The First Glader

6

"Looks bad," Nick said softly from above her.

"It'll heal," she replied. "Or it won't. Either way, I'm not going back in there for it."

He nodded, eyes darkening as they flicked toward the Maze. "Yeah. That's... fair."

She wrapped it again as best she could one-handed. When she fumbled the knot, Nick crouched in front of her and took the ends of the fabric gently.

"May I?" he asked.

It was such a small question. It hit her like a shock.

She nodded once.

His fingers brushed her skin as he tied the bandage—not lingering, not pressing, just careful. Intentional. When he finished, the knot sat snug against her arm, firm but not cutting.

"There," he said. "Field medicine, courtesy of common sense."

Ada looked at him for a long moment. "Thank you."

He shrugged. "You would've done the same for me."

She didn't say "I already did," but the truth of it sat between them anyway.

—

They built the first real structure of the Glade together.

Not the crooked lean-to Ada had thrown up on her first day, but a proper shelter—four walls, a sloped roof, space for two beds, and shelves for tools. It was small and awkward and rough, but it was theirs.

They argued over where to put the door. Nick wanted it facing the lake. Ada insisted it face the Maze, so she could see the Doors the moment they started to move.

"Paranoid," he muttered, but he helped her orient it anyway.

They developed a shorthand as they worked. A tilt of her head meant he should brace the plank. A tap of his foot meant she should pass the rope. They moved around each other smoothly, the way two people did when they'd learned to anticipate each other's actions.

At night, when they collapsed onto their makeshift beds—thin slabs of wood covered with stolen blankets—Ada lay awake listening.

To the Maze.
To the wind.
To Nick's breathing.

He had a way of talking in half-sentences before he drifted fully to sleep, thoughts slipping out unguarded.

"I keep thinking there's going to be a door," he murmured softly one night, eyes half-closed.

"In the walls?" Ada asked.

"In the sky," he replied. "Some hatch that opens and says 'just kidding'."

She snorted softly. "That'd be a stupid joke."

"Yeah," he agreed. "But I keep hoping anyway."

She stared at the ceiling planks, the faint gaps where starlight peeked through. "Hope is dangerous here."

"Yeah," he said more quietly. "So is giving up."

She didn't have an answer to that.

Another night, she woke in the grip of a nightmare—the sound of metal scraping, the pressure of claws closing around her arm, the suffocating darkness of the Maze pressing in.

She woke gasping, hand flying to her bicep.

The bandage was dry. The room was still.

Her breaths came too fast.

From the other pallet, Nick's voice was soft. "Ada?"

She froze. "Go back to sleep."

He didn't. "You okay?"