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

- NO MORE MISSING -

He hurls her into the steel wall. She crumples, her body folding into itself on the floor, not moving. Thomas lunges, but now he's not fast enough. Janson twists and shoves him hard into a metal desk. Thomas grunts, skidding across the surface, his arms scraped and raw. The desk topples over with him, metal clanging on metal, echoing off the narrow corridor walls.

And then-

A flash of black and silver. Janson draws something from his side. The bloody pistol. His breathing's ragged, his face glistening with sweat and blood. He lifts the gun slowly - almost lazily. Like he's savoring the moment.

He points it at Thomas.

Then swivels it to me.

Back again.

"I honestly don't know which would be more satisfying," Janson says with that cruel smirk. "The traitor... or my failure." He stands centered in the main hallway just outside the lab, silhouetted by blinking emergency lights. Sparks flicker from exposed wiring. We're high up - one of the top floors of WICKED's complex.

That's when I see it.

Through the broken glass of a nearby observation room.

The sky.

Pitch-black and burning. And two fireballs - no, missiles - are cutting through the darkness, screaming down from the heavens like angry gods.

They're heading right for us.

Thomas sees them too. His voice cuts through the chaos like lightning. "GET DOWN, (Y/N)!" And then he's diving- into me. His arms wrap around my waist just as the world erupts.

The side of the building goes nova. The shockwave hits before I can blink.

Windows implode in a cascade of shattered glass and fire. The wall splinters open, molten steel and concrete flying past us as Thomas tackles me sideways into a pile of overturned desks. The ground lurches. My ears ring. Lights strobe wildly. A rain of sparks and dust floods the corridor, thick as fog.

We hit the floor hard. My back smashes against steel. Thomas shields my body as flaming debris rains around us.

The noise is deafening. Screams and roaring flame. Cracking walls. Alarms bleating.

The lights flicker - then cut out completely. The back up generator doesn't give us much else.

"Let's go, let's go!" Teresa's voice cuts sharp through the ringing in my ears, frantic and hoarse.

Janson's down, sprawled somewhere behind us in the rubble and smoke, but none of us are betting on it staying that way. We run. We run like hell.

Our boots pound over warped floor tiles, debris cascading from the ceiling as another boom shakes the world beneath us. The second explosion hits higher up - rattling everything, sending cracks zig-zagging through the walls and corridors. Overhead, a light fixture crashes to the ground in a shower of sparks. Fire licks along the ceiling.

"Keep going!" I shout, panting. My throat burns with smoke. I glance back-

Janson.

He's on his knees, blood smeared down the side of his face, but the bastard is still moving. Still alive. And he's raising his gun.

Straight at Thomas.

Everything inside me reacts before my brain even catches up. I think of Newt. His sleeping face. The stillness that had almost looked like death until he breathed. He's safe now.