Later that night
⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆
THE GUARDS RELEASED their grips from her arms, hastily shoving her into the common room. She stumbled in still trying to process everything that had happened in the past day. It didn't take long for her to regain her balance. Once she did, she turned around to see that the door was still open-the guards still standing there. Not thinking much of it she shifted her attention to her friends who were waiting there with open arms. Newt, Minho, Sonya, Harriet, Ben, Fry, Nick, and others.
Evony rushed towards them, instantly being overwhelmed by all of the affection. All of the love between the group radiated off of each other as she welcomed the tight embrace with a gleeful grin. Cheeks and bodys pressed together, the group of kids smiles bounced off one another like an echo, creating a fuzzy feeling to erupt in her stomach.
Then just as fast as the splendid moment came, did it abruptly leave.
"What happened to you?" Minho interrogated as a befuddled expression crossed his face. He reached out to touch her arm where a repulsive black and blue mark was beginning to form, but she pulled away before any contact could be made.
She quickly thought of a lie. One that would be believable enough that at least most of them would buy it. "I ran into a doorway on the way back." She shrugged nonchalantly. While the others nodded, partly believing the girl's excuse, another voice rang out. This one filled with disgust and displeasure.
"You guys really believe that?" A boy about the age of 16 emerged from the shadows, making heads turn to get a look at who had spoken that questioning statement. "Now come on, we all know she went to see Thomas last night. Who's to say he didn't completely rail the living shit out of her, and just happened to end up giving her a few bruises in the process?"
Evony's face blushed red, while Newt took a step in front of her. "Aaron, she's fourteen years old."
Aaron huffed, his brown eyes growing wider by the second. "Whatever then, you all just go on believing your precious Evy. I'll be upstairs, packing, like we're supposed to do." Then he turned and strutted off back into the dark and up the staircase, the boards creaking under his every step.
The girls rushed to her, each putting a delicate hand on her shoulders. She responded by wrapping her arms around them, one around Sonya, and the other around Harriet. They squeezed together, "I'm sorry about Evy, he's a true asshole if Ive ever seen one." Sonya tried, following her remark with small smile.
She gently pushed the two off of her. Her hands curled at her sides, her nails digging into the palm of her hands. There was a fine line between her calm state and her breaking point, and Aaron had just about pushed it. Sure it didn't help that she had been dealing with Ratman all day, or the fact had gotten dropped on her face. Or even more so that she was forcefully separated from Thomas. But still, Aaron had no right to say something as insensitive as that.
"Can I go punch him?" A boy named Max asked in a threatening tone.
"Can I?" Minho responded flatly, his eyebrows raised. "Nevermind that, I'm going to go beat a bitch up right now. Whos with me?" Several kids' hands lifted as they volunteered to go fight the black haired boy for his intrusive comment.
Suddenly, out of the blue, two guards came and grabbed both Minho and Max vigorously by the biceps. "There will be no need for that," The guard, obviously a man after hearing the voice, spoke. "Subject A7 and subject A16 will you please come with me."
The both looked at each other before glancing back at the other men. "Uh how about no." They spoke in unison.
Max laughed, "I mean of course if you have chocolate and lemonade that would be a different story but-" He was cut off mid sentence by one of the guards jabbing a needle into him. The rest of the kids watched in horror as the blonde haired boy froze instantaneously and soon crumpled to the floor in a jello-like way. Shortly after, before she could even grasp what had just happened, the guard pulled out a second needle, and this time shot Minho instead. He too flopped onto the ground beside his friend in a matter of seconds.
One guard then pulled a transmitter out from his belt and spoke some muffled words into it. Moments later the two men left, shutting and locking the door fastly behind them, leaving the kids bewildered at their past actions.
Evony was the first to speak up. "Okay i'll start," She raised her hand in a matter to draw attention to herself. "What the actual hell was that?"
"That was WCKD's way of telling us we need to follow their orders." Nick joined in. Everyone's gaze shifted away from her, which she was glad about. She loved attention, but too much of it at once made her all jittery.
Newt shook his head. "You're right. Let's just finish packing our bags and meet back here like they told us to do."
"Like they told us to do?" Evony repeated, obviously aware that she had missed something important. Peering to her left she saw a solemn look overtake the british boy's features, he then nodded over to his sister.
Sonya gulped. "Yeah they-uh the guards, they came in a couple minutes before you got here to tell us that we need to put our clothes into our assigned duffle bags. They said we were moving to another room."
The rest of the kids nodded at her words.
Not sure how to respond to that, Evony decided to ask her own question. "Where's mine?" She quired in an almost weary voice. Her friend took her hand and led them over to the corner of the room where all but one blue bag was placed on the ground. She licked her lips in thought. Something was wrong. There was something more going on than them just switching rooms.
Bending down, she reached out to feel the material of the sack. While rummaging her hand along the bottom, she felt a cold object slip in between her fingers. She pulled it out to see it was a small metal keychain that was attached to one of the zippers. Curiously she flipped it over to see her name engraved into the casting.
"Oh that's funny." Sonya piped over her shoulder. "Mine had the letter B and the number 5 after my name."
The list.
The list Janson showed her had everybody's names-with some even having a number or letter of after. Actually, a few even had a tag. She recalled the list the best she could, which was easy since she was able to picture it in her mind.
"Can I see some of the other bags?" Evony asked. She needed to know if her theory was correct.
Newt and Harriet walked over and offered out their bags. Once again she rummaged through the clothes until she found the same silver keychain.
Newt A5
Harriet B3
SHe fiddled with the keychains, inspecting them one last time before standing back up to face the crowd. Each and every one of her friends were gathered around, confused and muddled expressions on their faces. It was Frypan who spoke up first.
"You have that look on your face, what's wrong?"
Evony nodded her head at his question to show that there was indeed something wrong. She walked past them and began to pace, the rest of the kids watching with blank expressions on their faces. She knew something was up, but she just couldn't quite put the pieces together.
Test subjects, the different numbers and letters for the different people. Being switched into a different room. Thomas knew about her being tested on. Janson showed her the list of people who were important to him. Thomas and Teresa being separated from the rest of them. The maze those two were building.
The maze...
She snapped her head up, stopping dead in her tracks. She knew what was going on.
"Evony, what's wrong?" Newt cautioned, his British accent growing thicker by the intensity to his voice.
Her mouth gaped open, unable to process the words at first. Her mind was spinning around with countless ideas and scenarios for the purpose of them being sent in. However the most prominent thing on her mind was Thomas. And how he lied to her.
"Were going into a maze." She denounced. Her hands shook by her side, and her chest was beginning to tighten up. "Were test subjects-were going to be put into the maze Thomas and Teresa have been building."
Her friends once confused looks dropped into a blank stare, obviously still trying to process the new information she had just given them. She too was trying to grasp the once unthinkable possibility of the brown haired boy keeping that big of a secret from her. There was one time she remembered, long ago back when they were merely eight, when he told her when he first started off building the maze. He had almost mentioned something about grievers just last night. Although the words test subject never came up in either of those conversations.
"We have to go." She croaked. Then louder so everyone could hear, "We have to go right now."
"Excuse me."
Evony spun around to meet face to face with somebody she knew all too well. Dr. Paige. She hastily gripped her arm, forcing her to stumble into her grasp. Holding both of her shoulders tight the woman leaned in and whispered into her ear.
"I'm truly sorry Evony, but we can't have any disruptive circumstances."
The doctor slipped her hand into her coat pocket and pulled out an identical needle to the ones the guards had used on her friends. Evony squirmed out of her grip, spinning on her heel to get away. However she got barely a step before a sharp jolt erupted in her lower back, sending a striking pain up her spine.
She froze in place, hesitatingly reaching back to pull the needle out of her body. A total of three seconds went by-then her eyes closed shut and she collapsed helplessly onto the floor.
⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆
March 10th, 2032
14 years old
⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆
TO SAY THAT the past two months have been strange, would be an enormous understatement. For starters, after Doctor Paige stabbed that needle into her, Evony woke up strapped to a chair with an IV in her arm which connected to a fluid bag. She had not been awake for merely a second when a colossal amount of pain erupted in the back of her neck. At first she had tried to get up out of the chair, but then found that she was securely fastened into place, some leather binds holding her arms down. 'Stay still.' The man had told her, 'It's only going to hurt a bit.'
In the end she ended up passing out from the entirety of the pain. so she didn't feel just exactly how petrifying the experience could've been. After that surgery the guards walked her back down a lengthy hall to where a metal door was waiting with a panel and an access code. One of them pressed the glowing buttons, opening the door and shoving her inside without another word.
Almost instantly she was met with the open arms of Sonya and Harriet, who were hugging her with tears in their eyes. She had asked why they were so worried, but they only responded with a vague response of 'People have been disappearing lately'. That line alone made Evony wonder just how long she had been out for.
They then told her the dreadful news, which to them didn't seem as enraged about as she was. Apparently while she was knocked out, Janson had come in and told the group of kids that they were going to be used in an experiment to better the lives of others. He told them they were going to be sent into a maze to be observed on.
'Two months,' Sonya had told her, 'He said that we would be sent in, in two months.'
Then, every day since that very night, the doctors have been coming into their rooms and giving them this herb tea to sip on before going to bed. She would watch as the fellow girls chugged down the liquid, the distressed looks on their faces instantly being replaced by content smiles. Evony however, didn't drink it. There was no way she was going to trust WCKD to give her something not poisoned.
The last thing-on week three, a large quantity of guards rushed in and dragged each and every boy out by whatever body parts they could grab ahold of. At this time, the girls were being cornered in the room behind a lanky guard, who Evony had instantly recognized to be Ryle. There was nothing any of them could do as their friends got separated from the rest of them.
Two months had passed since then, and tomorrow was the day of the insertion. Even though she hated to admit it, she was definitely missing the company of the male gender.
Now, Evony was laying on her bunk bed, reading, when a loud creak snapped through the air. She barely moved besides taking a quick glance to who made the noise. It was a girl by the name of Miyoko, and she seemed to be heading towards the back closet.
A yelp sounded followed by a crash which piqued Evony's interest, but it still wasn't enough to make her get out of bed.
"What do you want?" Evony heard the girl whisper fiercely. "Who are you?"
A couple seconds went by before another voice spoke. "Sorry to sneak in like this-were from group A. Were here so Newt can say goodbye to his sister," The voice paused, clearly choosing their next words carefully. "And so I can explain how terrible of a person I've been to someone."
Hold on Evony knew that voice it almost sounded like-
"You could have given us a warning, before creeping in like kidnappers," The girl continued speaking to the arrivals. She could've sworn the other voice sounded like a guy, but once again she could've been imagining it. She had done a lot of that lately, imagining Thomas and her friends were with her. "What are your names? Well, your name, if he's Newt. We know all about Newt. Sonya is one of my best friends."
"I'm Thomas."
And that was it, she sprung out of bed and met the trio by the closet just as Miyoko had finished giving her introduction. She ran towards them with stretched out arms, quickly noticing how both of their backs were turned away from her. Spotting the familiar mop of blonde and brown hair she came up with an idea.
With a jump, she latched onto Newt's back, wrapping her arms around his neck. The sudden weight made him stumble forward, but he soon caught on to what was going on, and set her down so he could give her a proper hug.
She was a tad confused when she pulled away and saw he had tears in his eyes. Wasn't this supposed to be a happy moment? Friends reuniting.
Much too overwhelmed with the joy of seeing them, she hadn't read too much into that. Instead she pivoted over to Thomas, a contagious grin on her face.
"And you!" She exclaimed, throwing her arms around his neck. Instantaneously and without thinking, she reached up and pressed a quick kiss to his lips, making him freeze under her. By the time he had come to his senses she had already pulled away, and was now burying her face into his chest as she hugged him.
"I missed you so much," Evony mumbled into his shirt, clenching it with her hands. Thomas returned the gesture, fixating himself so that he could not only hug her back, but run a hand through her hair as well.
The two pulled away, and in a sudden spur of the moment Thomas leaned forward and kissed her. Unlike when Evony did, they were able to savor this kiss, as it was not only longer but more passionate. Newt snickered behind them, and like a switch had flipped inside her, she briskly pulled away from the boy.
"Shit-no, I'm supposed to be mad at you dumbass." She protested.
Thomas looked down at her with sad eyes. "I know." He whispered, reaching out and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
Evony wanted to move, but his touch was just too infiltrating. It had been two months since they last saw each other-and the last time they'd been alone they had shared their first kiss. Excuse her if she was a bit touch deprived by the person she loves.
"You do?" She challenged with an eyebrow raised. Her eyes squinted into slits as she scanned over his features.
He backed up, fiddling with his fingers as he usually did when he was nervous. After a quick nod from Newt-signaling it was okay if they went and talked alone, Evony led them over to her bed, where they could converse privately.
The two sat down in silence, neither sure if they should start the conversation or wait for the other. An uneasy feeling lingered in the air, hovering over them like misty fog after a rainy day. It had never felt like this between the two of them before. Sure over the years there were occasions where rumors were spread, or trust was lost for a brief time. But they had never kept this big of a secret from the other before.
She heard Thomas sign next to her, followed by one of his hands overlapping her own, his thumb rubbing the back of it. Evony was pretty sure he wasn't doing it to calm her, but to provide himself a sense of reassurance.
In all honesty, she wondered if he actually knew what he had done wrong. If living side by side with boys her whole life had taught her own thing, it was that they had absolutely no idea how to read a room. Or how to know if they'd done something wrong. Thomas however, unlike the others, was aware. She just hoped that he was aware of the right things.
She didn't have to look to know he had turned to her. His eyes were practically burning a hole through her as he stared intently. "Evony," He started, flipping their hands over so their fingers would intertwine. "I know I screwed up by not telling you. I know-and it's been killing me every day since I realized that I lo..."
He never finished his thought.
"..I just wasn't sure how to tell you-I figured you would hate me because of it."
Evony kept her eyes locked on the floor. "I could never hate you, Thomas."
She felt his leg begin to shake at her words.
"I-look Evs I know-I know I messed up, but you're going to have to trust me that everything will be okay."
"Okay?" She condemned, finally looking up from the floor to him. "Me and my friends are being sent into a maze tomorrow so we can be analyzed by a bunch of doctors, and you're trying to tell me that everything is going to be okay?"
"Listen, I talked to Teresa, she's been helping me persuade Dr.Paige into not sending you in."
Her mouth parted slightly, unable to form words. "There's no way she agreed to that."
Thomas sat up a little straighter, a smile appearing on his face-he obviously was very proud about what he was going to say. He gripped her hand tighter, leaning forward. "But I think she did, your duffle bag only had your name on it right? No numbers or letters."
She nodded, thinking back to what the metal tag looked like. "Yeah...why does that mean anything?"
His free hand waved around, almost hitting her in the face. "Sorry-sorry, it's just-that means the plan worked, you're not going in the maze. We can be together." He looked at her with a lovesick grin situated on his face.
Evony let herself relax for a second. Was this true? Did Thomas and Teresa actually manage to convince the doctors to not send her in? If so, this would mean she could stay with Thomas and possibly be with him without Janson yelling at them for coming in a three foot radiance.
"What about the others?" She asked. Thomas only responded with a sorrowful expression. "I-I tried, I did Evs, I promise." His voice cracked, "They uh- they threatened me with you."
"What?"
He rubbed a hand through his hair, "The doctors, Janson, anybody. They've been using you as leverage against me since I was about eight."
Her face scrunched in confusion. Something about that statement did not make sense, and she knew exactly what it was. Eight years old? She swore that the first time she met Thomas was that night on the rooftop when they were ten.
"Hold on," She paused while racking her brain for a solution. "You said eight."
It was obvious that in that moment Thomas had known he'd said something wrong. Taking his free hand, he wrapped it around her waist, bringing her closer to him. SInce he didn't have his fingers to fiddle with, he ended up playing with the end of her shirt. "Evony I need you to be honest with me. What all do you remember from before the age of five."
Thinking of it at first as a silly question she let a chuckle slip from her lips. Then, when she actually went to answer his question, she found herself drawing up a blank. "I-uh, there were tests-lots of tests." She answered waveringly.
Thomas' gaze dropped to his lap-then back to look her in the eyes. He had truly hoped that this moment would never come. "What about your parents?"
"Oh my parents they-'' As she realized she didn't know, her lungs caused a panic to wash over her. "My parents-my par-why can't I- '' Heart racing, her throat began to feel scratchy and small, like the sliver of space she had to breathe was closing up.
Thomas pulled her towards him, resting his hands on the sides of her face. "Hey, hey it's okay-its-" He stopped mid sentence to lower his voice. Sighing, he rubbed her side. "It's not okay, it's not fair what they've done to you and your friends."
"Why can't I remember?" She forced out. She felt Thomas' thumbs rub gently along her cheeks, attempting his best to calm her down. It was helping, but her heart was still going to beat a million miles an hour until she figured out why she couldn't remember anything before WCKD.
He leaned forward, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of her nose. She could clearly see the sheer panic on his face as he pulled away and realized he needed to tell her the truth.
"The doctors they.."
His hands dropped from her face to hold her own.
"Thomas." She interfered, her voice coming out in staggered breaths. "Please just spit it out."
Taking one big breath he rambled out the truth. "Okay-umm-I don't really know how to start since it's kinda a lot but...we knew each other when we were five. We-we did a bunch of tests together and we were friends." He paused, "Good friends actually-at least I considered us good friends. But then...then they took me away from you...and erased your memory of me and anything that happened before you got to WCKD."
He finished, and as he did he sucked in another breath of air-releasing it in a matter of anxiety. Evony nodded her head slowly. The rapid breaths and fast heartbeat had died down, but was now replaced with hatred.
Hatred for WCKD.
"You said they used me as leverage." She recalled his earlier statement. "What exactly do you mean by that?"
Thomas bit the inside of his lip, scrunching his face as he realized he was going to have to admit exactly how long he'd liked her. "Well, when Dr. Paige took you away, at first I thought she just meant it would be for a couple days-possibly weeks. But then you were never spoken of again-unless I brought you up." He chuckled, "And I brought you up a lot."
Evony tilted her head, a small smirk creeping onto her face. Seeing this, Thomas scoffed and sent her a look to say shut up.
"Anyway-the doctors got so pissed about me asking if I could see you that they threatened to take away my memories of our time together. So I sort of stopped? Not really I mean I still talked about you to Teresa, and like every once and awhile it would come up in conversation so..."
"You're telling me that you talked about me for five years even though you knew I couldn't remember you?"
"I mean I guess?" He stuttered out, a red hue covering his cheeks. Smiling with giddiness she leaned forward and pressed a tender kiss to his lips. She watched his eyes close and felt as his hands wrapped around her body, stroking up and down her back.
When she pulled away, he was still leaning forward which meant he practically toppled over her. Evony laughed at the sight, "Good to know you were just as desperate for me back then as you are now."
He went to speak when he was interrupted by another voice. Miyoka, the girl from before. "That's absolutely disgusting," She cringed, "Now come on lovebirds, Janson makes his rounds in ten minutes and T-...i forgot your name, needs to get back."
She turned and left without another word. Thomas and Evony glanced quickly at each other, unraveling themselves since they had still been in the same position from when they kissed. "I guess you got to go." She was disappointed at how short their time together had been. He gave a nod and stood up from the bed, reaching his hand out for her to grab.
"But don't worry, I'll see you tomorrow, remember? And the next day, and the next day after that day-"
"I get it Thomas."
The two walked back to the closet where the boys had originally snuck in from. Then she heard it. Sobs. Choked out, horrible, heart wrenching sobs, coming from both Newt and Sonya. She had been so overwhelmed with the fact Thomas was back that she hadn't even stopped to think what her other friends must've been going through.
Seeing them standing there, holding one another like they were each other's lifelines, was possibly the most heartbreaking thing she had ever witnessed.
"I hate them," Newt exclaimed rather loudly, making her and Thomas freeze. His hand slid down to grip her own. "I hate every one of them! How can they do this? How can they steal us from our homes and keep us separated like this? Its not right!" His voice raised a substantial amount at the last word, which forced Evony to close her eyes so she wouldn't have to witness the scene in front of her.
"No, no, no." She heard Sonya reply calmly, "Don't say that, you're looking at it all wrong. We've got it better than ninety-nine percent of kids out there. They saved us, big brother. What are the odds we'd be alive if they had left us out there?"
"But why do they keep us separated?"
Evony could practically hear the tears leaking from Newt's eyes.
"Why all the tests and the games and the cruelty? I hate them. I don't care what you say." He sniffled out his last words.
Finally she let herself open her eyes just to look to her left to see that Thomas had his shut. She knew how he felt, and honestly he probably felt even worse than her. He worked for WCKD. Technically you could consider him to be one of them.
Sonya gave a weak smile to her brother, her hands placed lightly on his shoulders. "It'll all be over someday." She whispered. She spoke another line of words right after, but Evony zoned out after that one statement.
Was that true though? Would things go back to normal someday, or were they bound to stay as deadly and unfair as they were now?
Newt squeezed her hard on the shoulders. His and Sonya's sibling relationship was something she truly admired, but at this moment she couldn't possibly imagine what it must be like for them to be separated from their own family. "I love you, Lizzy," He said and wiped a tear out from under her eye.
Someday, She thought, Someday everything will be okay and we will all be happy.
"I love you so much." He rasped, his voice cracking mid sentence. The siblings then pulled themselves in for one last hug, them squeezing each other so tight she wondered how the two of them could still manage to breath.
She peered over to Thomas to see he had his gaze fixated on the floor. He was obviously feeling the guilt for having a part in the current situation.
Someday, She repeated, Someday everything will be okay.
Evony took one more glance at her friends holding each other, and then at her hand which was tightly fitted into Thomas's.
The only question was.
Would someday ever actually come?
⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆
MAE's FUN NOTES-
-fun fact I actually wasn't going
to add the whole Thomas and Evony
convo like at all but then I was like
we need an apology from Thomas
and then it ended up being like 3000
words
Anyway that's why this chapter is
split again :)
I love writing fluff