CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
ADELAIDE
I quickly wrap a pink scarf on his present and slip our of the homestead before anyone else sees me. The Glade was relatively silent as the most of them are still asleep. The cooks are up, about to prepare breakfast. I walk past the common sleeping area. Most of the boys are snoring, tiredness still taking their bones.
One
Two...
Thirteen...
Seventeen..
Eighteen
Nineteen.
Nineteen hammocks are empty. There are six cooks and Chuck is not here. So, fourteen are dead.
Fourteen.
Suppressing the burning feeling in my chest and guilt settling in my stomach, deeper. I quickly screw my eyes shut and walk away.
I search for the curly haired, pudgy brunette. I try not to look at destroyed crops, trees and huts. I try not to see the unnaturally destroyed fields and splotches of blood on them. I try not to see a single pair of shoe or broken spears and machetes. I try not to see Stan's body being impaled from Griever's tail.
I am broken from my train of depressing thoughts when I find Chuck sitting by an unharmed tree and munching onto an apple slowly. He surely had slept, but his rusty brown eyes has dimmed considerably. I hide his present behind another tree without him noticing my presence.
I pull my lips to a convincing smile as I jog to him. I might be depressed but this little boy doesn't have to. Chuck instantly smiles seeing me.
"Hey, Chuckie-Duckie, what'chadoin'?" I say.
"I hate this breakfast." He shows me the half eaten apple, "Fry is trying to get all the fruits out. I've had two apples and I hate apples."
I snake my arm around his shoulder and squeeze them in assurance. Today, the cooks were too tired to make anything else, so it's fruits today. I can't blame them. No one has the correct mental state, everyone knows that they are going to die if the Runners can't find a way out and it makes me feel guiltier, making it harder for me to breathe.
"So," I croak, "If I get something other than apples, then I'll give it to you."
"Then what will you have?"
"I'll sneak something later. Don't worry, Fry loves me."
I and Chuck then sit in silence, me being anxious to find the perfect moment.
"You didn't sleep at all, did you Ally?"
I shake my head, knowing very well that I might look like a corpse. I haven't ever sleep peacefully in the Glade, with nightmares plaguing my sleep and in the days there are no nightmares, insomnia acts up. Very rarely I can sleep after which I'm required to wake up earliest in the Glade so that I can bathe and do my morning routine in solitude before other Runners wake up.
So, if I were to tell Chuck that I had slept, I would be lying to him. And I don't want to lie to him.
"You need to sleep. How will you function if you don't sleep?"
I smile at the boy, "Okay, mom."
He smacks my arm, a hint of smile on his face, "I'm serious."
I pinch the both of his cheek, "I know my little bro. I know."
"So if you know then you get your butt to your room and sleep, sis." He smacks my hands off his cheek.
"Fine. Scold me all you want, then I will not give you that thing."
"What thing?"
"That thing which I wanted to give you."
"What is that thing?"
"That I wanted to give you."
"Ally," Chuck whines, "What will you give me? Please!" He makes his puppy eyes and brings it closer to my face. I clench my eyes shut, knowing very well that I will melt in a second if I see them but Chuck knows that I can't resist seeing them.
"Fine , you spoiled brat." I spat shoving his face away, "Wait." I get the scarf wrapped present and place it in front of him.
Chuck looks the long, hastily wrapped present in awe and looks at me.
"Is this what I think it is?"
"Open it up, bub."
He quickly attacks the present, untying the knots. A small wooden bow and a quiver full of bows stares that the boy. The boy looks up at me, his rusty brown eyes widening. "Is this for me?"
"Yeah. Do you like it?"
"Like it? I love it!" Chuck literally jumps on me, tackling me on the ground. My breath gets knocked out as I laugh."Thank you, thank you, thank you. You're the best."
I kiss the boy's cheek as I heave both of us into sitting position. "So, from now on, you have your own bow and arrow. I couldn't get you a compound bow, so I craved one for you. Liam helped me too."
"Its all wooden." He gasps, lifting the bow and studying it carefully.
"Yeah. From our Glade. For you."
"Can I try it?"
I give a breathy chuckle, "Of course you can. It's all yours."
Chuck quickly rises on his feet and straps the quiver on his back. He quickly stands in position, his left hand holding the bow, correctly outstretched and right hand pulling back the tail of the arrow till his ear. His shoulders are straight, correct distance between his feet.
He closes his one eye as he aims the trunk of the tree in front of him and takes a deep breath and releases the bow. The bow cuts through the air and lodges itself on the trunk.
"Is that where you aimed?"
"Not exactly. But almost near it."
"Its okay. You did nice. Now practice."
I lean my head against the trunk as I watch Chuck practice his archery, his face screwing in concentration.
I smile on seeing the boy, knowing that he will be able to defend himself from now on, no longer a helpless lad.
NEWT
I walk into the Weapons Hut, finding Tommy, Minho, Addie and Teresa sitting down with huge stacks of maps in front of them. I toss the stack of wax papers in the spot where a bunch of pencils and some rulers are there.
It wasn't easy to get Fry give me the wax papers. He almost bit my head off. I had to literally beg him.
I take a seat beside Addie.
"Now what?"
Tommy had this bloody realization that the Maze might have been a code and that all the Runners, when studying the maps compared one day to other, they were wrong. Minho was particularly offended saying that he'd spend the most of his life studying the Maps and he would definitely have known something, but Tommy thought that it might have been because they've compared Maps one day to another, and not ' looking at it, one day at a time,' whatever that meant.
Addie agreed with Tommy, saying that she always compared one day to another per section.
"So, now," Tommy takes a pencil and a ruler and wax paper, "Sketch the Maze away."
"Time to show you all how much of a Picasso I am." Minho cracks his knuckles.
"0 percent." I say. Minho shoots me a glare.
TOTAL WORDS- 1150
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