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

- THE LAST CITY -

"We take volunteers ready to fight," Thomas continues. "Stick to roads where we can. Make good time. If we push hard, we're talking one week, round trip."

The silence that follows isn't empty - it's heavy with judgment. With memory. With ghosts. "A week?" Vince echoes, disbelieving. "You're serious?" He rubs a hand over his face, exhaling slow. "It's taken us six months to get where we are now. Six months of pain, patience, risk. And now you want to throw it all away?" He points at the map with a look that's both angry and tired. "You want to run off to some random dot on the edge of a dead zone and hope WICKED's still holding your friend there? Hope there's even a city left?" He looks at me then. His disappointment stings more than I expected. "You don't even know it's there, Cooper."

"But I do." The voice cuts through the rising tension like a blade. We all turn to the doorway where Jorge stands, framed by the hallway light spilling in behind him. His face is grim, shadowed beneath his cap, but his eyes are sharp a like he's been waiting for this exact moment. "I've been there," he says as he enters. "It's been a few years... but I remember it. They called it The Last City." Brenda's breath catches beside Newt. I glance at her, but she doesn't look away from Jorge. "That was their stronghold," Jorge says, stepping up to the table. "The beating heart of WICKED's entire operation. Underground labs, airfields, surveillance zones. The works." He meets my gaze. And for a moment, I see it - the same sadness I feel. The kind that digs deep and stays there, buried like old glass. "I've watched you kids unravel for half a year," he says, voice low. "Watched you carry grief like it's stitched into your skin. You think I don't get it? I do." Then softer, just for me: "But hermana... if that city's still standing, it's not a place you want to go. That's the lion's den."

Thomas answers before I can. "It's nothing we haven't done before."

Jorge looks to him, tired. "Yeah. And every time it's nearly killed you."

"Yeah," Vince cuts in sharply, "and with those times, we had months of planning. Backup. Intel. Half a dozen escape routes. And even then, we barely survived." His hands slam down on the table. "Now you want to march into enemy territory, no plan, no guarantee, no nothing but hope?"

"Vince- just listen to us, would you?" I say. "We're not going in blind-"

"I am listening, Cooper," he snaps, interrupting me. "And what I hear is recklessness. Again. You think I don't know what this is really about?" He moves around the table slowly. Every word he speaks feels like it's coming from somewhere deeper than anger. "The last time we were rushed into something without a plan, I lost everything," Vince utters. "You lost your mother."

His tone is steady, but it cuts deep. Because he doesn't say it with cruelty - he says it like it still haunts him, too. "As if I could forget," I snap back, voice cracking. "I lost her, yeah, and I lost a father who never really was one." The words pour out now, thick and sharp and real. Vince's lips press into a line. He doesn't respond. "So believe me when I say this," I continue, stepping closer, the weight of six months of grief behind every word, "I am not going to lose another friend."

I catch the way Vince flinches. Barely, but I see it. at my words. His face twitches - not from offense, not from anger. From guilt. Or maybe grief. The line between the two is blurry these days. And it hits me harder than it should. Because despite everything - despite the fighting and the secrets - I know how much he loved my mother.

No one speaks.

It isn't the peaceful kind of silence. Not the kind that comes at the end of a long day, or after laughter fades, or when sleep finally settles in. This silence feels wrong. Like the air has been vacuumed out of the room. Like everyone's lungs are holding the same breath. The kind of silence that comes just after something shatters - but right before the pieces hit the floor.