Evelyn woke up, and immediately let out a squeal.

"Newt!" She groaned, "stop! Stop! Enough! I'm awake!"

He was kissing every inch of her face until she woke up.

"Hmm I dunno. Should kiss you some more." He growled into her ear.

"Hmmm. Well I wouldn't be opposed." She whispered back, wrapping her arms around him.

"Don't tempt me Love."

"Why not?" She asked innocently, sliding her hands down his chest, "you're the one who decided kissing me awake was a good idea!"

"Yeah my bloody mistake!" His voice dropped, and he gasped in her ear when her hands slid further. His breathing picked up quite rapidly. And she smirked.

"We...gotta meet shuck...the ...oh! Shuck! Lee!...others..."

"Right this second?"

His heavy breathing told her she had him and he couldn't say no. Despite their situation, despite what they were going to get ready to do, they kissed each other. A sad thought floated through her head... maybe for the last time, she held him between her arms. Savouring each feeling, how his face fit into the crook of her neck, his lips on hers, his muscles tensing, his fast breathing fanning her face, she savoured how he made her back arch into his touch longing for more. Trying to remember the way Newt made her body explode with butterflies and all the tingling happy feeling, how he growled her name in her ear.

Evelyn's eyes fluttered closed and his name escaped her lips.

______________________

"Took ya shanks long enough!" Minho rolled his eyes when a flushed face messy hair couple reappeared out of the forest, hand in hand with smiles on their faces.

"Leave 'em alone! They had couple things to do." Teresa smirked and swatted his arm.

Minho face her a sly grin, "yeah, by things to do, you mean each other."

"I thought that implied." Teresa mock frowned at him.

"It was. Just making it super awkward and uncomfortable."

"We're fine." Newt shrugged, "it's the other shanks...but maybe someone is hiding his jealousy behind sass." He smirked at Minho.

Minho gasped. Evelyn narrowed her eyes, and cocked her head.

"I don't think so. Tessa? How was your night?" She rounded on the girl, raising her eyebrows.

Teresa's mouth dropped.

"Thought so." Evelyn smirked, folded her arms and stuck out a hip.

"Are ya sayin' Minho got some?" Newt asked trying very hard not to laugh.

"Some? A lot? A little?"

"The whole shucken package."

"Minho!" Teresa shrieked.

The guys all roared with laughter.

"Nailed it." Evelyn smirked even bigger, and immediately turned and pointed to Minho who pointed back, and together they yelled,

"THAT'S WHAT SAID!"

They burst into giggles. Teresa was blushing and Newt just rolled his eyes, used to the two of them. The other guys waiting around either groaned at them or chuckled.

"Come on. To the shucken slammer." Newt ushered the group.

Evelyn looped her arm with Teresa, "spill! Right now!"

"It.. just kinda happened. I've only been here a few days! I feel...I don't know... like I've known him my whole life though!"

"You guys did know each other before this."

"We did?"

"Yeah. Alby and Gally both said a group was lined up in a hall right before coming here, someone brought me in, I was apparently holding onto you, something happened a gun went off and I saved Minho from a bullet."

"Oh. Well...that helps...thanks. But yeah, I don't it just .. happened. Everyone left and I was helping him clean up the maps and stuff...and it just happened..."

"Well he's my best shucken friend and I know he's a good guy..." She gave Teresa a side eye, "but come on, girl details!"

"Shuuuuuck! Evy!" She whinned. Evelyn could see the pink blush rising again, and she giggled. Teresa giggled back, leaning in she whispered in more detail. The girls giggled all the way across the Glade.

________________________

Their group halted in front of the slammer. Newt had told Evelyn they had put her and Thomas in there during the nights, because it was the safest place, and had a few guys each night with with. It was easier to just keep Thomas in there with his thrashing and spazzing.

Jeff was just climbing out when the group sat down on the grass, waiting for Thomas.
A few minutes later there was a groan and he slowly sat up.

"That was the stupidest thing you've done!" Chuck yelled.

Thomas groaned again. Putting his head in his hands. It took him a minute before he sat back up.

"Why'd ya do it Tommy?" Newt asked.

"I needed to remember! I had to!" He said quietly, looking up at them pleading with to understand.

"Come on, come out of the slammer, let's go sit in the dining area. We can eat something and Thomas can tell us why he was an idiot and stung himself." Evelyn suggested.

"Great bloody idea."

10 minutes later they all sat around the table, they called the other Keepers, they tried to get Alby over but he refused and stayed huddled in his bed in the homestead. Everyone leaned in to listen.

"Okay Thomas, you wanted memories... And? What did you remember?"

Thomas had his cup clutched in his hands, he was quiet for a moment, sorting out his thoughts. Evelyn felt guilty for putting him on the spot like this. She reached a cross the table and took his hand. His confused eyes looked up at her.

"It's okay, just tell us. Whatever it is, I'm sure we've seen worse."

He shook his head and looked down at his cup.

"This place...it's not what we thought it was." He started slowly. "It's not a prison."

"It's not? Then what the shuck is it?" Minho asked, throwing his hands into the air.

Thomas looked up at him, "It's a test."

His voice was void of emotions. He looked back down at his white knuckled hands clenching the cup. He took a ragged breath. Evelyn gently squeezed his wrist again.

"It all started when we were kids. They would give us these challenges. They were experimenting on us."

He paused, and looked up at Evelyn, his eyes growing sader.

"Except for you Eve. I have no idea where you were, or who you were. We had never seen you before. You were obviously in the same faculty or building as us...but we had never seen you before."

This didn't surprise Evelyn, Gally and Alby both told her that. She gave him a small smile and nodded her head for him to continue. He closed his eyes and went on.

"And then people started disappearing. Every month, one after the other, like clockwork. Starting with a big group...and then a few guys and then down to one a month."

"They were sending them up into the maze." Newt concluded.

With a nod of his head, Thomas opened his eyes and looked at Newt and slowly flicked his sad scared eyes to everyone at the table.

"Yeah, but not all of us." He whispered.

"What do you mean?" Evelyn asked gently.

"Guys, I'm one of them. The people who put you here, I worked with them."

"You? You were a Creator?" Evelyn asked, not believing it. The creators were evil and sinister. Thomas was too innocent and nieve to be a creator. She glanced at Newt and he looked back, they both knew something else was going on.

"I watched you guys for years. The entire time you have been here... I was on the other side of it," he looked at Teresa,  "So were you."

"What?" She asked shocked. She had leaned back slightly, trying to process what Thomas just threw at her.

"Teresa, we did this to them." He concluded and he hung his head and his entire body slumped with sadness and shame.

"No." Evelyn said quietly.

"That can't be true." Teresa whispered, her hand over her mouth, her big blue eyes filling with tears.

Minho shifted slightly and Evelyn saw his arm move to her back, rubbing reassuring circles.

"It is. I saw it." This.as said flatly.

"Why would they send us up if we were with them?"

"Well...because we had had enough." Thomas looked at Teresa. "We had enough, we couldn't keep watching friends we had know for ever die and we stole information from them and passed it to... someone on the outside." Thomas admitted.

"And I don't believe you did this to us willingly." Evelyn said loudly.

Thomas looked up, and Teresa looked around to her.

"Look at what those...horrible people are capable of. They used poison in kids...and used children as their experiments to test some kind of serum. They chopped a child in half for trying to find a way out. They let killing monsters stalk children. They can use mind control. I don't doubt that those monsters are masters of manipulation and brainwashing."

Thomas had looked like he believed her, but then deflated, "It doesn't matter. We still did it." He croaked, looking away.

"He's right." Newt nodded. Every head at the table turned to look at him. He was rubbing his thumb over his bottom lip. "It doesn' matter." He repeated. He looked up, sitting up straight and made eye contact with everyone here,  "Any of it. 'Cause the people we were before the bloody maze don't even exist anymore. These Creators took care of that. But what does buggen' matter is who we are now, and what we do...right now. You went into the maze with Minho and Evelyn and you guys found a way out. Tessa you single handedly figured out those maps were buggen' spelling words in the walls!"

"Yeah, but if I hadn't, maybe Alby would be..okay. Or Gally wouldn't have been stung or controlled..or whatever.."

"Maybe." Newt shrugged.

"What I do know, is that if Alby were here, if Gally was here both in their right minds.. they would be telling you the exact same thing. Pick your ass up and finish what you started." Evelyn agreed.

"'Cause if we do nothing...then that means all of those kids in the Deadheads died for nothing, and we can't have that." Newt stressed.

Evelyn nodded along. She could feel the moral at the table picking up. Heads were nodding, and eyes had life and fire in them again.

"Thomas, Tessa. You are here with us now. You were used and then thrown in here with us." Sonny said with a final nod.

"You're Gladers. You're family. We're in this together." Minho declared and slammed his fist on the table, his jaw clamped and his face set like cold stone, daring anyone to challenge it.

"Great, that's bloody settled. The plan to leave, 'cause I ain't stayin' another bloody night."

"We go through the Griever hole. We have the brain key and now those map words... we'll fight our way out."

"As awful as it sounds..." Thomas muttered, "Gally's words of only one kid a night..."

"Oh yeah? And who's the poor sucker you're gonna sacrifice?" Minho snarked.

He looked up, his face determined. "Me."

"Oh bloody hell no!" Newt cried.

"Then who? Which Newt do you wanna toss at the Griever's as a sacrifice?" Thomas challenged.

"We don't need to pick a kid." Evelyn said loudly standing up. "We will fight. We don't need to sacrifice anyone! Like we said before, these shucken creators won't make leaving easy. I'm sure they have some shucked up grand finally planned. So let's spread the word, pack what we can, hand out weapons and leave this hell!"

"Agreed!" Newt nodded.

The Keepers at the table all nodded in agreement. They got up and went to tell their groups of Gladers. Evelyn walked hand in hand with Newt to what was left of the MedHut and her room. Newt had found her bag, and scrounged a backpack for himself and together they picked through the wreckage.

"Hey, look at this, love." Newt straightened up, holding a leather bound journal. Evelyn came over, it was the journal of some of her sketches, from the beginning of their jail sentence.

They sat down and flipped through it. The sketches of the bonefires, Newt in the garden. Nick and Alby laughing. Fry cooking, the wild flowers that grew.

"Was it all horrible?" She asked.

"No...no it wasn't. These pictures bring back the happy memories. I also found you." He said looking over at her, he smiled down at her.

He looked back at the pictures, flipping the page. It was Newt laying in the Med Hut bed, bandages wrapped around his head, and leg. Even in the black and white sketch he looked sickly and pale. He gently ran a hand over it, and frowned.

"I'm sorry." He whispered.

"For what?"

"I just wish...wish I hadn't been so consumed with the buggen' horribleness of it all. I wish I hadn't pushed ya away for so long an' it took me literally hittin' rock bottom ta finally realize... I could be happy in this situation...I just had ta open my shucken eyes. I had a beautiful angel in front of me, glowin' like a night star. I coulda' had a hole extra year."

Evelyn didn't say anything, just placed a hand on his cheek and turned his head towards her and pulled him down, so she could kiss him.

"I love you Newt. Fully. And completely, always and forever."

He smiled against her lips.

_______________________

Evelyn had slipped that notebook and another one into her bag along with some more medical supplies. Digging in her room she found some sorta of clean clothes, at least ones that were covered in blood still.

Looking at her watch she hefted her bag onto her shoulder. With her stomach twisting and turning and apprehension and anxiety growing in her chest she followed the surge of Gladers to the wall where they were going to meet for last instructions before leaving this place for good, one way or another.