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

- FREED -

We're masked up, pressed to either side of the doorway with weapons raised. No one speaks. Only the soft, rhythmic tick of our breath inside the masks.

Then the door hisses.

It slides open with a mechanical sigh - and the guard inside barely has time to register us. Gally fires first. The electric razor flings from the barrel in a crackling blur, a dart of pure voltage. It hits the man in the chest. His body jolts violently, his limbs stiffen mid-movement, and he crashes backward into the wall before sliding to the floor. Trembling. Unconscious. Maybe worse. The air smells sharp and burnt.

We move.

Beyond the door stretches a long corridor - metallic walls, sterile, clinical, inhuman. Strip lights overhead cast a cold blue pallor down onto the polished floors. At the far end, a circular security desk nestles into the center of a crossroads - monitors, terminals, and four uniformed guards.

One looks up. Too slow.

We shoot.

Electro-rounds fly. The guards scramble, chairs screeching back. Two are hit clean - dropped instantly in a twitching sprawl. The other two duck for cover behind the desk and return fire. Bullets ping against the walls, loud and sharp. Our weapons aren't built for kill-shots - we're trying to disable, not destroy - and suddenly that feels like a problem.

"Keep low!" Thomas shouts, firing again.

Newt ducks to the right, pressing himself into a support beam and taking aim at one of the desk monitors, blasting it to pieces to disorient them. "They've got ammo- real ammo!" I yell, diving beside a cabinet. Sparks fly over my shoulder as a bullet ricochets.

"We don't need to win the fight," Gally shouts. "We just need the kids and get out!" He vaults over the front counter and tackles the control panel. "Everyone- get to a door!"

Without wasting time, I push off the wall and sprint around the desk. The numbered containment doors line the circumference - thick and sterile white. I stop at the nearest one. Tearing my mask off, I punch the panel and the door shudders open.

Inside: eight girls. Younger than me. Maybe eleven or twelve at most. Pale. Startled. All eyes on me. Not Minho. "You're all alright?" I ask quickly, breathing hard. "We've come to get you out - we have to move fast, okay?" They nod, still stunned but listening. "Come on- move quickly. Stay low, keep close."

I usher them out gently, hand brushing their backs as they file past me. One clutches a ragged pillow that I tell her it's okay to leave behind. Another glances back, her eyes wide with silent fear.

I'm already at the next door.

Across the corridor, Newt and Thomas are doing the same. Their masks are off. I catch Newt's eye and he looks better. Alert. Lighter, almost. He's talking gently to the kids, guiding them with his hands. It's the clearest I've seen his face in hours.

Hope suits him.

Teresa stands in the center of it all - unmoving. Her eyes scan the children as they pour out, and there's something frozen in her. I don't think she's ever actually seen these living conditions before - not like this. Not as kids. Just data points. Trials. Subjects. Whatever humanity had been buried beneath her just cracked open.

My next room is empty. Lots of kids inside but none of them Minho.

My stomach twists.

I run to another. Still no Minho.

"Where is he-?" I whisper to myself, scanning every face, trying not to show my disappointment.

Across the hall, Gally's crouched behind the desk now - one knee on the back of a surviving guard. The man groans beneath him as Gally presses a real pistol to the back of his neck. "Where's the vault room?" Gally snarls. That's where Teresa told us their start of the Cure was being kept. "The serum!?" The guard mumbles something weak. Gally tightens his grip. "Where?" A beat passes. Then Gally shoves the man aside. The guard slumps, unmoving - unconscious, maybe dead. I pretend not to wonder which. He moves swiftly to the far corner and tosses a heavy black pack to the ground next to a reinforced door - marked in red. "Guys," Gally calls out, "this might take some time."