the fan runner ⇒ the maze runner fanfic

ten - bloodshed

[ Bloodstains are permanent. So is fear. ]

^'°

Allie saw Alby's face, mouth agape as he ran towards her, but she just kept running the other direction.

"Allie..." he panted.

He continued chasing her through the trees, weaving through the pattern of thick branches. Allie didn't slow, didn't regret. She didn't have the time to.

She was almost at the bordering Maze wall when an invisible force slammed into her knees. Gasping, Allie instinctively put her arms out for balance, but it didn't help her. She fell to the ground, laying still on the bed of damp leaves, listening to her heart pump steadily. Struggling to arise, she made a quick decision to stay curled up in a ball, hoping it wouldn't make her immediately visible to her pursuers.

Wrong.

"Allie, don't move an inch!" Alby said gratingly, and she could hear the venom is his voice. He was alone, but not afraid in the least. Allie peeked out at him from behind her fingers and saw that he was gripping a rusted blade, his knuckles white. His face wasn't angry, but mangled in dismay and concentration.

The tension was building, and Allie couldn't take it any longer.

"Why?" she sobbed, her chest rising and falling unevenly as the tears welled up in her eyes once again.

Alby didn't hesitate to answer back. "You killed our second-in-command. Without a second thought, you killed him. I know it was you. There's no other explanation!"

His voice quieted noticeably, the bloodlust still pulsing through his veins. "That boy was my best friend. And now I have nobody. NOBODY!"

Alby pounded his fists on the Maze wall and Allie could see the pain in every part of his body. He shook, blood dripping from his knuckles and onto the blade. He sucked in violent breaths, as if drowning. And maybe he was.

"He's not dead." It started as a whisper, but seeing that he couldn't hear her, she raised her voice irritatedly. "Newt's not dead."

Alby snapped his head in her direction and placed his thumb on the point of the knife, running the metal down his finger, leaving a cut to mark its' path.

"HOW DARE YOU!" he lunged at her, knife pointed towards her vulnerable chest, ready to meet its' target. "He's dead. He's dead, he's dead, he's dead."

Alby breathed the phrase to himself like some kind of sick poem. "He's dead. He's dead." He drew more blood from his hand and smiled.

"Alby, stop! Newt isn't dead, but you'll be soon if you don't stop doing this to yourself." she said rationally. Alby stared her straight in the eye and stood, reaching his full height.

"You're a witch." he narrowed his eyes. The mental grin stayed on his face, making Allie back away from him slowly, one foot behind the other. "Do something."

"What?" Allie's back was pressed against the wall, her sweaty hands clasped together in front of her.

"Do... a magic trick. Like the one you did on Newt." he twirled the blade around in his hand, reminding her that this was life or death. She had to do whatever he told her to or else... she didn't even want to think about the consequences.

Something popped into her mind. "Where are Kris and Siobhan?"

He laughed. "Don't you worry about them. They'll be taken care of by our new second-in-command, Matthew."

"He's literally not dead," Allie muttered under her breath, but she suddenly worried about her friends. Evan. Em. Siobhan. Kris. If she was in danger, would they be okay?

"I can't do magic, Alby. Just leave me alone." she said as he opened up a new wound on his leg, which blood immediately began to trickle from.

"Guess that leaves one option." Alby said, coming closer to her. He was still smiling. Why was he still smiling? His limbs were soaked in blood.

Allie burst.

"Why are you doing this? I told you, Newt isn't dead. He's just injured. He's going to have a limp for a while, but news flash: you're going to die before he does." Allie quickly covered her hand over her mouth, ashamed that she had given him a spoiler for his own life, and worried that she had endangered hers.

"Maybe you'll die before us." Alby raised the knife and she cowered in fear, her heart racing, her breaths coming out shaky and abrupt, and Alby planted a kiss on the knife, dripping in his own blood. She raised her hand to stop it, but it came flying down anyways. He was out of his mind. And she was too slow. It sank into her chest, piercing her heart and she put her hands there to stop the bleeding, but in the end, it proved to be much to handle. She covered her ears with her hands. She didn't want to hear him laughing.

Allie slumped against the stone and died.

-

"Here. Take this to ease the pain." the nurse told her, and she cupped her hand to receive the pill. It was a peach-ish color, quite generic. Her clammy hand brought the pill to her mouth and she placed it on her tongue. Grabbing the cup of water on the small, wooden table next to her, she swallowed the pill.

-

"Clint, get her a... oh my gosh, she's up!"

"Allie!" Siobhan screamed playfully, and her, Kris, and Em tackled her into a hug. Allie was disoriented and slightly dizzy, but she returned the hug to the three girls.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice cracking.

"We found your body in the woods, and we got so scared." Em told her, furrowing her eyebrows. "You had a knife in you, and we thought you were dead."

"We brought you here, and Clint and Jeff told us that there was no hope. You were dead. But the next morning, bright and early, the Box comes up, with you in it, unconscious but alive." Siobhan finished.

"You were all cleaned up, and..." Kris hesitated to finish. "Your dead body is still here."

"What?" Allie screeched. "My dead body?"

"Yeah, the one with the knife in it." Em mused. "When we thought you were dead, we all cried. Thank god you're still here."

"Yeah." Allie agreed, still confused but deciding to go along with it.

"We'll leave you alone now. Rest up." Siobhan suggested, and the three of them left her on the cot in the Homestead.

Where's Evan? she remembered suddenly, and pulled the covers off of her, for the first time noticing the metal cuffs shackling her feet to the mattress.

She was trapped.