Venus's POV~
Clint and Jeff are the only two boys waiting for us when Newt, Gally, and I all enter the Gathering hut.
"Where are the other Keepers?" Gally asks, his eyebrows furrowing. My heart thuds against my chest. I know full well where they are.
"That's the bloody problem, isn't it?" Newt snaps, running a hand through his hair. He sighs, leaning up against a pole connecting the roof of the hut to the floor.
Gally leads me with him to sit down, his hand still tightly holding on to mine. I give Clint and Jeff a small smile as I sit. Jeff returns it, but Clint's face is set in a serious expression.
"Who's missing?" Gally asks.
"Minho, Zart, Winston, Frypan, and Tommy." He replies, counting them off on his fingers as he lists out the names. I can't help but smile at his nickname for Thomas.
"Tommy?" I ask, raising my eyebrows, an amused look on my face. Newt's face turns pink.
"Shut your bloody shuckin' mouth." He mutters. I grin, but drop the subject.
"I bet you they went out into the fucking Maze." Gally mutters, running a hand over his face.
"We can't just jump to-"
"Yes we can, Newt! You know damn fucking well where they are!" Gally snaps, cutting Newt off. I try to calm the Builder down by squeezing his hand in mine, but he just gently slides his hand out of mine. Hurt passes through my body, but I don't let it show. I just place my hands neatly in my lap, trying to conceal my now anxiously fiddling fingers.
"Frypan, Winston, and Zart would never leave the bloody Glade." Newt tries to reason, but Gally just shakes his head.
"But they did, Newt. They did and now they should face the consequences."
"And what are those?" The blonde inquires, raising one eyebrow.
"Either the Slammer or Banishment."
"Banishment?!" I shout suddenly, jumping up from my spot next to Gally on the bench. I take a few steps back, putting some space between us.
"Venus, we're not allowed to leave the Glade if we're not Runners. It's a rule and it's been a rule since we first came up in that Box." Gally tries to explain, but I just keep shaking my head. "We have to follow the rules. They keep everyone safe and in order. They're what keep us alive."
"I hate to break it to you, but if we ever wanna escape this damn place, we're gonna have to break a few rules." I snap, tossing my long hair over my shoulder.
"We don't ever have to leave here, Ven. We've survived this long. Who's to say we can't just stay here forever?"
"The fact that, oh, I don't know, there are giant, man-eating monsters out there and we're running out of supplies?! That ring a bell?!"
"Honestly, I don't know why we're talking about this." Gally says, ignoring me and turning towards Newt. "We don't have a choice. If Alby was here, you know he'd agree with me."
I look over to Newt, my arms crossed as I raise an eyebrow. Newt looks from Gally to me, his jaw clenched.
"How's he doing?" He finally asks, his voice soft as he looks at Clint, Jeff, and I. We all make eye contact before Jeff sighs, looking down at the ground. He runs a hand over his hair before letting it drop back to his side, looking at Newt.
"He's bad." His voice is soft and full of pain. "He's gettin' worse."
Silence falls over all of us. We're all waiting for Newt to give us orders. Finally, he does.
"Alright, um... just keep an eye on him." He says, scratching his head. I look at Gally, who's shaking his head. I scoff in disbelief, not at Gally, but at Newt. Those are possibly the worst possible orders we could've received. "Thanks..."
I turn to walk out after Clint and Jeff, but Newt stops me, saying that there's no reason for me to leave too. I sigh and sit back down on the same bench as Gally, but this time, we're farther away from each other.
Just as I'm about to ask a question, the door to the Gathering hut slams open, five boys bursting into the room.
"Well it's nice of you to join us." Gally snaps, standing up. "You boys enjoy your little field trip?"
"What the hell, Gally?" Minho snaps back, standing at the front of the group. "You think you can call a Keeper meeting without us?" His voice is raising slightly as he talks, his narrowed eyes staying on Gally.
"Last time I checked, the Greenie wasn't a Keeper." Gally says, pointing at Thomas, who's looking at Gally like a deer caught in headlights. "You mind waiting outside."
"He stays." I say loudly, Thomas stopping in his tracks before he can even fully turn towards the door. Everyone's eyes turn to me. "If I can stay, he can stay."
Minho nods a quick thanks at me before turning to look at Newt. "What's the point of all this?"
"We've got two hours until sundown. We've gotta figure out what to do with Alby."
"You wanna Banish him." Winston states, saying what we're all thinking. My stomach drops at the idea of Banishing Alby. Our leader. One of the first and original Gladers.
"No, no one wants to Banish anyone, alright?" Gally says, looking up at Winston. "But he's stung. We don't have a choice."
"Yes we do." Thomas states. I look over at the Builder beside me briefly, long enough to see the look of shock and anger in his face as his eyebrows raise.
"You say something, Newbie?"
"Yeah, we have a choice. We don't have to Banish Alby."
"Right," Sarcasm laces Gally's voice. "And how's that?"
Thomas grabs something out of Minho's hand, holding it up for all of us to see. To me, it just looks a piece of junk metal with wires sticking out of it. He hands it to Newt.
"Here, we found this on our field trip." Thomas snaps, looking over at Gally. Newt runs his fingers over the metal as he turns it slowly in his hands, inspecting every last inch of the metal cylinder he's holding. I look closely and see that there's a small electronic screen that has a number 7 on it in red coloring. "It was inside a Griever."
"These are the same letters we get in our supplies." Newt states, looking up with furrowed eyebrows. I look closer and see a small yellow box on the metal with the words, W.C.K.D, small numbers written underneath the letters.
"Yeah. Whoever put us here obviously made the Grievers." I look over and see Gally close his eyes tightly for a second before shaking his head slightly and looking back at the Gladers around him. "Now this is the first real clue, the first anything you've found in over three years, right Minho?"
"Right." The Runner mutters, his voice quiet.
"Newt, we gotta go back out there. Who knows where this might lead us." Newt looks up at Thomas, a serious expression on his face. He looks over at Gally, who's already looking at him with his arms crossed, head down, and eyebrows raised.
"You see what he's trying to do, right?" The Builder asks, gesturing towards Thomas. "First he breaks our rules, and now he tries to convince us to abandon them totally? Wha- the rules are the only thing that have ever held us together! Why now are we questioning that?"
I roll my eyes, tired of Gally's total obsession with the rules.
"If Alby was here, you know he'd agree with me. This shank needs to be punished."
I can see Newt comprehending and considering what Gally just said. He looks over at Thomas, the two boys sharing a long look before Newt nods, handing Minho back the metal cylinder.
"You're right." He states, leaning back against the pole. "Thomas broke the rules. One night in the Pit and no food."
The look of satisfaction previously on Gally's face disappears, replaced with total anger.
"Oh, come on, Newt! One night in the Pit?! You think that's gonna stop him from going into the Maze?!"
"No." The blonde replies shortly. "And we can't just have non-Runners running into the Maze whenever they feel like it. So let's just make this official. Starting from tomorrow, you're a Runner."
Minho and I share a smile before I hear Gally scoff from beside me. My attention is back on him.
"Wow." He mutters before turning towards the door and storming out. Frypan tries to stop Gally by placing a hand on his shoulder, but Gally shoves it off. I try to call after him to get him to stop, but if he hears me, he ignores me. Newt nods at me, allowing me to run after him, but the Gally's already disappeared out the door by the time I reach it.
"Congrats, Thomas." I say with a small smile before chasing after Gally, not even waiting to hear if Thomas responds.