Stardust - Thomas - Maze Runner

Chapter 6 - Plan

Janson watched as the WCKD guards started to bring forward the kids, one by one. He tried to count them all, see if they would be having enough for a new experience, a new chance to try and save the world - save himself -, but, at some point, the smoke of the fires around them started to bother him slightly and he coughed, his eyes watering some as he lost his count.

"Come on. Come on." He could hear the muffled voices of the guards yelling from over the grunts and puffs from all the kids being thrown, almost carelessly to the ground on their knees and with their hands tied behind their backs. "Let's go, come on."

"Line them up right here." Janson instructed to one of the guards standing nearby as he nodded at him. "Count them out."

The man moved away from him to obey, pulling from his suit a little device to read the markings in the back of the subjects' necks. Standing behind the blonde girl from Group B - Janson didn't know her name, he had never particularly cared enough to learn most of the kids' names anyway -, the guard harshly pushed her hair aside craning her neck down as the girl groaned. From beside her, a dark-skinned girl struggled against her restraints, her whole body shivering in anger.

"Get your hands away from her!" The girl spat at the guard and Janson frowned at her for a second, but, then, he remembered them.

The blonde one, the brunette with the braids and the red-headed one. The three were always together, but Janson only remembered the red-haired. He needed to, after all, she was the one Dr. Paige cared about the most, the one she had taken under her wing when she was first taken to their WCKD compound as a child, the one that had betrayed her the most. Selena, he thought she had been named, though he was pretty sure her real name had been Anna. Anna Caroline Douglas, the daughter of world-renowned Dr. Elizabeth Douglas, the one Dr. Paige had wanted so badly in her ranks for the research on the WCKD team but who had succumbed to the virus before it even became the world catastrophe it now was.

In a way, Janson was almost glad she hadn't been put in that team. After all, if she gave them as much trouble as their daughter seemed to, Janson was relieved he had never had to deal with Dr. Douglas at all.

"How many did we get?" Janson asked, moving toward one of his guards who had the list of subjects in his hands, listing them off as they all got tagged again.

"All of them." The man shrugged. "Give or take."

"Give or take what?" Janson insisted, annoyed.

"Well, they lost a few." The man said.

"A-4." The other guard continued to tag them as Janson took a second to look around. "A-6. B-3."

They had about fifty of the kids there, which was pretty impressive in Janson's opinion, but as he looked around again and again, two very important pieces of their puzzle were missing.

"Where's Selena?" He asked, and, almost as if waiting for a cue, walking out from behind a rock, there she was, Selena, with her messy hair pulled up in a ponytail, the ends of her coat a little singed and her face a little scratched, but, other than that, she seemed fine.

"I'm here." She said, stopping as soon as three of the WCKD guards pulled out their guns and pointed them at her. Raising her hands up in surrender, Selena rolled her eyes, her attitude being enough to cause Janson's skin to crawl. "Easy boys..."

"Freeze!" One of the men yelled as Selena just scoffed.

"Not going anywhere."

"Get her here!" Janson yelled and, as soon as his order was barked out, one of the guards around her reached for her hands and trapped them both behind her back as she groaned at the sudden movement.