I wake up earlier than the others. Thomas is still sleeping with a tight grip around my waist. I turn around in his arms and watch him.
His chest moves up and down to the rhythm of his breathing. His hair is messy. It looks very good though. I smile at him.
"Staring is rude, darling." he suddenly says without opening his eyes. His morning voice is killing me.
"I'm allowed to do it." I answer him.
He opens his eyes "Oh you are?"
He pulls me closer to him and gives me a kiss on the nose. I grin at him.
He continues kissing all over my face while I giggle.
He rolls me over so that I'm beneath him and kisses me on the lips. I melt into the kiss immediately. My arms are captured by his hands so I use my legs. I wrap them around his waist and he groans slightly.
I grin when he begins kissing me more hungrily. Our bodys heat up as we press against each other stronger.
The tiredness is gone now.
I can feel his muscles under his shirt. When he takes one arm away from my hands to play with the hem of my shirt, I let my hand slide over his chest slowly.
I think all of his weight is on me now. It's still not enough. He thinks so too. He stops the kiss and looks at me.
"Are you okay with this?" he asks me and mentions at my shirt.
I nod at him.
He looks at me sternly "Yes or no, Ruby?"
"Yes." I roll my eyes at him, but before I can say anything his lips are on mine again. While he kisses me, he slowly pulls up my shirt.
"Wait Thomas!" I panic. We completely forgot about Ethan.
He stops immediately. "We don't have to go this far if you're not comfortable-."
"No it's not that. Ethan ist still here. I'm not doing that in front of him." I laugh.
"Oh shit, right."
We look over to Ethan who is still sleeping.
"We should wake him up. We have to go and get to the mountains." Thomas says before standing up.
He pulls me up with him and places a kiss on my forehead.
"Go wake up the others, Ethan and I are gonna come to the hall and meet you there." he tells me to which I nod.
I go into the hall where we sat yesterday and see almost all the gladers laying there. A few of them have mattresses, most of them don't. I guess we were lucky.
Nobody's away yet. I walk over to my sister and carefully shake her shoulders.
"Teresa, wake up." I whisper.
She opens her eyes quickly and gets up.
"We have to go to the mountains." I tell her and she understands in a second.
Together we wake up the others. Thomas and a very tired looking Ethan join us after a few minutes.
Everyone packs up their backpacks and stuff we found in the shopping mall. When we walk out of the mall, Thomas, Teresa, Newt, Minho and I are at the front.
It doesn't take long for all of us to notice that Teresa has no actual clue where to go. Thomas sees mountains far away from us and we decide to go in this direction.
The sun is shining mercilessly and without a shelter it's not fun. Even Thomas and Minho are out of breath at a certain point.
We get to an area where a few destroyed buildings are standing and go inside one to find shelter and take a break.
I let myself fall onto the ground and close my eyes from exhaustion. I hear Minho laugh at me, but I don't really care.
The house we are in has several doors and stairs that lead to other rooms. A few people walk around and search for food.
I get up after laying on the ground for a few minutes and see Ethan sitting in the corner. His head is leaning against the wall behind him and his hands are folded in his lap. He doesn't look good.
I go over to him and lay my hand on his shoulder.
"Hey Ethan, are you okay?" I ask him carefully to which he opens his eyes.
"Yeah, just tired. And bored. Thomas is talking to your sister so he's busy."
I smile softly "It's cool you two are brothers. I like both of you."
He grins now "No details about how much you like my brother, please. I've had enough of that yesterday evening."
I feel my face heating up "Sorry about that."
He laughs. It sounds very similar to Thomas's laugh.
"You know what's funny?" he then says "From my point of view I only lived for three days. I'm three days old according to my memory."
"Than I'm one month old." I look over to the brunette "And Thomas is three months old I think."
"Wait, I don't even know how old I am." Ethans eyes widen in realisation.
"Same. Let's ask Teresa."
Instead of walking over to them Ethan calls hers and Thomas's names until they walk over to us, annoyed.
I snicker because I know Thomas would do the exact same.
"Do you know how old we are?" I ask my sister.
"You're 16. Thomas and I are 17. Ethan is 15."
"Ha! You're the youngest." I grin at Ethan.
"That means I haver longer to live." he mimics my tone.
In the corner of my eye, I see Thomas smiling at us.
"Teresa, can we talk?" I turn towards my sister.
She says yes and we go into a different room.
"I have no specific topic to talk about, but I wanted to know a few things about myself." I tell her.
"Of course." she gives me an encouraging smile.
"Okayy. So, uh before the maze did I have like heavy mood swings or something like that?" I ask her carefully.
It's been a while since I felt bad. I was so busy the whole last week, I didn't have time to think.
"Well, it weren't really mood swings." Teresa says "You had depression one year before they sent you into the maze. Maybe the maze triggered something inside of you."
"That would explain why I feel so much better since we are out of the maze. Did you watch me? I mean when I was inside of the maze."
"Sometimes. I had to see if you were doing okay. I know you weren't fine in the beginning. But I couldn't help you."
"Oh."
"Thomas and I planned to leave Wicked with you and a few others, before they sent him into the maze. It wasn't planned. Wicked found out that he sent important information to the right arm."
I'm shocked "He did that?!"
"Yeah. He wasn't okay with what they were doing."
A proud smile is plastered to my face.
"How long have we been at Wicked? What exactly happened to our parents?"
She gives me a sad smile.
"They took us when we were six. Our parents both died because of the flare. They were shot by guards on the street. Wicked somehow found us. We would have died on our own if they hadn't."
So Wicked saved my live? But not to do me a favour. They sent me into a maze with grievers. All that just to find a cure.
They don't deserve a cure.
"Were they good parents?"
"The best."
I walk into her arms and hug her tightly. She hugs me back.
"You have to tell me everything, as soon as we're at the right arm. Do you wanna be roommates then?" I ask her, while we are still hugging.
She chuckles "I'd love to, but you have a boyfriend. I don't feel like being in there while you make out."
I completely forgot about that. "That's a good point."
-
"Everyone, let's go! We have a destination to reach!" Minho tells the gladers. We would stay longer, but there is no food in the building.
Our supplies are still enough for one and a half day. We do have to hurry a bit.
I walk with Ethan and Minho. Thomas is leading the group. Minho spends the whole time joking around and picking on Ethan.
I feel sorry for the boy ,but I don't want to be Minhos next target so I keep my mouth shut.
Ethan doesn't get half of the jokes anyway. A few times I have to laugh too, but I hide it.
"Princess, we need a nickname for Thomas junior. But not Thomas junior, that's to basic."
"I don't know, Minho." I tell the boy.
"Hm."
"What's Thomas's nickname?" Ethan joins the conversation.
"Loverboy. Ruby is Princess. It was Girly for a while." Minho answers him.
"What's yours?" he asks Minho.
"I'm not giving myself a nickname." the runner responds.
"Your name is great for nicknames though. Minnie, Min, Mean hoe. The last one's my favourite." I say.
"Nope. Call me that and I will break your nose." Minho tells me with a stone expression.
"Try it." I say. I know I can beat him. I did it several times in the glade.
"Alright, then I'll break your boyfriends nose if you don't shut up."
"Oh god no. Thomas's nose is too perfect. Don't ever do that." I say.
"You're right. Then I'll break his arm."
Ethan laughs "Did you just agreed that my brothers nose is too perfect to break."
Minho makes a grimace. I laugh at him too.
"What's with my nose?" Thomas appears next to me.
Ethan quickly says "Minho thinks your nose is perfect."
I snicker.
"Thanks." Thomas says slightly irritated.
He shakes it of and turns to me "Teresa and I saw a city in the distance. We changed the plans a bit. We're heading for the city. Our food is not enough to make it to the mountains."
"A city? Do you think people live there?"
"I'm not sure. Teresa said there could be cranks."
"It's a good thing we have weapons." I say. If those things are like Teresa described them, I don't want to meet them.
"I hope we won't need them." Thomas responds.
-
We take a break and sit down on the sand after two hours of walking.
Me and my friends are sitting together. I sit between Thomas legs. He plays with my hair. Teresa and Newt are counting our supplies.
It's silent. We are all exhausted. I'd like to sleep.
Somewhere in the distance is a small city. We are too far away to see in what condition it is. It's probably destroyed like the buildings we took a break at.
I wonder if it's because of the solar eruptions or the cranks. Maybe both.
Teresa said not everyone in our group is immune. I'd like to know who isn't. I know it's not Thomas, Teresa or me. My sister said we were important to Wicked or something. We are immune.
I hope it's not Newt, Minho, Jeff or Ethan. And not Fry. Other than them I don't really have people I care about.
I would be sad if Alby died. But we weren't friends. He hasn't said much since we left the glade. I guess he thinks he's not the leader anymore if we're not in the glade.
I know that Gally would act like he's our leader if he would be here. I'm glad he isn't. But I don't wish him the dead either. Maybe he survived.
But that means James is alive too. I haven't thought about him in the last days. I wonder if Teresa knows about him.
"Do you have a hair tie?" Thomas asks me from behind.
"No, but maybe Teresa has one." I try to get the girls attention "Teresa!"
She hears me and turns around.
"Do you have a hair tie?"
"Yeah, wait." she gets up and passes me a hair tie from her wrist.
"Thanks."
I give it to Thomas.
"Why do you need one?"
"I'll try to braid your hair." he answers me, his voice sounds concentrated.
"You know how to braid?" I ask him surprised.
"Not yet."
Thomas tries to braid my hair for at least fifteen minutes before he gives up and asks Teresa for help.
She explains to him how to do it as if she's talking to a little child and I have to prevent myself from laughing at my boyfriend.
When they are finished, I have a long, tight braid. I thank both of them. Now my hair is out of my face, which is great.
After a while the gladers get up again and we start moving into the direction of the city.
The buildings are about two hundred meters away from us when suddenly the sky darkens and it begins to storm.
At first we don't think much of it, but then lightning strikes next to us. A few people scream and begin running. Minho pulls me with him as he fastens his pace too.
I can't hear anything but lightning and thunder. The sky is dark and everyone is screaming and running for their lives.
I would like to know where Thomas is, but it's impossible for me to find him in this chaos.
The only thing I can do is running. Running for my live. I see people falling to the ground beside me. I want to help them, but Minho pulls me with him.
Suddenly the person in front of us gets hit my lightning and falls down onto the ground. I don't recognise the boy anymore. He's burning.
I don't find the strength to scream. I just stare at him as we run past him.
There are only fifty meters between us and the next building. Forty. Thirty. I look up at the sky.
I react faster then I think. I push Minho out of the way. The lightning misses him. He falls to the ground by the impact and I pull him up again.
"Shit." I hear him scream.
We run the last meters and rush into the building. As soon as we are inside, we let ourselves fall onto the ground in exhaustion. I can't breath. No I'm breathing way to fast.
My heart feels like it's gonna explode any second. Outside I hear screams of horror and pain. I don't dare to look out.
More and more people come running into the building. I don't look up. I just hear their footsteps against the cold stone floor.
I press my eyes shut and wrap my arms around my legs.
What the hell was that?
A/n:
I'm planning on making a mix out of the book and the movie events. hope you enjoyed ;)