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

- NO MORE MISSING -

Thomas is not.

"MOVE!" I scream, throwing my body into Thomas and Teresa from behind, shoving them into the nearest doorway just as bullets tear through the air.

A white-hot pain tears through me.

For real, this time.

I stumble. Nearly crumple. But I force my body forward, through the threshold.

The second I'm in, I slam the heavy door behind us, leaning my full weight into it, panting, biting down a scream. My hand presses to my middle.

Wet. Warm. Sticky.

No ignoring it now. It's blood. The adrenaline isn't enough to dull this. It's fire. Liquid fire pouring through my torso. I stagger forward and take in the room.

It's like stepping into a nightmare.

The lab is bathed in a surreal blue glow, coming from panels along the walls and beneath the floor. The overhead lights flicker weakly, revealing row after row of glass cages. And inside?

Cranks.

Several of them. Emaciated bodies, snarling and clawing at the glass. Some are still human enough to weep. Others just twitch. Their eyes, or what's left of them, follow us. A different kind of lab. One not meant to fix anything. A place meant to observe the disease eats people alive.

The room feels like it's shifting around me - walls breathing, floor bending. Or maybe that's just the blood loss. My head is spinning, my knees buckling. My vision goes in and out of focus. Every sound is muffled and sharp at once, like I'm underwater inside a screaming hurricane.

"We have to get out of here," Thomas is saying, voice tight, breath short, eyes darting as he scans the room - the Cranks in glass, the sterile hell-scape of a lab warped by violence and fire. His silhouette pulses with the stutter of overhead lights, every other second plunging us into darkness.

Then Teresa's eyes land on me. She stops breathing for half a second. "(Y/n)." Just my name. Barely more than a whisper. But there's a tremor in it. Her head snaps toward Thomas. "Thomas, she's hurt."

He whirls around, fast, and that's when I feel it. Like the observation makes it real. His eyes land on my hunched frame. My arms cradling my middle. Fingers wet. Slick. His face falls. "Shit."

I try to stand straighter but my spine curls inward without permission. There's something wrong inside me. Something tearing, burning. I can't tell what hurts worse - the gaping pain or the pressure. It's damn fire spreading from my ribs, wrapping tight like a vice, squeezing deeper with every shallow breath.

My knees buckle.

The world tilts.

I don't even realise I've fallen until I feel Thomas's arms around me, catching me, easing me down and leaning my back against a cabinet. My breath comes in choked gasps. The lights above spasm again - on, off, on - casting the Cranks in flickering shadow and pale horror. "Oh shit," I mutter. My fingers press harder against the wound like that'll stop it- stop what I feel happening inside me. I think of Newt. Of how I left him. Safe. Of how I was supposed to make it back to him. And now I won't. "Oh shit, shit, shit."

"You're okay," Thomas says - almost begs - and there's something thin in his voice. Something raw.

"She's not okay!" Teresa snaps, panic cracking through her calm for the first time. "We need something to stop the bleeding!" She rushes to the counters, yanking open drawers, sending supplies clattering to the floor.