IT STARTED WITH A MAZE - Newt x Reader (F)

- THE RIGHT ARM -

Harriet cups her hands around her mouth and whistles. A sharp, shrill sound that echoes across the canyon walls. "We're clear, guys!" She calls.

A pause. and then- "Copy that! Stand down! We're clear!" Voices shout from above.

I look up.

They're everywhere. Dozens of them - men and women crouched along the top of the cliff ridge, tucked behind boulders and broken trees. All armed. Their guns slowly lower now, no longer trained on us. My stomach unclenches slightly. But only slightly.

"You've got a lot of friends," Minho mutters, brows raised.

"We're not alone," Sonya says simply.

Harriet turns to us. "Come with us." No hesitation. Just that. Like she's been waiting to say those words for a long time.

She leads us past the tangled blockade of abandoned cars, where Marcus's busted compound truck - Bertha - is still idling in the canyon below. The old road winds tighter here, the cliffs pressing in on either side. Eventually, we come to what looks like the mouth of a natural tunnel - dark, gaping, half-obscured by loose rocks and debris. "You think we can trust them?" Thomas asks quietly behind me.

Newt shrugs beside me. "Aris knows them."

"Yeah, but does that mean they're Group B?" I ask, my words a repetition of earlier thoughts. All three of us know exactly what I'm referring to. Thomas doesn't answer. He just watches Harriet's back as she walks ahead.

Inside the tunnel, our footsteps echo faintly. The air is cooler here, earthy and thick. Small lights are strung along the walls - dim bulbs powered by a long cord that disappears into the dark. The passage curves downward, deeper into the mountain. The silence presses in. No one speaks.

Finally, the tunnel opens up into a broad clearing on the other side. We emerge into what looks like an old make-shit military loading zone - or the best that they can make out of a cliff-side road. There are trucks. Dozens of them. Transports. Some with makeshift armor. All of them parked in scattered rows.

And people.

People everywhere.

I count at least 20. Some wear scavenged military gear. Others have badges with insignia stitched into the shoulders of their jackets. Some lean against their rifles. Others repair vehicles, unload crates, talk in hushed tones. There's an energy here - focused, prepared. Not chaos. Strategy.

The Right Arm?

"Taking them to base!" Harriet calls out to someone up ahead.

"Copy!" Another woman calls back, waving them through the checkpoint.

We walk forward, heads turning toward us as we pass. No one smiles. No one waves. But no one raises their weapons either. Aris is scanning every face. "Where's Tori? Rachel? Alyssa? The others?"

A man steps out from the side of a truck, sweat on his brow. He gives Harriet a look which she shrugs out. "They're alright," she says. "Right Arm moved them from Denver two weeks ago. They're okay." Aris exhales hard. I think he might cry, but he doesn't.

"The Right Arm?" Thomas echoes, walking a little faster. "Do you know where they are?"

Harriet stops at the side of one of the large green transports. She turns, opening the back door and pulling down the step ladder. "Hop in," she says, wiping a strand of hair from her face. "You'll get your answers soon enough."

~~~

The road stretches on like a scar across the earth - narrow, cracked, forgotten. Jagged rocks claw up from the dry ground on either side, some towering, some shattered. No cities out here. No rusted signs or skeletal buildings. Just barren land that rolls out into endless shades of ash and beige, wind carving paths in the dirt like it's searching for something long lost.