From The WICKED Start | A Maze Runner Story (English Version)

30. Locked up

The next thing I felt was a slap in the face, which made me faint again almost immediately. I saw stars and was sure that my lower lip had burst because it was throbbing terribly and a warm liquid was running down my chin.
Moaning, I opened my eyes and saw Janson's disgusting grin again.
"Well, has the princess awakened, too? You have slept long enough now."
He nodded at someone and I got another blow, this time on the ear, so that for a moment I only heard a beeping sound.
Again I moaned and spat out blood that had run from my lip into my mouth.
Only now did I take where I was. The room was completely bare and I lay on the cold floor. Janson stood above me and one of his men squatted beside me. He was the one who had already given me the third blow, this time hitting my temple, from where blood immediately ran down.
Were they trying to kill me?
"I suppose you thought you could just run away, huh? If I it had my way, I would have separated you two immediately and sent you to different mazes, but Paige insisted on following this girl's plan and above all on sending you to exactly that one. And there you are, you filthy kids, lying stupidly on the floor while your friend has already had her first visit to the memory chamber." He winked at me contemptuously.
'You'?
Now I looked around the room and recognised Minho, who was sitting on a wall a little way away from me, also badly battered.
"Minho!" I poured out blood in a torrent.
He looked up weakly and tried to smile at me, which was completely unsuccessful.
Oh God, what had happened? Why had this happened? Why had they got Rachel and Minho? Why was I not alone here?
I couldn't think about it any further because I received another blow over my right eye and almost fainted again. Then all I could see was someone in a white coat coming towards me, a syringe in his hand, and injecting it into my arm.
Everything went black again.

When I regained consciousness, Janson and the other men had disappeared and Minho was no longer sitting on the wall, but cowering next to me as if waiting for me to wake up. He noticed that I opened my eyes and sat up immediately.
"Anna! You're awake!" He tried to support me, but then moaned himself because the movement seemed to hurt him.
"Minho," I squawked. "What have they done to you?"
He shook his head. "I don't know either. I think I cracked my ribs. But more important now is how you are. You've been unconscious for so long!"
"I'm so sorry, Minho. This is all my fault. I shouldn't have dragged you into this..." I sobbed and a terrible pain in my upper body came over me. Yes, I probably cracked my ribs, too.
"We wanted it ourselves. We knew that we were exposing ourselves to a high risk. You're not to blame for anything."
He stroked my leg soothingly and I flinched because I was in pain there, too. Carefully I moved to the wall and sat up there to examine my body more closely.
I had bruises everywhere and my face was crusted with blood. My right shoulder was almost certainly dislocated and my right leg, which had just hurt so much, was definitely bruised.
"Shit," I cursed softly and then looked at Minho. He had a black eye and his left cheekbone was swollen and also discoloured.
"What happened? Where is Rachel? What have they done to us?" I asked.
He sighed. "Rachel was sent into a maze this morning. The times when the box goes up and brings up a new one differ from maze to maze, I was told. Actually, Janson wanted to send you into one too, but I guess Paige told him not to. We're supposed to go to the same one, so we're being held here until then. He told me that much. Paige wanted us to go because Teresa - yeah, you heard right - talked her into it."
I looked at him with big eyes and couldn't believe it. Teresa had actually managed to talk Paige into sending me into our maze? After what happened on the roof, I had lost all hope.
"How long have we been in here?" I asked then, because it suddenly occurred to me that the boxes all brought new test subjects into the mazes within a week.
You can't have been unconscious that long, it's not possible.
"About three weeks."
My breath stopped. But that could not have been!
"But I..." I didn't know what to say.
"They've always kept you sedated. And they kept bringing you out here to do experiments on you. I was always afraid they wouldn't bring you back. They took me a few times too, but I can't remember anything that happened..."
I closed my eyes. I couldn't understand it. I had been unconscious for so long?
But then suddenly pictures shot through my head. Distorted and confused, but it seemed as if I had had something like dreams while I had been sedated.
As fast as they had come, as fast they had gone. Confused, I shook my head, which began to throb terribly.
"Something must happen soon now, I can't imagine that they would let you wake up just like that. At times I had the feeling that Janson was really afraid of you because he thinks you are quite clever. Cleverer than himself. And that's why he thinks you could figure out a way to get out of here." Minho had to laugh and immediately held his ribs.
"Do you know what day it is today?" I asked him.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"I think I know why I'm awake. Tomorrow they're guaranteed to send us to the memory chamber."
We remained silent. Slowly I noticed that my head was throbbing unbearably not only from my injuries but also from the long unconsciousness. I closed my eyes and held my temples, trying to soften the pain a little.
"Do you think Rachel is all right?" I asked after a few minutes.
Minho shrugged his shoulders, so I flinched as he touched me.
"Excuse me... Well, I guess they'll have messed her up nicely too, but she doesn't remember now anyway, does she? Just like we're gonna do tomorrow."
I opened my eyes and looked at him. He was staring straight ahead and seemed to have to pull himself together not to cry. Gently I touched his arm, then took his hand as he held still and squeezed it gently.
"Hey, we are not alone. We have each other."
Yes, and tomorrow you won't know who the other one is.
Minho seemed to think the same as I did, because he looked at me with a painfully contorted face, but said nothing.
I felt such a strong tiredness coming over me that I almost just tipped to the side. The medication they had given me was still in my body.
My eyes became heavy and after a few minutes I could hardly keep them open. I tilted against Minho and my head fell on his shoulder. I wanted to apologise and get up again, but before I could say or do anything, I had fallen asleep again.