Betrayed | the maze runner, Newt

chapter 3

Another day passed. Zara found herself walking on the fourth floor, also a place she hadn't been before as far as she could remember. Somewhere on this floor, the teens should be. The alive ones, not the dead. How Zara knew? On every floor, right next to the elevator hung a box with a floor plan of the entire building. Yesterday, she'd found she opportunity to bring it to her room and copy it with a pen on another piece of paper. Then she rushed back to place the official floor plan where is belonged, so that it wouldn't be suspicious. And now she had her own floor plan of the building, folded in the back pocket of her black jeans.

Yes, she could've just took a picture of it with her phone, if her dad didn't check her phone every night. She didn't even use the thing. No Instagram, no snapchat, no messages, nothing. Only for school and music. And pictures of the sunsets she could see from her window. Besides, she wasn't even allowed to go on her phone from 8:00 am until after diner. Her father'd found out about screen time and now every time she was on her phone for longer than an hour, everything would lock. She managed to figure out the password though, by making a screen recording and letting him fill in the code, but he didn't know that, and she'd rather keep it that way.

She arrived at the end of a long corridor and took in the sight of two doors that formed one big opening. Next to the door, was a long window. Zara figured this had to be the room she was searching for because on the floor plan, this room was a lot bigger than the rest. Of course, it depended on how many teenagers there were, otherwise it could be any room. There were only room numbers on the floor plan, not what it was for.

A woman appeared around the corner. Zara ignored her, but noticed the woman scanning her. Then, the woman fully stopped to look at Zara. Zara rose her eyebrows questioning as she looked back.

''Did you escape?'' The woman asked.

Zara frowned. ''Eh, I-'' She let out a snicker. ''What?''

'''Who are you?''

''Zara?''

When the woman kept looking at her, Zara rested her face.

''Janson. Zara Janson.''

The woman's face dropped. ''Oh.''

Zara shook her head and walked past her, making the woman walk away to as quickly as possible.

Zara walked to the window and brought her face closer so that she could look through. Barely two seconds were enough to realize this was the right room. Her heartbeat rose.

About four of five long grey picnic tables, filled with over at least 100 teenagers. Girls, boys, tall, short, old, young, everything. Zara narrowed her eyes and swallowed. Some couldn't be older than fourteen. And the oldest was probably around eighteen, just like her father'd told her. So, these were the teenagers that'd been through certain trials? And now they were about to get killed and they had no idea.

A sick feeling filled Zara.

This was inhumanly horrible.

Suddenly a voice met her ear, making Zara jump.

''So, you found it.''

It was her father. Zara turned around to see him standing behind her as if it was the most normal thing in the world to sneak up on someone.

''I obviously did.'' She answered. Then turned back to look at the teenagers again. There was talking and laughing. Some were eating and drinking. Some were staring ahead but most of them were having... fun.

''Don't you feel guilty? Like, at all?'' She asked without making effort to look at her father.

He sighed. ''I don't have a reason to feel guilty.'' He patted her shoulder. ''And neither do you.''