, the ground around us begins to open up, large holes appearing before being occupied up by large boxes. They rise slowly out of the ground, before coming to rest in a circle around us. The boxes re eerily similar to the boxes we found in the griever hole. Oh Shuck No! Surely they couldn't bring grievers out here? They would dry up in he heat. Wouldn't they? 

I back up instinctively, muttering the word 'no' over and over again as I go. Newt doesn't follow me, he's frozen in his spot, shocked by what we're seeing. I'm startled when a peel of thunder rips across the sky, adding to my growing list of problems.

"What do we do?" I ask Sonya, who is standing nearby.

"Fight." She says with a shrug. I wonder how she can be so careless at a time like this. Another fearless leader, something I'll never be.

Without warning the boxes begin to open, creaking and moaning as the lids separate from the bottoms. I hold my breath, waiting for whatever terrible creature laying inside to make its appearance.

Slowly, I watch with disgust as a disfigured hand rolls over the edge of the box, followed by a leg and eventually a whole fleshy body. The creature is roughly human shaped, but with no face, and it's limbs are disfigured and bulky, having what appear to be bulbs scattered about where the joints should be. It's hands and feet sport long, razor sharp blades, similar to the metallic spikes protruding from their shoulders. The sight of them instantly turns my stomach, and I begin to shake with fear. Newt runs to me, pulling me beside him in an effort to calm me down.

"I can't... I can't... I can't do this again." I whimper, my entire body trembling  with fear. Facing the grievers was nearly impossible, it took Newt pretty much dragging me, plus all my will power, plus Sky's help to fight them. And even then I cried for a couple hours straight after that. It was terrible.

"You have to." Newt says, turning me so he can look straight into my eyes, "look at me Mal, you have to."

"Okay." I say, choking back a sob, "okay I will." I hate it, but if I did it once, I can do it again. For Newt. Nervously, I take the knife out of my pocket, gently setting Sky's backpack -with Kay in it- on the ground, I don't want it to slow me down. I've done this once before, and know that anything extra is only something else you can be grabbed by. With that in mind, I take off my loose t-shirts, stripping down to my tank-top. I won't take any extra risks.

"Good, now you take the one on the left, and I'll take the one on the right got it?" Newt asks, pointing to one of he advancing bulb monsters. I can see everyone else spacing out, each picking their 'own monster'.

"Got it." I say, forcing myself to stop crying. Forcing myself to do what needs to be done, despite the sheer terror I feel inside. Just then, bolts of lightning begin to strike all around us, adding an ominous glow to the eerie battlefield.

For a moment it is silent.