˚ ༘✶₊˚.                         ⊹ ˚ .  SECOND ACT
❪       THIRTY-ONE    ♥︎    ₊˚༢࿐
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     𝐓𝐄𝐃𝐃𝐘 𝐃𝐈𝐃𝐍'𝐓 𝐒𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌 when the first bomb fell only a few feet away from him. He stood there for a moment, feeling the heat on his skin in shock as the stench of burning smoke tickled his nose. It wasn't until the second bomb dropped — only minutes after the first — did everyone in the area start jumping into action.

     The surprise faded to fear in his little chest when everyone around him started to run and scream.

Teddy pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and looked around. Where is Peter? Where's Mae?

     Peter had gone to the bathroom. He had been gone for five minutes prior and now the only thing separating Teddy and the direction Peter had gone was a ring of fire and panicked people.

He couldn't go that way. The nine-year-old took one step back and was knocked off his feet by a swarm of people.

     He couldn't see above the crowds. He couldn't hear beyond the gunfire and screams.

     "Mae?!" His voice carried, a panic rising in his chest when the gunshots grew louder, deafening, "Mae?! Peter!" He looked around, no one, nothing, "Aris?! Sonya!"

     A hand curls into his shoulder, and Teddy flinched. Minho looked more worried than ever above him, his eyes scanning for injuries as he dragged the little boy away from the crowd.

     "Where's Mae and Thomas?!" Minho screamed.

     "I don't know!" He sobbed, "I-I can't find Peter."

     "Don't worry, we'll find them!" Newt responds, crouching down over a pile of water cans, Frypan firmly on his other side.

     "Hurry! Ammo!" Vince screamed out, standing on the back of a truck with a large machine gun. Harriet and Sonya weren't far behind, Aris loading guns behind the truck, but it made Teddy's stomach churn when he noticed Peter wasn't among them.

     They were closing in.

     Mae felt her chest tighten when she turned to the hillside, her eyes wide in fear at the sight of Brenda's tent.

It was on fire, pulling apart without a single person in sight. Thomas skids to a stop beside her, his hand curling into her sleeve as he pulled her away from the flames.

     "Brenda?!" Mae's voice carried, tone cracking with fresh tears as she scanned the area, "Brenda?!"

     A hand slaps into Mae's back, and the pair turn around to see Brenda's panicked expression, shaking her head, "You dumbasses!" She says, dragging them away from the tent, "Are you trying to get yourselves killed?" She asked.

     Peter looks beaten and bruised beside Jorge, both crouched over a pile of cans as they watched the WICKED soldiers round people up one by one.

     Mae's shoulders dropped in relief, "Peter!"

     The taller boy wraps her into a tight hug, "Mae! Have you seen Teddy? I can't find him— I can't—"

     "We need to go now! While we still have the chance!" Jorge bellowed.

     "We have to find the others!" Thomas responds.

     "I'm not leaving without my brother." Peter firms.

     "No!" He shouts, grabbing his shoulder, "Look, okay look!" He points to the car where Mae and Thomas could see their friends, being cornered with what little weapons they had, "You can't help them!"

     Mae's stomach twisted into knots. She watched from afar as Teddy picked up a gun with shaky hands, shooting it forward without aim from beside Newt and Minho— who did the same. A bomb is thrown on the ground below them, and electricity wraps around their bodies and drops them all to the ground.

     The soldiers closed in on them easily.

     Her eyes watered, swallowing down her sobs as she leaned her back against the crates. Thomas dropped beside her, Peter at her other side. Every itch in his bones told him to just run straight through the crossfire towards his little brother, but he knew it would do nothing for either of them.

     "I'm sorry," Jorge spoke, "There's just nothing you can do for them. If we don't move now, we won't be much better off."

     But they couldn't, they won't.

     Because if there was one thing that Mae and Thomas were known for ━ it was fighting for their friends. Even if it was a lost cause, even if there was no possible way. They made a way. They always made a way.

     "You guys gotta go right now," Thomas orders them.

     Brenda reels back, "What?"

     Mae caught on, "WICKED isn't looking for you. If you go now, you'll both be safe. They won't come looking," Her eyes shift to Peter, "All of you."

     Peter shook his head, "You're a crazy Brit, you know that?" He scolds, "You think I'm leaving you and Ted behind? you got another thing coming!"

     Brenda shook her head, "No. ."

     Thomas looked heartbroken at the thought, "I can't leave without them," He explained.

     Jorge knew there was no convincing him, so he gave a firm nod and stood up, pulling at Brenda to follow, "Good luck, kids." He says, "Bren, we have to go. Come on. Come on!"

     With tears in her eyes, Brenda looked more reluctant than ever. Without much thought, Mae pulled the girl into a tight hug, resting her head between the crook of her neck.

     Brenda didn't say a word, not a single goodbye as she forced herself to pull away and fling her rifle over her shoulder, following Jorge into the shadows.

     "What do we do now?" Peter asked.

     "Do we fight, Thomas?" Mae continued.

The answer was chosen for them once all the WICKED soldiers had rallied the Right Arm on their knees in front of Janson. Mae watched as they checked the tags on her friends, reading out their numbers like pigs for slaughter.

Teddy knelt among them, his eyes scanning the burning cars and trees for any signs of Peter and Mae. For a second, he wondered if they had escaped and left him there.

"Where's Thomas and Mae?" Janson calls out.

"We're right here." Thomas announced, hands raised high in surrender. Mae and Peter followed, hoping that he had more of a plan than giving themselves up to the enemy.

Janson smirked smugly at them, "Thomas," He greets, only for his face to morph into anger as he punched the boy aggressively in the stomach, "Get them in line!"

Mae tried not to react, being placed in between Minho and Newt, separated from Thomas as she watched Peter pull Teddy into a protective hug. The boy with the thick glasses glanced at her over his shoulder, and she could hardly form a reassuring smile.

"Are you alright?" Newt mutters to her. She nods.

"Why didn't you run?" Minho asked them, keeping his gaze straight forward.

"I'm tired of running," Thomas responds.

"We'd never leave you behind," Mae adds.

Minho breaks his firm gaze to look down at her, surprised she had answered him directly. She kept her eyes intensely on him before breaking away.

A helicopter overhead makes everyone look up into the night, squinting at the bright lights as the machine dropped into the dirt and opened its back doors to reveal another set of soldiers. Except this time, Ava Paige stood among them. Her blonde hair pinned back in a bun and her white clothes standing out even at the distance.

     "Is this all of them?" She questioned Janson, her eyes scanning the crowd for one specific set of eyes.

     "Most of them," Janson corrects, "It'll be enough."

     "Start loading them in," Ava responds.

     Mae felt the lump in her throat rise when soldiers started dragging teenagers away from the lineup, into the flying machine where they were kept locked like cargo on the bottom level. Thomas was forced to stand up, being presented to Ava like a shiny prize.

     "Hello, Thomas." She greets. Then, her eyes shift behind the boy, where Mae was kneeling down into the dirt with the type of fire in her eyes Ava had never seen before, "Maeve," She continued, voice soft.

     Teresa emerges from the crowd of armed men, walking over to Ava like a lost puppy as she nursed a bruise forming on her left eye from Mae's fist. The blue-eyed teenager kept her head down as she stood beside Ava, knowing she had done the unimaginable.

     "What the hell?" Frypan voiced, "Teresa?!"

     The Gladers rise to their feet, looking at Teresa in the type of betrayal that could never be scrubbed clean. Teddy forced himself to stand among them.

     "Wait...what's going on?" Newt asked.

     Mae clenched her jaw, "She's jacked, that's what going on." The blonde informs, using the Glader slang that only they would understand as she dug her nails into her palms to calm her anger.

     The boys react in surprise at the thought.

     "What does jacked mean?" Peter asked Teddy.

     "It means she's messed up in the head," Frypan responds.

     "It means she's with them," Thomas clarified.

     "Since when?" Minho demanded.

     Janson walks up beside the teenager, looking amused, "Oh, Teresa's always had in involved appreciation for the greater good. Once we restored her memories. It was only a matter of time."

     "She pushed me into the Box," Mae informed, her eyes shining with tears at the thought, "She's the one who gave me this scar, and then pretend to be our friends after it."

     "I'm sorry," Teresa pleas, "I had no choice, this is the only way. We have to find a cure!"

     "You're wrong!" Mae snapped, "The only way to fix this is to leave and start over. You're killing what's left of humanity!"

     "Teresa is right," Ava corrects calmly, looking over at Mae with an expression of hurt, "Once you get your memories back, Maeve, you'll know it too. Just like you had before. This is all just a means to an end, you used to understand that. Same as you, Thomas. No matter what you think of me, I am not a monster, I'm a doctor. I swore an oath to find a cure! No matter the cost."

     "The death of hundreds of children!" Mae screams. She had grown ballsy, talking to the women who seems to be at the head of it all. Talking as if one wrong move wouldn't get her killed.

     But, Mae didn't seem to care.

     She was too angry.

     "You're okay with that?" She continued, "Watching the lot of us die because you're selfish and know nothing of sacrifices and consequences!"

     "You have no idea what I've sacrificed," Ava responds, holding her chin up, "My own husband, my own chi—" She stops herself with an intake of breath, "I just need more time."

     "More blood," Mary corrects loudly, stepping forward.

     "Hello, Mary," Ava greets, "I'd hope we meet again, I'm sorry it had to be under these circumstances."

"I'm sorry about a lot of things, too," Mary says, "But not this. At least my conscious is clear. James would be so disappointed."

That seemed to make Ava's expression shift into something dark, "Conscious is clear? Well, so is mine."

The gunshot echoed first, and for a second everyone in the clearing thought Janson had missed. Until the blood started to seep from Mary's torso, through her button-up shirt. Next, came the screams of teenagers around them, watching as the women who saved them fall back into Vince's arms.

"Mary!" Peter screamed, dropping beside her and putting pressure on the wound with his bare hands. His eyes burned with fresh tears, "Mary! No! No! What have you done?!" He snaps at Janson.

Mae covered her mouth in shock, holding Teddy back against her stomach as they watched Vince and Peter try to save Mary. However, the women was dead long before she hit the ground.

"Come on, Janson. Load them up, let's go! All these people, get rid of them." Ava ordered, looking at Mae with a sour expression, "Make sure Maeve is loaded in with the rest of us."

With that, two soldiers grabbed Mae by the biceps, ripping her away from Teddy who screamed profanities at the soldiers between them, clawing at their masks with his hands as he yelled for Mae.

Yet, no one fought harder to reach her than Minho.

"Mae!" He bellowed, "Let her go!"

In a rage, Thomas slams his elbow into a solider holding him. He pulls out the explosive Jorge had given him hours prior, holding it up, and the faulty switch in his other hand.

"Let her go!" Thomas ordered firmly. The solider had dropped the blonde, and she quickly scrambled back towards her friends, who caught her with ease, "Get back! Everyone, stand back!"

"Thomas, put it down!" Janson shouts.

"Let them all go!"

"You know I can't do that!" Ava responds.

Teresa runs in between them, "Thomas, please stop! I made a deal with them, they promised. They promised we'd be safe, all of us!"

"Tell that to the bombs they just dropped on us!" Mae scoffed, "Tell that to Mary and everyone else who was just shot dead for trying to be safe!"

"Exactly," Thomas breathed out, "You really expect us to trust you now?"

"It was what we had to do!" Ava responds, "And it's true, it was her only condition." He tells her to shut up, but she continues on, "Everything can go back to the way it was. Thomas, do you really want all of them to die?"

"Listen to her, Thomas," Janson adds, "Think about what you're doing."

Thomas falters, and for a second Mae caught a glimpse of the scared boy she saw the first day Thomas had woken up in the Glade.

So, she steps forward, being the first to place her hand on his shoulder, wrapping her arms around his waist and placing her hand on his shaking shoulder. Minho followed, one hand on his other shoulder with Newt and Frypan not far behind. Peter stands tall, sniffling as his hands shook from Mary's dry blood on his skin, taking a stance beside Mae.

It all set in when Teddy stepped forward. Nine years old, right beside Thomas— a boy he claimed to dislike more than anyone— ready to die with him. So young, yet never more sure than anyone.

"We're with you, Thomas." Teddy whispers to him.

"We're always with you," Mae adds softly, smiling so tenderly.

And for a second, Thomas caught a glimpse of the sweet-eyed, comforting girl he saw the first day he woke up in the Glade. And it had been the most sure feeling he had never felt in that moment.

"No..." Teresa shook her head, tears forming in her eyes as both she and Ava stepped back.

"Do it, Thomas." Minho continued.

"We're ready," Frypan adds.

"Come on," Newt pushed.

"We're not going back there," Thomas firmed, "It's the only way," He raised the switch up, and turned his head back to Mae, wanting to look at her if it was the last thing he would ever see. Her soft blue eyes, her freckles, even the dirt and blood on her soft skin was beautiful to him, "I love you." He tells her, finding peace in that being the last words he uttered.

Then, as his finger hovered on the trigger...

...a honking noise made everyone jump apart, the bright headlights of Jorge's highjacked vehicle cause Mae to laugh out in shock as Jorge slams it straight against a helicopter.

Frantically, everyone runs in different directions. Mae gets a glimpse of Ava and Teresa being ushered back to their helicopter. Mae wasn't going to let them get away. On her far left, Thomas throws the grenade at a group of solider, the explosion making the ground beneath her shake as she ran through the cargo and toward Ava and Teresa.

Somewhere in the smoke, Thomas is punched down by Janson. The man standing over him with a pistol in his fists, he aims it at Thomas' head, and the boy closes his eyes in panic.

"Hey!" Peter screamed, slamming a metal bowl into Janson's temple, making the man dizzy enough for Teddy to roll into a ball and knock him off his feet.

Thomas watched the exchanged with wide eyes, "Thank you."

"Don't mention it," The brothers respond.

Mae picks a gun up from the ground, clicking it in place as she crouch behind a cargo and shot directly at Teresa.The bullets landed just above the teenager's head, causing her eyes to widen in fear as she backed away deeper into the helicopter.

"Guys! Go! Go!" Minho shouts from somewhere beside her, holding his own gun as he shot at them.

It all seemed to happen too fast for Mae to register it. The gun that was aiming for her, the little boy who ran through the crowd to knock the gun down, only to be shot straight in the shoulder by an electric bullet. Teddy's name had been screamed through the air as the little boy dropped to the ground unconscious, being dragged away.

All while Minho was being dragged away, too.

"No!" Mae had never screamed so loudly, so feverishly as she dropped the gun in her hands and ran straight toward the helicopter, ignoring Thomas and Minho and Peter who chased after her, "Minho! Teddy!"

She had been fast enough to step into the helicopter but not fast enough to reach either of them.

And as the machine slowly rose with her inside of it, Ava's hands had gripped the fabric of Mae's jacket, "Enough of this," She says, "It's time for you to remember who you are!"

A syringe of something blue is pressed hard into Mae's neck, and in seconds her eyes rolled back into her head. Ava pushed Mae off of the helicopter, her body falling limp to the sandy ground as they flew into the night.

Thomas and Newt felt their hearts stop at the sight, rushing forward in hopes she wasn't shot dead and left there for them to see.

However, dying was too easy. Mae was suffering a far worse fate than death filled by lies.

Remembering the truth.