Listen ~ The Maze Runner ~ Newt

18 ~ Melissa

'How are we getting out?' I mouth to Aimee, hoping she had some form of idea that I didn't have. 'I don't know.' She mouths back, leaving me to frown in concentration. An idea comes into mind, and I hope that it will work, though the chances of that happening are extremely low.

I wave my hand towards the opposite end of the counter, the one closest to the door, for Aimee to start crawling. She nods her head and starts to move away from me, having me follow her a few moments later at a steady pace. We reach the other side of the counter as the woman's footsteps ring out from the opposite side of the kitchen, giving us a higher chance of getting out.

Aimee looks from me to the doors, nodding her head towards them as if to say 'Let's go'. I nod my head and take a deep silent breath, turning to face her with an open mouth. I mouth, 'One.' And she joins in on 'Two'. And by 'Three' we both jumped up and ran as fast as we could out of the big double doors.

"Danielle?!" The woman's voice cries in shock, making me stop in my place and turn around slowly, completely ready for the scolding I was about to get.

Crap... I fucked this up... How are we going to lie our way out of this one...?

I stare at the woman on the other half of the kitchen of me, her face holding a certain level nostalgia for me. As I thought, the woman opposite me had happened to be my mother's best friend before we came here to the WCKD facility. Of course she had come here too and I'm guessing they are still best friends now, as they were when I was taken away.

"Melissa?" I ask quietly, unsure whether I should be afraid that she is going to rat me out to Ava Paige or if I should be happy to see her once more.

As the corners of her lips curl up into a smile, her arms unfold in front of her, beckoning me over to her. With the odd feeling of tears in the backs of my eyes, I move cautiously around the counter and straight into the arms of the woman I could easily call my second mother, smiling into her tight embrace.

She pulls away yet holds onto the tops of my arms tightly, her eyes scanning over my bruised and skinny body sadly with regret and guilt. "Look at you... What did they do to you..?" She whispers, rubbing my arms as if to warm them up. For some odd reason, I have the over-bearing need to cry once more, as if now, when I finally had one of the women I had looked up to all my life and still had respect for, I finally had someone to break-down in front of and let them take care of me.

And Melissa McCall is that person for me.

She was always there for me when my mother or my aunt weren't around to take care of me (the three women practically sharing custody over me as they were all best friends when they were my age, and even younger) and now when all the stress, fear and worry was piling up on me I finally had her to talk to again. Except these conversations will be a lot more mature, and hold more daring topics.

I knew I could trust her now. I might not have a few seconds ago, but that look she had in her eye when she looked over my body held so much guilt and regret that I knew she had to have been one of the people against my mother's decision to send me into the Maze.

A small sob escapes my lips as she holds my hands in her own, and her face falls. "Oh, sweetheart." She cooes, instantly willing the rest of my tears to spill down my cheeks. She cradles my sobbing body in her arms again, whispering apologies into my ear as if that was the soul reason I was crying.

"I'm so sorry darling. If I had known what your mother was going to do when she came up with the idea, I would have talked her out of it and kept you here. You didn't and still don't deserve to be treated like a test subject." She whispers, her hand caressing the back of my head gently.