"Why does he have to be so stubborn?" I mutter, pacing back and forth with the dragging minutes as Gally continues to work on getting the door open.
"(y/n), I've known you for two days," he calls over the loud sounds of the saw, "and I can tell that stubbornness is definitely an attribute of yours."
"Well, at least, when I'm stubborn, it's not a drastic life-and-death situation!" I say defensively, throwing my hands in the air. "Like, sure, I'll take risks, and I get cocky, but if I was infected with the virus, and, who knows, maybe I am, I would have stayed behind and waited for the Serum."
"I highly doubt that." Gally mutters flatly.
Stopping in my tracks, I stare at the boy with a blank expression.
He looks over his shoulder at me, lifting a brow.
"Okay, maybe you're right," I admit, "but still!" I exclaim, returning to pacing.
In the midst of my venting, I hear the lock of the door suddenly give way, the steel snapping in two, which causes me to freeze, perking up.
"Got it." Gally says, turning off the device and taking off his protective glasses, tossing them back into his pack.
Quickly rushing to his side, I grasp onto the handle of the door and help him pry it open, grunting as we slide the heavy metallic door across the ground with a painful grinding sound. It reminds me of the sound of the Maze doors.
My jaw drops as the vast shelves of vials filled with the blue liquid are exposed from within. All of those were taken from the blood of these kids. From the blood of Minho.
"Alright," Gally says, turning towards the other kids, "help gather as much as you possibly can," he explains, crouching down and pulling a grey sack out of his pack, "and put them in here."
Without a moment of hesitation, I rush inside, reaching up onto the higher shelves and fumbling my hands around, grasping onto a handful of vials and taking them in the crook of my arm. As I grasp another handful and pull them down from the shelf, I pause for a moment, drawing my brows together as I examine the vials. They are the exact same ones that were sent up in the Maze with Aris, meaning they've got a little built-in syringe beneath their little metal caps, so getting the Serum into Newt's bloodstream will be easy. With that thought, I gather as much as I can physically carry into both of my arms, turning on my heels and striding to Gally, pouring the Serums into the bag.
The glass vials make dainty clinking sounds as the freed hostages assist in gathering the Bliss, carrying arms full to Gally and carefully dropping them into the pouch, cautious of breaking them.
Within a matter of minutes, the twenty nine of us manage to loot the entire room, the sack now weighing down with an abundance of little, life-saving vials.
I drop in the last few, and Gally pulls the strings of the pouch with a swift movement of his arm, tightly closing the bag.
"Alright," he begins, clearing his throat as he scans the group of kids before locking his eyes on one of them, "you." Eyeing a young brunette boy, Gally approaches the kid, holding the bag of Bliss out to him. "Take this."
Hesitant, the boy slowly grabs the bag.
Picking up my helmet and Launcher from the desk and tossing the strap of the weapon over my head, I give the boy a stern glance. "You've got to protect that with your life." I say, pulling my fabric mask from around my neck back over my head, safely tucking my hair underneath. "Other lives depend on that stuff. Got it?"
Staring at me with anxious eyes, the boy nods rapidly.
"Good that." I say, swinging the Launcher in front of me and holding it tightly with one hand, the other pulling my WICKED helmet over my face.
Gally, scanning the crowd of faces, stands taller. "Everyone needs to follow me and be light on their feet. Be silent, stay low, you hear?"
A soft murmur of yeses rise from the young teens as they nod, fully aware of the situation's urgency.
Shifting his eyes to me, Gally says, "(y/n), you take the back."
I nod, readying my weapon.
However, before Gally can command us off on the remainder of the mission, one of the officers on the ground begins to rise to consciousness, groaning weakly and scrunching up his face in pain.
This simple reaction immediately triggers Gally, and, inhaling deeply through his nose, he storms to the man, crouches down in front of him, yanks the guard upright by his collar, and, as Gally slams the man against the side of the desk, he swiftly swipes his pistol out of its holster, harshly pressing the end of the gun against the officer's neck. "Listen here, shuck-face." He growls, causing the man's eyes to widen in fear as he fully wakes. "You're not going to report us to your little friends."
The man hardly gets out the first word, "I-", before Gally roughly jerks the guard, pressing the end of the gun further into the man's skin.
"You're not." He snarls.
"I'm not! I- I'm not..." The officer stutters out through heavy breaths.
Clenching his jaw and taking a deep breath in attempt to control his rage, Gally nods. "Good that." He says simply before swiftly flipping the pistol around his finger by it's trigger and slamming the back of the gun against the man's head, knocking the guard out.

I raise my brows, paradoxically surprised yet having expected the boy to do so.
Pulling his uniform mask over his face as he rises to his feet, Gally rushes to the hall we had entered from, waving the others behind him. "Let's go!"
One-by-one, the kids break their gaping dazes on the guard Gally had just knocked out cold and quickly and quietly jog after Gally in a single file line, the boy with the pouch of Serums leading.
Once the last kid follows, I rush after them, striding swiftly.
We follow the long, grey hall, turning left at the end of the corridor and running to the stairway door.
As soon as we file into the somewhat compacted stairway, Gally strides down the steps at an antsy pace, causing the others to do everything they can to keep up with the stride of his long legs. Holding the side rail, I rush down the steps as quickly as possible after the kids.
Instead of continuing to the bottom flight, Gally makes a sudden right turn three levels down.
At first glance, I believe Gally is heading to the steel door labeled 'Studies Center', but, to my surprise, he crouches down at a vent beside it, wrapping his fingers around the slivers of steel and yanking back on it with a grunt.
I never thought I'd be in WICKED's ventilation system again.
As Gally pulls back on the door with all his might, it finally pops off, nearly throwing him back with his own force. "(y/n), take the front." He orders as he regains his balance.
Nodding, I quickly squeeze past the huddle of kids and crawl into the vent, feeling like I'm back with the Gladers and Aris, escaping WICKED for the very first time.
"Come on!" I call in a whisper over my shoulder to the others, crawling down the narrow tunnel.
I can hear the scurrying of the escapees as they quickly crawl in behind, their rapid breaths unveiling their own rushing adrenaline in their veins.
The sound of the vent door getting reattached follows.
"(y/n), turn right." Gally commands.
As soon as the vents open to a four-way cross, I turn right, just as ordered.
The vents get a little more claustrophobic, and I have to army crawl along the steel, the heads of the screws that connect the vent parts scratching against my uniform.
"Left!" He calls.
I turn left.
"Third right!"
I crawl along the vast stretch of ventilation, counting the turns we pass in my head.
The tunnel echos with our faint pants as we scurry along the steel as fast as we possibly can whilst doing all that we are capable of to remain quiet.
Once I reach the third right, I turn.
We have to be approaching a differing side of the building, or, at least, the heart.
"Second left!" Gally calls in a whisper.
"Got it." I nod, quickly scrambling through the tunnel and passing the first left; however, gunshots ring in the air, and I immediately halt.
The vent goes completely silent as everyone holds their breath, frozen in terror.
Faint shouting can be heard, but no further shots are fired.
"What the shuck is that?" I whisper back at Gally before looking down the tunnel of ventilation to the first left. It hits a dead end, the vent door on the floor of the tunnel, obviously in the ceiling of a room.
"I don't know," Gally whispers from behind, "but I do know that we need to keep going."
Without any hesitation, I quickly turn into the first left and crawl in the direction of the gunshots.
"(y/n)!" Gally hisses. "Get back here, shank!"
"One minute!" I snap, scrambling to the vent door at the end as swiftly as possible and peering through the slots below me.
I see a gaping area that is open in the center of the floor for several levels down, the area dimly lit and concrete bridges stretching across the vast drop on each level. Then, my eyes catch a glimpse of movement. At the end of a bridge of concrete that stretches over the opening just two levels below the vents, the bridge lined with steel railings, is Janson hitting his fists against a fire-safety glass, Teresa and two guards beside him, and, on the other side of the glass, I see Thomas, unmasked, staring at the man.
"That slinthead! Why does he have his mask off?" I mutter to myself.
As Thomas turns to run down the corridor he's in, I recognize Newt's red uniform as it comes into view from behind, only to watch him peel off his helmet, too.
Even at this distance, I can tell that his skin has gotten more flushed.
Within a mere second, he rushes after Thomas, out of sight, once again.
"(y/n)!" I hear Gally snap, bringing me back to reality. "Get the shuck back to the front and turn at the second left!"
Narrowing my eyes at Janson through the slots, I slowly turn back around and crawl into the stretch of vents that the others wait for me in. "Alright, alright!" I hiss. "That was Thomas and Newt getting shot at, for your shucking information." I grumble, army crawling through the tunnel and turning at the second left as ordered. "Teresa got separated, but I have no idea if it was on accident or intentional... And still no sign of Minho."
"By the time we get to the bus, they should already be there with him. They can handle themselves. Trust me."
Trust me.
The term immediately cuts at my heart like a blade, and it takes everything in my power to not let the utter anxiety that's swelling up inside my chest consume me.
Trust him. I have to trust him and Thomas and Newt. Even Teresa. They'll get Minho, and they'll be okay. Everything will be okay.
"Alright," I mumble shakily as I crawl along the cold, dark steel, "I trust you."
I don't know why, but I feel like that comment struck Gally's heart in return because he hesitates to respond, as if he has never had someone willingly rely on him like that, and his snark tone changes to a slightly softer one. "Take two rights." He orders.
Doing as Gally says, I lead the line of escapees through the tightly compacted tunnels, turning right at a four-way cross, and then right again at the first right.
Ten, maybe fifteen, minutes drag on as Gally continues to give me directions on where to go in the ventilation system, and I begin to grow antsy, ready to get out of the claustrophobic steel tunnels and back to Newt's side.
"Alright, now you're going to want to make a left."
"Got it." I call back with a nod, panting softly, heart racing as I swiftly crawl towards the next four-way cross.
"(y/n), I should tell you that-"
"I heard you."
"No, that's not the thing; I'm trying to warn you that it-"
Just as I turn left, I put most of my weight on my right hand, expecting the cold surface of the steel to meet my palm, only to fall through a sudden drop in the vents with a panicked shout. "SHUCKING SHUCKED-FACED SHUCK!" I shriek, falling through the hole face-first and beginning to slide down on my stomach along the steep slope of ventilation.
Pushing my mask back just enough to expose my face and attempting to get a somewhat better view of the "slide", the force from the speed makes my eyes water as the occasional vent door on either the left or right side provides a little glimpse of light from the outside rooms as I zoom past.
Seconds pass as I continue down this rapid decline, and, over the sound of the whooshing speed, I can faintly hear the others hopping into the slide, following after at somewhat safe distances.
Holding my breath to keep from shouting out, I put my arms out to brace myself for a possible sudden stop, but it doesn't come. In fact, after a full minute of sliding, the slope eventually begins to level out, getting less and less steep.
However, just as the vent levels out horizontally, the tunnel reaches an end, and, gasping with widening eyes as soon as I spot the opening, I go flying out the exit, my body soaring a few feet in the air before hitting rough, concrete ground and skidding across, rolling along the floor with pained grunts and groans.
I hit the sudden stop I was bracing for, rolling into a pole of some sort that sends a burst of pain in my stomach from the impact, and I curl up on my side in pain. "Awe, shuck..." I mumble, holding my stomach with my eyes squeezed shut.
Eye fluttering open again after a few seconds, I examine my surroundings, slowly sitting up as I shake off the pain and darting my eyes about. I'm back outside of WICKED's facility, in the city streets, except they are completely empty. Curfew must have started. I look to the pole I had rolled into, realizing that it's a streetlight as my eyes trail up the tall metal rod to its flickering light bulb.
Hearing a long squeaking sound from behind, I turn to look over my shoulder just in time to watch the first kid slowing himself to a stop with his feet and left hand pressed against the sides of the vent, his right hand holding the bag of Serum vials tightly against his chest, stopping just at the exit and scrambling out carefully.
As the brunette kid gets to his feet, his face falls when his brown eyes fall onto me. "Are you alright?" He asks, rushing to me and offering his hand.
"Yeah." Smiling weakly, I take his hand and he helps me to his feet. "Thanks."
He nods, smiling slightly in return.
One-by-one, the other's carefully slide out of the vent, Gally scrambling onto the sidewalk last.
"Drops." Gally finishes his sentence from earlier, rising to his feet and dusting off his hands before peeling off his mask. He manages to chuckle. "I was trying to warn you that it drops."
"Yeah, I get that now." I shake my head, laughing weakly in return and rubbing my hand on my stomach, still sore from the impact with the lamppost.
'Warning. Warning. Warning.' A faint, robotic voice chants from above, and all twenty nine of us scan our eyes up towards the upper portions of the WICKED building, the massive screen on its northern side displaying the words, 'SECURITY BREACH' along with hidden camera shots from inside the facility. I can clearly make out Thomas and Newt in their uniforms, unmasked, as they run down a corridor, and beside them is a face that I've truly been longing to see: Minho. He's in a black t-shirt that resembles the ones from the head shots, which are also displayed on the screen, except, instead of my photo, they have a head shot of Minho that also looks about three or four years old. His shirt in his picture reads, 'Group A, Subject A7. The Leader.'
"'The Leader?'" Gally reads before scoffing slightly. "Don't tell him that. He's got a big enough ego."
Lifting a brow, eyes still locked to the screen, I manage to let out a pathetic laugh, nodding slightly. As I examine the hidden camera photos, I gasp, looking to Gally. "Those have to have been taken within the past minute or two!"
Shifting his eyes to me, the buff boy nods. "If that's true, that means that, by the time we get to the bus, they'll already be there waiting for us."
That is, if everything goes as planned.
I force myself to push that thought out of my head, nodding at Gally.
As the two of us stare at each other in our WICKED uniforms, we are brought back to reality, faces morphing to serious expressions.
"We've got to go then." He concludes. "Everyone, follow me." Gally orders, pulling his mask back over his face and jogging along the wall of the outer facility with light steps.
Waving for the kids to follow behind, I wait for the last to sneak past before pulling my mask over my face and rushing along the back end of the line, doing my best to remain quiet.
Gally leads us around to the eastern side of the tower, slowing to a stop and leaning against the wall directly beside the garage opening that goes down into the underground level. Mimicking the leader, the rest of us press our backs against the wall, steadying our nervous breathing and waiting for Gally's call as he slowly peeks around the corner.
"It's clear. Guess it's a good thing Thomas, Newt, and Minho have caught WICKED's attention." He whispers to us as he averts his eyes to the kids, nodding in the direction of the entrance before rushing around the corner.
Following after the last kid, I jog around the corner, rushing down the slope of concrete and into the underground level, except, this time, we are on the parking garage side of the glass wall, swiftly sprinting in a single file line across the garage.
"Hey!" A booming voice shouts from behind, causing me to turn on my heels, sliding to a stop in my tracks as the others do the same.
An officer slowly walks towards us with his weapon aimed at us. "Under what orders do you have these kids out in restricted areas?" He snaps.
Gulping anxiously, I look back over my shoulder at the kids and Gally, who stands taller in attempt to be more intimidating. "We- uh- Janson gave us orders to do so." I lie as I turn back to the guard, speaking in a lower register in attempt to sound more mature.
"On what orders?" The man retorts.
Staring at the armed guard, I struggle to conjure up a believable reason to have their captives out in the open.
Due to my lack of response, the guard raises his voice, holding his gun tighter. "What orders?!"
Taking a deep breath, I slowly tighten my grip on my weapon.
"I said what orders?! Speak! Now!"
With the swift, sudden movement of my arms, I aim my Launcher at the guard, firing without hesitation.
Just as I discharge my weapon, a Launcher clamp flies past me from behind, clamping onto the officer's stomach just as mine latches to the man's chest.
The officer lets out a cry, shooting his gun and sending a ricocheting bullet to the ceiling, missing completely as he is flung onto his back and lands hard on the concrete, body convulsing with double electrical impulses.
Glancing back over my shoulder, I watch Gally slowly lower his Launcher. "Well," he says simply, "two great minds do think alike."
Just as I manage to chuckle softly, two more angered shouts echo from outside of the of the underground entrance, causing me to snap my head in its direction. "Go, go, go!" I command urgently to the others over my shoulder, shooing them away with the wave of my hand.
Gally nods, rushing ahead with the kids and disappearing behind a concrete wall.
Turning back towards the entrance, I watch the two guards rush inside, weapons ready, but I fire at them before their brains can register what is going on.
They fly back to the ground with pained shouts, letting out choked, angered curse words through clenched teeth as they slip from