Six Feet Under.

chapter two

Minho seemed to already have a plan in mind, and he nodded. "Just in case, you stay here and ask around, try to find him. I'll check the Maze." He said, to which Layla frowned. He quickly continued, "his route wasn't very far—I'll make it back."

Layla felt relief at that, and despite not liking it, she let him go. Then, she began to make her way around the Glade, looking for any signs of the missing Glader. She asked a few boys if they had seen him, earning confused looks and none of the answers that she wanted. She continued her search.

At some point, she ran into Newt by the gardens. The boy frowned upon seeing her so early in the day, and said, "Layla? You all right?"

Layla frowned, not quite sure how to feel. "It's Ben." She started, "he went on a different route than Minho and I today and we heard him scream, so we went looking for him but we're not sure which way he went." She informed, causing Newt's eyes to widen in surprise. "We think he's hurt."

Newt took a second to process the information before he spoke, "where's Minho?" He asked.

"Back in the Maze. He's checking there just in case." Layla breathed out, subconsciously chewing on her nail—a habit she had tried hard to stop.

Newt thought for a moment longer, then he said, "have you checked the Deadheads, yet?"

Layla shook her head. "No," she replied, "I never thought to check. Would Ben go there if he was hurt?" She asked, to which Newt sighed.

There was a long pause of silence as the two tried to work things out, before Layla spoke. "He's probably in the Maze, then." She said, despite having a gut feeling that he wasn't. "I'll go find him and Minho."

Newt bid her goodbye, watching as she jogged towards the still open Maze doors. Layla was surprised to find that upon stepping only one foot in, she began to hear shouting from behind her. She immediately whipped her head around to see what it could've been, and saw the Greenie dashing out of the woods with Ben on his trail, who looked sickly and pale and completely mad. Thomas was screaming at the top of his lungs, trying to gain the Gladers' attention as he ran from Ben, but Ben was fast, and managed to catch him by the ankles as he pulled Thomas to the ground.

Layla was immediately rushing in their direction.

     "I'll kill you!" Ben shouted at the top of his lungs, his hands reaching up to grip Thomas' throat tightly, immediately cutting off the boy's airflow. "I'll kill you both!"

     Newt was the first to catch up to the duo, smacking Ben in the head with the end of his shovel. "Hold him down." He instructed, and Layla immediately did as asked, pinning one of Ben's arms down. Ben squirmed harder, his crazed eyes meeting Layla's for only a moment. Layla had to try not to cower away under her friend's glare—she loved him, and seeing him hurt broke her.

"What are you doin'?" Newt looked at Ben with wide eyes, pushing down on Ben's arm, keeping him flat against the ground so he couldn't hurt anyone else.

     "Calm down, Ben!" Gally sneered at the squirming boy. Layla had to look away for a moment to gain her composure, keeping a tight grip on the boy. She wanted to curse out at whoever had sent them all to this place—rip it from the ground up and find who was responsible. She had held onto her sanity for long enough, but this was Ben. How could they do this to Ben?

     Layla turned back to her friend, watching as he moved uncomfortably, his face scrunching up in pain as blood dripped from his forehead.

     Fry struggled to hold Ben's legs down as he squirmed, "what the hell happened?" He asked, turning to face Thomas with wide eyes.